#and also the last year before the pandemic

[ailurinae]

Per Wikipedia

The first recorded epidemic affected the Sasanian Empire and their arch-rivals, the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) and was named the Plague of Justinian (541–549 AD) after emperor Justinian I, who was infected but survived through extensive treatment.[45][46] The pandemic resulted in the deaths of an estimated 25 million (6th century outbreak) to 50 million people (two centuries of recurrence).[47][48]

Medieval society's increasing population was put to deadly halt when, in the Late Middle Ages, Europe experienced the deadliest disease outbreak in history. They called it the Great Dying or The Great Pestilence, later coined The Black Death.[19] Lasting in potency for roughly six years, 1346–1352, the Black Death claimed one-third of the European human population, with mortality rates as high as 70%–80%.[19]

The plague resurfaced for a third time in the mid-19th century; this is also known as "the modern pandemic". Like the two previous outbreaks, this one also originated in Eastern Asia, most likely in Yunnan, a province of China, where there are several natural plague foci.[53] The initial outbreaks occurred in the second half of the 18th century.[54][55] The disease remained localized in Southwest China for several years before spreading. ... The third pandemic spread the disease to port cities throughout the world in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century via shipping routes.[57]

And those are just the pandemic-level event (that we know about). We have identified Yersinia pestis DNA on human teeth going back to about 5,000 years ago, so it has probably been a thing for humans at least that long.

And from the "Second Plague Pandemic" article:

The plague returned at intervals with varying virulence and mortality until the early 19th century. In England, for example, the plague returned between 1360 and 1363, killing 20% of Londoners, and then again in 1369, killing 10–15%.[16]

In the 16th century, the plague hit San Cristóbal de La Laguna in the Canary Islands between 1582 and 1583.[17]

In the 17th century, there were a series of European "great plague" outbreaks: the Great Plague of Seville between 1647 and 1652, the Great Plague of London between 1665 and 1666,[18] and the Great Plague of Vienna in 1679. The great plague of northern China arose in Shanxi in 1633 and arrived at Beijing in 1641, contributing to the downfall of the Ming Dynasty in 1644.[citation needed]

In the 18th century, there was the Great Plague of Marseille, which took place between 1720 and 1722;[19] the Great Plague of 1738, which occurred in Eastern Europe between 1738 and 1740; and the Russian plague of 1770–1772, which took place in Central Russia and particularly affected Moscow.

From "Plague (disease)":

Globally about 600 cases are reported a year.

From https://www.cdc.gov/plague/maps-statistics/index.html

Map of reported human plague cases in the United States, 1970-2022.

One thing people often forget about the Black Death is that the plague was still a major problem after the initial epidemic. There was a time before it and then there was a time after it. And it was always a concern. The last major urban outbreak was in Los Angeles in 1925. Only 100 years ago.

[realtapiocafan]

hiiiiiii i was reading your tags from the fic snippet and learned something new in that i did not Know ja’marr moved to dallas omgg 😀 can u provide some more info on this ✍🏿✍🏿✍🏿

Ofc! (This is long)

So from what I gather, after opting out, Ja'Marr went back home (Harvey, Louisiana - close to NOLA) until about November, when he moved to Dallas to get ready for the draft. In the Najee-Jaylen-Ja'Marr house thing they did (which includes what Pro Day was like post-COVID and has some other videos about the draft itself), Ja'Marr says himself that he hasn't actually been at the LSU campus ever since he opted out. (Also if you look at his twitter, he was live-tweeting LSU games lol).

Everything else below are articles mentioning Ja'Marr going to Dallas, as well as some other information regarding COVID-era Ja'Marr, sprinkled with my own little comments in between 🙂

So first off, the Dallas thing is specifically mentioned in this article by the Advocate (I'm going to include the necessary paragraphs bc some of these are paywalled smh)

There were more uncertain times, too. Chase opted out of the 2020 season during preseason camp last year, a time in which the pandemic was surging and there was tension in the football operations building after a mishandled team meeting regarding the team's player-led march amid national protests against police brutality. Chase told reporters at LSU's Pro Day that his decision to leave was because "I had a lot of stuff going on with my family at the time." Chase dedicated his time toward becoming a professional. From November until March, he lived and worked out at the EXOS training facility in Dallas. After almost a year out of public sight, he coolly ran a 4.38-second 40-yard dash at pro day — an impressive enough time that Jimmy said coaches and trainers told Ja'Marr he could shut it down. "I came here to put on a show," Ja'Marr told them, then proceeded to run routes and individual drills.

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The Athletic (which i honestly trust more) goes more into detail into Ja'Marr's exact location. Apparently, Ja'Marr moved from Baton Rouge back home (it sounds like it was about September). Then in November, he went to Dallas. This article also includes some more information on Ja'Marr's experience in quarantine. That quote by Ja'Marr's dad really opened my eyes, because Ja'Marr was never really alone before this. He was always part of a team, always surrounded by people until... well, he wasn't. (Also now that I think about it, Ja'Marr did say he started watching tape because of Joe and apparently spent most of this year -which was away from Joe- watching tape... maybe it reminded him of Joe 👀)

Ja’Marr stayed in Baton Rouge initially after opting out in August. He remained close with his teammates, especially the receiving corps at first. But once the season cranked up, Ja’Marr moved back home, feeling a sense of isolation without football... “We kept him close to home. We noticed that he was struggling a little bit. Life without football. Life without a team. His whole life changed. It was his first time not playing sports since he was a young kid. Gamedays were the hardest day.” One thing jumped out to Jimmy as they watched games together, though. He never fully grasped his son’s football IQ. “We watched the games with him,” Jimmy said. “He would call the plays before the snap was gone.  And he would say how Terrace (Marshall) needs to do this because the defense is about to do this. And Racey (McMath) needs to do this so he needs to watch out for this. He’d call the play and I was like, ‘Damn!’ It would happen just like he said. So sitting out actually helped in that sense. He never really watched football. He was always playing. Now all he could do was watch it. He told me and I saw how much it helped him.” Watching games with Ja’Marr, his parents sensed his pent-up energy. He was healthy, but he wasn’t playing. The energy fed right into Ja’Marr’s passion for working out. He’d run to the gym often after games to let that energy free. The regimented workout routine really kicked up about six months ago. “He’s been at EXOS (A Dallas-based training facility) since November,” Jimmy said. “They had an opt-out session group that started out where they would work out three days a week. So he started out there at the end of October or early November. That lasted until the end of December. Then in January, he started getting into the more combine workouts. He’s been working hard and getting stronger. That’s really the only thing that’s been keeping him sane is working. That’s all he could do.”

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This Sports Illustrated article further confirms he was in Dallas for at least part of 2020-2021. It also adds that Ja'Marr was so pent-up that he apparently wanted to opt back in (probably bothered by LSU being kinda shit that year -that third game, LSU lost 45-41 💀).

He spent the off-year training in Dallas, studying film and watching his former college teammates struggle through to a 5-5 COVID-impacted 2020 season. What many don’t know, his dad says, is Chase nearly returned to LSU midseason. “People don’t realize how close he was to coming back,” Jimmy says. “After the third game, he was watching and jumped off the sofa after they lost. He said ‘I’m about to opt back in!’ It was killing him.” The family seriously explored whether Chase would have been eligible to return (Jimmy says Ja’Marr would have) and spoke to coaches at length about his reinstatement. In the end, Ja’Marr remained on the sidelines. 

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This Washington Post article also goes more into depth about the impact COVID had on Ja'Marr's family and what went into the decision to opt-out (Ja'Marr apparently has a hole in his heart which SHOCKED me the first time I read it) (It also goes the most in depth into Ja'Marr's aghast reaction at Les Miles saying he should be a DB and why Ja'Marr didn't want to commit to LSU at first)

But that March, Jimmy Chase says, their family began suffering from flu-like symptoms, and older son Jimmy Jr. and Toleah would be hospitalized with what they later learned was covid-19. “I was like: Shake it off, man,” Jimmy Chase Sr. says. “I can’t die now.” During a most unpredictable spring, when the coronavirus pandemic paused sports and shut down the world, the Chase family survived but eventually learned about “long covid” and the heart and respiratory problems some patients reported. Jimmy Chase says his son’s heart problem has healed, but it remained a frightening preexisting condition and again placed the father and son on opposite sides of a tense debate.

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Last thing, if you were wondering about the team meeting in the first article, here's what information i found. Again, I don't know how reliable The Advocate actually is and unlike the article above, this is literally the only source I found that mentions this. I don't recall Ja'Marr or any other LSU players saying anything remotely negative about Orgeron - most of them say he was a great coach!

(At the same time, an old white guy giving ... maybe not racist, but tone-deaf advice to a bunch of college-aged black men, in the height of Black Lives Matter -it's not out of the question.)

Multiple sources told The Advocate that team morale turned south before the season even began, when a large group of players felt Orgeron mishandled a team meeting regarding the team's player-led march in August amid national protests against police brutality. The players skipped practice that day, met outside Tiger Stadium and marched to the university president's office without Orgeron, who later told reporters he didn't know about the protest before it happened. Orgeron met up with the players at the president's office and took part in a meeting that lasted about an hour. He later told reporters he and the players talked "about the things they're going through and how we can be a part of the solution." Privately, the meeting did not come off as productive as described. Orgeron and some players were upset during the meeting, multiple sources said, and while some players said the situation could've been handled better by all sides, other players left feeling Orgeron wasn't supportive. Three days after the meeting, star wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase announced he was opting out of the season, joining starting nickel safety Kary Vincent in preparing for the NFL draft. By the end of the week, starting nose tackle Tyler Shelvin opted out as well.

[viktortittiforov]

the 2010s sure were a time in my life

[rimouskis]

one of my best friends is about to have a baby today........... so weird to be on the periphery of something so life changing. I want to go "life is going to change forever" as if it hasn't already

[milfygerard]

did she specifically make 34 versions of TTPD because shes 34 years old

[snailsandstrawberries]

going insane (again) i have an exam in three days and i wanted to start studying and i went through everything we need to know in an hour. AN HOUR. pathetic excuse of a class holy shit

[comas-are-for-sleeping]

i love things that happen because of a specific thing

[stardustedknuckles]

It's been so long since I've had to exist within a group of people consistently over many days and damn, I nearly forgot I was autistic. I found out yesterday that though I get along with almost everyone at work, most of my coworkers thought I was a huge bitch who hated everyone for a little bit (and one still does, which is how this whole thing came up at all). I was bewildered like. No I'm very often dizzy or in a bit of pain and I'm very focused on taking care of the dogs but I'm not - I don't dislike any of you? I've never been mad at you, you guys thought I was mad?? Just an alarming disconnect between the way I see myself and the way I come off to others. I have never once gotten the hang of behaving like a regular person, but it appears that time has taken me from "generally silly person with an offbeat sense of humor who doesn't take things seriously" to "stoic hardass who doesn't like you and thinks you're stupid also." I did not authorize this change. It's throwing me for a loop. I feel like I'm 6 again being told to stop talking over people's heads because I just learned a new big word and I wanted to use and share it. I like assholes with a heart of gold in media. I don't want to be one??

[apopcornkernel]

one day later and now i wonder if i even like him That much or if it only hurt me bc he's the only safe choice i can ever have and if i can never have him i can never have the life i want

[dykehayleywilliams]

i don't know what it is about october that consistently makes it the busiest month of my year 🥴

[medieval-canadian]

welp, i tested positive for covid this morning, lmao. i had to cancel class tomorrow.

hopefully i can gather the energy to record a little lecture or something so that students get some of the background they're hoping for (basically this week was the "how to read middle english" primer/refresher course). overall it's fairly mild, so as long as i don't have a fever on friday, i'm going to go to class (masked, of course) and we can talk about the poems i'm having them read. i'm gonna struggle to be heard through the mask, but alas. we'll have to make do.

other than that, i have two students from my summer course who didn't submit their work by the extended deadline (last friday), which was the very last day i'm technically allowed to accept late work. one of them might?? maybe???? be submitting something by tonight?? she emailed at like 3 in the morning on saturday asking for a couple of extra days. i answered yesterday telling her that if she got something to me by 10pm tonight, then i would make it work (grades are due tomorrow lol), but if not, then she would have to file a petition for a term work extension with the registrar. the other one is... i think?? in the process of submitting such a petition.

i'm just here sitting on my couch surrounded by tissues and trying to get some of my shit together, lol.

[dazais-guardian-angel]

went to my first con in 4 years on Friday to meet Kaiji Tang and got a Dazai autograph + video recording of him reading to me. He was the sweetest person (as I knew he would be) and interacting with him was lovely, but also at the same time oh boy it sure was an extremely stressful, ugly wake-up call of what it feels like to live in a world now where everyone around you has blissfully moved on from covid and can enjoy things normally and happily, while you'll forever be trapped in a hellscape of perpetual fear 🫠🫠🫠

[al-mayriti]

okay I LIED (sorta)

[arctic-hands]

Re: the being immunocompromised and nearly dying of agony from shingles all over me at sixteen thing. I used to say that was the worst pain I've ever felt in my chronically ill life, worsened by the fact that weenie me refused morphine because I was fully indoctrinated by D.A.R.E. and terrified that I would become an addict as I lay in the hospital bed writhing in agony as I was damn-near actively dying. Even breaking my toes a few years later just warranted a mild "Fuck." in comparison.

Anyway I recently experienced three infected teeth (two wisdoms that apparently just grew in already rotted? and one cavity that got out of hand because I kept forgetting to call my dentist and couldn't afford it anyway) within a two year span and let me say that that knocked the nearly dying in agony thing right out of the park

[galariangengar]

💭

[astrxealis]

got another person into granblue fantasy, an old friend B)