#sorry for any cultural issues

[littlemizzlinguistics]

Studying linguistics is actually so wonderful because when you explain youth slang to older professors, instead of complaining about how "your generation can't speak right/ you're butchering the language" they light up and go “really? That’s so wonderful! What an innovative construction! Isn't language wonderful?"

[dykedvonte]

Curly had two days to act and Swansea had two months.

I think it’s just interesting that every defense of Swansea not immediately acting are the same ones that are argued against for Curly. “He didn’t want to alert Daisuke or makes things worse for Anya either Jimmy!” I mean people also assume that about Curly and the crew. “He has to think about his plan of action and a right moment!” Again so did Curly, power and authority aside, he still would have to think of what he had to do. “He makes sure he doesn’t have to be around Jimmy!” So did Curly and they only do this to an extent, both give Jimmy more than a few opening to keep harassing Anya.

This isn’t defense of Curly nor a damnation of Swansea. Their actions are very parallel to each others in tragic and sour ways when it comes to how they approached helping Anya. In the grand scheme of it all they both did the same thing: Nothing. No action either took stopped the inevitable outcome of her death nor Jimmy’s continued damage to themself.

The only real difference is Swansea didn’t like Jimmy which is pretty substantial, but also just as damning as Curly knowing how bad Jimmy could get to an extent. He had even less of a reason to wait, even more of a reason to act seeing as he was now worried for Anya AND Daisuke. He is not bound by the possible procedure as Captain and actively does not care about what happens next. So what does it matter if he acted in the moment? Why did he wait? I think he’s just as morally complex and grey as Curly and we hold him on a pedestal that still perpetuates things in rape culture the game critiques.

It’s not just enough to dislike and be abrasive to predators/abusers like Jimmy. It’s not enough to just put yourself between them and the other person. It’s not enough to hold tensions when you know someone is vulnerable. He and Curly do the exact same things but on different sides of the coin. I ask how is it better to not turn a blind eye but still not really do anything about what you are seeing? Not until it affects you atleast…

The game makes a big point to not put men doing the bare minimum or who wait to do more on pedestals and I’m actually surprised so many are missing that point.

[serpentface]

Do you conlang? I was wondering if you had naming languages (or possibly even more developed ones) for pulling the words you use. I tried to search your blog but didn't find anything, wouldn't be surprised if the feature is just busted tho. Your worldbuilding is wonderful and I particularly enjoy the anthropological and linguistic elements.

Ok the thing is I had kind of decided I was not going to do any conlanging because I don't feel like I'm equipped to do a good job of it, like was fully like "I'm just going to do JUST enough that it doesn't fail an immediate sniff test and is more thoughtful than just keysmashing and putting in vowels". And then have kinda been conlanging anyway (though not to a very deep and serious extent. I maybe have like....an above average comprehension of how language construction works via willingness to research, but that's not saying much, also I can never remember the meanings of most linguistic terms like 'frictives' or etc off the top of my head. I'm just kinda raw dogging it with a vague conceptualization of what these things mean)

I do at least have a naming language for Wardi (and more basic rules for other established languages) but the rudimentary forms of it were devised with methods much shakier and less linguistically viable than even the most basic naming language schemes, and I only went back over it LONG after I had already made a bunch of words so there's some inconsistencies with consonant presence and usage. (This can at least be justified because it IS a language that would have a lot of loanwords and would be heavily influenced by other language groups- Burri being by far the most significant, Highland-Finnic and Yuroma-Lowlands also being large contributors)

The 'method' I used was:

-Skip basic construction elements and fully move into devising necessary name words, with at least a Vibe of what consonants are going to be common and how pronunciation works -Identify some roots out of the established words and their meanings. Establish an ongoing glossary of known roots/words. -Construct new words based in root words, or as obvious extensions/variants of established words. -Get really involved in how the literal meanings of some words might not translate properly to english, mostly use this to produce a glossary of in-universe slang. -Realize that I probably should have at least some very basic internal consistency at this point. -Google search tutorials on writing a naming language. -Reverse engineer a naming language out of established words, and ascribe all remaining inconsistencies to being loanwords or just the mysteries of life or whatever.

I do at least have some strongly established pronunciation rules and a sense of broad regional dialect/accents.

-'ai' words are almost always pronounced with a long 'aye' sound.

-There is no 'Z' or 'X' sound, a Wardi speaker pronouncing 'zebra' would go for 'tsee-brah', and would attempt 'xylophone' as 'ssye-lohp-hon'

-'V' sounds are nearly absent and occur only in loanwords, and tend to be pronounced with a 'W' sound. 'Virsum' is a Highland word (pronounced 'veer-soom') denoting ancestry, a Wardi speaker would go 'weer-sum'.

-'Ch' spellings almost always imply a soft 'chuh' sound when appearing after an E, I, or O (pelatoche= pel-ah-toh-chey), but a hard 'kh' sound after an A or U (odomache= oh-doh-mah-khe). When at the start of a word, it's usually a soft 'ch' unless followed by an 'i' sound (chin (dog) is pronounced with a hard K 'khiin', cholem (salt) is pronounced with a soft Ch 'cho-lehm')

-Western Wardin has strong Burri cultural and linguistic influence, and a distinct accent- one of the most pronounced differences is use of the ñ sound in 'nn' words. The western city of Ephennos is pronounced 'ey-fey-nyos' by most residents, the southeastern city of Erubinnos is pronounced 'eh-roo-been-nos' by most residents. Palo's surname 'Apolynnon' is pronounced 'A-puh-lee-nyon' in the Burri and western Wardi dialects (which is the 'proper' pronunciation, given that it's a Kos name), but will generally be spoken as 'Ah-poh-leen-non' in the south and east.

-R's are rolled in Highland-Finnic words. Rolling R's is common in far northern rural Wardi dialects but no others. Most urban Wardi speakers consider rolling R's sort of a hick thing, and often think it sounds stupid or at least uneducated. (Brakul's name should be pronounced with a brief rolled 'r', short 'ah' and long 'uul', but is generally being pronounced by his south-southeastern compatriots with a long unrolled 'Brah' sound).

Anyway not really a sturdy construction that will hold up to the scrutiny of someone well equipped for linguistics but not pure bullshit either.

[langernameohnebedeutung]

.

[justpassingbii]

had a thought to develop this with more angst

So when Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao join the group, NMJ makes a big fuss about how the others seem so docile and resigned to their slave status, had they forgotten that this woman owned them?!

Cue argument, OC can't understand it all but she walked in on it and they have to tell her and she is immediately ashamed of herself. She too, had forgotten these men were her slaves, not her friends or family. So she draws back from them and sets a clearer boundary between them. She had decided when she first had gotten A-Cheng that she was going to do her best to get him, and later on the others, back to their homes and families, but as they all grew closer, that mission fell to the background of her thoughts but this was a wake up call to her. She gets super sad, she had gotten used to having company, peers, people to help and be helped by. So she gets down on her knees, right there in the living room - all servants had scurried off as the argument between the men had gotten more and more intense - and apologizes

"This lowly one-" "A-niang!" "-humbly begs-" "Jiejie!" "-for forgiveness. I had promised to do my best to release you back to your home and freedom and have done no better than those people out there who have treated you like an object to be owned." "OC-mei!" "I apologize and vow to right my wrongs and do better by you from here on out." Lan Xichen was simply frozen as he saw her kneel, as he heard her words, as he saw the panic in his brother's face - the same as on Wei Wuxian's and Jiang Cheng's - as they saw this woman who had been their saviour and their haven for years now, debase herself to kneel and formally apologize to them.

The guys are furious, she is nothing like those other slave owners and traders, she treats them like people and not like something she owns. They try to make NMJ take back his words but he isn't even wrong. They are slaves. She has receipts for them. They can't leave her or they will be hunted down and chased, possibly tortured (no one asked but I am largely assuming their cores got messed with/sealed/ something in the environment means it doesn't work properly, or some other hand-wavey, plot armour bs)

JC goes into her room after her, helps her comb her hair, something that was a part of their routine together, and they talk a bit about it:

"It's not true." "It is. You are my slaves. I own you. You are bound to me and to this forsaken place not out of your own will. I... I had become complacent as we all got along so well but I promised. I promised myself but most of all I promised you, A-Cheng, that I would find a way to get you back to where you belong and I have done nothing." "But you ha-" "I'm sorry, A-Cheng. I want to be alone now." "OC, you don't have to do this, we -" "That's an order, A-Cheng. "She had never given any of them any orders, least of all her loyal but grumpy Jiang Cheng. "I am your master and you must do as I say. " A line clearly drawn between them, it would be so very hard to go back on it. "I asked the servants on the way up to prepare extra rooms, so decide between yourselves who goes where." Another step back and away from them. "Let Xichen know not to come to my room either. " Either means Jiang Cheng isn't supposed to come to her room, the same as Xichen. He hesitates, but eventually complies, softly putting down the hairbrush on the vanity table. "As you wish." He says, before turning around to leave. She watches him through the vanity mirror until he softly closes the door and only then closes her eyes and lets the shame at her behaviour for the last few years, her behaviour with and for these men, overwhelm her and serve as the fuel to sear her new mission in her heart: finding a way to let these men go.

In the other room, the others are tearing into Mingjue, as said before.

"You have only just arrived, took one glance - not even that - at our lives and made your judgement. Not only that, but you ruined it." Wei Wuxian is seething mad. He saw how she slumped over, how she had gotten on her knees to beg them forgiveness for the sin of forgetting they were people and not thing to be owned and oh gods, he- he wanted to smash Mingjue's face in, he- "But I am not wrong. Does she not have receiptsfor each and every one of us? Are we not bound to her by them, unable to leave or to have true independence? Am I mistaken?" "She has not bound us to her like that. "Xichen finally addresses his oldest sworn brother. "Yes, we exist here as we do thanks to her, not because of her. She tooks us in, all of us, when she didn't have to. She gave us the clothes you see on our backs - clothes in the style from our home. She lets some of us have a business, that she has nothing else to do with except that we must do it in her name or not do it at all." Mingjue is starting to see things in this new light - he must. "We cannot go outside on our own or we risk being accused of trying to escape, and therefore chased and beaten before we are delivered on her doorstep, so she accompanies us outside whenever we want it and whenever we ask it of her, no questions asked. He are alive and well by the grace of her mercy, of her money and power that she spent years building on her own and that is threatened daily by our presence here and how she chooses to treat us differently, treat us better than any other slave owners anywhere." "So she treats you all like people. Isn't that the bare minimum? Why should I praise her for doing the right thing?" "Because of what doing the right thing costs her." Even Xichen is surprised - even if only a bit, he does know how much he cares for her, they all do - that his brother decided to speak. "Didn't Xichen just say she had gained power and wealth on her own for years before any of us arrived? I doubt she would have let all that fall away to nothing." "Every day, it cost her." None of them had heard the door open and then close behind Jiang Cheng, finally returned from talking to her. "Every time one of us made a perceived mistake and she refused to be cruel and punish us, business partners would try to walk out on her and others refused to join her business ventures." He took a step into the room. "Every time she bought - and saved - another one of us, her chances at marriage and at a family of her own dwindled down to nothing." Another step, one step closer to Mingjue in the cramped room. "Her own family had been frosty to her before, she was already dealing with the stigma of an unmarried woman making a name and wealth for herself - on her own - even as they basked in it, but our presence here only raised those who badmouthed her to civilized people who stood for propriety, and pushed her further down as a disgraced woman." He now stood right in front of Nie Mingjue, who despite being the taller man in the room, felt as though Jiang Cheng was starting to loom over him, bigger than life in his cold fury to defend someone he thought of as his own. "It is a miracle she hasn't yet been ousted from her own business, house, and society, and us along with her. That is what we cost her, everyday." "Wanyin, how is she?" Xichen dared ask. "In her room. She said she had the servants prepare more rooms for us, we should decide on how we would like to share them. All of us." And Xichen understood that he would no longer be allowed entry to her room as he had once. It stung to be kicked out of what had started to be his safe space, a place he saw as his own room. He felt like it was a punishment, and an undue one - it was Mingjue who disrespected her and no one else - so why was Xichen suffering for it. Every one on the room except Jin Guangyao turned to give Mingjue a glare, and it reminded Xichen that he was not the only one hurt, and that he should focus on repairing what was broken and not on revenge or perceived wrongs.

I have some more ideas, mostly on how she will interact with JGY and NMJ after this debacle, as well as with the other guys and will also have to think how do they come out of this mess that may or may not include Nie Huaisang being smarter than most of the other characters. They can all try to talk to Mingjue but he will only repent when he sees for himself, which might not be that quick because 1- he is stubborn and 2- she will be more closed off for now. Also really wanna bring up respect and honour because we all know those are key aspects when dealing with NMJ and I like to think that how he judged her so fast was anything but honourable, fair or respectful so he will have to drink some 'respect women' juice and learn to deal with his temper

Anyway, someone come rant with me please 🥺

plot bunny

So I had a new plot idea. Just a thought I found interesting but anyone can feel free to take it and use it, just let me read it too 🥺

It probably fits in for any fandom, it was just thought up as a (reverse) harem setting (or at least for multiple pairings side by side) and I thought it up as a MDZS fanfic so I explain it in that setting further down.

TW: period typical racism/homophobia/sexism, slavery is a big plot point and all the issues it has, like potential non/dub con (nothing happens but it is mentioned and other characters think it is normal and what should be happening)

I tried tagging it properly but do let me know (kindly)

The basic idea was:

an AU set in the age of discovery (yes I am european fam, even had to look up the name for this in english kkkk) with an OC/reader insert that is financially Independent from their family and is very eccentric in their spendings (yes they have a family but for some reason the family does not interfere in their business. bonus points if OC is a woman since sexism was a thing at the time)

now characters from canon are being sold as slaves (not all at once, just the one first and then keep them coming and adapt to the fandom/character) OC was established as rich and eccentric so they buy the character and take them home but (not so shocking) treat them very kindly.

Now I'll describe this as I thought it up but again, I think this might fit in for any fandom/characters and I would really like seeing other people's take on this

---

OC is rich and has a family but is independent from them. I go so far as to think she is the main source of income and status for them, despite some of that having established before her. So she has her own house and does her own spendings and her fam can´t publicly interfere but they do some bashing behind her back (and to her face cuz she is a softie, especially for the family) but she will still try to stand her ground to do the things she wants and they let her cuz this is how they got their wealth and fame so far.

She is at the market and sees slave traders and is going to move past until the foreign looking (they are all foreign, it's why people decided they should be slaves - eww - but this one looks different from any other slave and is even being marketed as such). She decides to take him in so she buys him and brings him home. She speaks a couple of languages (I am making it be an unusual thing for that time but she is a language afficionado - ignore my projecting pls) but not his so another plot point is her personally teaching him and learning from him.

It's Jiang Cheng. He is moody but nothing if not adaptable and quickly resigns himself to playing along for his own sake until he can figure something else out. She takes him home, lets him bathe and gets the servants to bring over picture books and the most basic reading and writing learning books and tools. She starts personally teaching him.

Some more projecting and the OC is portuguese but speaks english so she tries to tell him only she speaks english here but if he wants to learn that or portuguese. (haven't quite decided which one he chooses and further down the line I decided they also have their own sign language system - a mix of pt sign language and other signs). She goes through the classes with him and even tries to learn some of his in return.

Cute moment when she introduces herself and he does too but she struggles A LOT with the tones for his name and he gets her to call him just Jiang, and he calls her by her first name (she insists and he isn't fully aware of it until later)

She teaches him some basic cultural stuff like how to greet someone (as in the bowing, the language stuff will come a bit later, she is on the more basic but key stuff, so basic nouns for a while).

She also lets him pick his own clothes. She calls over a servant, gestures for clothes and points to both the servant's and his clothes expectantly until he decides to keep his clothing style. She take shim to the tailors and I am playing on the assumption they have their own fabrics for clients to choose from in there so she lets him pick the fabric for his main outfit but they also get him some "normal" ones. He picks purple obviously, and she lets him, no matter how expensive purple fabric actually is - she is rich so she should spend it, no?

(this paragraph has mentioned/discussed dub con but nothing happens) Last character specific point (or at least that gets really developed for the first character that appears) is how everyone expects that he will be a sex pet (I am sorry) so a room isn't prepared for him - he is expected to sleep in her bed and with her. He is taken by the butler (who is period typical and therefore not very supportive of all the progressive shit she does and how she does it but hasn't been disrespectful so far) who lets him get washed up and then has him kneeling on the floor in her bedroom waiting for her in just his pants. She comes in, sees him there, touches his cheeks all tender but with a very obvious sadness in her eyes. She kisses his forehead and takes his hands to lead him to the bed but tucks him in, and then gets in herself (let her do a speed run of her nightly routine, baby deserves her -limited - skin care). she lies next to him and even holds his hand but nothing more. they wake up cuddled to each other but nothing happened other than that forehead kiss and hand holding (*~kya~* lol) and nothing happens the continuing nights.

Now onto more characters (that part was long cuz 1 gives a lot of setting and a lot of things are explained now because they will be very similar for all characters and 2 I love JC, if you didn't know)

I thought of letting Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian come next, caught as a pair. She is once more out and about, with JC, and he spots them. He tells her and she buys them, gives them a similar treatment, she has JC to explain the things he already knows and things go a bit smoother with that extra bit. JC tells her they are a couple so she gets them the room next to hers. JC keeps sleeping with her cuz the alternative is to sleep next to that couple and we all know they like their "everyday" (he also really likes sleeping next to her but will never admit it out loud). I havent developed much for these two so far except that I wanna play with Wangji's mommy issues so....

She is a bit keen on physical touch but not keen on crossing anyone's boundaries so she goes slowly. Hand holding is mostly for outings in crowded spaces (there are 3 guys now but she holds hands with JC and one of wangxian who hold hands themselves and problem solved) but she opens her arms wide open to express intent to hug and holds her hand next to the body part she wishes to touch (arm or face, dont be perverts - yet) and only touches if they acknowledge her intent and allow her (not moving away from her or pushing her away/pushing her hand to where they wouldn't mind/actually want her touching - no perverted shit *yet*). Wangji is actually keen on this and one time she caresses his face and he calls her "A-niang". She is clueless so far so she tilts her head and Wangji, emboldened by this, points to her and repeats it, before pointing at himself and saying "baobei". she understands this is something about how to address each other so she complies and calls him "baobei", not noticing his red ears and the shocked faces on the other two. Include a scene of WWX and JC confronting him about it and he is unfazed, in one of the language classes she still insists on personally giving, LWJ tells her and she doesn't mind either, whatever floats their boat (she is SOOOOOO into all of them but the whole master-slave thing makes consent an issue so she has decided to NEVER do anything with none of them - she can't even be sure if even if they initiated it, if it was out of a sense of obligation or because they really wanted her)

On the topic of forms of address, after trust is established and feelings, LWJ calls her A-niang and she calls him baobei, JC calls her a normal nickname for wtv name she has and she calls him A-Cheng at first and later on (after the A-niang incident) she calls him Cheng-ge (he is flustered cuz it never happened before but he is indeed older than her so she says it's only right), WWX is A-Xian/Xianxian and calls her Jiejie/*name/nickname*-jie.

Later on come 3zun. Kinda wanna separate Lan Xichen, he arrives first and Wangji recognizes him so we all know now she has to buy him too (and traders start to see she only buys this type of slaves and this might become an issue, and also now she has 2 similar ones and they think they can finally start to understand her preferred type - joke's on them hehe). The others help him blend in, etc etc, he has the gentlest vibes and maybe later on can be a bit of a right hand man to her (as well as JC because I say so and he is the one that has been with her the longest). Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao/Meng Yao come later but together (yes NMJ is still alive, I need his himbo energy). They are at odds with each other anyway and as she is trying to buy them, she hasn't brought enough money on her to buy both so she tries to bargain by trying to trick the merchant into a buy 1 get 1 free (throwing in a bit extra above the normal price for one so its more like a discount on the second one) and oh the mental implications this has on JGY that OC is gonna deal with.

Also just thought that Nie Huaisang will have to come looking for his brother but he at least is smart enough to come as a master himself and not a slave so he becomes her esteemed guest.

Other peripherical thoughts include her family visiting and the guys seeing the strained relationship and becoming protective of her, talks of releasing them/them escaping, thoughts of them bringing in different ideas that she capitalizes on (if one of the ideas evolves enough she might let the guy that came up with it be in charge of it), slice of life shennanigans, what pairings and they interact how (otp, 3tp, moretp ?), the servants not being understanding or not sharing in her views about the boys and being fired, reference about how she bows to them too low (she is the master and they her slaves) but even after they explained to her she souldn't bow so low, she insists even more on bowing like that, to show she sees them as her equals, how she wants kids but doesn't have a husband - men don't want her to keep her power and influence (period typical shit) and she would ruin her own reputation if she had a kid out of wedlock so she has resigned herself to not hving kids.

Possible other plot points include pressure for her to marry, business competition sabotaging her, attempted assassinations/kidnappings, one of the boys acting out in public and the consequences, her household staff messing up/messing with the guys/with her, a time of some business issues because cultural and societal views on her and how they overcome them.

---

anywyay, if you read all of this, please have a chat with me about this, I am having some huge brainrot with this.

[warpedpuppeteer]

All these BT stans who harass Buddie stans because Buddie is not canon or Eddie is not canon queer are so fucking stupid. Clearly they have not stepped a foot in the chinese bl/danmei show/movie fandoms (or they're pretending not to) because BITCH NONE OF THEM ARE CANON QUEERS IN THE SHOWS EITHER. You don't know pain until your beloved queer character calls their lover brother in a show to escape censorship.

Or let's talk about anime shall we?? How about Toya and Yukito from Cardcaptor Sakura being bi and gay respectively with an on-screen confession scene (Yukito tells Sakura) which was censored so that noone knew for YEARS that they were supposed to be star-crossed lovers!! (Also Syaoran, a boy, has a crush on Yukito and Tomoyo, a girl, was supposed to have a crush on Sakura. Sakura was confirmed to be pansexual/queer retrospectively by the writer).

How about characters who couldn't be confirmed as lovers/queer due to fear of backlash when the show/movie aired (or for any other reasons) and were retrospectively confirmed by the creators that they were meant to be lovers and/or queer-coded??! Ryan from HSM?? Lando Calrissian?? Mass Effect?? Loki and Lucifer never label themselves on the show but they are not straight.

Get out of here with that "they're not a canon ship and he's not queer" nonsense. Not everything queer is canon. If you truly know and respect the queer culture then you know that part of it IS the fact that a lot of it is not canon.

They're out there talking nonsense about non-canon ships and writing fanfics about their 10 minutes screen time ship when modern fanfiction was popularized by Spirk shippers which btw *checks notes* NOT CANON.

Also funny how BT stans argue till they turn red that Eddie is straight and is not queer so that invalidates our ship. Completely forgetting that Trolldemort was also straight (only queer-coded which btw Eddie is far more queer coded in canon than Tinsel ever was) until he was confirmed to be gay this season. Buck was straight until he was confirmed bisexual this season.

BOTH CHARACTERS OF YOUR FUCKING SHIP WERE NOT CANON QUEERS EITHER YOU FUCKS.

[keymintt]

every day people call my coyotes wolves

[storywestistrash]

i am actually so tired of the way westerners treat eastern europeans

[wreckedhoney]

cant fuck with fandom takes that defuck extremist characters. blorbo set fire to multiple buildings killed dozens and will do so again. every incident is accompanied by a rant about some warped issue or pathetic self perspective and a lot of bared teeth. then enough people who watched the same thing i watched will just.. not register that this is an angry personality. objectively bad and toxic. among other things. like suddenly seeing takes about this genuine asswipe being a normal chill person. where did u see this. what happened. where is my genuinely unwell off-putting blorbo. who the fuck is this

[girderednerve]

The NFL began to institute reforms [in response to 2010s concerns about brain injury]. New on-field rules were put in place: Defenders were prohibited from lowering their heads to tackle an opponent with their helmet or from hitting “defenseless” players in the head or neck. Contact was limited during practice, and the league instituted a “concussion protocol” every concussed player must follow before returning to the field. There were now “spotters” at every game, whose sole job is to survey the field for players who might be injured, and independent neurological consultants to offer a medical diagnosis that would theoretically be uninfluenced by a team’s desire to get its players back on the field. Concussions were still happening every Sunday, but the league appeared to be trying to alleviate the problem and it became easier for fans to watch with a cleaner conscience.

The media also stopped covering the subject with the same urgency. “You know enough about the press to know that one reporter comes along and is able to gain traction with something, it gets exposed and then everybody moves on,” [Alan] Schwarz [a sportswriter who has extensively written about CTE among football players] said. Investigative journalism in the sports world has shrunk — the sports department Schwarz worked for at the Times no longer exists — and the NFL was now in business with practically every major media company. Even Schwarz admitted that it became hard to find fresh ways to write about the issue. “It got tedious — ‘Oh my God, another dead player had CTE,’” he said. “It got to be sort of, ‘Duh.’”

When we spoke, Schwarz said he could think of only one thing that might produce an actual recalibration of how Americans think about football’s risks. “Everything would be different if an NFL player died on the field due to head trauma,” Schwarz said. “If Tua were to seize up and somehow not recover, then that would change the entire conversation.” ... Chris Nowinski [a longtime activist focused on brain injury in football] wasn’t sure it would. “I love Alan, but a player can die on the field from a brain injury and it’s not gonna change anything,” he said. “People will say, ‘It’s only happened once in the history of the NFL.’ They’ll compartmentalize.” ...

Predictions that youth football would collapse as parents kept their children off the field have also not come to pass. Youth football participation steadily decreased for more than a decade after news about CTE started to break, but it is on the rise again. Roughly a million boys still play high-school football — twice the number that play either basketball or soccer — and it remains possible in much of the country to sign up your 5-year old to be a linebacker. Most surveys of parents find that they understand there are risks but that they also don’t want to keep their kids from playing. The enduring appeal of youth tackle football is often chalked up to the promise of a college scholarship, but for many parents and kids, football is simply the best of a limited number of options. Earlier this year, when student reporters at the University of Maryland visited the small town of Lexington, Mississippi, which is in the state’s second-poorest county, one parent pointed out the football team remains popular in part because the entire county has no swimming pools, no soccer fields, no tennis courts, and no YMCAs. (Youth-football participation has gone down more dramatically in wealthier communities.) Tackle football’s continued popularity among young people was, in this sense, a sign of a bigger failure. Last year, researchers found an advanced form of CTE in an 18-year-old high-school football player who killed himself. By early September of this season, three boys had died from brain injuries they suffered while playing high-school football.

Fans, it seems, have chosen to believe the NFL has largely done what it can. “They addressed the majority of the ethical issues — the stuff that made them look bad — and now suddenly the story is ‘It’s just sad,’” Nowinski said. “What people are missing is that football has gotten more ethical, but it’s not necessarily safer.” The point was that, because the NFL was no longer denying the problem, and every NFL player should now know the risk they are taking with their brains, a large part of the ethical burden on the league and its fans has been lifted. At the same time, while the number of reported concussions in the NFL has trended down over the past decade, they haven’t gone away: In fact, the number has increased in each of the past three seasons, and last year’s total of 219 is roughly equivalent to the total from 2018. (The total also doesn’t include the blows to the head that go unnoticed.) Because doctors can only diagnose CTE postmortem, after cutting into someone’s brain, we still have no way of knowing for sure whether CTE is developing in Tagovailoa’s brain or anyone else’s. But researchers have now examined hundreds of brains of former players and found that the portion who had CTE has remained consistent at around 90 percent.

Even so, Nowinski didn’t want to tell Tagovailoa what to do. “The reality is that the NFL doesn’t have to be safe,” Nowinski said. “If the players aren’t being lied to, they can choose to have a dangerous job.” The NFL’s chief medical officer, Allen Sills, said that the league would not get involved in Tagovailoa’s decision, citing “patient autonomy and medical decision-making really matters.” Football had entered its era of personal responsibility....

[sleepygaymerdisease]

guys i think this website is recreating misogyny

[piromantic]

i know i say 'i wanna make a video essay about xyz' like once every three months and i've never followed through but hoooly shit i want to make a video essay on queerbaiting in gacha games

[transannabeth]

i need to get more into filipino music please does anyone have any recs

[surpriserose]

I need people to stop making new years resolutions to eat "healthier" and lose weight like im resolving to eat more and get fatter actually

[samwisefamgee]

everyday I join lethal company lobby to Just Vibe and am sent Multiple Friend Request

[bitchycasenthusiast]

It is so fucking hurtful to tell my mom and sister about my horrible experience with medication - how my suicidal ideation actually increased, how tired I was, how little I ate cause of how nauseous I felt — and have their takeaway be that they should look into taking those meds cause I look sooooo skinny now.