The Antlerette Volume 97 Issue 3

The Antlerette Volume 97

September 2022

Issue 3

Tua Tagovailoa Incident and what it means for the NFL Greg Santos, Design Editor Tua Tagovailoa, the starting quarterback for the Miami Dolphins, is no stranger to sports fans around America. Tagovailoa, who was drafted 5th overall in the 2020 NFL Draft, played at the top university in the nation for football, Alabama. At UA, Tagovailoa won the 2018 College Football National Championship and was the offensive MVP of that historic game. He also had the highest passer rating in college football history, as he threw 87 touchdowns, only 11 interceptions, and averaged an impressive 10.9 yards per attempt in his shortened college career due to a hip injury in his junior year season.

Tagovailoa was expected to have a breakout sophomore year in Miami, as Tyreek Hill from the Chiefs was acquired in a blockbuster trade in the offseason, which sent him to the Dolphins to form one of the top receiver duos in football in Hill and Jayden Waddle. Coming into the 3rd game of week 3, Tua already exceeded 1000 passing yards, 8 TDs, and a QB rating of 77.8 (2nd best in the NFL). It was safe to say that he was living up to any expectation thrown at him before the season started.

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With 2 minutes and 19 seconds remaining in the 2nd quarter against the Bills in Week 3, Tagovailoa caught a snap and completed an 8 yard pass to Jaylen Waddle for a first down. On the play, Bills linebacker Matt Milano was penalized for roughing the passer, as he pushed Tua on his back well after the pass was thrown. Tagovailoa landed directly on his back and his neck snapped back in an awkward fashion, making his head create impact directly on the turf. He got up quickly and seemed fine… until he attempted to jog back to the huddle. He stumbled and continued to sloppily fall down, almost as if he were dizzy or intoxicated. The Dolphins training staff immediately took Tua back to the tunnel to get checked on. When Tua left the game, the Miami Dolphins quickly announced on Twitter at 1:24 PM that an injury update stated, “Tua Tagovailoa has a head injury and is questionable to return.” Tua Tagovailoa ended up returning to the game and finishing it, beating the undefeated Buffalo Bills 21-19.

After the game at 3:45 PM, the Miami Dolphins coach confirmed that “Tua Tagovailoa was wobbly because of the back injury he suffered earlier in the game.” So, all of a sudden, the tweet from a couple hours before was made up and the injury was only a back issue. The media had all their opinions on the move to clear Tua to go back in the game, and some believe the trainers made up a fake injury or didn’t fully go through concussion protocol. Despite the controversy of the media, the Dolphins’ doctors and coaches did not stop Tua Tagovailoa from starting in the week 4 matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals. Also, this next game was only 4 days after the game against the Bills, as this game was scheduled on a Thursday instead of a Friday. So, Tua didn’t have nearly enough time to properly recover from his injury.

The score was 6-7, Bengals on top. 2nd and 7 in the second quarter with 5 minutes and 48 seconds remaining. Tua Tangovailoa gets sacked at the 48-yard line by Bengals Defensive Tackle, Josh Tupou. Like the previous Sunday, he falls directly backward and onto his back/head area. He immediately lost control of the football, as he was lying on his side with his hands up and fingers up in a way that was frozen and could not move, almost as if he was paralyzed.

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This time, he had to get on a stretcher and was transported to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

The official status of his injury was a concussion, and many believe that it was already a concussion on Sunday and that he re-aggravated it once his head made impact with the Cincinnati turf.

Although Tua was able to travel home safely with his family and is doing well, the NFL needs to do some investigating within the Dolphins organization and medical staff to see what went wrong and if they really did implement the correct concussion protocol. Regarding the Tua Tagovailoa situation, the NFL and NFLPA have agreed to amend the league’s concussion protocol so that players that exhibit “gross motor instability” cannot return to a game regardless of other factors. It is a good sign that the association is quickly making changes where they need to be made, but it is unfortunate that it took a nice young man’s career and life to be jeopardized for them to realize it.

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Homecoming Proposals: Dos and Don'ts Sophie Trapp, Staff

Do you want to get asked to Homecoming? Or are you planning on asking someone? Here are some dos and don’ts to make your homecoming proposals cute but not cringy. Fellow students at Elk Grove High School said that these were some of their dos and don'ts. It was really half and half on whether people wanted it public or private. But people want to see the effort in the big ask either way.

Homecoming is a very special time of the year for some but maybe not for others.

It is fun to go with that special someone or just a friend and get dressed up for a party. It's also a celebration for our homecoming game, win or lose. But the homecoming proposal can make or break the weekend. Some homecoming proposals are super cute and make you wish you weren’t single. While others can be awkward and make you die of secondhand embarrassment. An important tip is to ask the right person. So I would figure out whether or not they are interested first or not. I mean don't straight up ask and ruin the surprise, but you can ask a friend. It’s super awkward when they say no and the whole school is looking at you; you might end up with a video that you will have for a long time and you can look back at the awkward moment forever. If it goes well though, you could look at that super cute moment forever. It's all up to you.

Now let's hear some opinions of our fellow classmates: It was so split down the center when it came to where. Some people wanted it to be at school in front of fellow classmates, while others would rather have it at a more private place. It was unanimous that everyone said no one should ask through text. It's not that special

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and doesn't require much effort. I mean you don't have to have a huge ask or anything but just ask in person. It’s always better having conversations in person rather than through the phone. It doesn't have to be anything big, but it is nice when it shows that someone cares and thinks about you. In the end it’s just important to have fun and go with the people that will make you happy.

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Literature in Contemporary Media Culture Nefertary Cabrera, Staff

How original is the media nowadays? And what role does literature play in our everyday lives? The film 10 Things I Hate About You was a modern take on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Authors like Jane Austen have composed classics that are still relevant today. Her novel Emma has influenced the making of the 1995 film Clueless. Bridget Jones’s Diary, a nostalgic 2000’s film, was inspired

by Austen’s renowned novel, Pride and Prejudice. In other instances, the inspiration behind the entertainment is more concealed.

The American teen drama television series, Gossip Girl, has references to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby. The novel follows Nick Carraway, as he moves to the West Egg next to the infamous Jay Gatsby and in front of his cousin Daisy and her husband Tom Buchanan. Gatsby had previously been in exile, who had recently started throwing glamorous, over-the-top parties filled with champagne and flappers. Although Gatsby himself doesn’t attend the events, he sends Nick a personal invitation. At the party Nick is surprised that no one knows who Gatsby is, and as he walks around he hears over the top tales about Gatsby. As Nick is about to give up, he stumbles into Gatsby. Gatsby tries to initiate a conversation with Nick by telling him they were both in the 3rd infantry division during the war. When he gets home, Nick notices Gatsby observing him. As Nick and Gatsby get closer, Nick finds out about Gatsby’s relationship with Daisy.

Through Nick, Daisy and Gatsby start an illicit affair. Tom finds out and reveals the truth about Gatsby’s past, exposing him as a swindler whose fortunes come from selling bootleg alcohol. In a fit of anger, Daisy and Gatsby leave in Gatsby’s

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car and Daisy accidently kills Tom’s mistress, Myrtle. Tom tells George, Myrtle’s husband, that Gatsby killed her. George assumes Gatsby is Myrtle’s lover.

George shoots Gatsby in his pool and commits sucide shortly afterwards. Nick encounters Tom. Tom admits he was the one who told George that Gatsby owned the vehicle that killed Myrtle. Tom comes to the conclusion that he hates New York and decides that Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and he were all Midwesterners unsuited to Eastern life.

The 2007 show Gossip Girl follows Dan Humphrey, an outsider from Brooklyn who is fascinated with the Upper West Side elite. Especially Serena van der Woodsen, who has just returned to New York City after her self-imposed exile from the Knightly School, a boarding school in Cornwall, Connecticut. Serena and Blair live through a lens for everyone in New York to view them, especially the anonymous gossip website “Gossip Girl”. Dan attends St. Judes, an all boys private school in Manhattan exactly next to Constance Billard, an all girls school, which Serena and Blair attend. Serena and Dan begin a relationship which introduces him to a world of glamor, a world in which “Parents act like teenagers, and teenagers act like parents…” Later on in the series Dan writes a book, an expose on New York’s elite including his friends. This foreshadows the show’s finale revealing that he is “Gossip Girl” and he was the one revealing their deepest secret in the past years.

Both Gossip Girl and The Great Gatsby play with the concepts of money and wealth gaps. The pieces show the ins-and-outs of wealth and what it can do to people. Nick and Dan start as outsiders who are consumed by their affluent friends. In the end, they take themselves out of the narrative and watch as everything around them falls apart.

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High School’s Facade on Television

Benjamin Carrillo, Editor in Chief

High school is one of the few things that every person in the US experiences, and because of this universal experience, the representation of high school on television is pivotal. Anything done incorrectly will be scrutinized more than some sort of alien movie or 90s slasher would be. The need for realistic high school representation is abundant, but despite this abundance there’s still a huge disconnect for what high school truly is.

The first few shows that take place predominantly in a high school differ from person to person. For me personally, the first three pieces of media I think of are Glee, Euphoria, and High School Musical, the Musical, the Series. These three shows couldn’t be more different conceptually, dealing with their different dramas respectively. However, what all these shows have in common is the attempt to keep the issues that the students face relatively grounded. Glee and High School Musical, the Musical, The Series, hich I will now call HSMTMTS for simplicity, deal with more everyday issues, such as bullying and relationship turmoil.

In a complete 180, HBO Max’s breakout success Euphoria deals with very serious issues, every episode has explicit and generally disturbing content, ranging from abusive relationships to drug abuse. These three shows tend to show these issues with full honesty, however, being clear with the problems that they deal with.

Euphoria is disturbing and raw, but because of this disturbing setting, some of the set pieces and props tend to be too adult for the high school setting. The age of the actors in this show are much higher than the average high schooler too, which is appropriate considering the content material.

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The latter two shows of Glee and HSMTMTS also have ridiculous plotlines, but their ridiculousness in set pieces comes from a place of being musicals, as they start to neglect realism for aestheticism. The tendency to neglect reality for the aesthetics is consistent in all three shows – all three of them tend to not have backpacks on the character, wear outfits that are either way too old or way too young for the characters, or have dialogue that doesn’t quite sound like something a student would actually say. The characters in all three of these shows are nothing like real high schoolers.

The characters in the show put on a facade, a facade that fooled a young me before I entered high school. As someone who has just finished a quarter of senior year at the time of writing this article, it's abundantly clear that the realities of high school cannot truly be experienced until you yourself enter high school.

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What Makes Autumn, Fall?

Ariana Velazquez, Staff

Fall is a commonly liked season of the year, for everyone. Fall is very beautiful, but there are many things that make the months of September, October, and November so enjoyable for people. The specific aromas, vibes, and the way fall makes you feel give fall its meaning apart from it being a season. I believe some things are meant for fall. Only fall can give you the feelings that those things can make you feel.

An unspoken rule, which is very well known, is the rule about pumpkins.

Pumpkins are meant for fall. Pumpkin scented candles, pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pies, pumpkins in general. All of these pumpkin based items are typically found in fall and give fall its full effect. Going out to a pumpkin patch to find the perfect pumpkin to carve and decorate to give the pumpkin its own personality is such a common, yet enjoyable fall activity. The suspense of waiting all of August to get to September so stores and restaurants could start to include fall menus and items which always include pumpkins, smelling pumpkins everywhere you go, and baking pumpkin pies are very important for fall. Without pumpkins, fall would lose the fun.

Halloween. Halloween is a very important holiday for those who celebrate it. It is a day where everyone can dress up to get out of their comfort zones, and have fun, during fall. Fall is referred to as the spooky season to the people who celebrate Halloween because of the excitement, fear, and “spooky feel” it brings.

The dressing up in costumes, the enjoyable amount of fear you feel when watching horror movies on Halloween, the excitement you feel when seeing how creative people have gotten each year with their costumes, complete the holiday and season.

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“Fall colors”. The “fall colors” show importance to the season due to the meaning of the name, fall. The name fall comes from the way leaves fall off their trees every autumn. Before these leaves fall, they change into shades of brown, red, yellow, and orange. These colors are the only colors you see, apart from green grass, when you step outside and feel the warmth of the breeze. The weather feels the way these colors do, the same subtle but attention grabbing feel the colors give, the weather gives.

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The Exclusion of Aroace People from Queer Spaces (Part 1) Cameron Cain, staff

Some lesser known sexualities in the queer community are aromanticism and asexuality. Aromanticism or being aromantic is when someone experiences little to no romantic attraction, while asexuality is when someone experiences little to no sexual attraction. Aromantic is often shortened to aro and asexual is often shortened to ace, the combination of the two identies being aroace and the spectrum being known as aspec. People still claim that aromantic and asexual people have no place in the queer community, despite their history. This is because of their lack of romanticism or sexuality, even though being queer isn’t defined by your relationships.

When people look back on queer history, there is little to no mention of people who are aromantic or asexual. This leads people to believe that being aspec is some new thing that was recently made up, when it wasn’t. Aspec people have existed for a long time. An article by LGBTIQA+ Greens states how in 1869 a pamphlet protesting Prussian Sodomy Laws referred to “people who eschew all sexual contact with other… he called these people ‘monosexual’” and in 1896 a scientific manual defending the rights of gay people “mentioned people without sexual desire and used the term anesthesia sexual.” However these examples only include asexuality, examples of aromanticism in history even harder to find.

People also tend to believe that people on the aroace spectrum aren’t queer enough when that is not the case. Aspec people have fought for recognition for years, especially recently as a better understanding of queer individuals begin to rise. Without going too deep into the horrors aspec people can face, many people believe they can “fix” aspecs, forcing them into certain situations in order to do so. Due to this many people on the aroace spectrum stay in the closet and even

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date in order to pass as straight. Due to society’s intense emphasis on relationships, it's impossible for anyone to go throughout their life without dating without it bringing up any questions from their peers.

One aphobic microaggression is displaying and feeling sympathy at the idea of people not wanting romantic or sexual relationships. This pity towards anyone who doesn’t want a relationship ties into the idea that aromantic and asexuals are broken and that happiness is directly tied to having a partner. It is also tied to the idea that aspec people are loveless, which isn’t true for everyone. Some aspec people are genuinely loveless, but a lot others experience other forms of attraction such as platonic, aesthetic, familiar, and sensual attraction. Some aromantic people experience romantic attraction but don’t want a relationship, some experience no romantic attraction but want a relationship. And the same goes for asexuals with sexual attraction. Both asexuality and aromanticism is a spectrum and not everyone experiences being arospec or acespec the same way.

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The Queen Draped In Purple Spruce Rants-Bigam, Staff

To an Outsider, it is easy to assume that a Highest life is filled with glamour and the finest of things from slaves to fabrics to the food they eat. And they’d be correct, but the most well guarded secret amongst the Highest of the Fye Empire is what it takes to get there, and what it truly means to be a member of the Highest.

Council Meeting 1,342 Aevum Empire When Queen Ernesh took the throne, it caused uproar throughout the Fye Empire. There had not been a change in rule in over three millennia, and it brought the new rule under question. However, if the other High Councilors wished to place someone of their choice in the Seat of Jinkso, then they would have to reveal how power transferred between the members of the Highest, and that was not a risk any of them was willing to take. Thus, when a young girl by the name of Ernesh walked into the Council meeting three days later, she was met with low grumbles and only the slightest of questioning at her legitimacy.

She was clad in the clothes of a Lowest child, and much to the disgust of the other councilors, placed her bare, grass stained feet on the table as she tilted back her Seat precariously. Slowly, the Seat shifted from the elegant grace of the previous Councilor into an image of twisted iron and jagged edges. With a sharklike smile, she gazed around the table, slowly committing each face to memory.

The other members began shifting under her predatory gaze, and just as the Jua’mai Councilor was about to scold her for her impotence, she jolted forward, feet leaving the table and chair slamming into the floor with a BANG in one fluid movement. She leaned forward, lacing her fingers together under her chin.

“So,” she purred, “shall we begin the negotiations?”

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