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astrowaffles · 2 years

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We should all be like Tendou.

I know, I know; Tendou’s a little creepy and a little weird, and everyone hates him unless he’s on their volleyball team. But I honestly think that Tendou’s honesty, intelligence, self-confidence, sense of self and dedication should all be praised. It’s almost like no-one watched his arc at all, choosing to focus on Tsukishima overcoming the trauma of his brother being taken off a volleyball team, once, five years ago. I think everyone did; why does no-one ever mention Tendou’s heart-breaking “Farewell, my paradise”? It’s one of those moments that completely altered my brain chemistry, forever, and it’s never ever mentioned unless it’s by a hardcore Tendou fan wearing his jersey and sticking his poster on their wall.

Tendou should be one of those characters that every fan has to mention once in their life. He’s by no means top of my list on anything, but he’s good enough to be. I should be able to stand in a crowd of Haikyuu!! fans and start singing Tendou’s song, and they should all know the words, instead of hiding in a tiktok comments section timidly asking, “is it weird that I know his song inside out?” When I said, “I can recite the Way of the Ace”, there was a chorus of ‘same’s and a like from the creator. Talking about Tendou’s song outside of his sphere sparks a flurry of ‘Oh yeah, I remember that. That was strange, wasn’t it?’

That’s the point.

Tendou IS strange, and that’s why we should look up to him. Let me explain.

A long time ago, probably in the year 2000 or sometime similar, Tendou got into volleyball. I don’t know how, I’m not even sure we’re ever told, but he’s there at volleyball club and he’s gifted, a similar story to every other player in the hq universe. Except, there’s something very unique about young Tendou’s experience of volleyball. While every other character used this time to fall in love with it, Tendou was being bullied through it.

That’s not to say he didn’t love it, he did; it was the one thing that he was extremely good at - that his oddities made him good at, that they made him suit. In that way, volleyball has always been his refuge – his “paradise”. However, in every other way, those first few years were a nightmare that still haunted him in the last match of his career, in high school over ten years later. “He’s too scary”, “he’s creepy”, “he looks like a lizard” – primary school insults, but aimed at a primary school kid, and it must have hurt. His style of blocking and his love of shutting spikers down had built a barrier between him and his teammates; not to mention his ‘lizard’ face (which, I must admit, is probably true, but wouldn’t have been mentioned if not for volleyball’s habit of making everyone look weirder).

Considering that these events stuck with him for life, they must have been genuinely traumatic, but he never quit volleyball. I suppose that’s the first of the Tendou Qualities we should all want: he liked volleyball, he didn’t like the people. He did what most people are completely unable to do and continued with what he loved - and ignored what he didn’t. It’s almost amazing, how far he took volleyball when his first experience was so horrible.

After being bullied for being weird, scary, and for blocking, most people would then try to change it. “I’ll stop blocking that way against my teammates”, “I won’t pull that face anymore”, and even “I won’t attend practice anymore”. Instead, Tendou got better at being weird, scary, and blocking – and it got him into the top school in the prefecture, Shiratorizawa.

I think Tendou really started to shine when he started to be respected and praised for his skills rather than being bullied for being ‘weird’ (read: better than everyone else). We can see, obviously, that between him and Ushijima they got to nationals. I never hear anything about the skills of anyone at Shiratori besides those two, which gives me an image of them stuffing their teammates into sacks to drag up a hill.

Tendou’s blocking earned him a nickname, but I don’t like it – I’m not sure if he does either. “Guess monster.” Meanwhile, his teammate Ushijima gets nicknames like “Golden boy” or “miracle boy”, at least in his first year. The difference is obvious; they’re equally good, they both get plenty points, but Tendou’s weird. Tendou is innate talent, he’s scary, he’s odd, you can’t understand him, you can’t copy him, you can’t teach him. He is how he is. ‘Guess monster.’ He doesn’t seem to outwardly mind it, though. He’s always cheering on Ushijima using nicknames which get increasingly dramatic the longer the game goes on. It doesn’t seem to matter to him that he earns just as many points, if things go well. It doesn’t even seem to matter that everyone’s screaming “USHIJIMA!” and when Tendou scores, it’s cheers with no name. This is where we reach another Tendou Quality: he takes what he can get, and he doesn’t bear any ill will towards anyone who does better than him. If I were Tendou, I’m not sure I would be as close with Ushijima as he is – or maybe it’s his closeness with Ushijima that allows him to be so generous? How can anyone dub Tendou ‘scary’ when all he does is cheer on his team, and do his best? It just doesn’t compute. None of his team seem scared of him, either. It’s just…fans. Fans who are too used to more palatable people, like Ushijima who has a total of 2 expressions and 0 voice changes but won’t ever say anything he doesn’t mean - and he means everything kindly.

Tendou is completely, unapologetically unpalatable. It’s probably the main thing I love about him. Bullied for being weird and loud? Get weirder, get louder. In the end it’s his weirdness that pulls him through. He knows who he is and he knows how he is, and he didn’t bother to change himself, he just waited for people to accept him for it. In a way, it’s almost the same for Ushijima, whose blank face and apathetic demeanour don’t exactly endear him to his past teammates, though he was never bullied for being a man of few words. The entire Shiratori team accept Tendou and Ushijima and seem to have no problem with how they are. One moment sticks in my mind: Tendou, singing about smashing his opponent’s willpower into pieces. Semi, their reserve setter & pinch server, simply comments: “what a weirdo”, fond smile and tone in place.

It’s very important to recognise how much work Tendou has done to get to where he is – not in terms of volleyball, but in terms of preserving what made him unique. It’s human ‘herd instinct’ to get lost in the crowd, but Tendou has absolutely no intention of changing anything about himself. It’s probably Tendou Quality #1: he’s himself and has never even wanted to be anybody else. He has self worth; he knows he needs to wait for those who appreciate him rather than try to help those who won’t bother.

Tendou doesn’t go pro. He doesn’t even pretend to try after his last highschool match, simply telling Ushijima: “I don’t plan to go pro after high school. But when they make a documentary about you, they can interview me, and I can say I was your best friend.” He bids volleyball goodbye with his iconic, soul-tearing, “Farewell, my paradise.” He truly sees volleyball as what saved him and kept him going, but he doesn’t intend to take it further than an intense hobby. But despite all this, despite knowing he’s going no further, Tendou truly became one of the best in the entire high school arc. It’s true bravery, if nothing else: throwing himself into something he knows won’t last forever, and freely cutting it loose when the time comes.

When you think of Tendou, you think blocking. Guessing. Mind-reading. Whatever you believe it is that he does. Tendou is very much underrated, and not because – as I’ve been arguing for the past thousand words – he’s a nice person who values himself and his friends. No, he’s underrated because he’s genuinely one of the best players we’re introduced to. While national-level blockers battle it out in Team Japan gyms in the hope to be picked as Japan’s next star, Tendou’s chilling in Miyagi with his friends around him…scaring the hell out of every. single. opponent. From his expression to the blocks themselves, Tendou’s playing has helped take the eagles to nationals or prelims three years running.* It’s this that no-one remembers: Ushijima, as unreliant as he might be on Shirabu’s sets, cannot score every point. It’s too predictable, and there are a few blockers like Tsukishima who can track him around the court. That’s when Tendou comes in. A spike from him is rare, but his blocks score every time. Tendou is an excellent player who was picked by the unrelenting Coach Washijo for a sports scholarship, despite clearly being twiggy and not the powerful player Washijo seeks out (see: Ushijima Wakatoshi).

Even Tendou’s very name speaks of his power. While ‘Tendou’ means “heaven’s child”, “Satori” is the name of a Japanese monster: a monkey which reads minds. It’s a comparison which is too fitting to be an accident, and says a lot about people’s view of Tendou. Not only is he awarded the title of ‘guess monster’, he is considered to have enough talent to be compared to a magical creature strong enough to prey on humans themselves. So he now has strength, wisdom, blessing, knowledge, power, skill, and he’s unequivocally unique. Why are we still treating him as “Ushijima’s friend”? He’s so much more.

In terms of using Tendou as a role model, maybe we should cut out the bit where he sings about smashing his opponents into pieces. Oh, and the bit where he’s bullied. But everything else, we should imitate: the willingness to strike out on his own and leave his comfort zone, his unconditional support of his friends, his unapologetic ‘weirdness’…. it’s something we’d all do well to copy. Imagine if we all copied his bravery in cutting off volleyball, choosing to let ourselves move on from whatever we’ve outgrown, no matter how sad it makes us; imagine if we all supported everyone through everything they do, even when they surpass and outshine us; imagine if we all acted as we wanted to, no matter how society reacted. Wouldn’t we be happier? I certainly would.

And, even if we don’t bother to change ourselves or our social circles or our view on life, I at least hope that we start to love Tendou a little more. Doesn’t he deserve it? No matter what you look for in your favourite characters, he has it, and then some.

I think, one day, I will be able to post the words “I love tendou” and not have to explain. In fact, it should get the same number of clicks as my “I love Akaashi Keiji”, fresh on Tumblr this morning, without me having to cultivate a specific fanbase first.

Too dramatic?

Never.

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#guys this is nearly 2000 words of me talking about how amazing tendou is #i need help tbh #tendou satori #satori tendou #shiratorizawa #guess monster

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vaguely-concerned · 6 months

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So much of Garak as a person starts to make sense once you know his childhood was a fucking gothic novel. His main playground was a graveyard and he'd play pretend by perfoming improv eulogies to an imagined audience. For a long time his main touchstone for most important figures from recent history is 'oh yeah I know about that guy my dad buried him. great flower arrangements for that one'. He finds out later his 'parents' are actually a brother and sister who had to get married to avoid the utter shame and social devastation of having a child born out of wedlock, and they live in the basement of his biological father's house. (the madwoman in the attic vs. the tiny elim in the basement.) His biological father calls himself his uncle and locks him in a closet whenever he fails to live up to his insane and unpredictable expectations and everyone just has to act like that's normal and expected, and his will hangs over everything at all times, unseen but always felt keener than anything else. The father who actually raised him grows the world's most beautiful (and as it turns out, most poisonous) orchids and keeps the mask of a god hidden in a box in his work shed. Everyone in the house is choking down secrets like it's the only air they know how to breathe anymore.

What I'm saying is that right from the get-go this guy never had the faintest shot at turning out normal, so I'm glad that by middle age he's found a way to get a bit silly with it as he continues to be deeply deeply not normal about anything ever <3

#guess who's reading a stitch in time!#star trek ds9 #elim garak #a stitch in time #star trek #ds9 #I will make a monster post of asit thoughts eventually but just. jesus christ!!! what a start in life lmao #tolan and tain seem to have been... well not exactly friends probably but to have had some connection beforehand #did tain know him or mila first??? how was mila and tolan's sibling status presumably not known publicly?#at what point during all of that did tain start to have sex with tolan's sister. the more you think about it the more fucked it gets lol #under the circumstances... shoutout to tolan and mila for not leaving him somehow even more fucked up interpersonally than he is #and no thanks to tain for anything ever I hate him so much

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