#nearly 2000 words

[surelysilly]

sock puppet storyboard 80% completed and submitted, more nonsense at 11

“Wanna hug it out?” the kid offers, opening up his disarmingly skinny, toothpick arms. At Jason's guarded look, he adds unsurely, “... No homo?”

[sage-is-in-fact-very-tired]

oops (<- his ass is not being normal about ic and fable)

[desertduality]

I am so sorry this next chapter is taking forever ajksjsj my brain is only letting me write like 200 words at a time

[novelistparty]

trying to learn anything about electric guitars on the internet (or IRL) is a terrible dude-knowledge experience but sometimes there are little gems like this that ease the pain:

[summerfevers]

if you’re up to it i would very much like to know your white collar neal timeline🎤🎤

this turned out to have many asides and be very long so the tl;dr is: peter have you considered that he's just a twenty-something teenage girl :( ?

timeline:

neal born 1984 ish. he's an aries and a millennial

neal, ellen, and neal's mom go into witsec 1987, neal age 3

2003 adler scandal i fucking guess. neal age 19

neal arrested probably mid 2005, 21

neal goes to jail for the first time, i want to say early 2006, age almost 22

pilot is set late summer 2009, age 25

same-sex marriage legalized in new york june 24th 2011, they talk about this in season 3 episode 14 which is soon after. neal's 27

more or less a year later–let's go with less–neal tells sam that he has spent the last decade running from the truth he learned at 18. taking him literally that it was 10 years ago he is now 28 it is the end of season 4 and 2012

the end of season 4 to the series finale is less than a year. he is 29 its 2013.

when we see him in paris he might be 30 but that doesn't count To Me

i present my evidence:

i don't know where we got "neal is 35" from i cant make it work. neal and co. went into witsec (which i have actually since learned is not available to people living in dc, they have their own version but it is not overseen by the federal marshalls, i don't think they can give you as many legal documents like a ssn, and they don't help you set up your new life as much? something about neal's life that would be interesting to explore.) when he was three and ellen says in season 4 that she's been in witsec for Nearly three decades. confirmed 33 or under in season 4

he also says to "sam" more than once that he's spent the last decade running from the truth he learned at 18–he very well could be rounding down here and mean like 12-13 years but i am Choosing to Believe he meant that literally. we are now at youngest 28, it is the last episode of season 4.

now due to the way the show is structured and the fact that it is never really winter. ok maybe winter 1 time because i can see in my mind neal in his little wool coat and earmuffs but largely it is summer and we never have a christmas episode. anyway due to All That our only real anchor in the timeline is that the episode where diana is Grappling with her engagement to Christie happens immediately following june 24th 2011, when same-sex marriage was legalized in new york. and also that later that season in the commutation hearing they say that neal has served 2 years of his sentence. so the pilot was set in 2009 when it aired we are at one year/season. but as the series goes on the episodes and even seasons have increasingly shorter gaps between them, and by season 6 we haven't even finished our four years. by the end of season 4 i want to say we are three years into his sentence and he's 28. between the end of season 4 and when neal dies in season 6 there has got to be less than a year that passes. actually deadass why was neal so obsessed with the pink panther case ending his sentence early we are like months out king. i get the injustice the system is broken they'd keep him forever but to people outside his circle he must have looked sooo silly for that. but whatever. he is 29 when he dies and 30 when we see him again in paris, his roaring 20s of crime and incarceration over.

Anyway where the "neal is 35 or at least claims to be much older than this timeline would say he is" probably came from in-universe is that the adler scandal takes place SEVEN years before s2 when peter confronts neal about it. 2003?????? guys the thing we have to understand, to embrace, about neal's personal timeline is that i do not think anyone in that writers room was really grasping how much they had neal do in so short a time. 2003 he is like 19 guys. maybe by the time peter says it was 7 years ago it was 2011 ? and the adler thing was 2004? but no that couldn't work because it's mid 2011 like a year later in s3. so basically neal walks out of st louis and has a magical girl transformation through which he immediately becomes a great conman and criminal. and he meets mozzie basically straight away. he should still be in like calculus and ap lit at this juncture. and then they go right into the adler con ??? and neal is obviously lying through his teeth to everyone saying he is at least 21 but probably more along the lines of 23. and while most of his aliases are eventually found out by peter if no one else, no one ever goes "wait IS HE a teenager?" no one is guessing this.

so we spend a couple months fucking around and fucking UP with adler, kate probably doesn't know how old we actually are, this relationship cannot actually last very long at all because we are truly on a time crunch right now. we have less than three years for neals entire criminal career before he goes to jail. i know i said on the bullet list he went to jail early 2006 he has got to have been arrested like summer 2005 at the latest to be tried and sentenced by then and i feel like even that might be tight because he was suspected of so many other things they wanted to get evidence for. but how is neal teaching kate to be a criminal less than a year into his own career. i think neal must have been a hardcore improv kid for this to work honestly. i bet he competed. so our golden days of mozzie neal and kate against the world lasts maybe a year at best before neal and kate fight and she leaves and he spends months trying to get her back and get her attention and commits a truly breathtaking amount of crimes in this time.

also i'm skipping through forging bonds right now trying to flesh out this timeline and it was incredibly shady of peter and co to see that kate is doing so much to stay hidden from her ex boyfriend and then to reveal her to neal in order to catch him. like that was fucked up they didn't know neal yet he hadn't been suspected of violent crimes but they didn't know why kate was working so hard to escape him. like it worked out ok (arguably, but that could be a different post) but they had no reason to trust neal not to hurt her like this. she could have been running from an abusive situation he's known to be a talented criminal with no fears about escalating his crimes he could have killed her. one thing about the fbi is that they never once care about kate's safety and it does indeed get her killed one day.

in conclusion neal is known as one of the best forgers in the world when he is arrested in 2005 at age 21 maybe 2 years into his criminal career. here i am 21 what have i accomplished

[flyingseacow]

So we all agree Ishmael so very very autistic, and in my personal view chapter 86 is the absolute pinnacle of it.

Also, well. All this:

And whatever they may reveal of the divine love in the Son, the soft, curled, hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which his idea has been most successfully embodied; these pictures, so destitute as they are of all brawniness, hint nothing of any power, but the mere negative, feminine one of submission and endurance, which on all hands it is conceded, form the peculiar practical virtues of his teachings.

Ishmael: Jesus is such a twink!

In man or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority

Care to elaborate Ishmael? No?

Though all comparison in the way of general bulk between the whale and the elephant is preposterous, inasmuch as in that particular the elephant stands in much the same respect to the whale that a dog does to the elephant.

Ishmael: I know I just talked a lot about elephants, but never ever mistake this for awe, whales are a billion times more cool than elephants! So write that down!

[akajustmerry]

okay guys just to clarify!!!! my original list had about 21 characters but I was on thin ice for working on and submitting that during work without an editorial greenlight so after I submitted I was lectured on how "it's important to do what I'm actually asked" and how 15 is apparently the best number for search engine optimisation. The editors chopped it down to the 15 characters *they* thought would be the most recognisable, but jsyk the full list of my original draft included Lawrence, Cyd, Comfrey, Eduard, Nan Pierce, Rhea, and Josh and IF I hadn't written and submitted this last week I would have included Nate but how was I to knoooow. I'll take shit for the ranking order cos that's all me but the number had to be 15 apparently :/

[astrowaffles]

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.

INTERESTED IN MORE OF THIS TYPE OF NONSENSE? TRY THE MERCURY TIER

[dwarfsized]

"oh this will just be a simple little intro i need to write and then I'll write some smut and I can post the fic" i tell myself, like a liar

[filet-o-feelings]

🎁🎁

Thank you! Sorry it took so long to answer!

“It’s fine. I may have sampled some of the peanut butter things to get my sugar fix,” he admits, and Patrick huffs a laugh, letting loose the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

[elialys]

I can tell I'm going to get extremely compromised by this fic and not just because I have to kill off Joel soon in order for this AU to work.

“D’you think we’ll get to see cats?”

For what feels like the tenth time today—which is saying a lot considering it’s not even noon, judging by the sun in the sky—Tess is taken aback by Ellie’s question.

One of many.

They’re slowly making their way toward the hotel, she and Ellie leading while Joel purposefully stays back. Part of it is him playing the tough lookout, but she knows he’s mostly avoiding having to talk to their unexpected companion.

Tess finds herself suppressing a small smile, not her first one today either. “Cats?” she repeats. “Why do you want to see cats?”

“I’ve never seen a cat,” Ellie says, almost dreamily. “Read all about them though. They seem so…fluffy, and fun.”

Tess snorts, shaking her head a little, unable to stop herself from remembering the few cats she’d had, pre-Outbreak Day. “They were also a pain in the ass. Cute, but deadly, always on the lookout for new ways to break the rules, or anything fragile, really.”

“Aww, sounds just like me!”

[cyberrose2001]

hooooly shit my computer restarted and i thought the fic that i was working on didn't save because I COULDNT FIND IT ANYWHERE but for some reason it was saved on a DIFFERENT WORD DOC???

......anyway.... crisis averted

[letsplayballet]

maybe i'll just write secret good p5 that lives in my head one scene at a time, and in 10 years i'll have 6 scenes written and i'll never finish it or show it to anyone

[gaytobymeres]

i can write this essay. i can write about tree avenues and some weird monument. i can give a description of a huge fucking estate. i can look at maps. i can put photos into a word document. essay affirmations with me.

[niallschesthair]

by the way, today my boss told me i am in fact a journalist since opinion pieces are considered journalism so...