it helps to write it down

riko @ 2012-06-25T23:13:00

2012-06-26T03:17:20Z

HAVING ACTUAL CONNIPTION FITS RN. I was hoping they'd get someone good to play Kalinda's husband so that she could finally have an antagonist who could match Archie's stage presence/badassness/everything. Never did I dare dream they'd get someone this good. My feelings about Marc Warren: THEY ARE LEGION. My feelings about Marc Warren in roles that ask him to be terrifying: THEY ARE EVEN MORE LEGION.

And suddenly I want my show back right this moment. Curse you, waiting!!!

This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. people have commented there.

riko @ 2012-03-11T19:59:00

2012-03-12T00:03:55Z

#that moment when the things you thought were inadvertent season-long race issues, because that's what happens on tv shows, may have actually been intentional and done for a reason?

C'mon, TGW, make me proud and make that more than just lampshading!

This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. people have commented there.

fic: concerto for two violins in g minor, arthur/eames, nc-17

2012-02-08T23:43:48Z

( concerto for two violins in g minor | fic masterpost )

Italy, 1703. Arthur is an orphan with a hidden talent for the violin who is sent from his quiet but dull life in a small monastery to study music in Venice. A story about missing violins, lost ducal heirs, mysterious masked men, gondola chases, falling in love with your concert master, music, and finding your place in the world. (A love song to Vivaldi's Ring of Mystery.)

[ art | mix | fic on dw | fic on ao3 ]

Notes: This story, written for inception_bang, is one part homage to a great kid's story that I loved when I was younger and one part homage to Vivaldi himself, I guess, where homage means "implying he had a relationship with a student and was kind of disreputable." Oops! I apologize in advance to anyone particularly knowledgeable about Baroque history as I took a sort of A Knight's Tale approach to history here and that may drive you to distraction.

Profuse thank you's are due to a lot of people here. First and foremost, to juana_a who did the amazing art and equally amazing mix for this story and was generally a dream (ha ha) to collaborate with. To kick_back_80s for the much-needed beta! To dondarrion for being my cheerleader in chief as always! And to all my ladies (Aida, Haku, Kat, and Nelly) for keeping me from freaking out too badly and for teaching me how to spell Cobb's name canonically before I embarrassed myself on this, my first de-anoning in the fandom.

This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. people have commented there.

drive-by festivid recs!

2012-01-25T23:50:23Z

I kind of expect that those of you interested in the relevant fandoms have probably seen these, but I really just have to rec both of these vids because they are both superbly done and (especially in the second case), I have had a bad habit of obsessively re-watching over the past two days.

In this corner: Karaoke Soul, Luther, Luther/Alice, with all the such a bad idea, just-barely-in-control, oh lord what am I doing, feeding each other's worst impulses that that entails. Creepy and dark and just the kind of vid that makes you shout WHY DO I SHIP THIS at yourself while gleefully hunkering down with popcorn to watch it again.

And in the other corner: Children's Work, Life, Dani+Charlie, AND OH MY GOD MY FEELINGS LET ME CUT OUT MY HEART AND SHOW THEM TO YOU. One of those instances where the amazing editing and the impeccable, unbearably perfect song choice combine to make a vid so good you want to claw your own face off. Dani Reese was always my favourite thing about Life, and this vid gets her completely and in a way that manages to be really insightful and heart-wrenching about her relationship with Charlie too.

This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. people have commented there.

riko @ 2012-01-08T13:47:00

2012-01-08T18:55:09Z

I'm finally starting to feel properly moved in on Dreamwidth so now is probably a good time to announce that I have officially moved to DW and will be using it as my primary journal from here on. Release 88 was just kind of the final straw for me. I'll keep crossposting and checking in with the LJ friends list, so I shouldn't lose track of those of you who aren't moving. And I'll be spending this week trying to track down and add all of you who are or already have! Feel free to add me as well. I'm still riko and thus very easy to find.

The only things I won't be keeping updated on LJ anymore are my RP journal (arcing), which I doubt anyone cared about anyway, and my fic scrap journal (treeing). You're welcome to come hang out at treeing, though. I'll be importing all the old entries there too once community importing for free journals opens up.

I've changed my layout on LJ to something which will hopefully be accessible even on the custom comment page for people who still read my fic on LJ but if anyone ever has any sort of problem with it, please feel free to send me a PM, and I'll try to find a better option.

And now I promise that the next time I update, I will have actual content people care about. /off to wash dishes and eat egg tarts!

This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. people have commented there.

riko @ 2011-12-24T13:38:00

2011-12-24T18:40:56Z

This is just to test out crossposting, mostly!

Merry Christmas Eve Day for all of you for whom that is a thing you recognize. See y'all in a few days to everyone else. :)

This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. people have commented there.

riko @ 2011-12-21T14:28:00

2011-12-21T19:28:03Z

I'm not going to go into a big thing about LJ's new comment page design/loss of functionality because I think most people have said it better at this point. I'm going to go where my friends go, ultimately, though I have informed LJ that I will not be paying for any of my accounts until comment functionality is restored or they actually produce an S2 old-style comment page option, one which is hopefully not terribly broken and inaccessible the way current S2 styles are. I may start cross-posting from DW (where I'm also riko) to LJ, but that remains to be decided as I still have Issues with DW which prevent it from becoming a real alternative for me. FUN.

The most important thing was to let everyone know that I'll be looking into a more readable layout for this journal, so that custom comment pages can be turned on without making my fic inaccessible/unpleasant for reading, and that most of my stories are available on AO3 (where I'm once more riko!) in the meantime.

STAY STRONG EVERYONE.

riko @ 2011-09-28T16:34:00

2011-09-28T20:34:07Z

THE GOOD THIEF by Hannah Tinti. 1800s New England. Orphan with one hand is adopted by thief/conman. They go on adventures. Enjoyed this! Although it didn't, perhaps, quite live up to the sound of the premise, it probably didn't because it erred on the side of more realistic. I enjoyed Ren as a protagonist generally, and I think it did a good job of showing some of the grimminess and unpleasantness of being poor in the 1800s while still keeping a sense of fun.

THE HALF-MADE WORLD by Felix Gilman. Steampunk Western where the American West is the battleground for two factions: the Line (servants of the railway who pave the way for progress, enslaving people as they go) and the Gun (outlaws who spread terror and violence and chaos). Meanwhile, a psychologist travels to a mental institution at the end of the world and just wants to do her work, okay? This book could have been cool except for how it let its mythology eat its plotline and rather than just sticking with the interesting character (Liv, the psychologist), we get saddled with two other characters as well who are just unpleasant and boring to read about. Some cool ideas! Wish I'd liked it more!

AMERICAN SUBVERSIVE by David Goodwillie. Failed journalist investigates bombing attack on Manhattan. The PERFECT example of how using the first person perspective can just make your lead character unbearably egotistical, smug, and a pain to read about.

HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE by Charles Yu. Time machine repairman muses on time travel and life while searching for his missing father. Despite being in first person, I really enjoyed this! I like books that nerd at me about physics in general, and I thought the conceit of the book, which was really half way between time travel and the ability to move through fictional universes, was very cute and cleverly employed. A bit of a slow-started but fun and touching. Tackled the idea of disconnection in a technological age without getting too preachy about it.

LOLA, CALIFORNIA by Edie Meidav. A lawyer tracks down her childhood friend in California to attempt to reunite her with her father who is ten days away from execution on death row. There might have been some interesting stuff in this book, but it was kind of buried under WADS OF MASSIVE PRETENSION. Don't get me wrong. I like it when stories are lyrical and when the author has obviously spent as much time thinking about how to tell the story as what the story will be, but I draw a line when your writing style actively blocks my ability to understand what you are trying to tell me. The blurb made it sound kind of like a mystery story but yeah, no, don't be fooled.

THE MAGICIAN KING by Lev Grossman. Sequel to the Magicians. Quentin and friends are now the kings and queens of ~~Narnia~~ Fillroy but when Quentin embarks on a quest (because that's what one does in Fillroy), it dumps him and his childhood friend Julia back on Earth. I LOVE THESE BOOKS I LOVE THEM. Many of the small issues I had with the first book (namely that Quentin was a bit of a prat which made it hard to care about his story and there was a lot of people being casually awful to each other) are resolved here since everyone finally grew up a bit. It has all the same whimsy and playfulness mixed with something darker and graver and wrapped up in some immensely astute insights on what it is like to be a restless twenty-something (even if you are a restless twenty-something in a magical kingdom). Oh god, and we actually get Julia's story too, which I am so happy to have even if it is heartbreaking. I can't wait for the next one. (Warning: One scene of non-con sex.)

riko @ 2011-09-23T17:10:00

2011-09-23T21:10:21Z

THIS ELI BRADLEY PICSPAM. This. It makes me feel all the feelings for Eli, who I do sincerely love with all my little pink heart.

(Does not actually give any spoilers for Children's Crusade #7 but is responding to some of the fan reaction to it so depending on your feelings on spoilers...)

FIC: the common issue, billy/teddy, pg-13

2011-08-30T20:01:38Z

Series: Young Avengers
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,839
Notes: Billy/Teddy, Kate/Eli, one-sided Tommy/Kate, oblique Cassie/Vision. I watched the first episode of Suits the other day and while it was all cute and breezy and fun and I can totally see why people like it, the law was so bad. So bad. And I am not someone usually bothered by that, but this had me crying into my hands out of frustration! Any rate, that is my excuse for writing a silly lawyer AU: a fit of pique.
Summary: Billy has feelings about civil procedure, the firm's new junior associate, and the fact that his co-workers are all nuts, and he isn't thinking about any of them.

This is the most useless thing in existence, Teddy had scribbled at the top of the notepad which lay perfectly in the middle of their desk, just to the left of their stack of exhibits and just to the right of their heavily-tabbed copy of Winfield and Jolowicz on Tort.

Billy spent a lot of time not looking at this note out of the vague sense that he was here to do a job and that job meant listening to Von Doom's interminable cross-exam closely. Somehow, despite this, when he finally caught himself looking down, he found that he'd already written back, What else is new in our lives?

Teddy barely waited for him to set the pen down before picking it up again. Tic-Tac-Toe? his scrawl suggested hopefully.

Billy spared a brief glance toward the judge who, honestly, mostly seemed to feel like this was the most useless thing in existence too. Without another thought, he grabbed the pen out of Teddy's hand, drew a board, and scratched an X down in the centre.

Three rounds later, Billy half-zoned in to the trial in progress with the suddenness of someone who has just heard the same question asked twice and blinked. "Uh," he said as his brain tried to catch up and remember enough of second-year evidence law, "your honour, we object to this line of questioning. It's a collateral matter, and the witness just gave her answer."

Teddy drew a circle in the upper right corner and won his second game.

---

"You should just buy off the jury when you get that far," said Tommy over lunch because Tommy was in the habit of saying things like that loudly in public places where other lawyers could turn and look at them like they were all insane.

Eli rubbed at his eyes. Tommy didn't seem to notice.

"I buy off juries all the time."

"We're not buying off the jury, holy crap, Tommy," Billy said tiredly.

Teddy laced his fingers together on his chest and leaned back far enough so that he could stare at his shoes under the table. "We could buy off the jury," he said.

"No," Billy said sharply, rounding on Teddy and shaking his terrible cafeteria muffin at him. "No felonies. Bad Teddy."

Teddy just grinned.

"Calm down. You'll be fine," Eli told them both like the mature and level-headed adult he managed to be somehow. Against all odds.

"Who even opts to try torts by jury these days anyway?" Billy huffed and then squawked almost immediately when Kate arrived, shoved him to one side, and attempted to share a chair with him.

"Someone inject me with caffeine right now," she said, ignoring Billy's attempts to shove her back off of his seat. "I have a show cause this afternoon and no cause to actually show."

"Can't help with the caffeine," Tommy said, with a leer, "but I could inject you with something else, if you know what I mean." Then "Ow, fuck," he said when Eli flicked him hard in the side of the head.

"Girlfriend," Eli reminded him. "Also, that wasn't even good."

---

Billy sometimes felt like he spent half his life in his office, a feeling only exacerbated by the fact that he probably spent more than half his life in his office. His office was a barren little cave that had windows and no couch, but Kate let him uses hers when she wasn't there, and he kept a pillow in the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet for just those occasions.

By his second week at the firm, Teddy stopped trying to find him in his office in the mornings and just came to Kate's office with a coffee in one hand and a comb in the other.

Billy would drink the coffee down in big gulps and brush the tangles out of his hair as best as he could and then croak, "Morning."

Teddy would smile and say, "You're an idiot. We have a depo in half an hour."

And then Billy would sit in the conference room while Teddy charmed a hostile witness into giving up all her secrets and Billy ate the bagels meant for visitors and thought about how Teddy was the best damn junior associate he'd ever seen. He probably deserved Billy's job more than Billy did, and Billy knew within a day and a half that he kind of wanted to sleep with him, and it was all very melodramatic – crushing on your new second chair was not a thing people did outside the USA Network – except that Teddy sometimes looked at him like he wouldn't mind if they slept together either. Which made it less melodramatic and more like something that was probably just going to happen eventually. Maybe.

---

"You gigantic gay motherfucker," said Tommy apropos of nothing, coming into Billy's office at 1PM in the afternoon despite the fact that, really, he didn't work here.

Billy did not flinch, and he barely glanced up because this was fairly typical of things Tommy said by way of greeting.

"Do you have an appointment?" he asked Tommy, who didn't answer. "Does he have an appointment?" he asked Jonas, as Jonas walked past his door, but since Jonas wasn't actually Billy's admin, all he got in return was a blank look and a shrug.

"You're supposed to have an appointment," he said finally, again to Tommy, who was now arranging himself comfortably in the chair on the other side of Billy's desk.

"I want a favour," said Tommy.

"Of course you do," said Billy.

"Of course I do," Tommy agreed, nodding. "I have this friend of a friend who's up on possession charges."

"I'm not a criminal lawyer," Billy pointed out automatically, though by now he knew that Tommy knew and that when it came to favours, Tommy didn't really care. And predictably, Tommy barely batted an eye at him.

"It's total bullshit, obviously," Tommy continued. "I was hoping you could talk to your A.D.A. friend. See if something could get worked out."

"You could ask Cassie yourself," Billy pointed out.

Tommy shrugged. "Yeah, but she tolerates you and doesn't like me. So unless I dye my hair and go the comedic mistaken identity route, it's better if you do it."

Billy shut his eyes. "Please tell me that's not actually a thing you do."

"Not recently," said Tommy, a grin in his voice. "Deal?"

There were things, Billy was sure, in his life that he had done to deserve his brother, but he was never sure what they were. Billy opened his eyes. Tommy stared back like the giant karmic retribution he was.

"What do I get in return?" Billy asked.

Another shrug. "I'll dig up some dirt for you on that tort whatever thing you're working on, if you want."

"Bywater versus Metropolitan Transit Authority?" Billy asked. "Our biggest class action in years? That tort?"

Tommy held up a hand and made a blah blah motion.

"Blah, blah," he actually said redundantly. "Just tell me what to look into."

After a moment, he added, "And remember to call off Cassie."

---

At six, Teddy brought him Chinese take-out. Billy looked up gratefully from stacks of case law on industrial safety standards and smiled like this was the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen. Teddy tended to look especially good in blue shirts, so it might not have just been the food. They ate and went over Dr. Reed's prep for tomorrow for a half hour until they were both going cross-eyed out of boredom.

"Are you going to do it?" Teddy asked, poking barbecued pork and fried noodles with his chopsticks. "Ask Cassie?"

"I don't know," said Billy. "I guess."

Teddy poked his food some more, thoughtfully. He had soy sauce on his chin, and Billy was staring at it and wondering if he should mention it and also wondering if there was a limit to how much life could turn into a romcom or if it would just keep going until one day he found himself inexplicably in Central Park, getting tangled up in the leash of the dog he didn't own.

"Do you know what I hate?" Teddy finally asked.

"Class action certifications?" Billy guessed.

"Class action certifications," said Teddy with a firm nod.

---

Cassie was on her way into court when Billy called her the next morning. He had timed this precisely to make sure the call was as short as it could possibly be. They were both very busy people, and Billy tended to sound like an idiot on the phone.

"Your brother is probably a criminal," she told him when he asked. "You do realize that, don't you?"

"Yes," said Billy because this was objectively a fact. "I heard these charges might be kind of bogus, though. And I would owe you dinner."

He had gone to law school with Cassie what seemed like a lifetime ago, and they had gotten along okay in that way where she came from a long line of lawyers and was terrifyingly determined about prosecuting criminals of all flavours, and he had vaguely noble notions about helping people and thought his mom had probably smoked a lot of marijuana when she was younger.

Cassie sighed. "I'll see what I can do," she said and hung up.

Billy flicked his phone over to SMS and texted a quick done off to Tommy.

thnx bro, came the response a few minutes later. get you the good stuff asap.

Billy's phone buzzed again almost immediately.

no homo, said the message.

Kate, reading over his shoulder, nearly snorted coffee out her nose.

"Sometimes when we're in public, I pretend I don't know him," Billy confessed.

---

That afternoon Von Doom tried to get their medical testimony thrown out as immaterial. If they hadn't been expecting it, Billy would have probably been morally outraged. As it was, they were expecting it, and Billy had to pretend to be morally outraged anyway.

"Given that the defense is seeking to limit the class definition to only those who suffered damage from smoke inhalation," said Billy, "I think the nature of the other injuries suffered that day and their connection to the fire and the central issue of whether the fire was caused by the MTA's negligence makes Dr. Reed's evidence clearly material."

"The MTA," said Von Doom in his deep, courtroom voice, "is of the opinion that the current class definition is unduly broad. The damages that someone who suffered from smoke inhalation and someone who suffered, for example, burns might possibly, potentially be entitled to are measured on entirely different standards."

"Which is something to be sorted out at the remedy stage," said Billy. "Not at certification."

Judge Rogers considered this and then made a go ahead motion at Dr. Reed to continue with his answer. Billy sat down again. Teddy pushed their pad of paper over towards him.

I have Bohemian Rhapsody stuck in my head, said the note written across the middle of the page.

I would kill for a shawarma right now, Billy wrote back.

---

They recessed late that afternoon after Von Doom finished with their last witness, and Eli took them both out for a celebratory "Now We Get to Ask Leading Questions" drink. Which turned into two drinks. Eli left before the third, citing an 8:30 motion to dismiss the next morning, and Billy would usually have gone with him to share the cab back to the office, but Teddy's smile was wide and bright and perfect and proud, and Billy felt good about the case they'd made too, so they had two more rounds and slouched together in their booth, warming each other's shoulder through proximity. Teddy's hand found its way to covering Billy's on the vinyl seat between them, and his thumb traced patterns over Billy's knuckles.

"I've never been any good at estate litigation," Billy told him because he had the sudden, tipsy desire to tell Teddy something profound and meaningful but knew that law school had stripped out his capacity for thinking of profound and meaningful things to say in order to make more room for case precedents.

Teddy bit his lip, though, and tried not to grin, and Billy thought maybe he understood anyway when he said, "I had a bad experience with estate litigation once. I've been kind of gun shy about it ever since."

"Probate fees," Billy said earnestly, and Teddy did smile then.

"Yeah," he said.

They didn't kiss or anything that night, but Teddy did successfully hail him a cab, and Billy figured that in New York City that still meant something.

---

The next day was Saturday, and Billy drank his body weight in water for breakfast and then went into work anyway, despite it being the weekend and despite being slightly hungover, because he always found staying at home with his goldfish depressing.

He should've figured that Tommy would be there, since Tommy was a mutant whose power was knowing when the worst time to show up was and then showing up anyway.

"Found something," Tommy said, reminding Billy that Tommy was also a mutant because he was really, really good at finding things.

Billy looked longingly at the little office kitchen where his one true love, the office coffee pot, was waiting for him and then waved Tommy into his office.

"What did you find?" he asked, once he was seated.

Tommy unslung his backpack from one shoulder and rummaged around before producing a folder full of surreptitious snapshots of documents. Billy flicked through, and most of them looked perfectly legally-obtained, but Tommy liked to be surreptitious about things no matter what he was doing. Probably a habit developed from when he was out being a criminal the rest of the time.

"Inspection reports from the city," Tommy explained. "The MTA waived inspections on three trains, including the one that started the fire, a month before it happened to avoid paying overtime because they were pissed at the union. It hadn't been inspected since a month before that."

"Oh," said Billy, nearly swallowing his tongue. "Oh."

Tommy's expression transitioned smoothly from smug to a little worried. "If you're going to start making out with those pictures," he said, "I'd like enough warning so that I can leave the room."

Shut your stupid, occasionally brilliant face and let me enjoy this moment, Billy was about to say, but Kate knocked on his door and interrupted that thought before it could escape.

"Wasn't expecting to see you in this morning," she said in a knowing sort of way that did nothing to indicate what it was she knew.

"Tommy brought me the most beautiful present ever," said Billy. "Once we get certified, they are beyond dead."

Kate gave Tommy a long look and then said, "I guess there's a reason we still let you in the building after all."

Tommy smiled at her serenely. "Katherine, my love for you is pure and true."

She smiled back with patient amusement. "Still dating Eli," she said.

Billy ignored them both and hugged the pictures to his chest.

---

He had anticipated some mild awkwardness between him and Teddy over the sort of moment they had had on Friday night. He didn't usually have sort of moments with co-workers but maybe Teddy did. Maybe Teddy had lots. It wasn't something they'd ever talked about in the short time they'd known each other.

But, in the end, Saturday afternoon saw Teddy rolling into the office in weekend casual jeans, saying hi to Billy with a sheepish, uncertain expression on his face which lasted only long enough for Billy to shove the pictures in front of him and then it was all forgotten.

"Damn," said Teddy, clutching the pictures so hard that his fingertips were going white, "we're going to win, aren't we?"

"If we get through Monday," Billy said, trying to look like a sombre, experienced senior associate for once and mostly failing, "yeah, we completely are."

---

Sundays were hard because no one in the firm bothered to go in on Sunday, so it was nearly impossible for Billy to justify going in by himself. Sundays before important courtroom dates were even worse because Billy was keyed up all day with nothing to expend his energy on, and he ended up drinking successive soothing cups of coffee in very ill-advised attempts to calm down.

By two, he was pacing his apartment and impulsively holding down the button on his phone to speed-dial Teddy – while not thinking about how he had a button on his phone to speed-dial Teddy with.

"Do you want to come over and talk about our cross-exams for tomorrow?" he asked as soon as Teddy picked up, before anyone had a chance to say hello.

Teddy laughed in a perplexed way and said, "What?"

There was nothing judgmental about the way he said it, but Billy's frequently AWOL better judgment caught up at about the same time, and he winced at his reflection in his TV screen.

"Crap, sorry," he said. "It's Sunday. You're probably doing, like, life things."

"No, no, I can come over," Teddy said.

And forty-five minutes of weekend traffic later, he was there with his box of files under one arm. It occurred to Billy that he, maybe, should've taken a shower in the intervening period but then showers seemed like the sort of thing that people would take if they were hoping to impress their hopelessly good-looking junior associates with their own good looks. If Teddy was interested in him – and mildly metaphorical conversations about estate litigation aside, that was still only a hypothesis – Billy thought it was probably nothing to do with his looks, since Teddy knew what he looked like with couch hair.

"I figured we could start with Martinez and move up the chain of command," Teddy said.

"Yes," said Billy. "Your thoughts are good thoughts."

They spread their things out in the living room, which given the amount of paperwork a case this big generated meant that one chair, Billy's coffee table and a good portion of the floor ended up being taken up by papers. They ran through the variable lines of attack – ask B if he says Y but ask C if he says X instead – and laid out their information goals on unlined paper which Teddy colour-coded in highlighter because he was a visual learner. They formulated introductory questions and discussed what question might be the question too far, the one that would give them an answer that undid everything that came before it.

By evening, Billy's living room was tinted slightly orange, and they were eating a dinner of barbecue chips and beer because Billy chose to stock his fridge like he was still in college.

"You know," said Teddy, casually, "I think you think I have more of a life than I actually do."

Billy had never considered this at all, maybe because Teddy, charming and sociable, seemed like someone who would have a life and because people were generally not supposed to be awkward misanthropes like Billy.

"I talk to my goldfish," said Billy, squinting at him in suspicion.

Teddy gave him a smile that seemed sad. "I don't even have goldfish," he said.

Billy sucked on his teeth and then reached over and patted Teddy on his knee. "You could have mine, but I warn you: he has some DSM-IV grade issues going on. I think he watches me when I sleep."

Teddy snorted and then he laughed, the sadness disappearing. Billy sat back, victorious.

---

There was an email waiting in his inbox from Cassie when he stopped into the office briefly on Monday to get his trial tie.

You owe me dinner, it said. Tell your brother it's dropped, but I'm prosecuting the next illegal search just for fun. Say hi to Jonas. – C.

You're a better person than all of us, Billy wrote back in enough of a flurry that he didn't even wrinkle his nose at the hyperbole.

Teddy met him in the elevator, flashed him a thumbs up, and then reached out with one hand to flatten the back of Billy's hair. It made the skin along Billy's neck prickle, and Teddy stared at his ear just a little too long. They were coming to a point, Billy thought, where it would be hard to pretend like there wasn't a pattern to the things that were happening here. But it was a court day, and you didn't think about things like that on the morning of a court day, so Billy didn't.

The cross-exams were smooth and uneventful. Von Doom kept smiling across the floor at them, fully aware of what an annoyance it was to try to rebut a case which essentially began and ended with "Your honour, the plaintiff has not met his burden."

After the last defence witness was excused, Judge Rogers looked at the clock and then called a short recess to deliberate. They filed out into the hall, and Teddy leaned against the beige stone wall while Billy paced back and forth in front of the water fountain.

"Is there anything worse than losing a certification when you know you can win the actual lawsuit?" he asked.

Teddy raised his eyebrows, thought about it, and then said, "World hunger. World hunger is probably worse."

Billy stopped pacing so that he could elbow Teddy in the ribs, which, given how Teddy smiled at him after, was probably what he was hoping to accomplish.

---

They won, in the end. Judge Rogers ruled that the defence's proposed definition would unduly narrow the class by excluding individuals who would otherwise benefit from the resolution of the common issue, ie. whether the fire had been caused by the MTA's negligence.

Billy felt his heart rate slow as schedules were checked and initial trial dates set. Teddy grinned at him as they packed up their things, and Billy grinned back.

"I'll see you at trial," Von Doom said as they all walked out together.

"Yeah," agreed Teddy, "and you should probably know we have the inspection reports." He smiled perfectly, but his eyes were gleefully vicious. "See you then."

---

Billy did not go back to his office. He let Teddy steer them back to their office building but once in the door of the firm, he took a straight line past the copier and around the paralegals to Kate's office where he shut the door, collapsed on the couch, and fell asleep.

It was the blissful, catatonic sleep of victory.

He only woke up much later, when the sky outside was dark, because something soft dropped on his head. He groped at it blindly and only then realized that he hadn't even bothered to fetch his pillow from his office and that was what was now sitting on his head.

He pushed it off and looked up at Teddy who was leaning against Kate's desk watching him with a speculative expression on his face and a glass in his hand.

"What is your face," Billy said articulately.

"You fell asleep before the celebration booze happened," Teddy told him, raising the glass to demonstrate. "I saved you some."

Billy rubbed his face with his hand. Teddy, sensing that Billy was not yet at the stage where he could do words, crossed the floor and sat on the edge of the couch near Billy's knees, offering the glass. It smelled like the Spanish brandy that Eli broke out when people actually did good jobs and he wasn't just being polite.

"Billy," said Teddy, and there was something anxious in the way he said it and in the set of his mouth, "can you tell me if I'm misreading this? Because I really don't know if I can handle misreading this."

They were lawyers. There were Professional Codes of Conduct. HR probably had all sorts of policy manuals on how things like this were supposed to be handled. HR would probably want him to take some kind of personality test to make sure he wasn't skeezy and taking advantage of innocent, beautiful junior associates.

But when you spent Saturdays coming into work and Sundays wishing you could come into work, when you went home to your sociopathic goldfish and your DVD collection, when two equity partners at your firm were already dating, and you were well on your way to winning the biggest class action your firm had had in a decade, none of that seemed so important.

Teddy's tie was blue, and Billy made an uncoordinated grab at it and reeled him in until their mouths were pressed against each other. Teddy tasted like Eli's good Spanish brandy, and Billy thought inanely that this was the best way to have your celebration booze, but he wasn't going to tell anyone so that he could keep it all to himself.

When he pulled back, Teddy looked pink and alarmed. Crap, Billy thought, wondering if he'd misread things, trying frantically to think back to that one lecture on sexual harassment in the workplace he'd attended to make up his professional development hours.

But then Teddy's tongue flicked out over his lower lip, and the corner of his mouth curled up.

"I need to stand up," he said, "and put this drink on the desk because Kate will kill me if I spill it. But I will be right back."

"Right," said Billy.

He watched as Teddy did, indeed, get up and put the drink safely on a coaster and then he watched as Teddy came back and pushed him up against the arm of the couch and bit at Billy's throat until Billy put both his hands in Teddy's hair and pulled him up and licked into his mouth.

---

Tommy called later, somewhere during the cab ride back to Billy's apartment. Billy was busy slipping his fingers between the buttons of Teddy's shirt, catching a brief, warm whisper of skin, and generally scandalizing their cab driver. He let it go to voicemail.

Eli called when they were taking their shoes off in the front hall, and Billy agonized about answering that one until Teddy plucked the phone out of his hands and backed him up against the wall. Billy grabbed at Teddy's belt to pull him forward and sucked on Teddy's tongue and didn't much care where his cellphone ended up after that.

Billy was pushy. He knew that. It was a flaw. But pushing Teddy around was great because Teddy was big enough that it shouldn't have worked, but he let Billy and so it did. When the back of Teddy's calves hit the bed, he sat down and wrapped his hands around Billy's hips and then ran them up Billy's back, making his shirt bunch.

"We need to get undressed," Billy said.

"You make a convincing argument, counsellor," Teddy replied, raising an eyebrow and then brushing his nose against the exposed rise of Billy's hip.

Billy snorted and sank into Teddy's lap and kissed him quiet, all along his lower lip and his jaw, over his collarbones and fingertips, because if he were the kind of person to do this more often, he would have rules about making lawyer jokes in bed.

Kate called somewhere around midnight, but Billy's forehead was pressed to the crook of Teddy's neck, and Teddy was sucking on two of his fingers, spreading them apart with the point of his tongue, and Billy didn't even hear the phone ring.

---

"You missed the celebration booze," Eli noted the next morning, leaning in the doorway and politely not mentioning how the left side of Billy's throat made him look like he'd spent the night necking like a teenager. Which was accurate, but Eli was always classier than that, and Billy had never been more grateful.

"Next time," he promised, and Eli raised his eyebrows in a way that elegantly implied that Billy's grin was verging on the demented before nodding and heading back to his office.

Billy spun in his chair and bit at his thumb and when he'd made a full circle back to looking at the door to his office, Teddy was standing there, smiling, in the shirt they had only barely managed to unwrinkle between coffee and raisin bran that morning.

"I had couch hair all last night, and you never said anything," Billy said.

Teddy tipped his head to one side in acknowledgement of this point and smiled wider. "I've grown weirdly attached to it," he said.

"Okay," said Billy, thinking about HR policy manuals and how there were still so many hours in the day before he could take Teddy home and peel that shirt off him again.

"Got an email from Von Doom's office." Teddy pulled out his Blackberry and pretended to scroll through it. "They're admitting liability."

"Hah," said Billy.

And then: "Okay."

And then: "We better draft some remedy submissions."

"Yup," Teddy said and came in and took his seat.

riko @ 2011-08-04T16:03:00

2011-08-04T20:03:43Z

It's August! Which means, I guess, time for me to do a post to make sure that I post at least once a month, and no one has to worry that I've suddenly disappeared.

✣ I am mired in the world of academic writing and publishing now. In addition to the book I'm co-authoring, I've also taken on a personal article I want to write and get published before I start my articling position next year, and research for that article has now landed me a guest lecture in November at my old law school. TERRIFYING. That is the future, though, and for now I am stuck writing a book outline/marketing overview for the publisher, and it is the most painful, tooth-pulling experience ever.

✣ In fanfic writing news, I am having this problem where I keep stalling out at 7,000 words? I literally have four stories in the works at or just past 7,000 words but then for some reason my mind goes blank.

✣ Despite this I am considering signing up for the second round of the Inception Big Bang? Because there is a terrible historical AU that is calling to me?

✣ Shop shop shop. Cook cook cook. I've continued on with my cookbook project as mentioned last month, and I'm completely amazed by how much my knife skills have improved in a really short time? Also I am an ace stir-frier now.

✣ Watched Game of Throne, loved it. Devoured my way through the first three books in the series. Am now slogging through Feast because I do not give a fig about 98% of these POV characters.

[ Minor ASOIAF spoilers in comments! Read at your own discretion! ]

riko @ 2011-07-10T15:25:00

2011-07-10T19:25:08Z

It's sort of weird to be semi-employed (totally in charge of my own schedule, working from home) with the promise of a proper, well-paying job in a year because I feel like I have a lot of time to pursue my own projects, which I've never been properly able to do for the last... 12 years, at least.

One thing I've always liked the idea of doing is making a real attempt to cook through a lot of a single cookbook. And so last week, I thought to myself "Why the heck not?" and now every Wednesday for the next year at least, I'm going to be trying to prepare a meal out of Gloria Bley Miller's Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook.

I started last Wednesday with a combo of chicken velvet and lettuce soup, tea eggs, stir-fried sesame cucumber, and rice, and it was a really good start! In addition to actually making this stuff, I'm trying to put a little more effort into parts of cooking that I've always been a little lax about, ie. presentation, knife skills.

All three of the main dishes (so not rice, the other stuff) were really tasty. My personal favourite was the soup, but there were some very nice compliments for the cucumber too (even if some people kept thinking they were eating celery -- which it does end up looking a lot like!).

The tea eggs were good but not strongly tea-flavoured so if I do them again, I'll probably try one of the suggested variations, which is to leave them soaking in the tea liquid overnight. They were also the most time-consuming recipe, but none of the recipes were really hard and if you do the eggs the night before and leave to sit, even that's not impossible as an after-dinner-eat.

So, yeah, good start! Next week is pork and more cucumbers and maybe a little seafood. Another couple of skills I'm trying to practice are 1) planning meals in advance so I'm not staring at the fridge an hour before I want to eat wondering what I can make and 2) balancing a meal not just based on food groups but on timing/amount of work. I've been really bad about making multiple dishes all requiring last minute attention i the past, and I haha probably shouldn't do that anymore if I can help it.

riko @ 2011-06-29T09:13:00

2011-06-29T13:13:23Z

ARTICLING POSITION GET

And with, literally, my dream firm too. So finally that year and a half odyssey of non-stop stress is over. And then I stole tussah and went to Costa Rica for ten days. I AM REALLY BAD AT UPDATING LJ RECENTLY HAVE YOU NOTICED? But, yes, it was amazing amazing, and I am now chilling in the airport to go home and mourning my tussahless state. Pictures when my camera cable isn't in my checked baggage.

I will begin checking what I missed on my flist, but feel free to draw my attention to anything I need to see immediately! :]

riko @ 2011-05-08T16:21:00

2011-05-08T20:21:59Z

LAVINIA
by ursula k. le guin

While on one level I want to say that I enjoyed Lavinia a lot, at the same time it is an odd little book that I can't really see having been published if it wasn't someone like Ursula Le Guin who wanted to write and get it published. It's essentially fanfiction, isn't it? The kind of "Let's fill in the holes of the original canon and/or explore this character who got sidelined in the original canon" thing that fanfic writers so often do, and the way Lavinia reads, I could totally see it being the fill for a Yuletide request for the Aeniad.

Because, okay, Lavinia, unsurprisingly, is the story of Lavinia, the Latin princess who Aeneas fights to win the right to marry in the later bits of Virgil's Aeniad. Le Guin very obviously set out to fill in the life of this woman who got all of a line in the original work and to make her more of a self-possessed, self-directed individual and not, in the immortal words of Princess Jasmine, a prize to be won.

It's a book concept that I admire very much and obviously Ursula Le Guin has been doing this a long time and acquits herself pretty damn well. Her picture of Latin culture is extremely interesting. Her ability to sit the story solidly in its historical context without getting too exposition-y and making Lavinia a strong-willed protagonist without triggering the LOL ANACHRONISM part of my brain is a definite accomplishment.

But it's weird nonetheless because the story is still all about Aeneas. That's where the entire first 2/3s of the book is leading, the motivating force that gives meaning to the list of random day-to-day life for Lavinia. And then when Aeneas drops out of the book again, and there's still about a third left to go, the book loses all of its motivation and just kind of flails about in all directions until it reaches an end. In telling Lavinia's story, obviously you can't stop the story because the male motivating factor stops because that would defeat the whole purpose, but it's weird nonetheless when the story's actual forward-moving action is still all wrapped up in the choices of men, and Lavinia still doesn't have much to do but sit around and react and mostly seems to drift without men to push her in particular directions. I'm not necessarily against that because let's not sugar coat the ancient world, but it does make the last third of the book strangely purposeless and unconnected, and I don't get much of a sense that Le Guin realizes any of this?

So, I guess what I'm saying is A+ for effort, Bish for actual result. Ultimately I think if this was a Yuletide story, it might have actually done better because a lower word count would have helped; the book needs more focus, essentially, and stricter editing. There's also some strange meta things going on within the book (Lavinia speaks with Virgil and is aware that she's fictional in part?) and to be honest, while I liked that idea too, I feel like it belonged in a different book entirely. So maybe what I'm really saying is that Le Guin needed to commit more fully to any of the ideas she poked at in this book but all she seemed really interested in doing was just the poking. Still! Not a bad read!

This book is in first person, but it kind of had to be, I guess.

Favourite Part: Definitely some of the early descriptions of life in Lavinia's kingdom, and the weird sense of anticipation/dread that the book builds up regarding Aeneas's coming.

Excerpt:

When my son was a boy the forests were safer for him than the pagus fields. But when I was a girl I walked the open hillsides and the wilderness paths to Albunea with no companion but Maruna. Sometimes she accompanied me all the way, sometimes she stayed the night with a woodcutter's family at the edge of the forest while I went alone to the sacred glade. We could do this because the peace my father had brought to Latium was real and durable. In that peace, little children could watch the cattle, shepherds could let their flocks wander in the summer pastures with no risk of theft, women and girls need not go guarded or in bands but could walk without fear on any path of Latium. Even in the true wild where there were no paths we were afraid of wolf and boar, not man. Because this order had held all my life as a girl, I thought it was the way the world had always been and would be. I had not learned how peace galls men, how they gather impatient rage against it and make certain it will be broken and give way to battle, slaughter, rape, and waste. Of all the greater powers the one I fear most is the one I cannot worship, the one who walks the boundary, the one who sets the ram on the ewe, and the bull on the heifer, and the sword in the farmer's hand: Mavors, Marmor, Mars.

riko @ 2011-04-25T19:37:00

2011-04-25T23:36:48Z

Man, Canadian politics, huh? When did it get all interesting and stuff? I am so proud of (and amused by) my hippie socialist party right now, guys. I could cry.

riko @ 2011-04-17T22:29:00

2011-04-18T02:29:25Z

Once upon a time, I put together a mix for my YA-loving friends of the time. And then some more time passed, and I made another. And then I looked back and decided that there were some songs on the first one I really didn't like and some on the second that were really good. And then I decided it might be a good idea to smush the two together and put the thing up where other people could benefit. And then I got distracted for a very long time. And then I got around to doing it. Enjoy!

(1) INGRID MICHAELSON - Breakable
we are just breakable, breakable, breakable girls and boys
Not only is this song appropriate for the sheer number of broken bones I imagine the team sustains, I like it's playful/not so serious take on vulnerability. BECAUSE I LIKE BIG THEMES IN MY SUPERHERO HEROICS. We knew that about me already!

(2) PONY UP - The Truth About Cats and Dogs (Is That They Die)
crawl out the window / make my way down the brick wall / you don't have to be there / to catch me, i won't fall.
I love Pony Up as a band for giving that teenager-y feeling. They always manage to be touching and funny and pretty while maintaining an inherent level of awkwardness that is so, so, so being sixteen but pretending to be an adult.

(3) KATIE TODD BAND - In and Around
end in a day / all can be lost and all can be found / in a day.
Katie Todd seriously writes the most badassly appropriate fight songs while not losing the level of lightheartedness that makes them super appropriate for teenagers taking on the world.

(4) THE STILLS - Being Here
one for every broken bone / and a hundred for all the years.
Who wants to bet that this is just here because the first few times I heard the song I misheard the chorus as "being heroes, being here"?

(5) KILL HANNAH - Unwanted
i'm dedicating this / to the ones who don't fit in / are you hearing this?
I always feel kind of dumb relating this song to Young Avengers since it's sort of a temper tantrum in musical form ~~and arguably more Runaways-appropriate~~ but I love the fact that the Young Avengers are prepared to just say fuckit and ignore their elders when the adults are being morons and making a mess of everything. So here's to that.

(6) THE SUBWAYS - Always Tomorrow
would you die for your good friends? / dead days, bright nights, we can't forget.
If I were going to dedicate one song specifically to Tommy Shepherd, this would be it.

(7) THE MOONBABIES - Take Me to the Ballroom
cause if good means wrong / you can sing along / but if good means right / i will end this fight.

(8) LEEROY STAGGER - Satellite
there's a window / revealing something's wrong / i don't know superheroes / and all i've got is a song.
Hnnn. The song without which this mix would not exist. This is Young Avengers to me.

(9) BODIES OF WATER - I Guess We'll Forget the Sound, I Guess, I Guess
before the day that i first touched your face / oh, the roar of these things filled my ears.
POST-TRAUMATIC EVENT MAKE-OUT SONG. I mean, wait, what?

(10) DOVEMAN - Castles
we're getting older / one day we'll learn to say goodbye / and let time fly.

(11) TEGAN & SARA - Nineteen
i felt you in my life before i ever thought to.
Oh, how I wish this wasn't a break-up song. Because ignoring that part, this song is just quintessentially what it feels like to be a teenager to me.

(12) NADA SURF - Always Love
i want to know what it'd be like / to aim so high above / any card that you've been dealt.
Roll the end credits, folks.

(BONUS) THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS - Jessica Numbers
let's fall / look where we land / just write the answer on my hand.
Hahaha, I am self-indulgent and terrible. If you don't know why this song is here, uh, QUICK LOOK OVER THERE.

.ZIP

riko @ 2011-03-04T13:54:00

2011-03-04T18:54:02Z

It is unnecessary to pinpoint a particular group that precisely corresponds to the claimant group except for the personal characteristic or characteristics alleged to ground the discrimination. Provided that the claimant establishes a distinction based on one or more enumerated or analogous grounds, the claim should proceed to the second step of the analysis. This provides the flexibility required to accommodate claims based on intersecting grounds of discrimination. It also avoids the problem of eliminating claims at the outset because no precisely corresponding group can be posited.

- Withler v. Canada (Attorney General), 2011 SCC 12

Oh, Withler. I have been waiting months and months and months for you and with one hand you grant my fondest wishes by finally getting rid of the goddamn mirror comparator thing and then with the other, you continue to pretend that Auton wasn't a travesty (and that Hodge wasn't a travesty and that Gosselin wasn't a travesty and that Law wasn't a travesty ad infinitum.)

Also I still don't even know what Kapp means so good job clearing that up. I guess we'll be waiting for the next decision then? Sure!

riko @ 2011-02-23T19:35:00

2011-02-24T00:35:42Z

I love how, unfailingly, my preparation for job interviews goes something like this:

1) Talk to lots of people who have interviewed successfully with the same employer to get a sense of what kind of interview vibe/focus to prepare for (ie. is it heavily substantive? will they just want to talk about my hobbies or the weather?);

2) Prepare on the basis of the information received from these talks; and

3) Go to the interview and have it be the exact opposite of everything I was told.

LE SIGH. I have no clue how that went, so I am returning to the wait and see game.

riko @ 2011-02-15T17:14:00

2011-02-15T22:14:21Z

✣ Okay, I was going to do a generic update on my life post but then I got a phone call for an interview for an AMAZING job so my day has been a little ajksndkjsagb rather than the orderly GET STUFF DONE-a-thon that I had planned. Next Wednesday! Cross your fingers for me, everyone!

✣ So basically, my life has narrowed down to school, school, school, work, volunteering, job applications, and spamming anyone who stands near me for too long with pictures of Tom Hardy. I have a thing. And also no regrets.

✣ Oh! Actual thing for... anyone... who uses my icons, I guess? I'm going to be cancelling my webspace in the foreseeable future because I don't really use it much. I'll be saving icons back to, oh, my Avatar the Last Airbender stuff, probably, and re-uploading somewhere else. But anything else you want (why??), save now.

✣ Dinner tonight: Rice, cucumber sambal, and salmon in tamarind sauce. YUM (hopefully).

✣ Also tonight: The Good Wife, aka. the show of my heart. I intend to do a picspam or something of this show to express my flail properly, but I have the sneaking suspicion that it will turn into a mess of my joy over what this season is doing with Cary if I'm not careful.

And that's it for now! I swear there was more to be said (book reviews? stuff about mass effect? music? who knows!), but I suppose this is why I ought to post more often regardless how short and stupid because otherwise I forget all about the things I actually want to say. /MAKES RESOLUTION.

riko @ 2011-01-27T22:59:00

2011-01-28T03:59:15Z

OH MY GOD necklaces THE FUCKING REAPER IFF HOW COULD YOU NOT WARN ME AAAAAAA

riko @ 2011-01-18T12:24:00

2011-01-18T17:24:14Z

✣ I got a haircut on the weekend, and now my hair is shorter than it has been since Grade 10. I can't decide whether it is super cute or whether it makes me look like a fat boy, which wasn't what I was aiming for. DECISIONS DECISIONS.

✣ My final grade from the fall term came in today, and my average is content. The exam that literally made me cry/shake because it was so difficult and left my wrist aching for days afterward and which I only barely managed to finish in the alloted time was (one of) my (two) best mark(s). Considering my professor, I am not actually that surprised by this. He is sort of a sadist when it comes to exams, and my entire class has PTSD now thanks to that monster.

✣ Chicken wonton and tortilla soup tonight! If the chicken... actually... thaws in time...

ETA: ✣ I participated in this little research project by an Australian university student back in November or something and got a nice $50 Amazon(.com unfortunately) credit out of it. Took a while to decide what to do with it but I finally used it on the first season of the Good Wife, and it has arrived! Best motivation to finish my word count for the day possible.

Directed Research Project

3600 / 7500

riko @ 2011-01-10T10:30:00

2011-01-10T15:30:46Z

Things Which Are Awesome: Learning you have two days more than you thought you did for your directed research project.

Things Which Are Bad For Your Study Ethic: Learning you have two days more than you thought you did for your directed research project.

riko @ 2011-01-08T15:56:00

2011-01-08T20:56:42Z

Snowy, snowy Saturday! Time to sit on my butt, make a bunch of icons, and block some knitting.

73x Morning Glories: Issues 1-5

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Table created with accio.nu's icon table(less) generator

riko @ 2011-01-02T16:53:00

2011-01-02T21:54:00Z

Hello, flist! Why yes, I have survived the holidays more or less in one piece. It was touch-and-go there for a while due to surprise relatives and in particular my 90+ year-old grandmother coming to stay for a while. But overall, I've had a pleasant week and a bit. I hope you guys all have too!

Special notes:

✣ ATTI, I got your card and package and was super delighted by both. You are seriously the sweetest thing ever. What is that all about?

✣ I went and saw The King's Speech on New Year's Eve and enjoyed it a lot. I've always found that particular period of Royal scandal interesting, but everything I've ever read about it has always focused on the David Edward and Wallace Simpson aspect of things, with George VI as a footnote more often than not. I was very pleased to see the movie twist it around. How perfectly cast was Guy Pearce (and everyone else too but seriously Guy Pearce)?

✣ And then I basically listened to DJ Earworm's 2010 mash-up until midnight. Which I have had stuck in my head since. Good times.

✣ I now officially have a word file saved in my writing folder entitled "SKRULL PRESIDENT.docx". Consider yourselves all forewarned.

✣ My little sister gave me Mass Effect 2 for Christmas, and I was enjoying the heck out of it until my desktop computer decided to sputter and die. So now I'm in the market for a new desktop. Still! Mass Effect 2! Like the Seven Samurai but in space! I'm liking it so much more than the first one so far, and the first one is one of my favourite games of all time.

✣ I felt like I had more to say, but hmmm I guess not. Tomorrow I will try to get my butt back into shape for going back to normal life. Tonight, I think I will drink lots of wine, write more SKRULL PRESIDENT (hence the compulsory drinking first), and watch a terrible movie.

A big ♥ to all you guys!

i probably need an icon now fml

2010-12-01T23:44:04Z

It seems like lots of Kurt/Blaine fans, which I guess I loosely consider myself, are unhappy about last night! I really don't understand why! Personally, I was thrilled.

I mean, okay, Dalton Academy as Gay Hogwarts was a nice bit of fanon in its own way, as was Blaine as Gay Buddha. But complexity! Depth! Recognition that high school is messy and unpleasant no matter where you go for it! These are good things! These are, in fact, things I would not expect Glee to be capable of!

See, I was actually sort of worried about this plotline and the potential there that Glee was going to act like declaring a zero-tolerance bullying policy was some sort of magic cure-all that suddenly made teenagers reasonable, not cruel and infinitely welcoming of all and any difference. Because that's stupid and sort of belittles the point they were trying to make with the entire bullying plotline by making it just the McKinley was an evil high school and not that the problem is endemic to society.

So the idea that Dalton manages to be peaceful by supressing any differences? By forcing everyone into the mushy middle "normal" and drawing away from people who try to stand out? Very cool. And the fact that Blaine is someone who has bought into that makes him a way more interesting character than before and says some interesting things about the fact that his whole "courage" encouragement came on the heels of the confession that he wasn't prepared to act on his own advice when he was the one being bullied. For me, this is not an out of character revelation at all. Instead, it gives a twist on the character that moves him from someone I liked mostly because he was Darren Criss to someone I actually want to know more about on his own.

And also I think it's very clever for Glee to represent Dalton Academy with a Glee club that DOES specialize in harmony and a cappella and music that generally emphasizes the group over the individual, where standing out runs against the point of the actual kind of music they do. Uh, Blaine's solos aside.

Anyway, BLAH BLAH. To sum up: GLEE STOP BEING CLEVER YOU ARE GETTING MY HOPES UP AND I KNOW YOU WILL CRUSH THEM. PROBABLY NEXT WEEK. Alternately, hurry up and give me more about Blaine to work with. I have a fic I want to write.