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I was semi-reliably informed today that Chicago is "finally hip". We've pulled up alongside New York City, apparently because in the last ten years or so we've become shinier (in reality, we are shinier because we wanted the Olympics, I think, and it hasn't worn off yet. But that doesn't stop me from enjoying it! I also think Rahm will have to maintain the shine for a little while, at least, or risk looking like a bad mayor). Also we're located on a pretty lake, we've run the midwest out of trees (and parks out of names--we've been numbering them lately), and we finally found a solution to the "no street vendors" issue*.
Aside from my hipster worries about people coming and upsetting the delicate balance of "not terrible" the city has achieved in a the last couple of years... it's kind of right. Since about 2008 we've gone from an odd grey little city with a mob history that suddenly found itself politically relevant to one that suddenly had free concerts nearly every night of the week**, that was courting designers and start-ups, that suddenly has movies and tv shows filmed in it, that was home to recent juggernaut Groupon***... etc etc.****
* Okay, this is seriously the most amusing thing in Chicago right now. We are currently plagued by cupcake trucks. Sometime around August or so, last summer, the city officially approved the sale of "prepackaged" food from trucks on the streets (still no food prep on the go). There'd been one food truck already in the city, that managed to get itself licensed as a restaurant due to a bit of a fluke (really, the best sort), but other than a few illicit outfits that was it for street food in Chicago (and said food truck, All Fired Up, pretty much hit bars after midnight). Now, however, I cannot leave work for lunch without tripping over lines for Flirty Cupcakes or Sprinkles or any number of other recent additions to the cupcake van business. There's also a truck that sells nothing but macaroni and cheese, and one that sells nothing but meatballs. I mean, I know of people that are stunned that we manage to sustain a business that serves nothing but popcorn, but this is a whole new level of food single-mindedness. (And I love it. A part of me wants very, very badly to open a food truck. And, now that I've heard that Kitchen Chicago is how some people do it... I'm very tempted (now that we're equal with NYC) to get up early, make a giant batch of bagels, find someone to make some artisanal cream cheese, package them together, and then sell them off the back of my bike. I mean, really, what is a city without a bagel vendor in the morning? And I'd probably get points for being crazy. (And if I do this soon, people are more likely to notice, since there's only the plague of cupcake vans and a handful of actual food vans in the city right now. This summer, I imagine, will be a different story.) Oh! And one other perk to the food van thing! It's also been picked up by farmers. This morning, I stopped by C & D Farms' van to get some bacon and fresh eggs. It was parked not more than three blocks up the street from me. On one hand: I'm pretty sure you don't get much more ridiculous yuppie-hipster-locavore than that and everyone within 50 yards is probably shaking their heads and rolling their eyes. On the other: The inevitable two dollar surcharge for letting animals roam free goes directly to someone who knows the animals personally (and, also, who remembers her customers and teases me for being able to balance my bike while using both hands to load eggs and bacon into my already-overfull bag. There's something quite nice about that. It reminds me of the farmstands at home, even if it is on four wheels and was driven over from Indiana).******
** Number one reason I am looking forward to it being warm again. There have been rumblings that New Music Mondays and the other free concerts at Millennium Park might be ending this year, and if they do... I am going to be so sad. I'm sure it's not cheap for the city, but it really makes every single thing about the city at least 70% more tolerable. Even if things like the She & Him show last year sometimes make it entirely impossible to find a place to lock your bike up in the loop.
*** Still haven't hired me and are doubtlessly luring more helpless writers into the city, further saturating the market for strange jokes, puns, and general surreal copy. Why must you ruin everything, Groupon?!
**** There's actually a part of me that wonders if I've just figured out how to use the city properly, but that article does seem to present some evidence that it's not just me, and the city was suckier when I first came here back in 2003... I worry when I see articles like this, though, because I'm used to reading them after the fun part is over, and it makes me feel like Chicago is already done being "hip" and by summer we'll be overrun by people who also want to be "hip" (who will then encounter next winter and go home, provided they're not from NYC or something, since at least we're better at dealing with snow). Plus there are still things like this and I mean... Minneapolis, Madison, Cleveland (Heights), but no theatre in Chicago can bother? Psh.
****** Yes, actually, all I really wanted to write about were the food trucks, but I kind of got distracted.
Aside from my hipster worries about people coming and upsetting the delicate balance of "not terrible" the city has achieved in a the last couple of years... it's kind of right. Since about 2008 we've gone from an odd grey little city with a mob history that suddenly found itself politically relevant to one that suddenly had free concerts nearly every night of the week**, that was courting designers and start-ups, that suddenly has movies and tv shows filmed in it, that was home to recent juggernaut Groupon***... etc etc.****
* Okay, this is seriously the most amusing thing in Chicago right now. We are currently plagued by cupcake trucks. Sometime around August or so, last summer, the city officially approved the sale of "prepackaged" food from trucks on the streets (still no food prep on the go). There'd been one food truck already in the city, that managed to get itself licensed as a restaurant due to a bit of a fluke (really, the best sort), but other than a few illicit outfits that was it for street food in Chicago (and said food truck, All Fired Up, pretty much hit bars after midnight). Now, however, I cannot leave work for lunch without tripping over lines for Flirty Cupcakes or Sprinkles or any number of other recent additions to the cupcake van business. There's also a truck that sells nothing but macaroni and cheese, and one that sells nothing but meatballs. I mean, I know of people that are stunned that we manage to sustain a business that serves nothing but popcorn, but this is a whole new level of food single-mindedness. (And I love it. A part of me wants very, very badly to open a food truck. And, now that I've heard that Kitchen Chicago is how some people do it... I'm very tempted (now that we're equal with NYC) to get up early, make a giant batch of bagels, find someone to make some artisanal cream cheese, package them together, and then sell them off the back of my bike. I mean, really, what is a city without a bagel vendor in the morning? And I'd probably get points for being crazy. (And if I do this soon, people are more likely to notice, since there's only the plague of cupcake vans and a handful of actual food vans in the city right now. This summer, I imagine, will be a different story.) Oh! And one other perk to the food van thing! It's also been picked up by farmers. This morning, I stopped by C & D Farms' van to get some bacon and fresh eggs. It was parked not more than three blocks up the street from me. On one hand: I'm pretty sure you don't get much more ridiculous yuppie-hipster-locavore than that and everyone within 50 yards is probably shaking their heads and rolling their eyes. On the other: The inevitable two dollar surcharge for letting animals roam free goes directly to someone who knows the animals personally (and, also, who remembers her customers and teases me for being able to balance my bike while using both hands to load eggs and bacon into my already-overfull bag. There's something quite nice about that. It reminds me of the farmstands at home, even if it is on four wheels and was driven over from Indiana).******
** Number one reason I am looking forward to it being warm again. There have been rumblings that New Music Mondays and the other free concerts at Millennium Park might be ending this year, and if they do... I am going to be so sad. I'm sure it's not cheap for the city, but it really makes every single thing about the city at least 70% more tolerable. Even if things like the She & Him show last year sometimes make it entirely impossible to find a place to lock your bike up in the loop.
*** Still haven't hired me and are doubtlessly luring more helpless writers into the city, further saturating the market for strange jokes, puns, and general surreal copy. Why must you ruin everything, Groupon?!
**** There's actually a part of me that wonders if I've just figured out how to use the city properly, but that article does seem to present some evidence that it's not just me, and the city was suckier when I first came here back in 2003... I worry when I see articles like this, though, because I'm used to reading them after the fun part is over, and it makes me feel like Chicago is already done being "hip" and by summer we'll be overrun by people who also want to be "hip" (who will then encounter next winter and go home, provided they're not from NYC or something, since at least we're better at dealing with snow). Plus there are still things like this and I mean... Minneapolis, Madison, Cleveland (Heights), but no theatre in Chicago can bother? Psh.
****** Yes, actually, all I really wanted to write about were the food trucks, but I kind of got distracted.
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Also: I may be becoming an alcoholic. I had two glasses of wine tonight, and I can't tell if the first sentence of this post is at all coherent. Lo ciento!
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I think the first sentence is coherent, but most of my entries seem coherent to me despite the fact that they're massive rambling walls of text, so I've pretty much decided it's an entirely subjective issue. (-:
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Topic change!
Did you ever finish that space opera Sherlock fic you were writing?
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No, I haven't finished it... but I am still working on it. It's kind of what I poke at when I'm tired of the other things I'm writing, so it's coming along at a glacial pace.
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In other news: I am annoyed that not more people from my flist made prompts for
I also have about 400 words to go on a hard-boiled detective story I'm writing for an original fiction comm I belong to (which you should totally join btw!)
Umm..the end?
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I think there's a weird relationship between flisters and fests that they don't necessarily plan on participating in. I know I'm always hesitant to prompt if I don't plan on joining in, because then I feel extra guilty that I'm not writing something. I am, however, happy with a lot of the recent prompts, because I'm pretty sure I have two that I want to write now. It was looking kind of worrisome for a bit there with all those pairing prompts at the start. (I'm still debating whether I should take Rachel's The Wire prompt. It's actually something I've been trying to work out for the last five months or so, but I'm still not sure how to work Sherlock into the BPD, and writing the accents/dialects would actually be harder than the Firefly crossover I did (in which I completely sidestepped the issue).)
I've thought of joining that community, but I'm... very shy about original fiction, especially short original fiction. It'd probably be good for me, but someone's going to have to wean me off of my fifty million fanfic projects first. (-;
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I noticed that in the beginning, all of the pairing prompts! It's part of the reason I waited until the end to post my own prompts: I wanted to be able to fill in whatever gaps were left by other prompters. (Though in the end, we got a good amount of variation, which means I was free to be selfish and make a pile of Jim/Molly prompts.)
The biggest lack I saw was in het prompts; in the end, we received a decent amount of gen. Rachel's prompt seems tailor-made for you! (Just remember: I included drabbles/ficlets for a reason! There's no minimum word count you have to fill.)
I know I'm going to claim at least one prompt for fic, but I'm thinking of doing one or two more for icons or whatever. I've had TONS of trouble with my writing lately: getting inspired, and getting it done!
As for the original fiction comm: there's no requirement to post stories. At the least, I think you'd enjoy the weekly discussion posts about different aspects of writing. People there are very meta. ;) (You'd have immensely enjoyed the last discussion on music and writing. I brought up Hadestown, and the mod
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Pah, minimum word counts. I'm having a hard time trimming things down to reasonable length lately, and when I like an idea I tend to want to write as much of it as possible (which is really not the best idea most of the time. But at least I'm slowly learning to edit.
::pats:: I hate those writing slumps. You'll get out of it, though! I think I went the first three weeks of this month without writing much of anything, because I couldn't come up with anything that seemed interesting. I'm still in the "grateful the drought ended" stage, though. Plus I've gotten a lot more shameless about imperfect prose. I used to get hung up on a sentence or paragraph for weeks. But anyway: icon sets are cool too! Or fanmixes! I really want to see a fanmix turn up. I actually kind of forgot about the "fanmix" and "meta" options. Now I'm going to have to reread all the prompts with those things in mind, too.
You! Tempting me with the siren call of meta discussion about writing is a very fiendish thing to do.
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I find the idea that anybody would even consider it worthwhile to suck up to me to be kind of hilarious, so thank you for that! :P No, you should pick whatever prompts strike your fancy: I won't even be upset if no one picks any of my prompts! I'm just happy to have them out there, to balance the scales of justice as I deem necessary. (To be honest, beside you and me, I am anticipating a whole storm of Sherlock/John fic! Which is fine...it's what the people want!) ;)
I got the minimum word count and I got my story posted...though it turns out I had another 24 hours to finish. (Did you know there's no definitive defintion of 'midnight' that I can find? I've seen several websites list it as "both the first and last moment of each day", leave a big, gaping 24 hour discrepancy between legitimate interpretations of "Midnight, February 28". As an OCD sufferer and overall fan of clarity, how can I live my life knowing that this ambiguity is allowed to exist in the world?! And now you see why I set the deadline for prompting at
Ugh, this slump has lasted since the end of DECEMBER! Yes, I've written things I was obligated to write, but it's been murder and ANGST ANGST ANGST. Blah.
Anyway. Yes, I almost forgot about fanmixes, too! Definitely gonna have to do one of those. Though I'm not getting too attached to any of the prompts...I think for etiquette's sake, I should probably wait 'til the last day to claim my prompts. (Or at least wait a few days.)
Just know: if you're ever interested in joining, I can recommend you! :D
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Ah well, the Hades/Persephone prompt already got picked up, but I might sketch the idea I had out into something anyway. Though now I have extra space to take another prompt... maybe I'll do a Molly/Anthea In the Morgue fanmix (because goodness knows I can't write it).
I hate the "midnight" thing, too. I usually interpret it as 11:59 on that particular date, because I figure if you're attaching a date for a deadline, you're meant to give that entire day to finish, whether you're clear about it or not. (Then again, I'm also a proponent of "You want this in the afternoon? Everything until midnight is technically after noon.")
Blargh, since December is a long time. Maybe you've got too much going on at once and need a break? I can feel myself approaching that point (which is why I had to stop myself from taking a drabble bingo card for Team Mycroft, as interesting as it might be). If you need me to prod you along on anything, though, let me know. And I promise I will get back to you on the meter in those stanzas. (I've been staring at them for days now, and the main lesson I've learned is that I'm still terrible with meter, because the parts that don't work for me are things that I can't actually quantify.)
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Yes! You should do a Molly/Anthea in the morgue mix, and I will write the fic!!! I really loved that prompt when I saw it come up, and no one has claimed any femslash yet. (You know me: I'm all about representation!) I know you won't read it if I make it dirty, but...well, yeah, there's no way to finish that sentence! :P
Ah well, the Hades/Persephone prompt already got picked up, but I might sketch the idea I had out into something anyway.
A ficlet? A drabble perhaps? :D
Hmm, fandoms that aren't slashy...Doctor Who isn't overly slashy. (Though there is a metric ton of Doctor/Master fic, there is easily ten times that amount of Doctor/Rose fic.)
My brain is way too literal to handle this midnight paradox. DEATH TO AMBIGUITY! Join my Crusade! :P
I am SO JEALOUS that Team Mycroft is playing GAMES! I can't get Team Sherlock to do SHIT. NO FAIR! /temper tantrum
I know I need a break. But I keep signing up for stuff. *sigh*
The poem is going ALL RIGHT: I know I'll be able to finish it, at least. I don't need a foot by foot critique of the meter: just more of an overall opinion on whether it works or not. Saying, "This doesn't work for me, but I have no idea why!" is not a problem.
I need to get working on the rest of the poem, though. Even though it's rough going, it's very satisfying when I get out a couple of lines I like!
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Hi there! You must be cool. You know
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LOVELY TO MEET YOU, TOO! (Now that I am sober and in a semi-lucid state of mind. :P)
So...where did YOU meet the illustrious
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Relevant RPing icon is relevant
Hahahahahahahahahaha... ^_^;; we were in the crack!FMA rp
ALSO I love your Python icons! I've been meaning to get me some, especially of Holy Grail. That is my favorite movie ever of all time.
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I've used LJ since 2004, I think, but this journal was started last June. My first journal was me more or less ranting into the void. Now I do the same, but with memes and smutfic! Yay!
I came across someone else with a Python icon not long ago and then went kinda Python crazy! (Holy Grail is the best! I don't care if the other ones are "smarter!" :P) I'm pretty fickle with icons, and change mine around regularly.
So where do you fandom these days?
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I've only had this journal since 2008. I was only using my OMG Fullmetal Alchemist rp journals up until that point. ...But then the game finally ended in a horrific apocalypse, and I felt I should get my own journal to keep in touch with the friends I made there and poke around in comms with, etc.
Dude, yeah, Holy Grail is way better than their other movies! Way funnier, and far more quotable.
I Batfandom these days. I'm in several DC/Batman/Batfamily-related comms, where I get all the fanfic, fanart, scans, and general Batflailing I can possibly absorb, and I write fic, generally in the DC comics and Teen Titans animated universes.
I also Hawaii Five-0 fandom, much to my alarm and dismay. I DON'T KNOW HOW THIS HAPPENED. So many people I know were into it, so I watched a few episodes out of morbid curiosity, and then my friends were writing fic so I offered myself as a resource (I was born and raised in the Islands), and then I read some fanfic and then I JUST COULDN'T STOP. I've signed on to a H50 beta-reading community, and I've seen all the episodes and I NEED MORE and I've been reading fic and I even WROTE ONE MYSELF OH GOD
and I'm working on another one but it's a secret present for a friend shhhh don't tell!I don't know how my life has gone so wrong!! TT_TTI'm also active in the small but fabulous fandom for Jesse Hajicek's original gay fiction. And I read the occasional Inception, White Collar, or Sherlock fic, or whatever else interesting comes my way.
...You're in Sherlock fandom, clearly. ^_^;;
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I've heard lots of flail about Hawaii Five-0! I think I have a couple flisters who are into it. Does it have a big fandom following thus far? Is it super slashy? (I don't necessarily get into slash, but I can be persuaded to drool over canon boy-love. I am waiting in eager anticipation for when the BBC finally gets off their asses and screens Christopher and His Kind, Matt Smith's biopic about the writer Christopher Isherwood. I've seen gifs of the love scenes, and... 0_0 WANT!)
I am in Sherlock fandom, quite clearly, but it's not my first love! That title belongs to Doctor Who. As for Sherlock, if I weren't a mod or other official figure in three separate comms, I don't know how interested I'd be in the fandom! (I mean: I love the show, but I'm not as compelled to scour the web for pictures and fic like I am for Doctor Who.)
Fandoms I've semi-participated in in the past have included Whose Line Is It Anyway?, MST3k, Lord of the Rings, House, and Lost. So...not much overlap there!
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H50 fandom is huge, yeah, and it's pretty freaking slashy. Steve and Danny are about as easy to slash as, say, John and Sherlock, or Eames and Arthur. I'm sure there's other stuff out there, but Steve/Danny is the large majority, and I'm not deeply involved in the fandom, so I don't see much beyond a few authors I like and whatever recs get passed to me.
The show is... kind of terrible, thus my dismay. The writing and acting (and occasionally the special effects) are of questionable quality, but there's a lot of pretty excellent action, and it fills me nostalgia and happy home thoughts...and most of all I'm there for the famazing partnership that is Steve and Danny. Regardless of whether you want to slash them, it's impossible to deny that they are SO MARRIED. They have the MOST AMAZING BITCHFIGHTS, omg. ...So yeah, the show is like crack. I watched a few episodes and thought it was entertaining but couldn't understand what all the fuss was about; the next thing I knew I was addicted and seeking out fic to soothe the withdrawal when I was caught up with episodes.
I enjoy reading slash, it's fun. But slashing two characters is an option with me, not a requirement. I will happily read anything that's well written. In my own writing I'm a gen ficcer by habit; it takes special circumstances to get me to write non-canon slash, and extremely special circumstances to get me to write porn.
Ohmigod, yeah, the Matt Smith Isherwood thing, WHEN IS THAT HAPPENING ALREADY?! I've been waiting so loooooong!! T_T
Those are all things that I love (although I despaired of Lost after a few seasons and abandoned it), but I can't say I've ever been involved in any of those fandoms. I especially adore Doctor Who... and that one I've even read some fic for. (IS IT THE NEW SEASON YET? WHY NOT? DDDD:)
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And you wrote a Firefly crossover?! Where are you hiding these things?
YOU'RE HOLDING OUT ON ME, CARRIE.
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As for the Firefly crossover, I've squirrelled it away over on the AO3 (http://archiveofourown.org/works/152892), where I've been throwing most of my challenge/exchange/etc fics.
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Aaaaahhhhh, that AO3 thing. I'd been holding off and eyeing it suspiciously for a while, but I'm actually thinking about getting one now. A project for another day. I'm still recovering my strength from last week's construction of Chapter and Fic Masterlists.
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Taking a lesson from Johnny Truant are we? (Not the band.)
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>.>
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I won't worry until you start measuring the Blue Line to make sure it stays the same length.
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I'm going to have to cross my fingers and hope that they don't plan to extend the Blue Line like they're doing to the Red... (Is it weird that I kind of want to sit down and write a story with a city as the now?)
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THAT IS NOT WEIRD THAT IS AWESOME, YOU SHOULD DO IT.
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DO NOT ENCOURAGE ME, I AM HIGHLY IMPRESSIONABLE.
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I AM COUNTING ON IT. ...HAVE I MENTIONED THAT IT'S MY BIRTHDAY IN ONLY FIVE WEEKS?
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HMMM I THINK ME DOING THAT WOULD BE AN INAPPROPRIATE GIFT, SINCE I'D MOSTLY BE HAVING NONSENSE FUN EXAMINING THE L TRACKS. AND GETTING ARRESTED, PROBABLY. (Why do all of your plans for me eventually end in me getting arrested?)
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(...My legal counsel advises me to plead the Fifth on this one.)
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