#lot: chicago

[frownyalfred]

I don’t know how to explain it but the Gotham accent I imagine in my head is a cross between a New Jersey and a Chicago accent. It’s not full Jersey, it’s got some flatter, midwestern vowels in there, but it’s still unmistakably East Coast.

[birdhand-art]

My first submission to Xerox Candy Bar has officially been published!! I'm so excited to share the Monsters & Cryptids edition with everyone on distribution day :]

Thank you so much to everyone at XCB! Y'all are amazing and i'm so interested to see what comes next 👀

[xofeno]

JESSE LEE SOFFER as Mister Rogers Variety Interview (2023)

Stay in or go out? Stay in, I'm a total homebody.

[starry-bi-sky]

Part SEVEN of "Clone Danny"

Red Robin, Danny recognizes, steps away from him as he sits up. "My name is Phantom," he signs, blinking the exhaustion out of his eyes. (From Red Robin's perspective, it looks like he has no eyes. There lacks his signature green glow.) "I'm not a gang member, just an out-of-town vigilante."

Red Robin frowns at him, an uncertain grip on the bō in his other hand. "Phantom?" He repeats, no lacking amount of suspicion in his voice. "How can I believe that?"

Right. Yeah, okay, that's fair. Danny shrugs at him, and slumps against the wall. "Google search?" He gestures, he's been out in the daytime before and he's seen the news articles about him.

Red's eyes narrow at him and Danny simply draws his knees up and faceplants into them, half-listening to Red's murmurs into his comm while also trying to get some extra-shut eye.

("Oracle, can you pull up anything on a vigilante named Phantom? The guy here is claiming to be one." Tim says.

"On it."

"Is this Phantom wearing a white mask?" Bruce asks, his voice gruff like an aftershock. "There's a vigilante who shares the same name, but he resides in Illinois."

"Is this guy from that Amity city you visited ages ago?" Says Tim, before shaking his head. "Don't answer that. Yes, he's wearing some freaky mask. I said it reminded me of Hood's helmet for a reason."

"I've got something," Oracle interrupts, "Bats' right. as usual. The Phantom of Amity Park, not much stuff of this guy but he's only been out for over a year. Apparently, his rogues' gallery consists of ghosts."

"Oh great.")

"Look tell the Batman that I'm sorry for trespassing on his turf," He signs irritably when Red Robin eventually starts talking to (re: interrogating) him again. "It's not like I want to be here."

"How did you get in Gotham anyways?" Red Robin questions, batman was on his way to help deal with the situation but Tim doubted he wouldn't get caught up on the way with dealing with petty crime. "Your turf is nearly a thousand miles away from here."

"Two words." Danny deadpans, "Teleport ghost." (Red Robin winces sympathetically.) "I'm keeping this bastard in the thermos for a month for this alone."

(Danny was ignoring the slow-choking anxiety growing in his lungs over how he was gonna get home. He never takes his phone when he goes out, the risk of breaking it was too high. He had no way of contacting anyone to get him home.)

(He swallows the growing lump in his throat, and buries the feeling in the back of his mind.)

"Thermos?"

Danny unclips his Fenton Phantom Thermos off from his belt loop and shows it to Red Robin. "My ghost-catching device," He says with one hand, tilting it carefully for Red to inspect. "I wish I could say I made it, but its a FentonWorks invention."

(He wasn't sure if it was a smart idea to say who it belonged to, but saying it wasn't his probably loosened up any tracks on him, right?)

"Do you work with these Fentons, then?" Red asks, and something dark and shadowy flickers from the corner of Danny's eye. He glances over, and sees nothing, and his hackles raise.

(Either that was Batman, or a ghost, or Danny's mind playing tricks on him. He couldn't feel his ghost sense building in his throat, so he decided it was either the latter of the former.)

Danny snorts, quiet and gruff. "No." He clips his thermos to his belt again, stifling a smile on his face. "The Fentons hate me actually, I prevent them from catching ghosts themselves. Their son gives me their tech."

He had a cover story, so he might as well stick with it, right?

Batman shows up at that moment, appearing atop the little roof where the door is, and giving Danny a heart attack when he speaks in his low, rumbly voice like thunder rolling in, "Why would they hate you for that?"

Danny shoots up to his feet with a startled yell in his throat, clutching his chest as he whirls around and looks up. He nearly runs into Red Robin, and signs a few choice swears at the Bat.

"wow you're scarier in person, asshole."

"you didn't answer my question."

"Of course I didn't, you scared me." and Danny takes a trembling step back when the Batman jumps down and lands on the roof in front of him. He's faced ghosts before, but somehow the living is always scarier.

"But, um, the reason is a bit.. complicated, I guess." He says, fingers beginning to shake as his adrenaline wears off. God is he tired. He wants to go home. "The Fentons are the local ghost hunters and local crazies. I don't know if I can call them mad scientists because they're harmless to the living."

"But they're extremely anti-ghost. I've heard from their son multiple times the very unethical things they would do to ghosts if they got their hands on one."

Danny 'talks' a little more before calling it quits, even telling Batman that he can't tell him more without putting his identity at risk.

Plus, its getting harder and harder to hide his bone-deep exhaustion and his growing fear of being stranded in the most dangerous city in America with no way home.

"I would love to tell you more, believe me I'm dying to." Danny signs, shaky sarcasm dripping from his fingers. His hands are visibly trembling and he's withholding a slowly growing panic attack. "But I would like nothing more than to figure out a way to get home."

"Do you have no one to contact?"

"Sort of. But only one of them could probably come get me and get me back to Amity by sunrise. And I have no phone."

That one person being Ellie.

=====

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 4.5 (Dani interlude) Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 7.5 (Dan Interlude) Part 8

Taglist: @the-navistar-carol @thought-u-said-dragon-queen @gin2212 @youracearocroatneighbour @luckybyrdrobyn @deeplyconfusedbear @epilepticnerd @beautifulmomenttodrawblank @sara0055 @blusunkhild @letmesayfuxk (?) @latheevening226 @tkiesai @rosedasy @meira-3919

[marionsinspirations]

[a-little-bit-of-tradition]

"You don't protect someone like that unless you love them" 🤎 - Chicago PD

[organovore]

i felt a deep seated NEED to share the thinbloods all together… i think as a band and coterie they look so much fun together. from left to right is @seasfoamss lexi, @fruitssalad’s jacinth, and my guy murphy :’)

[nonasuch]

hm. Discworld AU where Carrot first came to Ankh-Morpork on the trail of the killers of his father, and, for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, remained, attached as liaison officer with the AMCW. is this anything

[notbecauseofvictories]

I'm still thinking about it, so---if you're a local, I highly encourage Rough House Theater's "House of the Exquisite Corpse". It's lovely, arresting, from the performances down to the smallest touches. I still can't get over the ripped umbrellas hanging upside down in dreamlike suspension from the ceiling; the way each "station" is wrapped in plywood and decorated in its own meaningful pattern and design.

But first, let me step back. "House of the Exquisite Corpse" takes its name from the old Surrealist parlor game, at the heart of which is the idea that you can collect a disparate group, then smash their ideas together and create something from the smithereens. This is something like what Rough House has done, which is pick a theme ("Superstition") and then let the artistic groups loose to create short scenes built around that theme.

(I want to call them tableaux, because watching the performances I was struck by how it felt like something out of time---as though we were 17th century courtiers in Paris ushered into a candlelit ballroom, or early 20th century farmers in Minnesota, paying our penny to see what the circus brought to town.)

The set-up itself does a wonderful job ushering you into a time-outside-of-time---you step into a space divided from the rest of the space by black sheets, chunky headsets dangling from wooden ladders suspended just over your head. The emcee is carrying a clipboard and speaks into an old-school broadcasting mic---which you can only hear if you're wearing the headsets.

It is, you'll discover, the central conceit of the performance. From there, you're directed from station to station by silent ushers, carrying flashlights so they can point you forward. Unless you are wearing the headphones at each station, you can only listen to the absent, ambient music echoing around the room.

Not only are the stations set up to wrap you in a specific soundscape, but they play with your vision too---most stations have you peer through holes or cracks in the wall, though one station had us line up in front of mirrors and watch the reflection of the performance, while another station placed shards of glass at every peephole, so you watched the scene and the character's experience of the scene in a strange double-vision. A couple of the stations used tricks of the light---strobe effects that made the puppets' movements seem even more uncanny or imply violence; a haze of smoke or fabric to disguise the human "prowling" in the puppet-shape of a tiger.

(I always like when I can tell an artist is reacting to something I've seen before, and the Rousseau "The Dream" vibes in that scene were exquisite.)

I will say that “A White Bird in the House is an Omen of Death” was my favorite, not in the least because it featured a whole choreographed song (feat. a lovely articulated owl puppet, plus some very effective shadowplay work). However, “Through the Looking Glass” was beautifully up my alley, from the unique staging---this was the station where you watched the performance in a mirror---to the creative puppetry, and a meditation on loveliness that had some bite to it. “Broken Mirror” was more traditional in its puppet work, but it also had the most elaborate staging, a fully-realized world in miniature.

I keep going back to how enormously creative so many of these artists were, in ways I simply can't ignore. “Step on a Crack” didn't necessarily work for me, but I can't stop thinking about it---its trippy setup, the inhuman knit masks the creator used; the spines dangling, neon-colored, from the nearest tree as the protagonist recited lines about loving his mother with increasing, feverish and horrible energy. The glimpses I got during “An ill fate befalls those who pluck from fruit in their dreams” of the puppeteer's face---how she shut her eyes and turned away, as though she too was affected by the puppet's horror.

[plaidos]

How close is the lgbt+ scene in the parts of nyc where you mostly hang out? like do most people know each other? like people who go to your fave bar?

i can’t speak for other demographics, but for trans girls it seems pretty tight knit where i’m hanging. i go to the same trans event in Brooklyn every month and see many of the same people there (and i haven’t even been going very long), and i also go to a dyke bar in Brooklyn usually on dolls’ night (dolls is trans slang for transfems, which apparently a lot of people don’t know?) which has like regulars, a lot of people know each others names, have been hanging out for years etc. i’ve only been once when it wasn’t dolls’ night and there were way more TME dykes and transmascs outnumbered me and my tgirl friends but it isn’t like there weren’t other trans girls, still way more than i’d ever seen at a lesbian bar.

but yeah like i’ve learned the names of a bunch of people i go to the same bar as just from watching them play pool or hang out or talking to them about tumblr or whatever.

the new york city trans scene is tightknit enough that the bar from this popular meme is one of the ones i go to lol.

[tariah23]

If anyone of you guys live in the Chicago Halstad areas, food is being passed out!!! All you need to do is simply walk up!

[smytherines]

sometimes I think about the fact that there's (I think?) a digital ticket version of Spies out there somewhere and I will never see it, and then I want to scream into a pillow for 15 seconds

In like a year and a half it'll be the ten year anniversary, and my wishlist would be some kind of re-release where you get the digital download, the original digital ticket version, and just stick a microphone in front of Joey and give us an album version of the staircase reprise. I'd also lose my mind for a recording of the music that plays during the staircase scene because it is gorgeous

[delicatepointofview]

HARRY STYLES: YEAR IN REVIEW 2022

[distortednightmare]

Leaving Chicago. I’m not gonna lie I’m ready to move here yall.

[asterdeer]

i think it's pretty cool and mature of dr blackgaard that he didn't hold that time richard forced him to get on his knees and beg and snivel for his life at gunpoint against richard. he could have easily mentioned that when he was tazing richard to the point of unconsciousness and having him murdered by lackeys but he didn't. a therapist probably got rich off that one incident but he put in the work, he put it behind him, he said my past does not define my future. mental health king

[cynfuldelights]

Wardens: Cops By Another Name

So, in writing my Dresden fanfic I've once again stumbled upon another interesting quandary in the Dresdenverse and that's just how remarkably pro-cop the series is. Not in like, its representation of the Chicago PD which someone tried to point out to me was not "copaganda" because there were "good cops AND bad cops" Okay. Let's talk about Wardens then. So, Wardens unequivocally are the police of the wizard world at least for human mages. They answer to the authority of the White Council and the Head Warden, they're allowed to use lethal force in order to enforce those laws, and members are generally pulled from the populace policed (e.g. other wizards). With maybe the exception of Morgan, they're all generally portrayed the same was as the CPD are. They're also about as easy to corrupt and abuse their power as normal police, are given extrajudicial power to murder pretty much whoever they want if given a good enough "reason", and are able to carry out that act using a means of force unavailable to the rest of the population they police. Warden Donald Morgan IN THE FIRST BOOK, deliberately tries to misinterpret the Laws of Magic in order to kill Harry, who Morgan sees as a dangerous liability to leave lying around. So he just like. Tries to lie to Harry about how the Law works. Either that or he just doesn't understand the Laws of Magic. Kinda fucked up don't you think? Isn't it even more fucked up that if Harry didn't know about the Laws of Magic, Morgan could've just killed him right there in that Chicago park and the series would've just ended? Like. There's not really a criminal justice system it seems in the White Council aside from the Doom of Damacles, a laughably terrible system, that puts people who want to help reform people instead of kill them in harm's way. The only other trial we see is when a poor kid is laughably fucked up from using mind control magic and we just had to kill the fifteen-year old don't you see??

Like, sure, the Doom of Damacles is obviously a terrible shitty system that you could say is a reflection of how old and backwards the White Council is but so little of the Wardens or even the Laws of Magic are shown in the same light. Like, Morgan, is our "quintessential" bad cop, but like NOTHING BAD HAPPENS TO HIM FOR ABUSING HIS POWER! If anything in the end he's given a heroic death despite the fact that he was a terrible Warden who most definitely killed innocent people. He almost killed Harry!

Not only could he have killed him, he could've killed him easily. All Wardens, after all, are given anti-magic swords, purpose-built to negate the magic of 'renegade' mages and warlocks that they're trying to murder bring to justice. Nobody else is given these. Only Wardens, using a method that only ONE WARDEN knows how to use.

All based on, not the letter of the law, but on Morgan's interpretation of it. Just like cops do. They don't have to actually understand the law. Just try to stomp on anyone they perceive as dangerous. I wonder how it would've gone if Harry wasn't a tall White guy. You think Morgan a guy raised in a different CENTURY doesn't have weird internalized views about people different than him? Y'know. LIKE HARRY?

Plus, like... what would've even happened if he did!? Who would investigate Morgan? Other Wardens?! You think a community as insular as The White Council would actually bother with doing something when a Law of Magic hasn't been broken? Do you think they're going to believe a warlock or Lawbreaker over a wizard and Warden of the White Council? After all, breaking the Law(s of Magic) is one of the most fundamentally evil things you can do. So in order to fix that, we need to use summary execution via military police, no matter if they're a child or an adult.

After all: KILLING SOMEONE WITH AN ANTI-MAGIC SWORD DOESN'T COUNT AS KILLING SOMEONE WITH MAGIC. SO THAT MAKES IT OKAY, DOESN'T IT? (And as an aside, uh, what do you mean killing someone with an anti-magic sword, doesn't count as killing them with magic.

Like, I understand that a certain level of semantic bullshit can be argued with a lot of things in any Fantasy setting but like... What? You're telling me a sword forged with magical properties does not count as killing people with magic, even if its magical properties are used to kill them? Like. If I stab someone with a flaming sword and they burn to death, does that count?)