Re: your last paragraph .... yeah, I've actually cut waaayyyy back on exchanges in the last couple of years. I was starting to find them stifling; I always had too many assignments, it felt like, to work on my own projects, and while I wrote a number of stories that I was really proud of, I was starting to feel like everything I was writing was for other people rather than me.

The bingo-card challenges are really fun. I've been having a blast with hc_bingo, and there are a bunch of other ones too, like cottoncandy_bingo. There's even a custom bingo card generator where you can input your own set of options and get a custom-made bingo card.

But yeah, it seems like exchanges and gift fic have largely taken over from the prompt-based challenges that were more widely circulating when I first got into LJ fandom (and I know the mailing lists had their own things, although I was never part of that).

I notice you listed Grimm in the shows you're currently watching .... it's not one of mine, but trobadora is really into Grimm right now and has been making sad noises that she doesn't have anyone to talk to about it, since most of her flist doesn't watch it! If you would also like more people to discuss it with, perhaps you could check out her journal and see? You can say I sent you.