#quo-do the thing

[quodo-wip-event]

Hi everyone! It's time to Quo-do the Thing! Come join us in our quest to actually finish a Quodo work this summer.

🌻 Sign-up form 🌻

Sign-ups are open from now until basically the end of the event (August), but I recommend signing up earlier so I know how many people are participating and where. Note that you can always change up your projects later, so it's okay to put something provisional now and edit it later when you have more of an idea what's going on with your project and your free time.

The event has officially started, so you can start working on your projects right away. I'll be posting an AO3 collection soon, and our next check-in will be the start of June. See our sticky post for more information and follow this blog for updates and reminders. 😊

So sign up for Quo-do the Thing! Don't let your dreams stay dreams!

[inkskinned]

the thing about some men is that they want you to remember, at all times, that you are underneath them. that with one word or look or "joke", you will stay beneath them. that even "exceptions" to the rule are not true exceptions - the commonly cited statistic that one in eight men believe they could win against serena williams.

women's gymnastics is often not seen as real gymnastics. whatever the fuck non-euclidian horrors rhythmic gymnasts are capable of, it's often tamped down as being not a sport. some of the most dominant athletes in the world are women. nobody watches women's soccer. despite years of dancing and being built like a fucking brick, men always assume they're faster and stronger than i am. you wouldn't like what happens when they are incorrect. once while drunk at a guy's house i won a held-plank challenge by a solid minute. the party was over after that - he became exceedingly violent.

what i mean is that you can be perfect, and they still think you're ... lacking, somehow. i hope you understand i'm trying to express a neutral statement when i say: taylor swift was the possibly the most patriarchy-palatable, straight-down-the-line woman we could churn out. she is white, conventionally attractive, usually pretty mild in personality. say what you will about her (and you should, she's a billionaire, she can handle it), but a few things seem to be true about her: 1. she can write a damn catchy song, and 2. the eras tour truly was a massive commercial success and was also genuinely an impressive feat of human athleticism and performance.

i don't know if she deserves the title of "woman of the year," i'm not debating that in this post. what i am saying is that she was named Woman of The Year, and then an untalented man got onstage at the golden globes and made fun of her for attending her boyfriend's football games. what i am saying is that this woman altered local economies - and her dating life is still being made into a "harmless" punchline. the camera panned, greedy, over to her downing a full glass of champagne. congratulations taylor! you are woman of the year! but you are a woman. even her.

fuck, man. write better material.

a guy gets onstage at a college graduation and despite the fact like half the crowd is made up of women, he spends a significant proportion of it warning these people - who spent possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on their education - that they were lied to. that the "real" meaning of femininity is motherhood. that they shouldn't rest on the laurels of that education-they-paid-for but instead throw it away to kneel at a man's heel. imagine that. sweating in your godawful polyester gown (that you also had to pay for!), fresh out of 4 years of pushing yourself ever-harder: and some guy you've never met - who knows nothing about you - he reminds you this "win" is a pyrrhic one at best. you really shouldn't consider yourself that extraordinary. you're still a woman, even after years of study.

god forbid you are not a pretty woman, but if you are pretty, you must be dumb. god forbid you are not ablebodied or white or cis or straight or good at swallowing. you must be beneath a man, or else they are not a man. the equation for masculinity seems to just be: that which is not a woman or womanly (god forbid). anything "feminine" is thereby anathema. to engage in "feminine" things such as therapy, getting a hug from a friend, or crying - it is giving up ones manhood. therefore women need to be put in their place to ensure that masculinity is protected.

this is something i have struggled to explain to terfs - they are not doing the work of feminism, but rather the patriarchy. by asserting that women and men must be (on some secret level) oppositional and in conflict, they also assume that being a woman is akin to being another species. but bigotry does not stem from observational truths or clarity - that is what makes it bigotry. there was nothing in my childhood that made me fundamentally different from my brother. we are treated differently nonetheless. to assert there is some biological drive that enforces my gender role is to assert that women have a gendered role. men do not see women as equal to them not because of biological reality - but instead because the core tenant of the patriarchy is that women aren't full, realized people.

we are told from a very young age to excuse misbehavior as a single man's choice - not all men. it is not all men, just that one guy. all women are gold-digging bitches who belong in the kitchen - but if a man is mean, bigoted, or violent to you, it's just that particular guy, and that means nothing about men-as-a-whole. it is only one guy who got mad when you gently rejected him. it is only one guy who warns her this trophy is heavy, are you sure you can hold it? it is only one guy who smashes her face into the cake. it is only one guy talking into a mic about hating our bodily autonomy.

i have just found that they often wait until the moment we actually seem to be upstaging them. you sit in a meeting where you're presenting your own findings and he says get me a coffee? or you run to the end of the marathon and are about to finish first and he pushes your kids out in front of you. you win the chess game and they make some comment akin to well, you're ugly away. we can be the billionaire and get the dream life and finally fucking do it and yet! still! they have this strange, visceral urge to say well actually, if you think you're so great -

it's not one just one guy. it's one in eight.

[dukeofthomas]

I find the fact that the confrontation at the end of UTRH is often summarized as Jason asking Bruce to kill the Joker for him fascinating.

Because that's not what happened.

Jason holds a gun up to Joker's head, gives Bruce another, and tells him that if Bruce doesn't do something (shoot Jason), he will kill Joker.

Jason doesn't give the gun to Bruce so that he would shoot Joker. He isn't expecting Bruce to pull the trigger on the clown. He's asking Bruce to do nothing. To be inactive. Because that will still be a choice, and despite having done nothing, everybody clearly agrees that Bruce would still, at least in part, be responsible for Joker's death.

...And to me, this moment is a kind of- microcosm, of the rest of Jason's point. Because after being captured and carted off to Arkham, the villain will escape again, and will kill more people. The only way to truly prevent that from happening would be to kill them; Bruce refuses to do so, and I respect his right to choose such a thing for himself, but it is still a choice, and if we agree that Bruce's inaction during the confrontation would leave him at least partly responsible for the Joker's death, then we must also agree that his inaction in permanently preventing the Rogues from killing more people means he is also, partly, responsible for all of those deaths.

[chacusha]

So the WIP-finishing event won with a total of 8 votes. I am currently working on getting all the websites and info set up, but in the meantime, feel free to weigh in on the tentative schedule.

Summer Quodo event poll

Because I have a "running events" problem (namely, that I like brainstorming events that would be neat, and then once I brainstorm an event, I get attached to it and want to run it), I am planning on running a Quodo event for the middle of the year.

So, please help me pick which event I should run this summer by telling me which one you'd be most interested in!

Explanations on each of these below the cut:

Option #1: Ship week

Here, the event would be a Quodo ship week most likely in early/mid August. Basically, the way a ship week works is that there is a designated week for posting fanworks for a ship, where each day in the week is associated with a prompt (or maybe two prompts, to give people choice). The last day in the week is usually a free choice day. Basically, it's a way to have a concentrated burst of fanworks for a pairing, and you can see the different ways people interpreted each prompt, and it's also kind of a team effort? Or you can treat it as a challenge to try to post one thing each day -- it's completely up to you how many days/prompts you fill.

The event will start by me collecting some prompt suggestions, holding a vote on them, and selecting a week's worth of prompts and publishing the list of prompts for each day. Then people make as many fanworks as they would like for the themes and post their work on the appropriate day.

Proposed timeline: April: Collect prompts May: Vote on prompts and release prompt list Jun-Aug: Creation period August: The ship week

Option #2: Collab event

For this event, basically, you would get paired with another Quodo fan and the goal would be to collaborate in order to produce a fanwork or a pair of fanworks. What a "fanwork collaboration" means can vary a lot and depends on what the members of the group are interested in (basically, when signing up, you would specify your preferences for the type of collab you would be interested in, and these preferences will be taken into account when I do the matching).

Here are some types of collaboration, roughly in order from least amount of coordination/cooperation to most amount of coordination:

1) Writing/creating to the same prompt/idea: Basically, the coordination happens at the beginning of the project with the two members agreeing on a general idea/prompt to work with, and then both members go off and create and share what they made at the end. This way you get two unique takes on the same idea. Very little coordination involved.

2) One person creates work inspired by/complementary to the other's: Here, the creators collaborate in order to produce a pair of related works -- first, one work is produced and then the second work is made in relation to that work. This could be the second creator's take on the same idea -- a remix/retelling/redraw of the original work, or an illustration for a fic or a fic inspired by art, etc. (It's also possible for both people to each create an original work and then swap, although this is more time-consuming and may not work with people's time.) This requires a bit more coordination, maybe sharing early drafts or handing work off by a deadline.

3) Collaborating on the same fanwork: This option involves two people working together to produce a single work. You can choose to do this however you like -- for example, with fic, maybe you swap the writer every few paragraphs, or do it roleplay style with each person writing one character. With art, maybe one artist does lineart and then hands it off to the other person to color (or both artists each do lineart and then send to the other to do the coloring). Hard mode!

You can treat this event like a bang or reverse bang if you like by using option (2). A bang is where someone writes a (long) fic (doesn't have to be long for this event) and they get an artist who illustrates it or provides some other kind of art or complementary fanwork (could be headers/graphics for the fic, podfic, etc.). A reverse bang is the opposite -- an artist comes up with a piece of art (maybe a sketch) and a fic writer crafts a fic around that piece of art.

There would be periodic check-ins just to see if there are any members/groups that have gone inactive and which might require reassignment to a new group.

The sign-up form would collect things like: - What fanwork medium you would prefer or are planning to work in. - What type of collabs you're open to. - What type of fanworker (fic writer, artist, etc.) you would prefer to work or not work with. - How often you would like to check in.

Proposed timeline: Apr/May: Sign-ups and matching Jun-Aug: Creation period August: Work reveals (in pairs)

Option #3: WIP-finishing/motivation event

The purpose of this event would be to provide motivation/company/social pressure to finish a longer/more ambitious sort of project. People can sign up with a new or existing project they would like to complete by the deadline, and then they would use the work period to see if they can finish the work, in the company of others doing the same. It's called a WIP-finishing event, but really, any project is allowed even if it's brand new. That said, this event might be useful for projects you've been meaning to get around to for a long time and haven't, or intimidating projects a bit beyond your skill level so far. Any media is allowed -- fic, art, comics, podfic, vids, meta, crafts, etc.

I am still figuring out the timeline and due dates -- below is what I have so far, but I would be happy to adjust the deadlines and format in order to accommodate what would work best and be the most motivating for the participants. So far, I am thinking that there is a date at which the project must be finished, and then there is a long posting period for people who would like to post their work in smaller increments. I would also pick 1-2 dates for each finished project to spotlight/advertise it -- one would be toward the beginning of the posting period for works that are fully finished and posted, or for works that have started posting (have posted the first installment); the second one would be shortly after the last installment of the work has been posted (if applicable).

The sign-up form would collect things like: - Your name and name/description of project - (Optional) Progress so far and projected length/time commitment of project. - (Optional) Goals you would like to have hit by certain check-ins.

It would be fine to drop projects at any time.

Proposed timeline: Apr/May: Sign-ups. May-Jul: Creation/posting period, most likely with optional check-ins at the beginning of Jun/Jul/Aug. Mid-August: Work completion deadline. Work posting and promos begin shortly afterward. November: Work posting deadline. Final wrap-up/celebration and masterlist.

Which one would you be most interested in? Let me know!

[bestangelofall]

Well, I think Jason should keep wearing a bat symbol and doing increasingly unhinged shit while wearing it 🫶 to corrupt the symbol that fucked his life over. Just like he took the name Red Hood, he should keep wearing the symbol of the other person responsible for destroying his life.

If he stops wearing it, it should be his decision, because he's done with those people :)

[cologona]

I am just so fundamentally uninterested in the story where Jason is in the wrong and needs to Gain Perspective or whatever. God what a snore. What an absolute waste of my time.

[its-sunny-somewhere-else]

I got TROLLED

[itsabouttimex2]

man I NEED to hear what you think about Bakugo

Alright I dropped MHA (because of Mineta, Bakugo, and Aizawa, mostly), so I’m going with maybe half the series in mind, but I’ll try to compose my thoughts on this pretty quickly, going of my own watching and some general pop-culture osmosis.

Katsuki Bakugo’s very existence in the story of My Hero Academia breaks an extremely important core message that the show tries to send- “You should intervene in situations when wrongdoing is occuring, even if the victim is “good” (eg: stoic, strong, handling it well, Shouto being extremely composed and powerful, Bakugo being attacked by the slime monster, Eri holding herself together in spite of everything she’s gone through) or “bad” (eg: unattractive, poor, manic, Shigaraki being turned up by the old lady, Toga being forced suppress herself), because even trying and failing or just reaching will at least make an impact or offer a light in that dark tunnel (All Might selecting Izuku after he saves Bakugo, Shouto accepting the fire half of his Quirk after Deku reaches out to him)-

In other words, “Meddling when you don't need to is the essence of being a hero!”

So when MHA shows me this whole cast of children who are supposed to be “the next generation of heroes” and expect me to root for them, I can’t help but note that none of them ever try and stop the violent bully in their midst. They might disapprove or refuse to engage, but there’s never a moment that any of these “heroes-to-be” say “Hmm. Maybe if someone is threatening the life of my kindly classmate- especially in a form as immediate as unleashing literal explosions at him and needed to be physically restrained, I should intervene.”

They, and almost all of the faculty and staff, ignore this legitimately unhinged and violent child running amok, are not “true heroes” by the messaging and morals of the narrative itself, because they sit on their asses and allow a bully (and Mineta, the rat fuck) to do as he pleases- when a reaction does occur, it’s more along the lines of scolding/laughing at a toddler for cursing/throwing a fit than “holy shit, this kid is a violent threat to at least one of our other students, we need to intervene now”.

I don’t know, maybe this is addressed later in the series, maybe Horikoshi pulls some crazy shit to justify it, that could be what happens by the end.

I just couldn’t watch to that point, if it does exist.

TLDR: Katsuki Bakugo you will never be Cristopher Skyline

[sergle]

what I was talking abt earlier. we have fully looped back around and away from feminism, societally, whereas before it was very Feminism 101 to acknowledge that many parts of existing as a woman in a misogynistic society are painful and upsetting. not that being a woman is Inherently Negative in a bubble. but that living on this earth, in the conditions we're living in, is hostile to women. and that gender is a performance. that many of the Staples Of Femininity as accepted by society are things that you have to create and perform and mold artificially and aren't inherent, that COMPLAINING about day to day difficulties of existing as a woman is something that you're allowed to do. acknowledging these basic, again, feminism 101 things, that something tied to womanhood is more time consuming or more expensive or more dangerous Because Of The Problems. does not CREATE the problems. that when women complain about having to perform femininity, they are not, in fact, oppressing themselves. the call does not come from inside the fucking house. saying that you HAVE suffered does not fucking equate that you believe you SHOULD have suffered.

like I could talk about this for hours. how braindead and one-dimensional the Takes are getting. "being a woman is looking in the mirror and going fuck yeah i'm a woman" damn. I guess any negative experiences you have by living in a misogynistic world... are your fault if you are anything but positive? "you don't actually want liberation" we've fully gone back to telling feminists "you WANT to be oppressed" when anything negative about our society is pointed out. it's not real until I say it out loud, I guess, and then I'm actually the one who caused it. if anybody expresses any unhappiness with how they're treated or the status quo or the language and culture surrounding womanhood and femininity. they've created it, right that second. they invented it just now. it wasn't a problem before somebody complained, right? also trans women aren't braindead zombies who just follow the flow of whatever cis women around them say. I am pretty fucking sure they are very much aware of pain, and are MORE than aware of the swirling torrent of misogyny and standards of femininity than anybody else. actually. and I am pretty sure someone complaining on tumblr that being a woman means always putting on a performance is going to make someone change their mind about transitioning. also "performing femininity" as a necessity to being treated well as a woman is not fucking NEWS to your Local Trans Woman. I AM PRETTY SURE SHE GETS THE CONCEPT. using trans women as a scapegoat for this braindead perspective on gender politics is spineless, meritless, and pathetic.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

The fans: Ugh Sonic was just so preachy. I mean obviously he's supposed to be the good guy, so any uncomfortableness I feel here and any way I feel like Sonic's choices are framed as being why some other people have shitty lives is just bad writing because he is obviously supposed to be right always, but this characterization makes no sense. Isn't he right for the things he did?

Ian Flynn, using Kitsunami to say the (barely even at this point) quiet part even louder: Hey it's almost like ever since the Mr. Tinker event we've been purposely running with the critique of Sonic as being more selfish than he appears. Sonic is upholding a system of Eggman v Sonic that currently benefits him and shuts down talk of how to improve the current system because he likes his own personal enjoyment and he's attached enough to Eggman that he'd rather Eggman pretend to be a good person than be stuck in prison for life. He doesn't even quite practice what he preaches. We are trying to show that the current hero v villain system and Sonic's recklessness currently affects some people poorly and that Sonic isn't a perfect hero.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

sorry guys I really do feel like narratively and thematically that Fukuzawa is going to win Asagiri’s favourite character award (death)

[quodo-wip-event]

Quo-do the Thing - Wrap-up and Masterlist

Hello everyone! I believe all works that people were intending to post for our Quodo WIP event have finished posting so now it's time for our round-up!

Running on Empty by @neptune-flytrap (2924 words) - As Odo struggles to adapt to his new body, Quark helps him the best he can.

Doctor Odo and the No Good Very Bad Physical by @rulesofacquisition (1215 words) - Quark finally has no choice but to have his annual physical. Both he and Dr. Odo are infinitely displeased about this.

Mission to the Dominion by @chacusha (33782 words) - Three years after the end of the Dominion War, Quark is sent by his brother on an important assignment to the Gamma Quadrant. The only problem? Odo is his chaperon. And old feelings keep bubbling up as Odo irritatingly refuses to leave Quark's side.

These can also all be viewed in the Quodo WIP Event AO3 collection. Check them out, and a BIG congrats to everyone who managed to Quo-Do the Thing this year! 🎉

Thank you to everyone who participated and helped me pick an event to run this year. The next Quodo event I'll be running is Quodo Mini-fest V(!) starting in January (well, and the Quodo in Every Episode is always ongoing as well). See you then! :)

[factsilike]

Really tired of constantly seeing posts declaring that everyone in MXTX novels is complicated and 'morally grey' and that's what makes her works wonderfully written, and that everyone else who doesn't see that is stupid, or is 'demonising' characters and bashing them for rightfully criticising their shitty, very much unjustified actions.

And ironically it seems so simplistic to just declare that, because yes her stories are wonderfully written and complex, but not for that reason. You're clearly not reading her works and only spouting what you think her stories say. There are many morally grey characters in morally complex stories out there, but MDZS IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

NONE OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS (i.e protagonists and their male leads except for LBH maybe) ARE MORALLY GREY OR MORALLY COMPLEX.

THEY ARE ALL MORALLY RIGHTEOUS.

Just take a closer look at their actions compared to the actions of literally everyone else around them, it's not that hard to see.

Not to mention that MXTX herself literally says that WWX and LWJ are both morally ideal and that ahe hopes her readers can be like them, but people seem to have no respect for the word of authors in the name of their self projection onto the characters being contradicted nowadays 😒

(also saw someone dismissively say that HC may think that the world revolves around XL or whatever, but others don't and they're right??

First of all, did you even read the novel? HC made his judgement based on how others treated him versus how XL did when he was a CHILD. And how XL continues to treat others to this day. He is well within his rights to think the world of XL, especially since XL suffered more than every other person and still doesn't succumb to evil, despite having every right to do so, miles more than others. He all but regards XL as his moral compass, because he's proof that truly good people do exist in this world, and not ONE other person in the novel is shown to be as good as him.)

One of the reasons why I really don't like the Xianle Trio is this; neither FX nor MQ seem to regard XL as his own person with his own agency, who is capable of making his own decisions initially as HC does, and only near the end of the novel do they let up a bit when their asses had to be saved by XL multiple times. (especially considering what fools they made of themselves in that spiderweb cave lmao)

Both of them try to enforce XL ALL THE TIME ("Your Highness don't do this or don't do that or don't say this or don't go there or don't talk to him"), as if XL has not survived perfectly well on his own without them FOR 800 YEARS.

The difference between them and HC is clearly spelled out when FC asks HC about why he is not stopping XL, and HC replies that while he may not agree with some of XL's decisions, he would never force him to do what he thinks is correct, something both MQ and FX are CONSTANTLY shown to try to do.

Like please. Xianle Trio who? More like suffering XL and his pair of nuisances who think themselves to be his babysitters. And most of the time he's the one babysitting them.

Another thing that irks me is that their frequent arguments are often played off for laughs, but XL is truly a saint, because if my friends were constantly bickering over petty things all throughout our dangerous journey and giving me nothing but headaches, especially in survival situations, I'd given them the boot a long time ago.

[juney-blues]

not the biggest fan of how "society should be structured with basic care and regard for the germ theory of disease" is now apparently a fringe left position even to the fringe left, reserved for wokescolds and loony lefties who don't know when to let things go.

it is quite depressing to see that "maybe we shouldn't let large groups of people die to preventable illness" is, very much a lost battle at this point.

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Fanfics in which Marcy and Sasha idealize Anne as this angelic being filled with kindness and light are so sweet but also so funny. It's always abt how they feel like they don't deserve her because of all the harm they caused her but also. Lmao you can tell they weren't around Wartwood in S1. Anne was such a little piece of shit back then.

[whatudottu]

Sketchy sequel to this little thing I drew on an 8 hour plane trip without references because no wifi :(

Shockwave's logic tree of 'only breakdown's brave/stupid enough to call him breastie' and 'breakdown saying "hey breastie" is in reference to him' meets Breakdown's rarely seen mischievous side like a downball piffed against a wall-