You Are Made of Wonderful Things

@otaku-tyriq​ (in ref to this post) “I don’t even understand the concept of queerbating like, I never understood what that is and why it pisses people off.”

ok actually you should probably know this just in general:

queerbaiting is when the writers of any media imply a queer relationship very heavily and don’t deliver in full. this happens a lot in TV shows, because it’s easy to watch episode after episode thinking “hey maybe they’re actually gonna do it” (aHEM sherlock)- and it’s easy for the writers to keep dragging viewers along teasing at a queer relationship without actually writing one in.

it’s really gross because usually along with that, there are often jokes made at the queer characters’ expense. this doesn’t always happen, but it happens a lot. (again AHEM SHERLOCK)

for example– in the first two movies jedediah and octavius were pretty close and had that cool enemies-to-friends dynamic (which arguably actually makes their relationship the most interesting one in the whole trilogy because they actualy, yknow, change)– and so the first two movies are pretty much harmless, they’re just portrayed as people who become friends.

now, the third movie is where things change. octavius is never explicitly written as gay, they never actually go out of their way to say it, but it’s pretty clear that’s what they’re implying. he has lines about other men being attractive, and those lines are written as jokes, with pauses for people to laugh. he even almost makes a pass at jedediah with the first “take my hand” scene, which is also played off and then given a quick “hey bro were u bein gay”/”NO” scene afterwords

(i will say in natm’s defense:

the thing about natm3 that sticks out to me is that unlike other queerbaity material (….sherlock) natm never seems to be maliciously anti-queer in their writing. they have a scene at the end where jedediah says “I’ll take that hand now”, which could really only be interpreted as him now being fine with holding octavius’s hand, which they already coded as octavius being gay (again this is hard to talk about because it’s all implied and none of this is explicit)- and all the jokes about octavius being gay don’t feel like the fact that he’s gay is a bad thing: when jedediah first asks if octavius asked to hold his hand and octavius refutes him, jedediah isn’t relieved or grossed out, he’s just smug and happy. octavius isn’t seen as any less of a character for being queer, the joke seems to be more that he’s just really, really bad at hiding it)

that doesn’t mean that it’s 1000% okay or anything,   I just think natm3 is probably one of the less disgusting examples- queerbaiting is still a shitty thing to do, keeping queer people from getting the representation they want and deserve, promising them something and then never delivering. It’s a problem with a lot of media out there.

but that’s the thing, it’s a problem with media.

whether or not I write jedtavius fanfic or talk about jedtavius ideas on social media sites- that has nothing to do with whether or not I support the idea of queerbaiting. of course I don’t. of course I’d rather have seen them go for it and make the relationship explicitly queer. of course I’m sad they didn’t and I think it’s wrong. but the point of fic and art is that they are transformative works, and taking something like jedtavius, a pair of almost-queer characters, and making them explicitly queer in every way i possibly can- is transforming them into the characters I wished they could be. 

yoooo i heard there were new people around here so here’s some old fanstuff I remember liking when i was super into this fandom– check it out :))) (disclaimer- most of this stuff is pretty jedtavius centered because thats what i know)

artists/art

ok so if you’re looking for good artists you’re gonna want to track the jedtavius (if ur into that– its one of the most popular ships and so theres a lot of art for it) and the natm tags- and other little ships like capoleon (and i think there’s a tag out there for ahkmenrah/kahmunrah but i dont remember what its called) and sacagamelia (ok im the only person in the world who ships sacagamelia but like. let me live) and OH YEAH i forgot the ahkmenrah/larry ship tag is tablet guardians

once you’re done that here are some artists who either once posted natm art or still do!!

@atomicdangos is super awesome and makes rad jedtavius art and is also just a great person in general??? super nice?? also chill? go be friends

@thedoormann hasnt been natm centric in a while but u should go check out their blog for natm fanart – and they also have an entire blog dedicated to natm fanart and fanstuff over at @jedvevo!!! definitely go check them the HECK out- also they are also cool 10/10 would recommend

(one more plug for door- they have an ADORABLE ask blog that’s inactive now called @ask-levyelementary, its a kindergarden au and it’s fucking amazing please go give it some love)

@jayce-kui does some really cute chibi art, u can always find them in the tags

@trashpits is out of the fandom now i think, but they have gorgeous gorgeous art, you can check their natm tag for more of that

authors/fics

ok im a little biased here because ive literally written over 100k of jedtavius total so just

here is my series

and here is my natm tag on ao3 thats all im gonna plug ok im done

uhh as far as other fics fics go there’s

lightning in a bottle - i have never read this one but i have seen a lot of fanart for it and everyone loves it so its probably A+++, over 200k and a WIP, jedtavius

@ask-octavius-and-jedediah​ is a cute ask blog on tumblr, they update frequently in the tag

@loni0445​ writes cute things and updates in the tag all the time!

@undeniablycandycane writes cute headcanons all the time in the tag!

as for the rest of AO3, the NATM fandom tag has over 500 works (I know, right???) so please please check that out, I’m not familiar with the authors over there but I’m sure there are some real gems!!!

other stuff

@imaginejedandocty​ is a little sideblog of mine that runs on submissions so it’s pretty dead for now, but it’s for posting cute HCs of jedtavius, so if you’re interested in that u can check it out also 

@asktheminiatures is a cosplay blog that im pretty sure is inactive now but has tons of cute cute cute fucking adorable cosplay stuff up, go give them a look

and if you’re looking for people to follow: @jedvevo, @ahkmemerah, @atomicdangos, @undeniablycandycane, @ampora-evil-incorporated and @tinynightroman are some cool peeps i know off the top of my head, they probably know more cool peeps who know even more cool peeps!! 

yoooo i heard there were new people around here so here’s some old fanstuff I remember liking when i was super into this fandom– check it out :))) (disclaimer- most of this stuff is pretty jedtavius centered because thats what i know)

artists/art

ok so if you’re looking for good artists you’re gonna want to track the jedtavius (if ur into that– its one of the most popular ships and so theres a lot of art for it) and the natm tags- and other little ships like capoleon (and i think there’s a tag out there for ahkmenrah/kahmunrah but i dont remember what its called) and sacagamelia (ok im the only person in the world who ships sacagamelia but like. let me live) and OH YEAH i forgot the ahkmenrah/larry ship tag is tablet guardians

once you’re done that here are some artists who either once posted natm art or still do!!

@atomicdangos is super awesome and makes rad jedtavius art and is also just a great person in general??? super nice?? also chill? go be friends

@thedoormann hasnt been natm centric in a while but u should go check out their blog for natm fanart – and they also have an entire blog dedicated to natm fanart and fanstuff over at @jedvevo!!! definitely go check them the HECK out- also they are also cool 10/10 would recommend

(one more plug for door- they have an ADORABLE ask blog that’s inactive now called @ask-levyelementary, its a kindergarden au and it’s fucking amazing please go give it some love)

@jayce-kui does some really cute chibi art, u can always find them in the tags

@trashpits is out of the fandom now i think, but they have gorgeous gorgeous art, you can check their natm tag for more of that

authors/fics

ok im a little biased here because ive literally written over 100k of jedtavius total so just

here is my series

and here is my natm tag on ao3 thats all im gonna plug ok im done

uhh as far as other fics fics go there’s

lightning in a bottle - i have never read this one but i have seen a lot of fanart for it and everyone loves it so its probably A+++, over 200k and a WIP, jedtavius

@ask-octavius-and-jedediah​ is a cute ask blog on tumblr, they update frequently in the tag

@loni0445​ writes cute things and updates in the tag all the time!

@undeniablycandycane writes cute headcanons all the time in the tag!

as for the rest of AO3, the NATM fandom tag has over 500 works (I know, right???) so please please check that out, I’m not familiar with the authors over there but I’m sure there are some real gems!!!

other stuff

@imaginejedandocty​ is a little sideblog of mine that runs on submissions so it’s pretty dead for now, but it’s for posting cute HCs of jedtavius, so if you’re interested in that u can check it out also 

@asktheminiatures is a cosplay blog that im pretty sure is inactive now but has tons of cute cute cute fucking adorable cosplay stuff up, go give them a look

and if you’re looking for people to follow: @jedvevo, @ahkmemerah, @atomicdangos, @undeniablycandycane, @ampora-evil-incorporated and @tinynightroman are some cool peeps i know off the top of my head, they probably know more cool peeps who know even more cool peeps!! 

uhh so i dont really remember most of it tbh, but I know two people got bullied out of the fandom- they just had enough and left– that was tinyotp and ciwpid (ciwpid is the other author of The C Word.) 

basically there was like. discourse because the jedtavius content in the movies was pretty much textbook queerbaiting, and so by internet logic, if you shipped jedtavius you were supporting queerbaiting and you were a terrible person- and everything jedtavius related was “gross” (I don’t have hard evidence of that exact word being used but that’s what I think i remember being said)

and like. there was the one person i remember (immmm gonna call her chelsea) who was just really angry about everything?? and would constantly make posts about not liking jedtavius, i dont remember if she ever made posts about not liking specific people, but like mannn she didnt like tinyotp- to the point where i think she like?? stole their url at some point? something happened

and like i was pretty chill and joking around this one time and chelsea got really mad at me at one point- because i didnt call her by name, and because i said something about jedtavius topping versus bottoming i think??? and I just kept saying like “….. calm down, dude” and eventually she burnt herself out but like no one fuckin said anything

until ciwpid came back and wrote a big ol essay about how everyone would follow this other girl and no one said a damn thing when i was being bitched out, and like??? chelsea was about 14 at the time, maybe 15 im not quite sure– and honestly i dont know what happened to her she might still be around???? who knows- its been a while maybe shes cool now

the jedtavius fandom was pretty much me, tinyotp, and ciwpid, and the rest of the natm fandom was chelsea and like her group of followers, and i didnt really interact with them much because they were all, like, small children??? and tinytop and ciwipd (at least ciwpid i know) were all adults– and now ciwpid deleted all of their stuff off the internet and so did tinyotp, i have absolutely no way of contacting either of them or seeing where they are, they literally just. vanished.

this is long and rambly but basically it was just. people calling other people gross for liking ~problematic~ things and also being like??? really mean and terrible to each other?? like damn

anyway thats about it

uhh so i dont really remember most of it tbh, but I know two people got bullied out of the fandom- they just had enough and left-- that was tinyotp and ciwpid (ciwpid is the other author of The C Word.) 

basically there was like. discourse because the jedtavius content in the movies was pretty much textbook queerbaiting, and so by internet logic, if you shipped jedtavius you were supporting queerbaiting and you were a terrible person- and everything jedtavius related was “gross” (I don’t have hard evidence of that exact word being used but that’s what I think i remember being said)

and like. there was the one person i remember (immmm gonna call her chelsea) who was just really angry about everything?? and would constantly make posts about not liking jedtavius, i dont remember if she ever made posts about not liking specific people, but like mannn she didnt like tinyotp- to the point where i think she like?? stole their url at some point? something happened

and like i was pretty chill and joking around this one time and chelsea got really mad at me at one point- because i didnt call her by name, and because i said something about jedtavius topping versus bottoming i think??? and I just kept saying like “..... calm down, dude” and eventually she burnt herself out but like no one fuckin said anything

until ciwpid came back and wrote a big ol essay about how everyone would follow this other girl and no one said a damn thing when i was being bitched out, and like??? chelsea was about 14 at the time, maybe 15 im not quite sure-- and honestly i dont know what happened to her she might still be around???? who knows- its been a while maybe shes cool now

the jedtavius fandom was pretty much me, tinyotp, and ciwpid, and the rest of the natm fandom was chelsea and like her group of followers, and i didnt really interact with them much because they were all, like, small children??? and tinytop and ciwipd (at least ciwpid i know) were all adults-- and now ciwpid deleted all of their stuff off the internet and so did tinyotp, i have absolutely no way of contacting either of them or seeing where they are, they literally just. vanished.

this is long and rambly but basically it was just. people calling other people gross for liking ~problematic~ things and also being like??? really mean and terrible to each other?? like damn

anyway thats about it

Changing a character to the ‘opposite’ cis gender is a very different thing than making them trans or nonbinary. Insisting that people only change characters to trans is also really damn invalidating, because it implies that being trans is interchangable with being cis. Whoopsie doodle!

rule 63 was originally a guy thing, sexual objectification thing. it states ‘for every male character, there’s a female version of that character’, and not because the dudes who were into it cared about having more realistically rendered female heroes in their media. it was made popular on 4chan and porn boards and comics+gaming forums because you could reduce a manly male character into a sexy tits-and-ass pinup. there were related kinks of sissification, but mostly it was about getting to jerk it to a sexy female version of a previously unappealing, macho male character. 

then women got hold of the rule and started going, okay. let’s look at the female version of this male character. let’s talk about being a woman in a man’s world. let’s talk about rorschach’s misogyny, tony stark’s womanizing, batman’s grimness, the fact there’s one girl ninja to every four or five guy ninjas, let’s talk about that in the hypothetical context of these male heroes being women instead. if there’s a girl version for every male character, what does that mean? what’s her story? 

and it became this really amazing lens for female fans to interrogate stories through, to examine the effects of sexism and misogyny and masculinity, to introduce another woman into a story with very few, to identify with fully-rendered heroes of the fan’s own gender. and to interrogate the very nature of gender, which led into the development of genderbends where the character’s gender identity didn’t necessarily match their assigned sex, and from there an increasing interest in, and familiarity with, trans characters, trans people, and trans issues. 

Rule 63s can be transphobic and gender essentialist, no question, just as m/m slash can be misogynistic, but it’s not inherent to the genre.

WHY DIDNT I GET A NOTIFICATION FOR THIS HOW OLD IS THIS ASK AAHSHAJHSJXJ

hyehehehHEHEH