teafourbirds

[teafourbirds]

#LOL yes always #with the caveat that i'd probably expire from delight #artists are mysterious magic-workers #and I am generally in awe of them

[teafourbirds]

As someone who is still relatively new to comics (both generally and DC in particular), I think this is really true and really well said. My introduction to DC was through fic osmosis (there are a lot of really engaging stories out there). When I'd read enough fic that I was no longer just dabbling, I started exploring the actual comics through an awful lot of “where to start”/“where not to start” . These were really helpful in terms of winnowing down an overwhelmingly huge field into a clear path forward, but I think they also (combined with general patterns of fannish discussion) can inadvertantly create two challenges for beginners:

First, they put a lot of pressure onto those particular recommended runs. If the run you pick doesn’t click with you, you start thinking: “This was supposed to be a beginner-friendly comic and the whole thing felt like a slog. If the entry-level is this hard, I’ll never get through the less accessible ones.” So you make it through a few of the recommended runs and then decide you’ve done your due diligence and you can get back to the fandom which is your real source of joy. Or else you give up on it altogether.

This was absolutely the case for me with the first couple Batman runs I picked up - I didn’t click with the stories enough to pull me over the hump of engaging with a new medium. (And there is challenge involved in a new medium - I feel like this gets minimized, but for me, at least, reading comics takes some different mental muscles than reading straight-up text, and it takes practice for it to start coming easily.) Reading them felt like work, it didn’t feel like it was adding anything to my experience (there was more nuance in some of the fic I had read), and I almost gave up completely and went back to passive fandom lurking. It was just luck that I happened to pick up a run that I really enjoyed, that taught me that I could enjoy comics for their own sake. After that, the more I read, the more comics became a space I felt like I could navigate, and then just like that, I was down the rabbit hole. By which I mean I could start exploring on my own, deciding independently which runs I enjoy and having context for the ones I didn’t, following the characters I was interested in exploring.

Which leads to the second challenge, the focus on particular writers/stories that “get the characters”. Again, this is very helpful in recommendations for beginners, because there are unquestionably comic runs that stand in complete opposition to everything the character has historically been. But “get the character right” often carries an unspoken corollary that “there is a single right version of this character,” which isn’t true even in single-text mediums, much less comics that have a history spanning nearly a hundred years. I think a lot of experienced comics fans are more used to navigating this space, engaging with different runs in different ways, but for newbies coming into an unfamiliar space, it feels like a treacherous road, because what if you accidentally get sucked into the ‘wrong version’ of the character? 

This ‘true character’ (“they wouldn’t fucking say that!”) debate happens in pretty much all fandoms once they get large enough and the fandom amplification process kicks in, but I think it’s magnified in comics because the canon is so giant and unwieldy and spread out (and probably has a higher proportion of people with limited interaction with canon). But in the concern to get the character right, sometimes the canon itself gets forced into a narrower space. Something easier to process, or something that fits with general fannish interests, or something we can agree upon.

Then you start treating the variations in characterization over the years as a bug, not a feature, when really it’s (imo) one of the coolest things about comics - that there are these different versions of the same characters and events, that they coexist in conflict with each other, that the stories themselves are layered and complex and inconsistent. It reminds me of mythic characters and folk traditions, the stories that shift and swell over time and over periods. Robin Hood moving back and forth between the nobility and the peasantry. Lancelot as the chivalric ideal or the faithless traitor. All those fairy tale retellings. The wealth of complexities and histories we have to draw on as we retell these stories, because multiple versions already exist in the canonical tradition.

It’s just really cool. Comics fandom is fascinating and layered, both the stories and the metatextual context. As someone who is still new, I really appreciate all the people who have spent time writing up starter guides and character intros, because I’m not sure I would have gotten started without them. But if you never branch out of those, you’re missing a lot of what makes the original canon so rich and complex. 

In terms of 'people haven't read comics' I actually think there's a nuanced position people sort of instinctively understand and don't spell out:-

A lot of people enter comics fandom via an adaption medium (be that movies, video games, tv shows, cartoons)

That means they come in with a level of background understanding of various characters existing and some knowledge of them via osmosis, either from adapted stories or reading fic

General fandom discussion tends to coalesce around a small subset of characters and story runs

Because getting into comics is expensive, people preference what's easily available and/or what's most highly recommended in an attempt to maximise a story they will like

This is where all the panicking about 'where to start' comes in - it's overwhelmingly huge to look at and people are scared of 'getting it wrong'

They then read a run of a comic. Given all of the above for DC it's probably going to be a Bat comic, and there's a good chance it's UTRH, Red Robin 1-12, Batgirl 2000, Robin: Son of Batman, or The Court of Owls. They want the best storyline after all and that's what people tell them are favourites

They have also from being peripheral to the fandom noticed discourse about how certain stories/writers 'don't get' or 'ruin' characters and then avoid reading those stories

Because people are likely to only have read this small subset of stories, the discussion then focuses further on that subset

Echo chamber, the narrative that there's no such thing as a consistent canon in comics causes people to continue to avoid reading further, because they've been told Not To Read certain writers, and what they read doesn't really match how the fandom describes it

Because they're enjoying the fandom, they lean into the fanon and just...never read more comics. Sometimes pride themselves on not doing so

You end up with people who have 'read comics' but they mean about 3 famous runs totalling well under 100 issues, and very little comfort with even DC teams or families outside of the Bats

The current situation compounds because people aren’t comfortable with reading characters written by different writers and how that changes the story, even though that’s a huge part of comics

#sorry op i took a couple of your concise points and then just rambled on #the way you laid it out made something click for me #the simultaneous pressures to read more comics but also conform to a specific version of characters/events #dc meta #comics meta

[teafourbirds]

old art trade w @/daiwild

#his determined little mouth #i love him #ted kord #jli fanart

[teafourbirds]

Reading through early some 70s comics, and the extent to which Dick is just over there beating himself up is wild.

Like the time when all the Teen Titans except him were involved in the accidental firing of a gun that killed a man, and Dick still blames himself because he wasn't there. (Wally thinks Dick needs to knock it off and let the rest of them have their own trauma):

-- Teen Titans (1966) #25

Or here, where the rest of the Titans are all presumed dead while trapped in limbo (while thinking that Dick had lied about evidence and sent an innocent guy to jail - a plot line that is never followed up on), and Dick wanders around getting beaten up, refusing to get help, and calling himself useless:

--Teen Titans (1966) #10

And here he is at college after he broke up a fight by punching a guy who turned out not to have been the instigator:

--Detective Comics #402

And here he's in a dream sequence forcing him to face his biggest fear, which is, of course, failing to rescue someone (complete with a vision of Batman being disappointed in him):

-- Teen Titans (1966) #38

I wasn't even reading with a Dick lens, and half of these comics are pretty limited in the characterization department; his guilt complex just leaps out at you around every corner.

#dick grayson #dick & the titans #dick & wally #dick & bruce #titans #teen titans #old comics are a gold mine of content and trauma #dick grayson & expectations #dick grayson & guilt #thematic compilation #my posts

[teafourbirds]

she’s doing hot girl shit

#DINAH #she's so pretty #dinah lance #dc fanart

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Green Arrow (1988) #8

the hider

#i love this man #oliver queen #out of context comic panels #green arrow

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arrowfam week 2023 day 2 - scars

ollie’s reconsidering his life choices

#just enjoying this again #it is such a mood #oh ollie what have you gotten yourself into #look at roy's grin #ugh i love them #ollie & roy #oliver queen #roy harper

[teafourbirds]

aaaaugh this comic gets me every time. The way the narration so firmly tracks to Roy's thoughts. The way that none of them are saying what they really mean. Not even Dinah, who gives her blessing via phone and then has a little sad/angry moment because she wanted to be part of the reunion too. (Because Roy's her guy too! Ugh. <3)

And then this ending. Because Ollie has been so excited to see Roy through the whole issue ("That's Speedy! It's gotta be!") even when it's messing up his detective plans. The parallels between Roy's retelling of Snowbirds, where Ollie leaves Roy to spend time with Dinah, and this phone call, where Ollie puts off Dinah to spend time with Roy. (How Ollie is always failing the people he loves.)

How Roy walks away, because it's too late to say (to hear) those things. How Ollie agrees, says, "I've always known," when he so obviously didn't. He literally just canceled his whole evening adventure with Dinah because he thought he and Roy had a lot of talking to do. But the moment he realizes that Roy's on a different page, all that gets shut down. Maybe he's trying to give Roy the space he needs (as he clearly is at the end of their last interaction in "Young Man with a Drum"). Maybe he's trying to protect himself by not asking for things Roy no longer wants to give him. Maybe he doesn't think he deserves anything from Roy. (Probably it's a bit of everything.)

How Roy was angry at Ollie because he didn't get attention when he needed it, but now, when Ollie is so ready to give it, walks away from it. Because that way he gets to be in control. That way Ollie can't fail him again.

How Roy thinks everyone leaves him because he's not good enough. How Ollie leaves everyone because he thinks he's failing them.

Ough...

Bonus: Dinah's side of the call

#i just #i could write 2k about this issue alone #it informs so many of my ollie-roy opinions #and was directly responsible for the line in imperfect consonance about the two of them and all their love caught out of sync #which is a huge part of my main thesis for them #that they love each other but at times and in ways that they can't always see #(the other part being how they enjoy shooting arrows at each other in the arrowcave because they are dumb buddies) #i just love them so much #ollie & roy #oliver queen #roy harper #dc parental relationships #dinah & ollie #dinah & roy

[teafourbirds]

Scenes for a fic I’m working on

#oh goodness this is basically everything i want in the world #look at their faces! #how booster has one of ted's hands between both his own! #all the tenderness in that forehead kiss #absolutely blowing me away #talented artists are talented #ted kord #booster gold #boostle #jli fanart

[teafourbirds]

He's got a clever line for every occasion!

--Teen Titans (1966) #46

#good pun roy #at this point roy and mal together are providing about 90% of the titans' personality in this run #without them there would be nothing #nice to see that roy takes after ollie in this respect #arrows bringing interest to struggling ensemble comics since 1969 #dick & roy #roy harper #speedy #dick grayson #robin

[teafourbirds]

The Justice Society by John Watson

#i barely know the jsa but this is gorgeous #I love it when superheroes are drawn like this #like real people caught in a real moment #art

[teafourbirds]

About the AO3 "No Guest Comments for a while" warning

If you're not following any of AO3's social media accounts you might be in the dark as to what kind of "spam comments" have engendered this banner at the top of the site:

These spam comments have been posted about a great deal on the AO3 subreddit for the past couple of days. Initially they comprised a bunch of guest (logged out users) bot comments that insulted authors by suggesting they were using AI and not writing their own fics. Some examples, from the subreddit:

But it then escalated to outright graphic porn images and gifs being posted in comments, again by logged out 'Guest' accounts. Obviously, I'm not going to give examples of those, but between these two bot infestations, AO3 has clearly decided to act and has temporarily closed the ability to post comments for users who are not logged in with an AO3 account.

Unfortunately, this means that genuine readers who don't have an AO3 account won't be able to leave comments on fics that they enjoy.

If you are a genuine reader who doesn't yet have an AO3 account, I strongly suggest getting yourself on the waiting list for one. More and more AO3 authors are now locking their fics down to registered users only - either due to these bot comments or concerns about AI scraping their work - which means you're probably missing out on a lot of great stuff.

Hopefully guest commenting will be enabled again at some point soon, but I suggest not waiting until then. Get yourself on that list.

Wait times are going to be longer than usual at the moment, due to the current Wattpad purge [info on Fanlore | Wattpad subreddit thread], but if you're in line, then your invite will come through eventually.

Update: There's now a Megathread about this on the AO3 subreddit.

#feel free to dm me if you need an ao3 invite

[teafourbirds]

Wonder Woman #9 variant cover art by Julian Totino Tedesco

#she's so gorgeous #diana of themyscira #wonder woman

[teafourbirds]

arrowfam week 2023 day 2 - scars

ollie’s reconsidering his life choices

#just enjoying this again #it is such a mood #oh ollie what have you gotten yourself into #look at roy's grin #ugh i love them #and seriously there needs to be so much more art/fic exploring this era of their lives #ollie & roy #oliver queen #roy harper

[teafourbirds]

He hates it here

#look it's scott! #look at that face! #characters that do not get enough love in fandom #scott free #mr miracle #jli fanart

[teafourbirds]

ok you know what i get the appeal now

#i just love him #oliver queen

[teafourbirds]

My babies!!!! 😭💖

I saw this cute pic and just had to draw them

#OH NO #they are too adorable #i cannot stand it #titans #titans fanart