#sam advises fandom

[copperbadge]

Hey, Mr. Badge, can I ask you about fandom etiquette? Back in probably the early seventeenth century, when I used to write fic, I would sometimes get emails of people who read them in random geocities fanfiction pages, and it was pretty easy to answer them all, because I'd get maybe one email every week. Now I'm back in this writing thing, on AO3, and I got so many comments, I'm so happy! But I can't answer them all? Should I answer them all? Am I being mean if I don't? What to do?

I have tried, several times throughout my fannish life (which is now well more than half my actual life) to respond to every comment I get. And all it did was stress me out and fuck me up and take a shitload of time I could have used to write. 

And honestly, every time I’ve brought this up with my readers, they’ve said “You know we weren’t really looking for a reply, right?”

Obviously this applies mostly to comments that are just like OMG I LOVED IT, but I think a vast majority of people, unless they’ve asked a question or brought up a discussion point, aren’t expecting a response. And in some ways, responding to a series of comments with a cookie cutter (”Thank you!”) or similar can be a bit insulting. They know you read and liked their comment, they don’t need you rubberstamping it. :D

So yeah, I don’t respond to comments that don’t seem to need it. About once a week (usually Thursday or Friday) I go through my AO3 inbox and I do three sweeps:

Sweep one: I re-read, enjoy, and then gently clear out all the comments that obviously don’t need a response. If someone has left comments on a lot of fics at once, even if they don’t need a response, I usually respond thanking them for all their comments.

Sweep two: I re-read, respond to, and then gently clear out all the comments that either A) I wanted to respond to or B) needed a response but not a complicated one.

Sweep three: I re-read and attempt to respond to especially long or complex comments. Admittedly I don’t get to this every week, because sometimes I cannot brain, but I do my best.

It’s a system that has worked well for me, and more importantly it’s consistent, so anyone who DOES want a response should be able to see a pattern in how I answer comments. I think as long as you have a systematic method of responding or not responding, nobody feels hurt.

[copperbadge]

Hey, Sam, are you keeping up with Secret Wars? I'm not good at keeping up with comics in general (I keep up Tony though because, well, I have a problem) but I'm wondering - what's Steve's status right now? I've heard bits about him - Ults Steve is miraculously alive, 616 Steve is old and no longer Captain America, and in Planet Hulk he's a gladiator (have you read that one/I'm guessing it's an alternate universe?) Anyways, please help (if you can), I'm confused. D:

Well, what you have to understand is that Secret Wars takes place in Battleworld, which is literally a group of AUs crudely stitched together by magic. So there is no single defining Steve Rogers. There are many iterations of some of the characters; Steve and Tony seem to have the most. We’ve only seen one Kamala Khan, one Doom, one Loki, etc. but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more. We have at least four Tonys (Ults, 616, Old West, Armor Wars) and a shitload of Hulks of various eras and dispositions. There are two Carol Danvers at least (one in the Carol Corps and one from 616). It’s safe to assume that if you see a character, they are just one version and others may be lurking nearby. 

There’s Steve who is some kind of lawman in the old west (I won’t be reading this because fuck westerns, that’s why) and he’s a gladiator in Planet Hulk, and there’s a Captain America in Ultimate End but we don’t know where he comes from or if he’s actually Steve (he’s too young to be from 616 and he’s dead in Ults so ??) and there may be a few more lurking around. There are also non-Steve Caps, too, like in 2099 where Cap is a woman who literally doesn’t know she’s Cap. (Super creepy!) 

From what we’ve seen of previews for post-Battleworld Captain America, it appears that Sam Wilson is still Cap and Steve Rogers is still old, so that’s probably where we’re headed once Battleworld gets resolved. 

[copperbadge]

Ooh, are you still doing comic asks? I'm kind of interested in the Spider-Gwen and Silk comics (omg awesome outfits) and my boyfriend is curious about a recent Spider-Woman trade paperback (omg awesome new outfit) so I was wondering if you knew whether we can dive straight into these comics as is or need to read some of the Spider-Verse stuff, and if so, what issues/TPBs we need (besides just splurging on that massive collection of all the Spider-Verse stuff)?

Well, the nice thing about Marvel comics is that they usually do an update page explaining what’s going on at the front of each book. For ensemble books or for complicated arcs these update pages are often fundamentally useless (if still nice to have for the character lists) but for single-character books they can help a lot, especially when the books are just starting out, as Spider-Gwen and Silk both are. 

(Also excellent choices, both books are fantastic.)

So you can probably start with whatever number is out now, pay attention to the update page, and just keep going from there. Or you can try to pick up back issues back to #1 for each, which will help especially in the case of Spider-Gwen -- Silk’s story moves a lot more slowly than Gwen’s. Both books do have their origins in the Spider-verse event (Silk comes in slightly before in the Spider-man book, as its catalyst), but neither book actually requires Spider-verse reading because Spider-Gwen is in an alternate reality and Silk -- well, Silk plays a major part in the Spider-verse BUT none of that has much bearing on her existence now, and the first issue goes over what happened to her anyway. 

If you DO want to go all the way back, you should pick up Edge Of Spider-verse #2, which is Gwen’s origin story. Spider-verse was actually a really enjoyable, well-written event (Edge of Spider-verse was not super necessary, but it was interesting reading), so if you have Marvel Unlimited you should check it out to see if you like it. Or, IDK, it might have TPBs out at this point that you could page through. But it’s not necessary in order to follow the Silk and Spider-Gwen comics. 

I hope you enjoy them! I’m loving the writing on both, and Spider-Gwen’s art style is really unique and interesting. I’m not sure how much longer each has in their run since *handwave* Battleworld, but they’re worth reading regardless. 

[copperbadge]

So I want to start reading Marvel comics, but I have no idea where to begin. I've heard about the different universes like 616 and Ultimates, but I'm so confused. Can you recommend anything, or point me in a direction?

Oh man, this is like, the worst time to get into comics, right this minute. 

Normally I would link you to the “giant list of comics I’m reading right now”, but the problem is that at the moment most of them temporarily don’t exist. Marvel is doing a big, loud, hard reboot of the universe that’s going to take several months, and during that time almost every comic they’re publishing is a self-referential mess that nobody who doesn’t already read comics will have an easy time understanding. 

So uh. You have a couple of options.

One option is to wait a few months and then start buying or reading comics that come out with a big #1 on their cover. That’ll be the start of a run and you’ll get in on the ground floor. Read what’s interesting, stop reading what’s not, and slowly you’ll learn what your tastes are. If the comic book shop nearest to you isn’t full of jerks, ask them to recommend new comics for someone who’s looking to start reading, and give them an idea of your tastes (low violence, high violence, lots of drama, lots of battles, philosophical comics, etc) so that they can help you find what you’d like. You can check haterfreewednesdays to see if your local shop is listed as recommended or not-recommended. 

Another option is to just jump in. Start reading any comic you see that looks interesting and if it gets confusing, just let it be confusing for a while. Even if you start reading with #1 comics, you will probably still be confused for a few weeks to a few months, and the only way to get round that is to plow through it. Eventually you’ll start to recognize characters and understand plots. I’d keep an eye out for comics written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Gail Simone, G. Willow Wilson, Matt Fraction, and (with reservations) Brian Michael Bendis. When you find a comic you like, note the author of the comic, and look at what else they’ve done. (Simone and DeConnick in particular are really good about writing in a way that provides a lot of context for new readers.)

A third option is to backread -- to get a subscription to say, Marvel Unlimited, which is all digital, and read old comics they recommend or that you stumble across. They have archives of “Events” that can sometimes be fun. If you find there’s a character you’re especially interested in, backread their comics, which will lead you on to other interesting comics.

Other helpful things to do are read comic book news sites, like comicbookresources.com and comicvine.com, where you can pick up a lot by context. And when you do read an actual comic, you should feel okay about going online and googling characters or comics titles. When I started reading comics in a serious way, I used a combination of wikipedia, marvel.wikia.com, and various indy fan pages to figure out wtf was going on. You can get backstory there, and sometimes you can find events you want to read more about, which can lead you back to earlier comics that are fun to read.

I mean, the upshot is, as much as I love comics and want more people to get into them, they are a fairly inaccessible canon for a new beginner; there’s a lot of hostile assholes who think of themselves as gatekeepers of who’s worthy (ignore them) and the company itself doesn’t exactly make this shit easy. Without a guide it can be really hard, and sometimes the payout doesn’t feel worth it. 

So I welcome you into the comic book family, and I hope you really enjoy reading them whichever option you choose. I want you in this fandom and I think the work it takes to get here is worth it. But know at the outset that there are a lot of creepy cousins and weirdo aunts at this family reunion, and you just have to spend a little time confused sometimes before you find your place. 

If you do want some primers on comics, head to my main page, copperbadge.tumblr.com, and check the right-hand side under “Comic Book Primers”. There are links there to posts explaining 616 versus Ultimates, the various spider-mans, and a couple of interesting older arcs. Some of the info is now dated but it’ll give you a handhold to start from. Good luck and happy reading :) 

[copperbadge]

Copperbadge, I feel you may be the best authority to speak on this. Do you think Tony has ever, or would ever put a phone charger in the suit or make one for his arc reactor?

You know, my instinctive response was that he doesn’t need a phone charger in the suit because he has comms, so he probably doesn’t think about charging phones ever. But actually I would be willing to bet the suit already has one for the singular reason that once Pepper’s phone ran out of battery and Tony felt bad watching her trying to find a charging cord and outlet. Also you can always use a USB port for SOMETHING, right?

Off and on, throughout the years, Tony’s chest implant has run on electrical power -- prior to the first Iron Man film in particular, he often had to plug in to recharge (as early as the first few Iron Man comics we see him plugging into a wall socket, and as late as Armored Adventures in 2008, Tony had to charge his implant or risk running low on power). It has occasionally been a plot device -- in the late nineties, he started having to do it more and more often, and it was visibly painful to do.

So I don’t think he would put such a vulnerability into his reactor, especially since if you put a port for energy discharge into what is now a near-bottomless source of energy, what you have are the makings of a really spectacular bomb. I believe it’s The Five Nightmares by Matt Fraction where a villain finds a way to weaponise reactor tech and starts installing them in suicide bombers, for example. 

But yeah, I can see him putting a charger in the suit. Probably in a special sleeve where you can tuck your phone in there too so he can charge it while zooming around saving lives.

[copperbadge]

Sam, most of my fics are lucky to get even 1-2 comments, even for the long ones I put lots of work into. I can deal with that, I write a rarepair. But my friend typically gets at least 5 for even xyr shorter fics, and then xe complains on xyr tumblr about their fics totally bombing and how they never get any comments. I think it's unspeakably rude to the people who DID comment and to the people who don't get any comments at all. Should I say something or just leave it?

I suppose it is rude to complain about a lack of comments in that sense, where you DID get comments and are kind of writing those commenters out of existence. And perhaps a bit tactless to discuss it with other writers, sort of like discussing your salary with your coworkers, though I hesitate to make that comparison. It’s not...good for a person, I guess, to write specifically in order to get comments -- it’s much healthier to write out of love for the craft and the canon (or in some cases a deep, throbbing desire to correct canon, which is not always exclusive with loving it but sometimes can be). But I won’t lie, it’s nice to get comments. 

The thing is -- well, I’m not trying to criticize, but opening with a discussion of how many comments you get versus how many xe gets, that indicates to me that perhaps this is not a selfless concern, that you are maybe acting out of a little bit of jealousy. Which is okay! Jealousy is a natural emotion that we feel, and you look like you handle it well. 

But it means that your instinct to comment on xyr behavior may be coming from a less than legitimate place. 

Don’t get me wrong, in your shoes I’d be wondering the same thing. And I might even want to say something like “I’m sure the people who did take the time to comment would be upset to hear you didn’t enjoy theirs”. But, hopefully, I would keep quiet. Because while the person may realize what they’re doing is tactless to you and unappreciative to their readers, the odds of that versus the odds of them getting angry and defensive and not changing AT ALL are pretty slim. 

So where does that leave you when xe tries to talk comments with you again? Well, you can simply be passive -- don’t agree, don’t be sympathetic, hope xe gets that xe will no longer receive attention from YOU on the topic of comments either -- or you can change the subject. Or you can say something like “I’m not sure our ideas about comments are the same -- perhaps this is something we shouldn’t discuss” but that’s probably going to open the door to asking what you mean, which opens the door to a lot of other stuff you may not want to get into. 

It’s tough to know whether to pick this battle, and what to say if you do. But if nothing else, when xe starts in on it, remind yourself that this is one point on which you two diverge, and you’re entitled to disagree without taking action; you are not the Manners Police and you don’t have to get into it with them. I hope you find a good middle ground, or at least some personal peace, with the topic. 

[copperbadge]

Hi, Sam! I have a followup for your fic archive demonstration: Do you have a recommended way of combining mulitichapter fics from places like lj and fictionally that don't have ao3's blessed full view option under one bookmark? I really love having everything in one place. My current super clunky system involves copy-pasting them into one document and saving that, and every time I do that I feel like I'm missing some obvious development in the Modern Age of Fic Collecting.

Honestly? Even using evernote, if a multichaptered fic appears with chapters in different places -- like on LJ, Tumblr, kinkmemes, etc -- I evernote-clip the first chapter and copy-paste the rest of the chapters into it. 

The thing is that while fanfic archival has changed and adapted along with the internet, a lot of the platforms where fic was kept and is posted haven’t. LJ remains essentially unchanged since the late nineties; Dreamwidth was based on LJ’s structure with ingenious tweaks, but its design was still as a social site, not an archive, and structurally there’s been very little change. Most archives pre-AO3 literally can’t change -- it would be a massive overhaul if it were even possible to alter the code and still preserve whatever fics are already there. Tumblr isn’t designed for fic archival, either. Most platforms aren’t because that was never meant to be their primary purpose. 

Up until AO3, fanfic wasn’t something that a site focused on -- even other archives were essentially building on a messageboard-based infrastructure that didn’t lend itself well to the kinds of adaptations we see with AO3, like “show all chapters” and “save as PDF”.  

Fandom, more specifically fanfic, was something that came to a site and bent the site to its will as well as we could given what we had to work with, which varied in quality. Kinkmemes on LJ, for example, are a triumph of human ingenuity over a structure that was never designed for the uses to which we put it. And honestly, I wouldn’t want to use AO3 for social media in a million trillion years. 

Um, all of which is a long way of saying that while archival systems have progressed, a lot of the archives currently in place haven’t changed in ten or twenty years, and many of them can’t. So there’s no better way to deal with them now than there was twenty years ago. Copy and paste is where it’s at. :D 

[copperbadge]

I keep hearing things about Hulk eating people in the Ultimates comics but I can never find it. Is he like tearing them apart or swallowing them whole??? WHY IS HULK EATING PEOPLE.

In Ults, Hulk is a little more self-aware and a little less self-contained. He eats people presumably because they pissed him off, he wanted a snack, and he has no taboo against it. Ults Hulk has no moral code, he’s basically a bomb; you aim him at the enemy and set him off. In one instance, Cap directed him by telling him “hey those guys over there were saying you’re gay” and Hulk went into a homophobic rage and murdered them hard. (Classy, writers.) 

I’d have to go digging through my ults comics for examples, which I’m not super keen to do, but what I remember most vividly is Bruce saying he can still taste them after transforming back, or something similar. The eating people thing was basically a way to establish that Hulk is seriously violent and uncontrolled.