Discussion Friday

[geraineon]

Today's topic is about ... Spoilers!

If you've read webnovel summaries, you might notice varying level of spoilers in the summary. Some give absolutely no relevant information, and some spoil the major plot points from the get-go.

So, some prompts:

So, what is your spoiler tolerance? How much detail do you want to read on the novel summaries? Are you the type to seek out spoilers, or avoid spoilers like the plague? is your spoiler tolerance different for different media?

Comments

[geraineon]

I am allergic to spoilers, avoid them like the plague for most other media and usually like to go in with zero knowledge (though sometimes, sometimes my friends will try to sell me on a canon by telling me that it contains [insert specific thing] that I enjoy).

But strangely I am perfectly okay reading webnovel summaries (though those that give zero information amuses me a lot). At least, I haven't found webnovel summaries that make me think "oh no, I really wish it hasn't spoiled [x]"

I read fanfic the same way too. I don't mind fanfic spoilers at all.

[grayswandir]

Interesting that webnovels and fanfic are different! I'm not sure I have any exceptions like that. I used to have AO3 set up to hide the tags on fanfic so I could avoid seeing spoilers, though that made it hard to avoid things like coffee shop AUs or whatever, so now I have the tags visible but just... try not to look at them very closely. XD

[geraineon]

I think it's because I usually look for them to scratch a specific itch (webnovels, I do read them sometimes with no prior knowledge, but sometimes I am looking for a very specific trope). I think it's possible to just hide all the coffee shop AU tagged stuff on ao3 using a script, shared by sophia_sol (I'll DM you with what I used, so you can just modify it and add to your preferences).

[grayswandir]

That makes sense! I do sometimes search for fanfic based on the tags, so I can picture how reading for specific tropes might make a difference to how much you'd want to know before reading.

(Thanks for the AO3 script!)

[geraineon]

<3 you're welcome!

[aurumcalendula]

It varies, tbh. I do like to know what kind of ending something has (and I tend to look for more spoilers if I know something is a tragedy).

[geraineon]

Ohh yeah, I remember we talked about this before! If it's not a tragedy, how much details would you like to have, or is it enough to know it's not gonna be a tragedy?

[aurumcalendula]

It's usually enough to know it's not heading towards a tragedy, but I don't tend go out of my way to avoid spoilers. Highlight for spoilers! *Like, I honestly can't remember how I was spoiled for the fact that SQQ and LBH's first time was going to traumatic for them (it might've been via fandom osmosis before I read any of the books)?* I sometimes check content warnings, if I've heard something gets particularly heavy/dark.

[geraineon]

Ah, that spoiler is probably fandom osmosis... I remember it was talked about a lot at some point.

[sophia_sol]

I almost always prefer going in with spoilers! both bc it lets me know if it's a book I'm likely to enjoy reading, and bc I like knowing what to expect from a story, to keep me from getting too stressed out about what might happen

if a summary doesn't have sufficient spoilers for me, then I'll be looking elsewhere to try to find more details, tbh

the only context rn where I avoid spoilers is for a couple of things I'm reading for a tiny (4 person) book club, because it's more fun to talk about the week's chapters together if I don't have more info than my friends in the club

[geraineon]

thanks for sharing! have you read for bookclubs without spoilers prior to this 4-person bookclub before? does it make the stress of not knowing easier when you have friends who are at a similar place in the book as you?

[sophia_sol]

I've only been in a book club once before, and that previous book club is one I dropped after the very first meeting because it was so completely opposite to what I was looking for in a book club experience (....a group of old white cishet christian centrists who wanted to talk earnestly about boring literary fiction and didn't notice racism), so this is my first experience!

but yes, it makes the stress of not knowing a lot easier when I know we're all in it together -- and also because for both the things we're reading (umineko and omniscient reader's viewpoint) one club member has actually previously read in its entirety and thought the rest of us would like it. and I trust my friends in the club, and I know that if there were ever something that I really did need to get a spoiler for, they'd be there for me.

[geraineon]

a group of old white cishet christian centrists who wanted to talk earnestly about boring literary fiction and didn't notice racism

that certainly does not sound like it's gonna be a good time!

I'm glad this current book club is working out so well for you! Definitely helps to have trusted friends.

[yujiang]

I actually ran into this problem trying to summarize TGCF for a Tumblr mutual asking if they should read TGCF... I was sitting there like, "How much can I actually say without spoiling the entire book?" and eventually I think I just said "a god ascends for the third time, gets into shenanigans, slowburns with a hot ghost king, and shenanigans more." which is incredibly unsatisfying and not at all a compelling case for reading TGCF.

Personally, my tolerance of spoilers is pretty high, but at the bare minimum, I want the trigger warnings at least and the context for said trigger warnings. It's like how I got scared off from 2ha because of the trigger warnings list, but then I read a somewhat spoilery summary to actually understand where the warnings came from before finally deciding, "Nah, I don't think I'd like this MC."

[geraineon]

lol, well... it's a perfectly good summary! and much better than some other summaries i've seen which is like, "wow, this tells me absolutely nothing" XD

ahaha, my thoughts on how 2ha fandom markets 2ha *unravels a long scroll*

[douqi]

I don't seek spoilers out, but I don't really mind them at all. I find if a story is good, it holds up regardless of how much I've been spoiled on it. Case in point: due to its fame, I knew the ending to Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd long before I read it, so I knew who the murderer was, going in. Yet I still couldn't fathom how they'd managed to commit the murder.

[geraineon]

Mm, vague spoilers can work well to whip up a sense of curiosity. Would you be upset if the method of murder is spoiled?

[douqi]

I don't think I'd mind at all!

[geraineon]

Ah, very high spoiler tolerance then! It feels like people who responded to this post are generally okay with spoilers, which is interesting because my non-DW circles are very spoiler averse XD

[kalloway]

I generally want spoilers! I only have so much time for hobbies and would rather engage with stuff I have a higher likelihood of enjoying. Every now and then, I'll find something and plow through spoiler-free and am glad I did, but for anything longer that'll be a significant time/finance sink, pls just tell me what's going to happen so I can decide how to use my limited resources. ^^;;

[geraineon]

Thanks for sharing! What is the length you'd consider going in without spoilers, and are there other considerations? (e.g., if you're familiar with the author)

[kalloway]

It can really depend. I'll read a lot of Vol. 1's spoiler-free and then if I like it, I'll generally look up info on the rest so I can decide if I want to keep going. But if a friend gives a glowing rec and is pretty sure I'll like something, I'll roll with it most of the time.

(Mostly I want to know if characters I like survive the story, if I'll hate the end ships, etc. I don't need to know every plot twist but I've spent far too long being mad at stories to want to keep spending far too long being mad at stories.)

[geraineon]

Ahaha, it is extra maddening when something starts off so well and then it goes off the rails or does something that makes reading it very, very frustrating. Would knowing that the characters you like die in the story/or if the end ships are all NoTPs make you stop reading?

[kalloway]

Oh for sure. Did that last year. Started a random book while waiting at the library, adored it, got to Book 4 and things started going off the rails, skimmed Book 5 and checked Goodreads for reactions to Book 6... Anyway there are three books in that series and they are very lovely, I am just saying.

[geraineon]

oof. yes, definitely there are only three books!

[duckprintspress]

I'm absolutely a spoiler-seeker. I especially basically MUST know, going in, if there's harm to children, or else I get blindsided (cough cough Qiye cough cough) and it's Not Good.

but in general I just don't mind spoilers, and I often will get them intentionally. They help me deal with the tension/anxiety of Need To Know; when I don't look things up I can engage in not good behaviors like staying up all night to find out the thing I need to know.

[geraineon]

Mm, I remember we talked about this before (probably related to the post on tragedy). Seems like being okay with spoilers/seeking spoilers is the more common thing, at least with the people who replied here.

[grayswandir]

I avoid spoilers as much as possible. I think my favorite experience is when I pick something from a rec list or similar, and all I know is that it's in a genre I like, or by author I like, or stars an actor I like, or something else that tells me nothing about the actual plot. Then I get to experience the story with zero preconceptions, and judge it solely against itself, not against what I thought or hoped it would be or what I was told it would be, or anything else.

For something like classic literature where everyone already knows the plot, I can still enjoy a book despite being spoiled for it to some extent, but I'd rather be unspoiled as much as possible. (Not a Cnovel example, but for instance I of course already knew the big reveal in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde before I read it. I still found the book interesting, but probably not as interesting as I would have if the end had been a surprise, and I kept thinking it was too bad I'd never be able to know what it was like to actually experience the twist and be surprised by it, or know if I could have guessed it ahead of time.)

Watching a movie adaptation first and then reading the book feels different, though, since in that case it does feel like I got to experience the plot and its developments and twists organically, just through a different medium. So if I watch a book after seeing the movie (or vice versa), I don't usually feel like I missed out on an experience the way I do with just having spoilers alone.

It does get a bit tricky in cases where I only become interested in reading something after being spoiled for it, though. :P Like if someone posts spoilers for a book and I think "eh, I don't mind spoilers for this, I'm never going to read it anyway," and then after reading the spoilers I think "damn, it sounds like I would have really enjoyed this book, actually."

[geraineon]

Yes! This is why I am spoiler avoidant! I want to experience it with zero expectations of how the plot will go (I will still *make guesses*, but that's part of the fun!). Sometimes, knowing a bit about the story can set up expectations that are wrong, which can result in the need for a re-calibration before I can enjoy the story.

I guess movie adaptations are a little different because often, they will change something in order to make it work in a movie format.

can't do anything about the case you mentioned though... i guess that depends on the degree of the spoiler? if it's very, very vague ("there's a twist" vs. "the twist is ..."), then the element of surprise is still there.

[hazevi]

Kinda late but I'm pretty spoiler avoidant! I think I might have gotten more extreme with this the past year due to getting various forms of media spoiled for myself which kinda ruins immersion.

Most of those spoilers were for game plot so I'm kinda sour about it; nowadays my spoiler tolerance for games is like 0. I'd say that my spoiler tolerance for novels is probably second lowest, like I'm fine with knowing dynamics, general stuff but I still want to read the story for myself. I think I'm alright on visual media, people can kinda tell me what happens until I say stop don't spoil the plot twist or something. I guess for dramas since many c-dramas are novel-adapted it doesn't matter since I'll just read the novel first haha.

Also, one thing about spoilers for me is that usually they come with some unique perspective from the spoiler (with or without intent). Since my brain really isn't great at filtering out information I tend to internalize a lot of this stuff even if I don't want to and then I might form premature opinions going in, which is not great.

Novel summaries usually don't count as spoilers for me though because I think it's a good thing to show off some important scenes to let the reader get a sense of what's going on, and it's usually without context so it makes it quite satisfying when the reader gets there and realizes oh this was the summary scene.

I'm firmly convinced that what type of information you have going in absolutely determines what type of experience you have, and like for some great pieces of media somedays I'm just like I'd pay a high price for a pair of eyes and a brain that has not experienced this so that I can do so for the first time again lol.

[geraineon]

Oh no! Being accidentally spoiled because people don't tag spoilers, the worst! (Is it genshin/HSR?) I am very, very gameplot spoiler avoidant. I hate them! Because I want to experience them with zero knowledge and preconceptions.

For cdramas, I think it also depends on how different the drama is from the novel. Sometimes, it's almost like the characters and plot are just vaguely in the same *shape* haha.

Re: type of information determines the experience

For me, if I go into something with a misconception about the genre, it can really throw me off. Sometimes spoilers without context can do that, and it has ruined some media experiences for me.

Thank you for sharing!

[hazevi]

It was HSR, as well as a big reveal for the indie game Omori! So after those I've definitely grown even more of a shell towards spoilers haha.

[geraineon]

Yeah, hoyoverse game players on most social media platforms are *really* not careful about posting spoilers. Sorry that happened! =(

and for Omori too...