Give me strength

[owlmoose]

I'm going to see if I can take a Tumblr hiatus for a couple of days, in the interest of avoiding Iron Man 3 spoilers as it opens in the United States. We already have tickets to see it on Saturday morning (our preferred strategy for seeing a big blockbuster film on opening weekend -- it worked really well for Inception and The Avengers, at least), so at least it won't be for too long. I've never taken a break from Tumblr when I had regular Internet access before; we'll see if I can manage it. ;) If nothing else, it should give me a good block of time to finish my DOINK! fic. Which is coming along, but given that the due date is Monday, I really ought to get it done.

Comments

[sarasa_cat]

Ha! Your icon! :D

Yes, Tumblr is spoiler central. There doesn't seem to be a good strategy for completely avoiding spoilers on tumblr either. Turning of graphics and blacklisting certain tags helps but not completely. :/

Although I have willingly allowed Tumblr to spoil me on some things, I may need to take a tumblr hiatus once DA3 comes out especially if the game comes out on a date when work+life doesn't allow me to marathon through it.

[owlmoose]

I've been wondering what to do about DA3 for awhile now. Do I finally give in and install Tumblr Savior? (An imperfect solution, both because it doesn't always work -- people don't tag, things slip through -- and because it doesn't work on my iPad, where I do a solid bit of my Tumbling.) Judicious unfollowing, semi-hiatus? There's no way I can marathon the game, because I'll want to play the first time through with my husband, and he doesn't really do the marathon thing. It usually takes us a solid month to play through a new RPG. And that doesn't help with pre-release spoilers. I already know more than I would ideally like, thanks to all the rumors whipping around. I wouldn't normally sit through an E3 upfront, but this time I may have to, just so I know what's actually coming from Bioware and what's rampant speculation!

[sarasa_cat]

Even with Tumblr Savior, I doubt I'll be able to avoid spoilers. I might end up running my tumblr mostly on queue for a few weeks if I cannot find a happy compromise.

I stopped visiting BSN quite a while ago to avoid DA3 info and there are a few really nice hardcore fans who I have, sadly, decided to ignore completely because of how much speculation they like doing, to the point that they are already writing speculative scenes with the unannounced DA3 PC doing things in Thedas with speculated characters.

I'm okay knowing only the vaguest info such as list of companions but nothing more, and nothing about those companions that spoils things. In DA2's terms, I was okay going in knowing that I would have an opportunity to recruit Anders, Isabela, Merrill, a runaway Tevinter slave, an "exiled prince," etc. Vaguely knowing who I am supposed to recruit is really the only meta-knowledge I want, just to make sure I have most of my party together before too long, gameplay allowing. On the other hand, during my first PT, I'm *very* *not* okay being spoiled on anything about secret companions (DA:O's Loghain) or any of the crisis points that gets a companion killed or taken out of the party. And I'm not okay being spoiled on game elements that aren't obvious from the official game's website.

For instance, the first time I played DA2, when Bethany got killed by the Ogre I was SHOCKED because I didn't expect one of the companions to get killed within the first 45 minutes of the game. I was also a bit surprised when Wesley died and the shock of those deaths were very effective in setting the game's tone. I might have made different choices right from the start if I knew about the Bethany-vs-Carver thing and I'm really glad that I managed to avoid that massive spoiler 9 months after the game was released!

So, when Bioware posts their DA3 promotional website, I'll look at it but I won't talk to people about it. If Bioware writes backstories for characters like they did for DA2, I'll read those. But that's where I draw my spoiler-line-in-the-sand. I know other people draw the line elsewhere. I realize that it is unrealistic for my PC to know who s/he can recruit, so it is a mini-spoiler, in a sense, but it's the only mini-spoiler I'm sort of okay with, but only if my knowledge is at the level of "Hawke can recruit a runaway slave from Tevinter" and nothing more.

Likewise, I won't look at a strategy guide for DA3 until AFTER I've played through it once. Those guides can be very spoilerish even when they don't mean to. I'm still grumbling at the DA:O guide that BOLDLY spoils who Alistair's father is on the "Alistair introduction/about" page. D: