Entry tags:
The Trials of a Spoilerphobe
So Game Informer is doing a month-long series on Dragon Age: Inquisition, which is available here for anyone who's interested and hasn't seen it already. It went up last week, and since then the details have been coming fast and furious: from the article, from the website, from developers answering questions and dropping hints on the BioWare forums, from fans speculating about these tidbits of information and coming up with theories based upon them.
And I totally understand the impulse to tear through every scrap of data you can find, especially when it's been so long without any new content, but it's not for me. I want to approach the game as a near-blank slate, a new experience. I want surprises. I want to discover the characters and get to know them as the game presents them, not have my impressions adulterated by advance fan reaction. I don't want to guess all the plot twists for myself in advance. I don't want to develop elaborate headcanons that will almost certainly be contradicted by the events of the game. Again, nothing wrong with that, if it's how you enjoy doing fandom. But any fun I get out of that kind participation is negated by the sense that I'm ruining the games for myself.
In a way, this is nothing new: I've been dodging spoilers on the Internet for about as long as I've been on the Internet, and it's impossible to avoid them entirely -- I was spoiled for a key Harry Potter character death by a headline on CNN! But nothing has prepared me for the experience of spoilers on Tumblr. At least in my other fandom venues, people have always used spoiler cuts or white-on-white spoiler text. Tumblr has no spoiler text option, and while cuts exist people don't tend to use them, especially not for images, and you can't put tags behind them at all. It's not built into the site function, but more importantly it's not part of the community's culture. In "the olden days" of journal reading, you usually got at least a few days between something being released and people posting lots of spoilery things about it. On Tumblr, it's often a matter of minutes before images and gifsets and reaction posts are everywhere.
So for the first time ever, I've installed blocking software (the xkit extension), and although it's helped, it only works as well as people are willing to tag. It's like an arms race, keeping up with the tags and terms that different people use, and I have to wonder how effective it will be. I've already asked three people to be more careful about tagging, and they were all receptive, but at some point I'm probably just going to have to unfollow people. It's either that, or quit Tumblr for a year and a half, and I really don't want to do that. The other day, I was half-joking with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
here_be_dragons about creating a "DA3-free-zone pledge" and only following people who agree to sign it, and although it was mostly a joke, I wonder if it would actually work.
And I totally understand the impulse to tear through every scrap of data you can find, especially when it's been so long without any new content, but it's not for me. I want to approach the game as a near-blank slate, a new experience. I want surprises. I want to discover the characters and get to know them as the game presents them, not have my impressions adulterated by advance fan reaction. I don't want to guess all the plot twists for myself in advance. I don't want to develop elaborate headcanons that will almost certainly be contradicted by the events of the game. Again, nothing wrong with that, if it's how you enjoy doing fandom. But any fun I get out of that kind participation is negated by the sense that I'm ruining the games for myself.
In a way, this is nothing new: I've been dodging spoilers on the Internet for about as long as I've been on the Internet, and it's impossible to avoid them entirely -- I was spoiled for a key Harry Potter character death by a headline on CNN! But nothing has prepared me for the experience of spoilers on Tumblr. At least in my other fandom venues, people have always used spoiler cuts or white-on-white spoiler text. Tumblr has no spoiler text option, and while cuts exist people don't tend to use them, especially not for images, and you can't put tags behind them at all. It's not built into the site function, but more importantly it's not part of the community's culture. In "the olden days" of journal reading, you usually got at least a few days between something being released and people posting lots of spoilery things about it. On Tumblr, it's often a matter of minutes before images and gifsets and reaction posts are everywhere.
So for the first time ever, I've installed blocking software (the xkit extension), and although it's helped, it only works as well as people are willing to tag. It's like an arms race, keeping up with the tags and terms that different people use, and I have to wonder how effective it will be. I've already asked three people to be more careful about tagging, and they were all receptive, but at some point I'm probably just going to have to unfollow people. It's either that, or quit Tumblr for a year and a half, and I really don't want to do that. The other day, I was half-joking with
here_be_dragons about creating a "DA3-free-zone pledge" and only following people who agree to sign it, and although it was mostly a joke, I wonder if it would actually work.
no subject
I wish people would make more use of the [[MORE]] cut and think carefully about the set of tags they use-- both what the tags warn off and what they reveal.
I *like* the DA3-free-zone pledge but I'm not sure how to make it work other than a complete black out on all DA3 stuff.
Different people have different ideas of what constitutes a spoiler. Is information that can be gathered from an official bioware trailer spoilerish? (e.g., names/faces of returning characters, glimpses of maps, etc.) To some people it can be even though to most it is not.
And then there are other pieces of info that become spoilerish once thought is applied. I was intrigued by a piece of concept art (I'm *always* intrigued by concept art, even for games/movies I don't know, and that intrigue stems from career/professional/artistic reasons) but since it was DA3 concept art I purposefully did NOT attempt to analyze what I saw when elements were unknown to me. I'm good at keeping my brain from pouring over details. I blogged the concept art behind a cut with carefully marked non-spoilerish warnings above the cut and in the tags. Well, lo and behold, someone else later blogged the same concept art WITHOUT a cut and marked it up in red with deep analysis on every single character/thing in that art. And I just did not care to know which may seem contradictory to people who didn't see either post as a spoiler but, to me, that level of speculative analysis someone else did made foggy info in my brain click and "2+2 = don't want to know this yet," even if the "this" isn't exactly right.
It seems that the only thing that would work is two levels of DA3-spoiler free pledges:
Level 1: A person's tumblr is committed to being 100% DA3-free until DATE. They will unfollow anyone who does not adhere to the Level 1 or Level 2 pledge.
Level 2: A person's tumblr is committed to always placing ALL D3 information, images, text, speculations, announcements, spoilers, etc., beneath a [[MORE]] cut and always using a pre-agreed set of non-spoilery tags. (e.g., #DA3, #DAI, ...and other permutations..., #DA3-Cut-for-info-Pledge-Level2).
Neither of those solutions solve my problem in which I'm okay with very minor info such as how game play tactics are being revised, which returning characters are appearing (but nothing more about them), which new character Bioware has officially "released" info on but, again, I don't want to know to much about them beyond a one sentence description, and the carefully crafted "back of box" copy that hints at the game's plot without giving it away.
Definitely feeling that sense of "get off my lawn!' ;)
no subject
I definitely agree with you on the info being released not necessarily being spoilery in and of itself, but once people start applying any kind of analysis to it, it becomes way more so. I'm pretty sure I saw the marked-up concept art you mentioned -- that was one of the posts that led me to the tipping point of locking down my reading, along with the discussion of the new character announced in the Game Informer article.
no subject
In retrospect, given stats I've read about the bulk of DA's players (rather than much smaller group in fandom), that game guide author might have assumed that *everyone* plays Male Cousland so this info is important for M!Cousland's tactics in Taking Over The World (hero fulfillment rpg'ing), thus, he never considered what a massive spoiler it is -- and a potentially game changing one too -- for an F!Surana in a romance with Al. Different ideas/assumptions about spoilers AND game play style.
My threshold for spoilers is a mix of variable depending on my emotional(??) story investment in the story vs my intellectual interest. Much of this comes from me wearing different hats when watching a movie or playing a game, and only sometimes am I truly "audience." For instance, I have no emotional investment in Mass Effect or Pacific Rim so I didn't mind being spoiled on minor and not-so-minor aspects. I have minor intellectual interest in Mass Effect when engaging in critical media analysis but a much larger intellectual interest in Pacific Rim. Intellectual interest actually biases me toward spoilers so I miss as little as possible when viewing/playing, especially when I know I only have time for one viewing or one PT. The important thing here is that for at least 50% of the games/movies/books I read, I'm not reading/viewing/playing as an audience member but through a critical lens. If I'm 100% in critical lens mode, I'll purposefully spoil myself before viewing/playing just to save myself time and to be more efficient. (also, much of popular american media would fall in my "low interest" bucket if I wasn't applying a critical lens or a "maker's" lens, so I'm really not the audience for so many things that fandom gets excited about.)
But, something like Dragon Age falls in a sticky spot because I am an intended audience member but I have a lot of intellectual investment too. That intellectual investment stretches from the external "media critic" lens all the way to the deeply internal "how is this made" lens. Assuming I go back to a faculty position, this is/could be stuff I teach. Assuming I go back to the gaming industry in a high-level role, well, obvious analysis is definitely obvious. Assuming I go and do experimental indie media work, again, obvious analysis is obvious. But, I really don't want to be spoiled on certain things because this is a rare piece of popular media from North America that actually interests me at an emotional level although, I am also interested in it at other levels.
So, in the end, it's a tight rope walk. Mostly it means I will be avoiding tumblr whenever certain information comes out, like I did immediately after that concept art image was blogged in ways I'm not interested in. (I've left BSN long ago.)
...
As for actual spoiler level that I'm comfortable with when I'm actually the audience (at least, to some extent)? Take DA2. All I wanted to know was this: "DA2 is about Hawke's decade long rise to power in the Free Marches city of Kirkwall." (Lol! cheeky in not exactly being true, but it gives me the story's genre and time-setting scope so I know what I'm getting into) and "Hawke, accompanied by his/her siblings, Bethany and Carver, and can recruit Aveline, a former Ferelden soldier, Fenris, a run away Tevinter slave, Isabela the pirate captain, Merrill from the Sabrae(sp?) Dalish clan, the grey warden Anders, etc." Nothing more than those little sound bites so I make sure I recruit all of the characters (again, in case I only have time for one PT). Anything more is TMI. And, yes, Bethany's death and Wesley's death *completely* shocked me during my first hour of DA2.
There are things I want to discuss about the ways in which DA3 might correct less successful aspects of the franchise so far but, if I do, I'll either do that under my real name elsewhere (outside of fandom) or over beer IRL.
no subject
A friend sort of spoiled me for Carver's death, although he misunderstood which twin died (he thought it was based on your Hawke's gender rather than their character class), and I was spoiled for Anders's actions in the DA2 ending by a summary on AO3. But then I played DA2 months after it was released (and DA:O years later), so I wasn't expecting to have a spoiler-free experience. Since I'm ahead of the game on DA:I, I'm much more protective of my unspoiled status.
FYI, as you requested, I posted my list of blocked keywords on my Tumblr, if you are still interested.
no subject
I've had good luck with official game-guides (the book kind, not the fanmade ones) keeping spoilers in the back and clearly marked, away from tactical gameplay info and little warnings about missables. That said, I now play bioware games with no more info than the list of people I need to recruit, and I save the game guides for second PTs.
That Anders spoiler on AO3: Ouch. That one really sucks. Those story summaries on ff.net and AO3 can be spoiler mines. After an on-and-off FFXII fanfic binge in 2007-09, I rarely read fanfic anymore beyond things in shared worlds or by specific fan-authors (if even that, these days). It's pretty easy for me to stay spoiler free on that front but fanart? Ouch. That can be spoiler-central, especially when the art is backed with narrative visual information. The old "a picture paints a 1000 words" problem.
I've already started a few tumblr side blogs (that I need to update tonight) but given the likelihood of spoilers, I'm about to create a tumblr safezone for me under a different email address so I can continue using tumblr for art inspiration/reference and other things *without* DA3 spoilers getting through pictorially.