Glee fandom, you're going to kill me.
Usually I put things like this behind cut tags, but since this rant is specifically about people not using cut tags it seems more appropriate not to use one. :P Sorry.
First off, let me state that obviously people can do whatever they want in their own journals. We all can. I am not talking about limiting people's personal freedoms. Also, I am aware that we all have different views of spoilers. I fall firmly on the side of wanting to know as little as possible, because I love making embarrassing squeaky noises at the cat on my lap when I am surprised by something I see on the screen (there are scenes from various episodes I had to play five or six times before I could go onto the rest of the show because they were so exciting, thank goodness for TiVo), but I know some of you love to know what's coming three episodes ahead and to try to piece together plot lines from mysterious tweets and whatnot. I understand that.
The thing is, though, that for those of us who don't want to see spoilers, it's exceptionally hard, especially in the Glee fandom, to avoid them. I was blindsided this week about the same item by comments to the rec post in the kurt_blaine community, a fic that wasn't labeled at all for spoilers, and for someone discussing the item above a cut below which was a fic about it. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for people who can't watch the show live (either because of their busy lives or because it is shown on a different day or week in their country), but even if I know it's unfortunately unlikely that everybody will remember to keep ideas and icons under wraps after an episode airs it does not seem like too much to ask for people not to discuss the specifics of an episode before it airs in the country of its origin. And saying "spoilers about Kurt's mermaid status" is in itself a spoiler to me, because then I know there's a discussion of him being a mermaid.
Seriously. This should not be hard, but it apparently is.
I know people who like spoilers love to talk about them. It's just not fair to the rest of us not to warn in the vaguest way possible that a post contains that kind of discussion. I've been in fandom for more than eight years now, and only twice in that entire time have I been happy to be spoiled. Both times I went looking for the news, because at the end of Buffy and the end of Angel I thought Joss would kill people, and I needed to be prepared for it. Otherwise, every single other time I have been inadvertantly spoiled I have enjoyed the episode a lot less. A LOT. It's not just a ho-hum reaction; it's an anti-squeaky noise reaction. With Glee it's even worse because the spoilers are so unreliable, so things never happen the way fandom thinks they will.
I don't know what to do about it. I have given up Tumblr months ago, and I now only skim kurt_blaine every few days at most and have to read it through squinted eyes so I can't read as fast and can back away when someone's summary or author's note looks like it's going in a bad direction. But I like having authors whose writing I enjoy on my friends list, and if I can't read their LJs because they post spoilers or episode reaction without a cut and I can't read the communities to which they post their fic I either have to be a fandom outcast or have the show at least partially ruined for me.
I hate both solutions.
:(
(And seriously, don't you dare talk to me about a spoiler here or elsewhere unless you are stoney321 and I have given you specific dispensation. :P )
First off, let me state that obviously people can do whatever they want in their own journals. We all can. I am not talking about limiting people's personal freedoms. Also, I am aware that we all have different views of spoilers. I fall firmly on the side of wanting to know as little as possible, because I love making embarrassing squeaky noises at the cat on my lap when I am surprised by something I see on the screen (there are scenes from various episodes I had to play five or six times before I could go onto the rest of the show because they were so exciting, thank goodness for TiVo), but I know some of you love to know what's coming three episodes ahead and to try to piece together plot lines from mysterious tweets and whatnot. I understand that.
The thing is, though, that for those of us who don't want to see spoilers, it's exceptionally hard, especially in the Glee fandom, to avoid them. I was blindsided this week about the same item by comments to the rec post in the kurt_blaine community, a fic that wasn't labeled at all for spoilers, and for someone discussing the item above a cut below which was a fic about it. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for people who can't watch the show live (either because of their busy lives or because it is shown on a different day or week in their country), but even if I know it's unfortunately unlikely that everybody will remember to keep ideas and icons under wraps after an episode airs it does not seem like too much to ask for people not to discuss the specifics of an episode before it airs in the country of its origin. And saying "spoilers about Kurt's mermaid status" is in itself a spoiler to me, because then I know there's a discussion of him being a mermaid.
Seriously. This should not be hard, but it apparently is.
I know people who like spoilers love to talk about them. It's just not fair to the rest of us not to warn in the vaguest way possible that a post contains that kind of discussion. I've been in fandom for more than eight years now, and only twice in that entire time have I been happy to be spoiled. Both times I went looking for the news, because at the end of Buffy and the end of Angel I thought Joss would kill people, and I needed to be prepared for it. Otherwise, every single other time I have been inadvertantly spoiled I have enjoyed the episode a lot less. A LOT. It's not just a ho-hum reaction; it's an anti-squeaky noise reaction. With Glee it's even worse because the spoilers are so unreliable, so things never happen the way fandom thinks they will.
I don't know what to do about it. I have given up Tumblr months ago, and I now only skim kurt_blaine every few days at most and have to read it through squinted eyes so I can't read as fast and can back away when someone's summary or author's note looks like it's going in a bad direction. But I like having authors whose writing I enjoy on my friends list, and if I can't read their LJs because they post spoilers or episode reaction without a cut and I can't read the communities to which they post their fic I either have to be a fandom outcast or have the show at least partially ruined for me.
I hate both solutions.
:(
(And seriously, don't you dare talk to me about a spoiler here or elsewhere unless you are stoney321 and I have given you specific dispensation. :P )