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Only, not really.
The funny thing about spoilers is, I can't seem to have a single position on them.
I mean, they're kind of hard to avoid. It's one thing persuading people not to spoil you, and to understand that you can be upset when they're spoiling, when it's something new and exciting, but you try to explain to someone that no, that ancient series that everyone's been fangirling for ages and can probably be seen for free on fucking Hulu (seriously, if I was the anarcistic hacker type I'd hack Hulu and make it show a "Sorry, we won't show this in your region" type message to all the bloody Americans for a change) - never released in your country, not available on dvd except as ridiculously overpriced used Region 1 dvds, and since you've never quite been bored enough to start playing around with torrents, well... (one of things that annoy me every time the news talk about piracy and torrents is that they always make it sound as if it's all about brand new cinema releases - and I don't care about big cinema releases, because mostly, they'll show up around here soon enough, once in a rare while even before the US release, or there will at least be dvds available. It's the series, that everybody's talking about right now and you have to wait for months or years or forever to get legally, that's what makes them sound appealing. But I digress...)
Thing is, I find myself having two distinct reactions to spoilers, depending on my reaction to canon - not counting closed canons, single books and movies, where I appreciate a temptation dangled, but would rather wait to learn the details on my own, thank you. Anyway, open canons - as in mostly television series, like, say, Supernatural, or Doctor Who (because books aren't so bad - if I like a series, even if I haven't got the economy to buy them all, well, thanks to ILL and the Danish library system actually being fairly good at buying new English language stuff fairly quickly, that's all right).
The first is the, well, not really spoiler phobic, because I've matured enough in my tastes to figure out that it's not the ending that matters, but how you get there. It's all very well that you know that in the end Lisbeth Salander gets justice and bloody vengeance, but it's still fun to see the story unfold. Still, those fandoms I get this in I tend to stear halfway clear off, because I'd like the surprises along the way, as far as possible. Doctor Who / Torchwood, for instance - have plans about spending part of a gift certificate I've you lying around to buy season four and before I watch that I won't even touch CoE which is currently sitting in my harddisc recorder, thanks to Swedish television :-) And I read precious little fanfic in such fandoms, because it's kind of hard to avoid spoilers otherwise.
The second reaction is that of, well, not actually hunting down the spoilers, but not caring about them, and cheerfully keeping up with the fandom and reading the fic even if I am a season or more behind everybody else. But the thing is, sometimes that's even more frustrating than the first reaction. Because steering clear is fine, just fine, but being close means sometimes almost wanting to play. Like, say, when you finally see the Supernatural episode where they meet Chuck, and you start thinking that the world needs a Supernatural / NCIS crossover, with Carver Edlund and Thom E. Gemcity both attending a con, and something kills a fanboy attending, a fanboy who just happens to be a marine. So, Agent Gibbs and team shows up to investigate the marine's death, and Chuck calls in the Winchesters because, well, it's something, not someone, and somewhere there would be an onlivious Abby fangirling the brothers and a slash crossover fanfic prominently featuring Dean and Agent Tommy and Castiel acting all jealous around poor confused Tony and Gabriel laughing his ass off somewhere...
And I know I'll never write it.
I mean, it's one thing to write in an open canon that you keep up with. It's fair enough running the risk of getting Jossed that way. But I won't write in a fandom where everybody else (or so it seems) is a season or more ahead of me. I won't run the risk of people saying I got it wrong, saying I messed up some bit I haven't yet seen, because, well, I just won't (we had a day at work in the fall where we did DISC profiles - I scored as a perfectionist. So sue me). I never wrote in Buffy back in the day (well, I might have made a couple of starts that lead nowhere, but not until it was over and anyway, fortunately it never went anywhere - means a disctinct lack of embarrasing Mary Sue stories to my name from that period :-)), and I won't write Supernatural now. But that also means that story won't get written, which makes me kind of sad. Because I know that if I don't write things relatively quickly, if I don't give in to the urgency of getting something down on paper, then eventually it fades and leaves and maybe once in a while I can look back on it, but it's the one that got away. The one I lost.
You know, the really frustrating thing is that I can't even get even. I mean, what am I supposed to spoil fandom in the great abroad with? The ending of Matador? (Awesome series, but not really that kind of thing). It's not even like Denmark produces large amounts of fangirl-worthy material - television is mostly crime and mystery and yawn, another complete copy of something foreign (last I heard TV2 is making a new show about a team investigating serial killers and, well, a) I've seen that already (actually, several thats - Profiler, Criminal minds...) and b)serial killers? a serial killer show? in Denmark?!! Seriously, how many serial killers have we even had?!!! I mean, murderers, sure, often enough, but serial killers? Suspencion of disbelief is one thing, but come on - the only decent murder investigation team series had to move from Bornholm to Skagen in search of cases, and you are doing a series about serial killers? At least make it one serial killer. That way you won't break my brain completely. Anyway). I'm still waiting for someone to get off their arse and make a decent Danish science fiction or fantasy series or movie intended for an adult audience, but I'm not exactly holding my breath. Mind you, it would be awesome if Svend Åge Madsen ever spawns fanfic, though slightly mindbending, I suppose. Actually, forget the slightly. Hmmm.
The funny thing about spoilers is, I can't seem to have a single position on them.
I mean, they're kind of hard to avoid. It's one thing persuading people not to spoil you, and to understand that you can be upset when they're spoiling, when it's something new and exciting, but you try to explain to someone that no, that ancient series that everyone's been fangirling for ages and can probably be seen for free on fucking Hulu (seriously, if I was the anarcistic hacker type I'd hack Hulu and make it show a "Sorry, we won't show this in your region" type message to all the bloody Americans for a change) - never released in your country, not available on dvd except as ridiculously overpriced used Region 1 dvds, and since you've never quite been bored enough to start playing around with torrents, well... (one of things that annoy me every time the news talk about piracy and torrents is that they always make it sound as if it's all about brand new cinema releases - and I don't care about big cinema releases, because mostly, they'll show up around here soon enough, once in a rare while even before the US release, or there will at least be dvds available. It's the series, that everybody's talking about right now and you have to wait for months or years or forever to get legally, that's what makes them sound appealing. But I digress...)
Thing is, I find myself having two distinct reactions to spoilers, depending on my reaction to canon - not counting closed canons, single books and movies, where I appreciate a temptation dangled, but would rather wait to learn the details on my own, thank you. Anyway, open canons - as in mostly television series, like, say, Supernatural, or Doctor Who (because books aren't so bad - if I like a series, even if I haven't got the economy to buy them all, well, thanks to ILL and the Danish library system actually being fairly good at buying new English language stuff fairly quickly, that's all right).
The first is the, well, not really spoiler phobic, because I've matured enough in my tastes to figure out that it's not the ending that matters, but how you get there. It's all very well that you know that in the end Lisbeth Salander gets justice and bloody vengeance, but it's still fun to see the story unfold. Still, those fandoms I get this in I tend to stear halfway clear off, because I'd like the surprises along the way, as far as possible. Doctor Who / Torchwood, for instance - have plans about spending part of a gift certificate I've you lying around to buy season four and before I watch that I won't even touch CoE which is currently sitting in my harddisc recorder, thanks to Swedish television :-) And I read precious little fanfic in such fandoms, because it's kind of hard to avoid spoilers otherwise.
The second reaction is that of, well, not actually hunting down the spoilers, but not caring about them, and cheerfully keeping up with the fandom and reading the fic even if I am a season or more behind everybody else. But the thing is, sometimes that's even more frustrating than the first reaction. Because steering clear is fine, just fine, but being close means sometimes almost wanting to play. Like, say, when you finally see the Supernatural episode where they meet Chuck, and you start thinking that the world needs a Supernatural / NCIS crossover, with Carver Edlund and Thom E. Gemcity both attending a con, and something kills a fanboy attending, a fanboy who just happens to be a marine. So, Agent Gibbs and team shows up to investigate the marine's death, and Chuck calls in the Winchesters because, well, it's something, not someone, and somewhere there would be an onlivious Abby fangirling the brothers and a slash crossover fanfic prominently featuring Dean and Agent Tommy and Castiel acting all jealous around poor confused Tony and Gabriel laughing his ass off somewhere...
And I know I'll never write it.
I mean, it's one thing to write in an open canon that you keep up with. It's fair enough running the risk of getting Jossed that way. But I won't write in a fandom where everybody else (or so it seems) is a season or more ahead of me. I won't run the risk of people saying I got it wrong, saying I messed up some bit I haven't yet seen, because, well, I just won't (we had a day at work in the fall where we did DISC profiles - I scored as a perfectionist. So sue me). I never wrote in Buffy back in the day (well, I might have made a couple of starts that lead nowhere, but not until it was over and anyway, fortunately it never went anywhere - means a disctinct lack of embarrasing Mary Sue stories to my name from that period :-)), and I won't write Supernatural now. But that also means that story won't get written, which makes me kind of sad. Because I know that if I don't write things relatively quickly, if I don't give in to the urgency of getting something down on paper, then eventually it fades and leaves and maybe once in a while I can look back on it, but it's the one that got away. The one I lost.
You know, the really frustrating thing is that I can't even get even. I mean, what am I supposed to spoil fandom in the great abroad with? The ending of Matador? (Awesome series, but not really that kind of thing). It's not even like Denmark produces large amounts of fangirl-worthy material - television is mostly crime and mystery and yawn, another complete copy of something foreign (last I heard TV2 is making a new show about a team investigating serial killers and, well, a) I've seen that already (actually, several thats - Profiler, Criminal minds...) and b)serial killers? a serial killer show? in Denmark?!! Seriously, how many serial killers have we even had?!!! I mean, murderers, sure, often enough, but serial killers? Suspencion of disbelief is one thing, but come on - the only decent murder investigation team series had to move from Bornholm to Skagen in search of cases, and you are doing a series about serial killers? At least make it one serial killer. That way you won't break my brain completely. Anyway). I'm still waiting for someone to get off their arse and make a decent Danish science fiction or fantasy series or movie intended for an adult audience, but I'm not exactly holding my breath. Mind you, it would be awesome if Svend Åge Madsen ever spawns fanfic, though slightly mindbending, I suppose. Actually, forget the slightly. Hmmm.