What were times where you were super cautious about spoilers?

[BrokenBoy]

So earlier this year I played the game AI: The Somnium Files which was written by a guy who's known for having a lot of twists and turns in his stories which can easily be spoiled just by googling basic plot info. I tried my best to completely avoid any internet searches related to the game which became impossible due to the complex puzzles the game has. I still managed to play the game entirely unspoiled and man, that game had a crazy story. I binged the whole game in the span of 3 days straight. It was so good.

This thing about avoiding getting any info related to a story is happening again. Recently I kept seeing a poorly drawn painting or MS Paint looking thing of this girl with long black hair that looked like a stewardess or something and eventually I heard it's the cover to a novel called Empress Theresa. I heard the book is bad. So much so that Wikipedia has it featured on the article for the list of the worst books of all time. I wanna actually not know anything about the book in order to keep any specific reasons for it sucking a secret until I actually read it. I ordered the book off of Amazon and its coming pretty soon. However despite my attempts to intentionally not know anything about the story or characters there was a few slipups. It wasn't anything important so I don't really know what's gonna happen. Here's what I know:

• Spoiler: stuff i know

  [*]On some plot summary on Google or whatever, I very briefly saw the word "baseball" before clicking off. I'm not entirely sure if that's what it actually said or if that was just my imagination or something.
  [*]The Wikipedia article about bad books said it was a Sci-fi novel which makes the baseball thing really confusing if that was real.
  [*] In another plot synopsis I found out that the protagonist is a 18 year old named Theresa something. I clicked off of that synopsis in time so I didn't see her full name or learn anything else.
  [*]The book and it's author has a thread on Kiwi Farms, suggesting that the author might be a controversial guy. However I did not click on the thread so I don't know why this guy might be disliked. I'll check it out after finishing the book.

 

[BrokenBoy]

Here's the cover of the book:

 

[Eggnog]

Lol I’m always consciously trying to not see spoilers, If I find out a spoiler it’s all I’ll be thinking of while playing/watching/reading

also, just read the things you know about this book you’ve just bought.. sounds like your in for a strange, wild ride hahahhaha

 

[Wolfsage]

Depends. If it's a to be continued and I know there's a place on the internet to find it. I likely will because lack of money. Though I am making an effort with Ghosts of Tushima.

Forgot this one. Your in a pandemic the bookstore is closed along with the movie theater. But you can find the book you wanted to read and the movie online. Just a theartical scenario.

 

[Misery]

Oh gods, it's Empress Theresa.

I havent read the book, but it definitely is quite infamous. There's a good video that dives into some of the weirdness surrounding the books and the author, it's one of the "Down the Rabbit Hole" series of vids by Fredrik Knudsen on Youtube. Definitely recommend having a watch. It's... interesting.

As for me with spoilers, eh, it sorta depends.

I dont mind spoilers if a story is just inherently confusing to figure out. Like, if it's one of those games/books/whatever where the story is chopped up into a bazillion little cryptic bits and you're expected to somehow figure out what in the heck is really going on. That sort, I'm not going to grasp on my own, so if someone (usually in video form) would kindly just tell me what the heck is going on in said story that'd be just super.

As for spoilers with anything else, well... ehh, to be honest I dont mind. In my eyes, there's a difference between having the end or specific parts of a story "spoiled", and actually reading/playing it myself and seeing how it all ties together and all the things that lead up to it. Just hearing "LOL that guy gets eaten by bees at the end!!!!" isnt going to get me to totally drop some book I was about to read.

 

[Au Naturel]

The odd thing about me and spoilers... Unless it is specifically a mystery, I don't mind spoilers. It's like I often enjoy a really good movie more the second time around. (There are exceptions. A spoiler about "The Crying Game" would indeed have made me cry.)

God knows how many times I've watched Star Wars or Rocky Horror or Forbidden Planet or various Harry Potter movies or Lord of the Rings (or many other great movies) and I still love them. I've watched my favorite anime repeatedly and they don't lose their charm.

 

[Aeolienne]

I remember years ago at school we were doing a module on science fiction for English literature GCSE. The two set texts were Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Z for Zachariah by Robert C O'Brien. At one point the teacher made a reference to Nineteen Eighty-Four, assuming we'd all read it - I hadn't and I clapped my hands over my ears. I eventually did read it several years later at university. There were times when I'd read it in between moves at Scrabble club, and I had to be dragged away from it for my turn! I can think of only two other books that have been that unputdownable - The Witches by Roald Dahl and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.

 

[Hylian]

When BOTW came out. I somehow managed to avoid spoilers for 2 years until I got a Switch and the game. I didn't look at ANY Zelda forums, subreddits, or videos. I didn't talk to anyone I didn't know about Zelda so they didn't talk about BotW.