Hey, What's Your Review Style?

[renay]

A few weeks ago I read On Reviews by forestofglory and began thinking more critically about how I use reviews online.

I don't read a lot of reviews from strangers unless the reviews are obviously critical, have low ratings that lead me into the review, or are Did Not Finish. I suspect some of this is because it's much easier for people to talk about and explain what they didn't like about a book. I know my narrative kinks and the sort of characters, story beats, and plots that I enjoy, so if they get cited during a critical review without hitting any of my DNWs I'm immediately adding that book to my to-read list. It's been the greatest tool in my book-finding arsenal.

On the flip side, it's really difficult to talk about what a book did right and how much we love it sometimes. This is especially true with me because I worry about devolving into keymashing love and failing to say anything of substance. People need a little to go on, and I'm not sure flailing around and screeching, "READ THIS NOW!" on Twitter is very effective (unless you are spindizzy, because for some reason she trusts my judgment).

With my blogging friends, though, I'm invested in what they thought about a book, because very often I'm really familiar with their taste and their reactions will give me a good indication of whether I like the book or not, whether their reaction is positive or negative. It's harder to do that with strangers. Friends are great! Finding book bloggers with similar taste to yours take some work, but it's worth it. \o/

At Lady Business, we tend to write long, analytical solo reviews that don't really do much for people who haven't read the books in question, especially people avoiding spoilers. I am definitely guilty of it; Jodie is better at doing it than I am. Ana is the The Queen of contextualizing the books in ways that don't spoil the story for readers. I have long envied her skills in this arena. Part of why we review the way we do here is just because that's how we write about things we've read and we're often doing this for ourselves first and foremost. It's work writing about things in a way that doesn't spoil them, because spoilers have such a wide array of meanings to different people.

On Dreamwidth, the culture of book reviewing hasn't really matched the culture of book reviewing elsewhere as far as my own experience. All communities have their quirks, but Dreamwidth's culture is definitely more personal, intimate, and less focused on what I think of as standard review structure, one book to an entry. That does happen, but round ups are much more common. Much of the book commentary I see via my reading list and network comes in the form of reading recaps (a list, with a few books commented on under a cut depending on if the author has anything to say), Reading Wednesday posts (I love these so much and wish I read enough to do them), and a bigger emphasis on talking about the undercurrent of works. For example, there will obviously be discussion of plot but it will dig into more specifics than a review on Random SF Book Reviewer Site would. There's also the very basic formats of Title, 3-5 non-spoilery sentences, simple rating format or a list of book presented and it being left to people to ask in the comments if they want to know what the reader's thought.

It's all very different to what I'm used to over in the book blogger hobbyist space (which is not the greatest description; they don't have a claim to the term book blogger, but I'll roll with it for now). We often model our reviews after that structure. But I wonder how worthwhile that is in the long run. Is it more accessible than the types of book sharing/discussion I see on Dreamwidth? Sometimes I do really wonder if I wouldn't be better off focusing on reading more stories, and then doing column-style summaries like Sleeps With Monsters does sometimes, or like I see in pro magazines or online newspapers. Part of our mission here is to read and talk about women and non-binary folks, and give their books attention so other people can find them in a noisy environment. But this is complicated by the amount of time it takes us to put together a formal review and whether or not people even read the review due to how we structure our reviews and the content we choose to include in them. I wonder if that format is just a little bit inaccessible, and then exacerbated by the fact we don't use ratings.

(I'll never use ratings. Ratings are hard.)

Some of this is also related to feeling very tied to a specific review style, so going back and forth depending on the book(s), the context, and the time I have available will be bad for actually getting eyes on the books I want to promote. This is definitely a weird thing that comes from the Blogger community specifically that I internalized while I was active over there, and it's silly. But I was active over there in a time when BUILD YOUR OWN BRAND AND STICK TO IT was very popular. I have a serious mental block on just doing whatever I want to do and formatting entries whatever way the wind takes me. I would love to just do whatever format feels right for me on the day I decide to throw some words down, but as per usual, I worry.

ME: This'll be fine. It's a little different, but it was fun!
ANXIETY MONSTER: Think about it this way: What if it isn't? What if you change things and people never take your recs again because they liked the old reviews better?
ME: Oh.
ME: *rewrites everything*

Then I also worry about review copy: do publishers/authors expect their books to be covered individually at all times when in comes to fan reviewers on blogs? I'm not sure. N.K. Jemisin does a NYTimes column; there was Dark Visions and Science Fiction. Sunil Patel has launched a column in Lightspeed that's excellent, too. But is this style kosher for non-paid reviewing? In some cases it's way easier, and more accessible to readers, to use 300-500 words each about several books and get the word out, versus using 2000 words about one, which takes longer, covers fewer authors, and may spoil the whole experience of the book if not handled correctly.

This navel-gazing brought to you by a lady who reads S L O W L Y and wants to read more, but knows that means writing less (and therefore not being considered as important as more active blogs by dudes, covering dudes, sob) and continues to be put out by her lack of superhero speed reading powers.

Comments

[lynnoconnacht]

Anxiety Monster lies. I just wanted that to be the first thing about my comment you'd see, because it lies and is evil. And also it doesn't know what it's talking about. (I know that won't make anxiety monster disappear, but even so. It lies.)

I think another factor to consider is that some people lurk rather than comment. On other sites, like WordPress, you can get an indication of how many people have viewed your site even if they don't comment, but DW doesn't offer anything similar. At least not on its own. So it's harder to tell how many people are actually reading. I often read your reviews here because of how you write them, but I'm only just starting to not-lurk.

That said, there is a difference in community feel, yes. ^_^ I think part of that is down to the kind of site that DW is compared to, say, WordPress. DW is geared towards being a private platform that allows public use, whereas WP is geared towards being a public platform that allows private use. So if the sites attract different kinds of people they'd develop different styles to do things.

I personally end up with a reviewing mixture of "individual post" and "round-up" depending on whether or not I feel a) safe discussing something in more detail, b) like I have enough to say about it and can find the words to say it. Sometimes I don't. I'm still really wary of discussing games, for example.

*good thoughts* I'm sorry. This is probably not helping you with the review quandary, but I wanted to let you know that I really enjoy your reviews even if I (still) usually lurk. ^_^

[renay]

Ha ha, yes! ANXIETY MONSTER IS A LIAR. I tell my friends that all the time, you'd think I'd take my own advice. But change is like risk! RISK IS SCARY.

I like your point about the difference between Dreamwidth/Wordpress. We decided to host Lady Business here because of reasons similar, because we felt it gave us a buffer from the wider critical sphere (we could still BE critical but even if we got hammered by getting boosted in a dangerous place, there's a slight barrier to entry on hurling abuse at us here) and threaded comments. \o/ And the point about interaction is good. That's a problem all over -- more 1:1 discussion is happening on Twitter and Tumblr and other social media, rather than in comments these days. Ah, early aughts! I miss you sometimes.

My takeaway so far from musing into the Internet is that probably the best thing to do is whatever I want at the time I have energy/free time to do it. I get easily caught up in how collective groups operate, try to fit in, and then end up in these situations because I'm not doing my own thing. I've been here before. :D And I suspect a lot of my problem is that I'm sad about the idea of posting less, because in the past two years even with the amount of posting we do (which I feel is a lot for a small blog run on free time) we often get told we're not "active" enough to be relevant. The amount of work we've been doing the last year is pretty high/draining for us, so choosing to step back and read more/reviewing differently may lead to that whole thing cropping up again.

Lurking is absolutely cool! :D We <3 lurkers. MY DREAM: the day Dreamwidth gets scheduled posts, and some form of a "like" button.

♥

[lynnoconnacht]

It is very scary! And it is much easier to remind other people of the lying of the anxiety monster than reminding yourself. I don't think anyone who fights the anxiety monster is good at taking their own advice. Would you like us to think along with potential ways to get past the anxiety monster? I'd be happy to brainstorm along and I'm sure I'm not the only one. ^_^

I miss them too! And thankfully there is, yes. I hope the buffer is working. <3 (I Fail at Tumblr. >>)

It is! *good thoughts* You do a lot of awesome work and I'm in awe of how you manage to do considering this is a small blog on free time. Do not listen to the people telling you that you're not "active" enough or not relevant. THEY LIE JUST AS MUCH AS THE ANXIETY MONSTER. You are plenty active and you are totally relevant! It sounds like the whole thing will crop up no matter what you do? I don't know if that changes anything, though I know it wouldn't for me. It's just... one of those depressing things. Some people will never be happy with what you do for some reason or another. :(

Ultimately, you all should do what works best for you. <3

[renay]

Someone should definitely write a handbook on dealing with Anxiety Monster/The Little Hater/Imposter Syndrome. What I really need to do is go back and watch all Jay Smooth's videos on creativity again. These should be required viewing for me every six months or so. I know I get super lost in my own perceived inadequacies pretty often, and really all I need to do is reach out and check myself with other people, who are generally happy to be like, "Renay, please." XD

And yes, the type of micro-aggressions women in the SF community get will probably never go away, and I've learned to shrug them off before. We've gotten a bit of a wider audience in the two years, and it's been a weird transition. Soon this will be the new normal, I bet, and I won't even think about it.

<3

[lynnoconnacht]

<3 I admittedly don't know you too well, but I would also be happy to be like that whenever you need people to be like that. <3

<3 I am so in awe by your ability to do that. <3 *is a scaredy cat*

[goodbyebird]

At Lady Business, we tend to write long, analytical solo reviews that don't really do much for people who haven't read the books in question, especially people avoiding spoilers.

Writing reviews that are more conversations about books are just as valid, imo. You're in fandom, we want to talk about the stuff we liked ;) Writing about something they way you feel like writing about something is absolutely the way to go.

I don't read most of your book posts here because I know how you approach them, and being a giant spoiler-phobe, they are Not For Me. And that's more than ok! I do know that if you liked the thing, it is more likely that I will as well (hallelujah for finding like-minded people in fandom), and I do keep them in mind so if I ever do read the book, I get to skip back and pretty much walk into an awesome conversation from other people engaging with the same book. How cool is that? ♥♥♥

(In my head, I tend to separate it into blogging and journaling; blogging is designated to be read more widely and will conform to certain rules and formats, while journaling is more of a personal output, and basically the only rule that applies is: is this what you want to talk about/how you want to talk about it? And they are both of course valid choices, and you can do one or the other, or a mixture of both.)

In short: I like it when people talk about stuff. Please talk about stuff however you want.

Finding book bloggers with similar taste to yours take some worth, but it's worth it. \o/ fyi <3

[renay]

What's amusing about this: I am ALSO a giant spoilerphobe and yet persist in writing about books in ways that mean the majority of people can't read what I say, especially newer titles. I find this really funny. But clearly I should start being more YES THIS IS GREAT at the beginning, outside of cuts, because sometimes I'm bad about doing that, am too vague, and then people avoiding spoilers miss my GUSHING LOVE for something. But you're right about getting to go back. I do that quite often myself when I discover new, awesome reviewers on Dreamwidth. There's so many of us! We're all so fascinating. :D

I've been considering scratching the "must discuss everything" itch with co-reviews (PEER PRESSURE heck yeah) and then switching to a more laidback/lower word count review, where I toss multiple books in an entry that I know I won't ever want to get longwinded about by myself, and keep long reviews for books I NEED to go on and on about. That's what launched my worry about style switching; when I quit my YA blog back in 2009 and came to Dreamwidth, for about a year after I got a lot of angry comments complaining that I had changed too much, they liked my YA blog better, my reviews were harder to follow, there was too much personal stuff, etc. It was really odd; a lot of people had developed a weird ownership of my style at that blog, and were unhappy I deviated. Ah, entitlement! I have book blogger issues that I need to put behind me. :)

And thanks! I fixed it. :)

[goodbyebird]

I would very much welcome some gushing/capslock in the beginning of review posts if that strikes you, especially if it's capslock about a specific thing like OMG TWO LADIES IN SPACE AND THEY HAVE A SPACE DOG AND ALSO SCIENCE, SCIENCE IS A THING THEY ABSOLUTELY HAVE. (ok that started trying to be about Bel and Rowan towards the end there lol. How far along are youuu?)

The why aren't you catering to my exact needs like you're supposed to!!1!! comments can go burn. I'm glad you see that =)

[renay]

lol I promise if I read books with LADIES IN SPACE I will definitely share those things! :D I have a review copy that seems promising on that score.

I sadly haven't started yet because I have some review copy backlog and reading to do for the podcast. BUT SOON!

[lynnoconnacht]

What goodbyebird said. <3

(And also I love co-reviews. I feel like I am terrible at them, but the ones I've done were so much fun. I hope you'll enjoy doing co-reviews if you decide to go that route! Somehow I keep picking books that I end up not liking all that much for them. >>)

[renay]

You're probably not terrible! They do take a little practice to get the back and forth to feel more natural, like a conversation, but it's super worthwhile. I learn so much about the books I do co-reviews for by engaging with someone else's perspective. FUN AND EDUCATIONAL. :D

[lynnoconnacht]

This is very true! It's why the ones I did were so much fun to do. <3 And so far (in the three books I've done) it's also really helped me appreciate a book more by trying to see my co-reviewer's perspective. I think that's my favourite part. ^_^

[calissa]

As a past co-reviewer of yours, you are definitely not terrible! I had a blast writing ours together and you definitely helped me see the book from another point of view.

[bookpunks]

First off to speak to your worry of doing a review in any kind of "alternative" format, I say awesome. I get really bored of book reviews always being formatted the same, and I love when something weird and interesting and different in any way pops up. Makes me more likely to read a review of something I might not have bothered to read about otherwise.

That makes me think of From Couch to Moon who occasionally writes these reviews where she "talks" to the author and the author responds through quotes from the book. It is awesome. For an example of a nontraditional style that works really well.

It seems to me (and reading the forestofglory post you linked above) that people's reasons for reading reviews are incredibly varied and subjective and almost impossible to pin down. I know I read pretty much everything written by certain bloggers because I either like their reviewing style and find it interesting no matter what they are writing about, I share taste with them and can pretty accurately judge by their thoughts what I will think, or its of a book that I have already read or am interested in learning more about.

When I think about what I decide to review and what I don't, it so often comes down to time. There are certain things I make sure to review (stuff sent to me specifically to do such, for example, though sometimes even those just get a short review in a round-up because sometimes that is all they deserve or all I can manage). I purposely don't reveiw a lot of the dude author books I read, and make sure to push myself to review the ones written by women and other genders for the same reason you mentioned about wanting those names to get more exposure. But again, sometimes time just comes down on me with a hammer and I don't get to do any of the things I want and hey, oh well.

Somewhere you said something about frequency of posts in relationship to relevance (but now that I want to comment on it I can't find it sorry hope I didnt imagine it completely its been that kind of week) to which I say: I think the relevance of your posts creates your relevance, and not how often they come. The old quality versus quantity argument.

Anyway, that's my 70 cents for this morning. Cheers.

[renay]

I had never heard of From Couch to Moon! One of these days I need to peer pressure everyone into a "share your favorite SF blogs!" blog tour type thing. I'm sure I'm missing out on so many great reviewers.

I mentioned the thing about activity/relevance in the last paragraph, but I know I've talked about it somewhere else, too...I also fail at remembering where. The trouble for me with "your posts give you relevance" is that so often in SF fandom there are male tastemakers that can literally control how you are perceived in the wider community. FLASHBACK TO 2013: someone (fairly popular/influential) said "Lady Business is good, but I don't think they post enough". Two weeks later, I request some review copy, and get back, "Your blog isn't active enough." from a place I've gotten review copy before....? And we had the same activity level? IS THIS RELATED??? Probably not, but I live in a state ripe for paranoia. Perhaps I shouldn't worry about it too much, but these types of micro-aggressions irk me, and so I've done by best to attempt to avoid them. Likely this is hopeless, unless I want to sockpuppet, add a fake dude editor to the team, and retire immediately afterward. But that just sounds like work. I would be a terrible sockpuppeteer.

Thanks for your thoughts, especially about trying to predict what people want from reviews. Worrying about it and striving to meet all needs is probably not a good use of time :D

[bookpunks]

Duuuude. That is fucked up. That anyone would even think they had the crown of book bloggerdom to define "posting enough" as well as to give quantity more precendence than quality makes me feel sad about the world. Just ugh. And while it COULD be a coincidence with that comment and getting denied review copies, it sounds like there is a good chance that it wasn't. Though I am currently rereading The Raven Boys so any time I hear someone say "coincidence" I think, yeah, because it's not.

Couch to Moon is one of my favorite blogs, one of the ones I read everything by because I just like the way she writes and she makes me laugh. I would LOVE hearing about everybody's favorite book blogs because I am constantly plagued by the feeling that I am missing out on some of the most awesome. I go through people's blogrolls from time to time looking for new stuff, but they tend to be out of date with dead blogs and whatnot. Can we make a memey thing of share your five favorite SF blog things? Though at the same time that sort of thing gives me anxiety because I don't like to make people feel bad for not being on the list who I might also read but hey, five is a small number. For years and years on my personal blog I didn't have a blogroll for exactly that reason. ANYWAY.

[susanhatedliterature.net]

I agree, the Anxiety Monster lies.
You should review however you think or feel you should review. I tend to go for non-spoiler reviews, but sometimes you really want to talk about something in particular. Once the spoilers are clearly labelled, no biggie.

I think some reviews are meant to give a general feel of the book, others are all about the *feels*, and some all about the what could have been. All are great.
Personally I dont read spoiler reviews, I'll usually have a quick looksee at the opening paragraph to get an idea of what the reviewer thought, and then, whenever I get around to reading the book I'll hopefully come back and read the full thing. (This is why I'm trying to keep track of reviews & why I've added a book to Mount TBR, so I know who to visit and blame ;) )

As for ratings, well I do them, but they are only really for me, and are a rating of how much I loved, or didn't, love a thing. Usually my ratings tend to be around 7-8.

[renay]

I tried keeping track of who recced me books and wow, that was so much work once my TBR list got over 300. How do you organize that for yourself?I clearly need help. I've been doing a light tracking via Sidetracks, where I publicly add stuff to my TBR, link to it and the reccer, but it's not very organized. I'd love to have that info for when I want to go back and muck around leaving comments and creating zombie entries.

I wish I could use ratings. The problem is, the rating when I finish a book is way different than the rating I give a book two weeks later. The two week rating is always more accurate. I'm always going back and fixing them. I DO use them when they're low, though, because the reviewer might be like "THIS HAD SPACE WEREWOLVES AND I HATE SPACE WEREWOLVES" which means I need to read it immediately. :D

PS. If you read anything with space werewolves, let me know.

[susanhatedliterature.net]

I've only been tracking since the start of the year, before that I'd been adding books to a mental TBR pile, or tagging them and posting a picture to tumblr, but it is too hard to search. So I set up a google form & spreadsheet with the basics. The form is here : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Kz-xzK2EenKFbITNh4Nub3oNf961uh1n7qbOFS-Od88/viewform I can add anything there and then later when I have time I go to the spreadsheet & add in other info, like if I've pre-ordered it, or own it, or bought it for the library at work.

As for ratings, I think it is so valid that they change over time and with distance. I tend to stick with the original rating until I reread a book, or if I'm trying to pick favourites I might occasionally change something, but a rating isn't the main focus of a review, imo, its just a guideline and an opinion, and opinions change. So too can ratings :)

I would so read that space werewolves story, we should commission someone to write it!

[bookgazing]

There's definitely a disparity between how I like to write & what people like to read. I always really want to write those collected posts about things I don't have the time or interest in reviewing long form for the reasons you mentioned but, in truth, I really hate writing collective short burst review posts. I actually find it more stressful than writing long form and so I procrastinate it a lot until it's even harder because I'm more removed from the things I wanted to write about (which is why I'm always late on book rec guest projects anyone who has been involved with me on those). But even people who like the kind of stuff I talk about in long form often comment that they don't want to read my posts until they've consumed the media. And that can take a long time by which time they've forgotten about my review or decided they don't want to read reviews about that piece of media or they've just gotten really busy.

This year I've had to keep pushing the 'I'm writing this for myself because I like writing like this' line in my head because otherwise I'd either end up writing reviews which wouldn't make me feel excited about writing and I'd stop writing or I'd just stop writing publicly because of the weight of knowing few people can really use my reviews. It's especially difficult when you want to signal boost stuff you love and you can't generate any reach because the way you write doesn't fit what people want to read. It's the same reason we (I? we?) worry about all the comments you get about how regular our posts should be, and people encouraging us to do more posts, because if our format doesn't fit what people want it undermines our ability to get people excited about stories we love. Book blogging has all this weird informal crossover with marketing and if bloggers want to reap the benefits of the marketing side of blogs (influence, helping stories reach audiences) then they are going to have to accept that either fitting form to audience or uncovering a niche but influential audience that likes a different form is important to achieving those goals. And if you actually feel drawn towards doing some reviews in a way that fits a popular form I say go for it because as far as I can see it's only going to help you get the word out about things you enjoy :)

[renay]

I love your reviews! ♥ You always have a reader in me! And I DO go back and read if I miss out on one — I've done that several times recently with your N.K. Jemisin reviews. We both really like our long form writing; the type of engagement we like is critical analysis. Although the type of reviews in the community we're engaged in can have critical analysis in them, there's a subtle difference between those and long form critique. We want the long form critique to be cool and popular, but have to accept that it takes time and energy that a lot of people don't necessarily have for books all the time. Which is, of course, sad for us! BUT WE HAVE EACH OTHER. Sorry I am a loser and am only into like, space stories. /o\

Our long form writing doesn't hurt anything, and I know we've taken some measures to make sure it doesn't get lost in our archives/times (like our index and our interlinking plans). They can be valuable as we build up a strong archive; as we write more and more about authors we like we'll create a pretty solid archive and engagement with their work, whatever form it takes. That's pretty great, in my book! We'll definitely learn something. :)

I used to find collective review posts stressful, but I'm not sure why. Part of it is my need for neat organization, so multiple books across genres reviewed in the same entry by wildly different authors feels super weird. I also used to try to tie them together with transitions? That was silly. I probably just need to experiment, since it really just does come down to time. Maybe us posting individual short form reviews wouldn't be that bad in the long run? I always feel guilty if my post is under 1500 words. ;)

[lynnoconnacht]

Maybe us posting individual short form reviews wouldn't be that bad in the long run?

I don't see why it should be bad? Especially if shorter individual posts also help against that stupid "Nuu, you need lots of posting to be relevant!" commentary. (As someone else said, it's the content that makes you relevant. In some cases the timing, but certainly not the number of posts you have. But hey if people are going to be complain-y about it and shorter posts would address it...)

For me, posts tend to run the length of what they need to be. Like, my review of The Raven Boys is 3,000+ words in total, but the other day I wrote a reaction post to a half-hour episode that was around 500 (I think) because I had nothing to say.

[bookgazing]

<3 Reading each others words forever :D

I want to see what you come up with for collective reviews because maybe it will show me a path to not being stressed out by writing them. And I think we could absolutely do more short form reviews and feel no guilt for less words (sometimes I have that guilt too).

[theliteraryomnivore.wordpress.com]

Oh, does the Anxiety Monster lie. <3

Honestly, I can only parrot what people have said above: review however you want to review. Given the goals of lady business, it is important to think about how it can utilized for signal-boosting, but at the end of the day, it has to be something that you find satisfying and useful. That comes before anybody else utilizing it. When it comes to some of this stuff, other people (especially the dudely "establishment") can go jump in a lake, quite frankly!

As for spoilers… everybody's different about spoilers. I'm a spoiler-phobe, but I know people who have to read spoilers. Label accordingly, keep it clean above the cut, and you're good to go, in my opinion.

[renay]

Thank you! ♥

What I have taken from this discussion is that I should DO WHAT I WANT and forge ahead with impunity in whatever way I want that isn't offensive. I know I've been caught in a weird reviewing rut for awhile, so maybe switching it up a bit will help. Gosh, probably even if I do I'll end up coming back to the old ways, anyway. Sometimes doing this so closely to the publishing machine can really mess you up and convince you change/experimentation is bad. But it's not!

TIME FOR ADVENTURE.

[sathari]

Hello! I'm dropping in a bit late (like, by two week, ulp) but I just wanted to say that I've really appreciated the in-depth reviews I've read here--- they give me enough information to decide if I want to invest time/energy/emotional attachment in the stories and characters. (I could do a whole riff on how "spoiler" is a loaded term for me, because they don't "spoil" the experience of the story for me, they let me decide if it's something I want in my head at this actual moment--- and the reviews I've read on ladybusiness have definitely let me make those decisions and in fact decide to engage with some stories that I might have passed by if I hadn't had the detailed overview and analysis to bring me in.)

[renay]

Well, if you were two weeks late, I'm a month late! Do I win a prize? :D *slacker*

I'm glad our reviews have been useful, definitely! Spoilers have been the hardest nut for me to crack with reviews. I'm still thinking about it even now, because there's value in discussing what's in a book. My concept of what's a spoiler and what isn't also changes in different contexts.

Words and engaging in stories, as always, continue to be hard. /o\