I used to be fervently apathetic toward spoilers, and I think it hurt my ability to tell stories. So much of my interest was in the dissociated, metatextual elements of storytelling that I struggled to connect to the immediate emotional experiences in art, or figure out how to get that emotional punch in my writing outside the outrageous meta-comedy genre.
My light novel series KUSOMEGA was born from a commeter's proposition that there should be an isekai about an author getting sucked into the world of his story and being upset with how uninteresting it is. I ended up bending the premise in places, but it was only halfway through actually writing the first book that I found the true lead in its twist ending.
Historically, I am extremely impatient with works of art. If the very first hooks don't grab me and the whole feel of the thing puts me off then I'm less likely to wait around to find out if there is some step in the evolution of the premise at which it becomes more interesting. I wouldn't blame someone at all if they gave up halfway into KUSOMEGA because they didn't like the tone or the comedy, even if they might have actually enjoyed the twist and found themselves invested in the story afterward, because the baseline experience that the novel reverts to when explosively dramatic things aren't happening is always going to hang in a similar stylistic place and voice. I can only expect as much patience as people have, and I've become a lot more patient in the wake of making stories I'm happy about enough to understand fellow authors of 'mediocre' fiction, and maybe feel less of the need to be the pretentious cunt who needs meta as a crutch. Anyways.
I think I buried the lead on my own personality to some extent when I wasn't openly trans, but that was mostly ever out of not understanding it fully myself; now I have a more pulled-in perspective on myself, reassessing not only what is really core to my identity, but how much of myself I am capable of explaining or presenting to the world. I once found a character I could embody that was close enough to a real version of myself for me to project a brand of charisma through, and now I want to find one I can feel comfortable being judged as and living inside of as a public-facing entity long-term. I haven't totally squared that circle, but I'm in a fun place of experimentation where I can solve my character without feeling like I have to project an unsolved part of myself through it
yay for self discovery!! i believe in you 🌠🌠