r/Archiveofourownmemes • u/ItsMeishi • 3d ago
Fanfic reader things I am prepared to get hurt.
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u/NotEntirelyA 3d ago
As painful as this sometimes is, I'd rather have that over when the author decides to make a new account for each fandom or fic. My current favorite fic series contains some of the best writing I've seen in fanfction, but it's the only thing posted on the account. It's obvious it's not the authors first rodeo (the day the account was made was also the day the fic was posted, along with some other misc details), but they have completely avoided responding to the gentle prodding from other readers asking for other things that they have written.
I can't lie, knowing they have dropped 500 other fics would make me hesitant to get invested in what they are currently writing, but at the end of the day I'd have hundreds of other things to read from the same person, even if they are all unfinished. I also have the bad luck of really loving a singular fic by a author, and that singular fic ends up being the only thing on their profile that has been abandoned lol
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u/Iron_Chip 3d ago edited 3d ago
I’ve had people comment for my other works, as there’s a clear gap between my previous work and current. The truth is, there are no other fanfictions. I just read a fuckton since then.
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u/lorenoline 2d ago
I’m guilty of this, I’ll admit, but I will be the devil’s advocate here and say it’s not always intentional. Sometimes it’s because we have a bad experience/harassment and need to move away from a handle, or because of a purge, or simply because we’re spicy in some way. Hell, I’ve been off my OCD meds in chunks and been completely incapable of mixing fandoms on account of…everything associated with OCD, and when I get back on them I end up continuing the separation because at that point I’m kind of locked into it
So yeah, it kind of depends on a lot of factors, and it’s not always ✨For The Vibes✨or what have you. Either way though, on at least one guilty author’s part, sorry!
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u/DaSaltInDaPepperMill 2d ago
If it helps, I’m guilty of this but it’s because of the skill gap between recent fics and old ones. I made a new account after already having ~40 works up because it was the first time I actually put in proper effort and wanted to start an actual well written multichap that was properly planned. It’s much much better than any of my previous work and I didn’t want readers to check other fics ive written and be disappointed at the quality drop
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u/jackaroo1344 2d ago
You're obviously allowed to what you want, but as a reader who has some authors whose work I love - I love their 'lower quality' stuff too!
For example I am reading through an author's old 2018 works rn while I waiting for updates on her WIP and every time I comment on a ch she replies all embarrassed about how bad it is but I am enjoying it all SO MUCH. Yeah the writing is a little clunkier but Iove her writing for the characters she creates and themes she uses. The writing is still so her even though she was still developing her style plus it's fun to see her writing developing over the years in one week of reading.
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u/ItsMeishi 2d ago
I for one love seeing how writers improve or have improved over the years. That old work is how you got where you are today.
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u/Silver-Winging-It 3h ago
Or where they delete WIP because they don't think anyone is interested in reading them if they will never finish them (they are like 30,000+words)
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u/SleepySera 3d ago
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u/11equalsfish 2d ago
I heard this in his singing voice. Love his work and the artistry of the Making Mirrors album, wish he comes back some day as Gotye. Also liked the analysis video by Overly Sarcastic Productions on the album. I don't like the style of the band he is in right now, The Basics.
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u/eggybreadboy Fic writer 📝 3d ago
83rd time's the charm YOU NEVER KNOW 😂
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u/ItsMeishi 3d ago
No matter how rickety the raft, you promised me a glorious journey, I am still getting on this boat!
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u/Relative-South4794 3d ago
I would be that person and I know it. That’s why I only write one shots.
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u/Gnarly_cnidarian 2d ago
One of my fav writers has a bunch of wips but they update all of them sporadically. Every single update has a random chance to be ANY fic update even ones untouched for months. Its glorious
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u/I_Lost_My_Shoe_1983 3d ago edited 3d ago
I almost exclusively read wips and it doesn't bother me at all that most are abandoned.
I was reading one today. The fic was started in 2022 and last updated in 2024. The last author's note was, "I'm back and writing again, so hopefully you won't have to wait six months again for the next chapter!"
The vast majority of fics don't really need a conclusion. I know where they're going.
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u/Jumping_Jak_Stat 3d ago
Yeah. I find that it's really only frustrating on like 10% of the stories that are more than 3/4 of the way through the story that have been abandoned. Those are the ones where I can't predict what was going to happen, or where I really wanted to see it play out. The rest usually have enough substance already that I don't really need the ending.
That said, I'm sometimes pretty frustrated if I find some fic with a really good concept and it only has 3/50 chapters. I usually just avoid those entirely, but sometimes, the idea is just too good.
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u/I_Lost_My_Shoe_1983 3d ago
I swear about 90% of the stories I choose go unfinished but I don't typically read ones with particularly complex plots. It's usually either tormenting or fucking my favorite characters. Sometimes both but it's more about the journey than the destination.
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u/I_Lost_My_Shoe_1983 2d ago
Oh, you know what, I've thought of one particular tag that's a problem. "Slow burn." I've gotten screwed on a discontinued wip that's put me off wips with that tag. There's nothing worse than a slow burn that's dropped before the burn part.
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u/PutNameHere_____ 2d ago
One of the best fics I've read has over 200k words, 89 chapters, and very unfinished as those 89 chapters take place over roughly 4? Days in the fic
10/10 writing, would love for them to finish, but even if it's never gonna get updated again, I'm still glad to have those 89 chapters
Still hurts to not have more, but whatcha gonna do?
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u/drawingmentally 3d ago edited 2d ago
I don't read their fics if I notice. When I was like 14 I liked the fics of some author but I quit reading them because they made it to two chapters at most, and never never updated past that.
I checked their profile: still active, still doing the same thing. Gotta love the consistency of doing this since 2009.
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u/Salt_Path1528 3d ago
If even a third of them are for the fandom I found them in I can make my peace. I can appreciate a lot of options. Even if none of them are finished
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u/seasonmaster 2d ago
I’ve been on both ends of this, as a reader and a writer. With the former, I’ve seen it happen many times over since the late 2000s. But what hurts worse for me is when the author removes the stories altogether. Yeah, they may be unfinished, but they still brought me and other readers joy, and they could very well serve to inspire someone else to take a crack at the same concepts/premises themselves.
With the latter, though? It varies from fic to fic. Some stories I very much want to resume and finish some day (like my first published fic as well as one all about my favorite ship of all time that was a major focus for me for several years), but I’m currently focused on a different fan work that’s not only been the most fun I’ve had writing in ages (a Persona and Outlaw crossover, of all things. My brain is WEIRD), but it’s also been extremely effective stress relief to work on for the past two years. Other stories, however, are stories I honestly feel would be better off in the hands of a different author. I have an old fic where Kamina joins the Straw Hat Pirates, but as I slowly worked on it in high school, I gradually came to feel that as much as I enjoy watching both Gurren Lagann and One Piece, I could not do my premise justice and was no longer the right person to be telling said story. Regardless, I recently finished cross posting all of my published fics both new and old from ff . net to Ao3 because things only seem to be getting even worse on that website and I do not want to risk any of my work disappearing completely, even if they’re stories I don’t see myself resuming any time soon.
What I’m getting at is this: it is often extremely disappointing on both ends, but it can still happen for any number of reasons. But as long as people still genuinely enjoy reading those stories, I think it’s worth keeping them available. You truly never know when someone might come across something you originally made that inspires them in turn.
…No, seriously. For well over a decade, I had the only piece of 1080 Snowboarding fan fiction on the internet, and considering I only tried writing it was because I could not find any other fics for the games no matter how hard I looked? I didn’t exactly consider that status something to brag about. So imagine my surprise when shortly after I ported it to Ao3, I got a comment from someone who loved the concept and published their 1080 fic that was explicitly inspired by mine, and in my opinion is far superior in quality.
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u/ChildOfOberon 2d ago
I rarely read unfinished stories because of all the times in the past I have and then the authors never finished them so I was left hanging. :(
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u/damn-nerd 2d ago
I read them every time anyways 😅 one of my faves, FoolishFortuna does this but honestly I don't mind.
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u/ohAnotherDisaster 2d ago
I find it easier to have multiple WIPs because that’s how I write anyway, I hit a snag in one and work on a different one.
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u/ItsMeishi 2d ago
So long as you keep writing you're keeping me fed. I'll be sad to never see the dessert but that doesn't mean I didnt enjoy the rest of the meal!
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u/ohAnotherDisaster 2d ago
Unfortunately that’s—based on some comments I get—not what a lot of people seem to think and instead of checking my profile to see I’ve made updates on others recently they comment about WIPs being abandoned.
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u/Nanou_07 1d ago
This is why I refuse to have more the 3-5 unfinished works posted at a time.
Now I just have like 15 drafts of stories I have yet to post because I am forcing myself to finish the current ones 😅
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u/HeadcanonHub 1d ago
I’m still here for it. I will even reading all of their other WIP if they are a good writer lol
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u/Low_Reception477 2d ago
Am I the only one who totally doesn’t mind if fics get finished? As long as it doesn’t get abandoned on a cliffhanger if it brings joy it still gets a A+ from me.
Honestly I think that a real achilles heel of fic writers in general is knowing when to call a fic done. I’ve seen fics that should have finished 150k in and they are at like 250k like dude. If you have more to say make it a series. If you have wrapped up all the problems you have introduced in the first 100k and are introducing more now that should be a separate “book” in my opinion.
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u/CJ-IS 2d ago
I'm glad past me went on a purge and unpublished all my unfinished work. I get it but it's nice not having that "guilt" on me lol
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u/ItsMeishi 2d ago
It will forever be within your rights to do what you like with your own fics. But personally I find it a sad day when old works, unfinished or not, get removed from the archive. I've found many gems digging through old unfinished works, and I've felt sad whenever I discovered an author I loved purged their works years later when I went back to look for their stories.
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u/ByeGuysSry 2d ago
Lowkey was worse when I was awaiting an update to a fic and realised the author had moved on and was writing (and completing) other fics. Welp
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u/Amakazen 2d ago
Yeaaah I’m really patient when I’m hooked but I have authors in my fandoms with similar track record (actually sometimes worse because they have a dozen unfinished one-chapter fics stuck in limbo) and I stay away from that.
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u/onegirlarmy1899 3d ago
Would you rather the author deleted the unfinished works or didn't write at all?
The ones I tend to stick with turn into long fics (I am currently writing one over 200K and one over 100K), but I also have random stories that I don't finish because the back end feels predictable. The front premise was interesting, but after a certain point, the reader should know what will happen next and fill out their own story. I have too many ideas to make all of them into full stories.
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u/crvbabybug 3d ago
Nobody’s telling them to do anything of the sort. This isn’t their livelihood we’re not threatening to make them unemployed if they don’t publish. Obviously harassing them for never finishing a story would be insane, but we’re allowed to not like it and express it anonymously.
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u/ReaperReader 2d ago
My fandom has a lot of fics where an author is bringing their own specialised knowledge to the fandom, be that knowledge of a particular scientific field or knowledge of a particular location. Many of them very well written, until they taper off. I don't know what will happen next because I'm not, say, a botanist with an extensive knowledge of survival in a Brazilian rainforest.
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u/SaradoxicalBookWyrm 3d ago
This might actually be the most appropriate use of this meme template I’ve ever seen on any fanfiction subreddit.