To all those who only read and leave a kudos on completed fics: I CURSE YOU.
I hope that one day you try to do something creative, put yourself out there, work and struggle and do the best you can, and that you are ignored by those who could encourage and support you by doing the bare minimum but they still choose not to. I hope that one day you know how it feels. And I hope you feel shitty. Because you deserve to.
"Oh, I don't leave a kudos in case the story takes a turn I don't like. Because I don't want my name on it then. And can't take it back."
Like, who tf do you think you are??
Literally no one knows what fics you've left a kudos on (lbr neither do you) and if they could no one would actually care enough to look up what fics you've decided worthy enough to give them to, no matter what you might think.
And I know assholes will fight me and insist otherwise, but not one person is reading chapter 1 of a fic and then browsing through the kudos list to see if so-and-so is there. Gtfoh with that bullshit.
The only person actually being impacted is the author, who as a result of this selfish ass choice potentially gets nothing even though they may spend days, weeks, months, fucking years labouring over their fic writing 100s, 1,000s, 10,000s, even 100,000s of words and for whatever reason and no matter how much they might want to just aren't able to get to the finish line. Something they're probably already so hard on themselves about and yet now are being purposefully ignored and disregarded on top of that. It's so ugly to me.
And yet these people will also wonder why so many fics are left incomplete. Or are abandoned. Even act confused when some authors eventually crack and peace tf out entirely (sometimes deleting their works with them.)
At least leave a guest kudos after reading through to the end of the first chapter or two, if keeping the sanctity of your username is that goddamn vital to you; it's not that hard.
And, more importantly, it's kind.
If you read fics, you are part of the fandom, which means you're part of a community and that requires you supporting it for it to thrive. I shouldn't have to say this, but here we are.