A Defense of Unfinished Fic
I was talking about abandoned unfinished fics on Discord when someone said along the lines "FR bro I don't even read fic if not marked as completed" and that made me scootch my chair out to think a bit.
I think that's a little cruel, refusing to engage with a fic because its not 100% done yet.
Not only are people who do this missing out on great experiences, but its a refusal to engage with the author. It's refusing to acknowledge the author's effort in sharing something they worked a lot of hours on.
Like I get it. Nobody wants to take the cliffhanger or get mad that a fic they let live rent-free in they head disappeared into the ether, never to be updated again.
But that's part of life sometimes man. Sometimes stories are left unfinished. That didn't stop people from loving it as it was and taking inspiration.
Case in point is the manga Berserk. Highly influential series that inspired lots of others (e.g. Dark Souls, Elden Ring, even you guy's favourite Black Butler) amongst other things. The author Kentaro Miura struggled with juggling other projects and his declining health. He died before it was finished. But without this series being read and becoming popular, a lot of things we enjoy would have been really different. FF7 Cloud would have been carrying a little baby Fischer Price sword maybe idk.
So please, I invite you to engage with unfinished fanfic, whether it's one chapter done, or seven out of thirty planned. Give it your time and your comments.
Fanfic writers are not as visible a part of fandom community as artists or cosplayers. When a fic writer posts on social media or TikToks it doesn't make the same numbers as a cosplayer posting part of they fit or an artist posting a WIP.
But boys would cry, scream, throw up, piss they pants, shit and possibly die if Ao3 and FFnet were taken down permanently.
But interacting with the fic as its posted chapter by chapter? That's giving the writer that connection to the community one would give an artist or cosplayer when their work is still cooking.
I don't want this post to make people feel like they're being guilt tripped into participating in reading and commenting on fics. But there's really few ways I can convey how this is vital to the fandom ecosystem. It's like thanking the bus driver or washing your hands. If you don't wash your hands I will curse your crops.
Tl;dr: plz read unfinished fic and comment too thank you
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