July is officially a Work In Progress!
Recently, the Mod Team has noticed that Work In Progress fics haven't been getting the celebration they deserve. Readers are refusing to read unfinished works and saving their kudos until the work is completed, rather than sharing the love as the work is updated.
Fandom is built on WIPs.
An active fandom is filled with works being updated at varying frequencies. You might luck out at the right time to find a fic that updates every day like clockwork. You may find a fic that posted it's last chapter right as you went searching for a fic. You may scrounge around and find an incredible gem that hasn't been updated in two years, but gosh is it worth the read.
This is fandom. This is fanfic.
Here at Steddie Underdog Fics, our page was meant to highlight fics that were getting lost in the boom of activity in the early Steddie days. At the time, the inaugural Steddie Big Bang was posting and we were still seeing high frequencies of fic being posted daily. So many AMAZING works were getting buried by other AMAZING works! We wanted to take a pause and celebrate the fics, as they were, in the moment.
This has worked for us these last two years and we're not changing anything. The information on our fic recs reflects the time of our mods creating the post. If it's a complete or incomplete fic, we make that clear with the chapter count on the post AND it's also a column on our spreadsheet of rec'd fics.
We’ve gotten negative comments from potential readers about incomplete status on fics or whether something is worth reading for one reason or another. While we encourage positive conversation here, there is never a time to publicly criticize fanfic. Don’t like, don’t read. This is not the space for you to share negative opinions about our authors and fics. We only uplift on our page and in our community.
Any asks or comments that request the team to make these changes to indicate a fic is incomplete beyond the Ao3 standard chapter count will be ignored and deleted.
Any negative comments about the fics, whether it’s about completion status or not, you will be blocked automatically.
Everyone has reading preferences. We're not saying you have to read WIPs, just like we wouldn't say you have to read a Major Character Death fic. We as a team give you the information we have about the fic to make an informed decision on whether you'd like to read it. The rest is up to you. We do ask, if you've never been a fanfic writer or if it's been some time, that you take a moment to put yourself in the authors shoes. Writing is a very vulnerable craft and hobby, and fanfic authors pour themselves into free works for the joy of it.
Sometimes it gets to be too much, though. Life gets in the way, health issues come up, or they just lose the drive to complete the fic. Any reason is valid. NO reason is valid. So yes, fics can be left ongoing for some time, but not necessarily by choice. You never know when a random kudos or comment on a WIP could inspire or drive an author to write ten more chapters.
In the age of AI, we implore you to remember that these are HUMANS creating these works. They are not machines creating content for you to consume.
For the month of July, we're celebrating Works In Progresses.
All of our Challenges this month will be ONLY WIP stories and we ask that you consider sharing WIPs for our theme weekends as well. Giving an ongoing fic a little love can go a long way, for both the reader and the author. Please consider reading a WIP this month. Leave a kudos or comment. Share it with a friend. Spread the love of fic.
- The Steddie Underdog Fics Team