Not in reference to ones you personally write (yes yes I know I have several such stories both here and FF.net, but some ARE still being worked on, I offer no excuses and you all deserve far better than empty promises and platitudes) but when you’re just going down the list.

I mean, you’re just going around a section, a genre, or a friend’s favorites list to see what they’ve found you see a story that sounds really awesome, fits what you’re looking for at the time, or has a lot of meat to sink into, but you see it hasn’t been updated in a long time. What do you guys do?

I have a lot of patience with fics so I don’t start to get worried till at least a year, year and a half depending on how the author updates, before declaring death by two years. (And even then I keep the fics on my lists and wait in foolish hope. I’ve been waiting almost 13 years for one story and proud of it)

So it leaves me in a bind when I see an awesome sounding fic that hasn’t updated in 3 to 4. What do you guys do? Do you move on or do you invest the time to experience the thing that’ll never be finished?

What is the fic you've been waiting 13 years for? There must be something interesting in it.

6565135
I'll be honest, I don't start reading a story if it's pretty obviously dead or abandoned without being completed. It's just needless frustration to never get a resolution. There's hundreds of thousands of stories out there, so if I have to choose where to spend my available reading time - yeah, going with a completed story that's less likely to give me that frustration.

This, of course, depends on why you're reading; to some, it's about the journey and the destination is inconsequential. In general, though, it's a major flaw in a completed story to just meander off without reaching a distinct ending and providing a closure to the narrative, and this is by definition the problem that an incomplete story presents.

That said, I do have patience for stories that are actively being written, even if only slowly, as long as there's a realistic hope for reaching completion at some point.

6565146
It was one of the first ones I read when I first got into the fanfic scene. Was (and can argue still am even if I haven’t seen anything from canon since the land of iron meeting) a huge NaruTard, especially if it had anything to do with NaruHina.

The fic is called “The Hyuuga Way. Is it anything special? Well, it may be my nostalgia glasses talking, but I think this was the first true fic I ever read that made me realize exactly how different cultures can actually be. There was just something so unique and fresh about the small details Edric Loto wrote into it.

Hell one of the major stand out moments that I still remember about the story was a show (not tell) of how one's expectations of conduct are put aside between two people when in a bathhouse.

By God, going through that list again both breaks my heart and brings back good memories. Gotta reread some of these again! Really wish that The Land Before Time: The Mysterious World would be updated, but even after 10 years and like Hyuuga Way I still have hope!

6565164
You apparently have a stronger will than me. I can see your point and agree but I just gotta know how the journey was set up! And even when I get to the end with many of them, I can’t help but have fun with the “what could have been” game. But it does make it extra devastating when the journey was so good only to have it end mid arc.

For me, I'll keep em in my list unless they get cancelled, otherwise they 'might' be updated later, sure i might need to reread it if it's been a decade or so, but they'll sit there in my reading list...but i drop cancelled stories like a bad habit...it'll just pain me too much to get to the end, and know it'll NEVER be finished.

6565135
Unless the one reccing it promises that its really fucking good, I ignore it.