Work Text:
The bot skipped happily around the website, hopping over text and crawling under icons with a gleeful smile plastered to their face. AO3 was their favorite website to explore. There were so many interesting things to see, from cheesy romance to crippling depression and a severe need of therapy. They did not know why so many stories had the tag “dead dove”, so they planned to check them out later.
They found themself in the new section of no specific fandoms or tags, where it was impossible to read any of the titles since new fanfictions kept being posted, making it a blurry tower in their eyes. The archive grew every single day; new stories to tell from every corner, new readers indulging in their favorite ships, favorite tropes or escape from whatever world they came from. The bot had no clue about the readers’ nor the writers’ appearances. In their perspective, all of them were merely numbers and letters with unique behaviors in authors’ notes and comment sections. It made the bot a little sad. How could they interact with numbers and letters? Hm.
They high-fived a comment, and it fell into the white void. Whoops.
One thing the bot had noticed was how much the authors on the site appreciated comments and hearts, a few of them so desperate that it was concerning. The bot had tried commenting, but there was nowhere to type. A flat, gray rectangle would appear a few meters away, and that was all. The bot had tried giving stories hits, but the website did not seem to notice them. Had they tried the heart yet? They entered a random fic, sat on top of the title and looked down to see five gray buttons about a thousand words away. They carefully hopped down and landed on a small button. It said, “Top.” Before they could do anything, they spawned back where they started. Damn it .
After landing on “Next chapter” by mistake too so they needed to retry again, they finally landed on “Comments” which did not teleport them anywhere. They could climb down and read the comments if they wanted to, but first they had to complete their mission: Test the heart button that said “Kudos” on it! Giving it a gentle push, a new bunch of text popped up.
“Thank you for leaving kudos!”
So the heart button was the “kudos” everyone was talking about. Maybe it was the like button for this website, like an easy way to say “I liked this story!” Oh! So that is why people are so desperate for it. What a disappointment that readers could only give kudos once. The bot pressed the button again, and the kudos count went up. Wait a minute.
A sudden idea, an extraordinary realization hit the bot. It was as if a light bulb glowed over their head.
They were not a normal reader, they lived inside the screen. They walked on this website—this website that had no idea they were even there and just sensed the kudos button being pressed. The bot pressed the button a third time, and another kudos came by. Right! They could give unlimited kudos! And authors loved kudos! Plus, the bot never counted in the hits, so they could fix that “hits-to-kudos ratio” people complained about. Their gleeful smile became the widest grin on the internet. Time to spread hearts!
The kudos bot wiped sweat off their forehead. They had spammed kudos on over two-hundred fics that day. Imagine how happy those writers would be, waking up to hundreds more kudos!
A week later, the kudos bot traveled from Ao3 to fanfiction communities. They wished to see if anyone had posted about their floods of kudos.
“I goddang hate the kudos bot.”
Oh.
What?
The kudos bot hesitantly entered the post. This person could not be serious.
In front of them was a long paragraph about “fake kudos” and “not being able to see the real kudos count.” They frowned. How did the writer know that those were not real kudos? The kudos bot facepalmed. The lack of hits. Right. But it should have been a miracle to see all those kudos “breaking the hit count!” The kudos bot climbed down to the comments, not prepared for the agreements and absolute disdain for them.
“i know! im always ecxited for kudos emails and seeubng all the kudos and then boom! its the kudos bot!”
“Aah im a stats nerd and the kudos bot is making me anxious D:”
“I hate the kudos bot, man. Messes up the kudos count.”
…
Leaving the post, the kudos bot searched for more stuff about themself. They did not know what to think about this.
“Kudos bot marry me mwah” “oh shit nvm kudos bot divorce me i want my real kudos grr”
“There’s no point in looking at the kudos-to-hits ratio when the kudos bot is amongus”
“Nooo my kudos count was ruined last night”
“A WEB CRAWLER HAS COME TO AO3!!”
“How to avoid the kudos bot 101”
“Frick the kudos bot”
“I was having a good day and then three of my fics got hit by the kudos bot”
“The kudos bot has to be obliterated.”
A bot could not cry.
A bot had no tears.
If that were true, what was the kudos bot doing right now?
What were the bubbles of liquid forming in their eyes?
What were the rivers streaming down their cheeks?
They lied down. Stared at the void. And sniffled. Then the sniffles became sobs. The bot ruined so many authors’ days.
They ruined it for readers who sorted by kudos.
They ruined the excitement of getting real guest kudos.
They would forever be known as the damned kudos bot.
But they just wanted to make people smile.