Regarding why I drafted them
Hello everyone.
Sorry for taking such a long time to speak up. When I first decided to draft the stories, I didn't realise it would affect so many people, and I'm sorry for worrying everyone and making everyone panic. Right now I will explain myself, and once again sorry for taking so long. I wanted to try my best to solve the problems before I will speak up about it, because I didn't want to make it worrying for you.
The reason why I decided to set it in private is because I've heard reports about several things. Something that had happened often this year was people reposting my fics on other platforms without permission. I understand that sometimes people would do it without ill intentions, or they had good intentions in doing so, which was why I usually privately messaged them first to take it down. Once I had to ask you all to help me take down the repost because they weren't responsive. I don't want to go to the legal section of reporting on wattpad.
I have tried to make it clear on my profile that I don't allow reposts and I thought it would be a first sign of respect to at least ask for the permission to repost yet it has been continuously done. Maybe I haven't made it clear enough and if there was another way that I haven't thought about, please let me know. I wish everyone can be mindful and respectful of my wishes, even if they have good intentions. It just gradually got tiring, when I had to constantly message them to take it down, tiring to realise that people would rather read on wattpad even though they knew it was a repost and it was one without permission. To me, it's also embarrassing when I have to feel pushed enough to ask for everyone's help. While my intention was to do favours for everyone by letting everyone read the story, instead I had to ask everyone to help me because I was unable to do it myself. For helping me, I feel sorry and thankful.
(A translation of the fics reposted elsewhere is fine as long as they have my permission)
Next, I've always had very flexible "rules" and "guidelines" for translations. I will allow you to translate if 1. You link back to the original fic 2. Don't claim it's yours. It shows that I put a lot of trust in the translators because I believe that everyone that had requested my permission is genuine and professional. Whether the recent report was true or not has brought attention to some issues that may and might have risen in those that have decided to translate my fics, so now I will put my wishes on those who are translating.
1. You will translate in a public platform where everyone can view as they wish. For me, the greatest thing about fan fiction is you can share your works with everyone, and you can view everyone's works as you wish. The optimistic me believes that no matter how bad your work is, there must be at least one person out there that will enjoy it, whether they are silent about it or whether they are yet to be aware of the existence of your fic. That's what I had always believed in, hence I never put it under "subscribers" and "members-only", etc. For reposting my fics on other platforms to share, I had been against that because it is easier to control for both me and the readers to only have one platform to read, and I'm sure AFF is already accessible enough. To put your works out online is to subject them to all sorts of comments, including praise, criticism, complaints, and requests. Most comments are the readers' first impression of the chapter, and once you understand that, you will not be pressed by their comments of "I hate this character" and "update please". I have always taken them as "You did well in capturing me" and I hope you take it as that too, because you have conveyed my fic through translation effectively.
2. Remember you are a translator. Please do not start treating my fics in a wrong way. Your primary role is for you to translate my fics into a different language, not to treat it like you wrote it. Sorry for being harsh, and I honestly give you huge respect and thanks for choosing to translate such a big piece of waffle, but please don't treat it however the way you wish. My best wish is, of course, for you to acknowledge that your translations are your hard work, but please remember it is also my hard work and it took a lot of my time and effort to create it.
I honestly don't know how else to impose these guidelines, because I still believe that most, if not all, of the translators are respectful of my wishes and are genuine in wanting to share more fanfics around the world. I just hope that my fics will never become the platform for anyone to use, to threaten or blackmail (or anything along those lines) anyone else. Once again, my goal is to share our works with everyone and let everyone enjoy it (or not enjoy it) as they please, and if the translators do not agree, then it is best they stop or delete their own translations. If anything goes against this, I hope someone will let me know of it.
Once again to the translators: thank you for wanting to translate my fics and I still respect and admire you so much for it, and am very thankful for it. Sorry for needing to speak like that to you.
Lastly, pdfs and publishing. I have never and will never publish my works to distribute or write a PDF and share it to others and I hope no one else ever does that, as my wish as the writer. For PDF, it is because I want to constantly revise my mistakes and I want to keep it on one platform as a form of control, and I don't want things to get messy with spreading. For publishing, it all comes down to legality and I don't want to touch that surface of Publishing at all. Please do not make it into a book and I never want to make my fics turn into more than just "fics" because that is what they are. They are no more than fan fiction.
Sorry for the long post and once again I'm so sorry for hurting anyone involved. I know it is not your fault and I'm sorry for worrying you like this, and I'm sorry again for taking so long to write up an apology and reason. I know it is not your fault so I want to keep putting them on display for you to view, because if you enjoy it, then that is more important to me than all the other problems that have risen this year - however, now I'm at the end of my patience and I hope you can all understand that I will leave it in draft status until all the problems have been solved, or until I am ready to let them be viewed again. I tried to be understanding of everyone but I'm not as nice or patient as I would like to be and I'm really sorry for that. Sorry that I had to hurt you because of my incompetence. Once again, sorry for hurting you and thank you for supporting me and waiting for me. For loving my fics, I am forever grateful.
If there is any problems related to my fics at all, please let me know my PM on AFF or on twitter (@blehmeh2014). I will try to make myself more accessible from now on. Whether it is a translator misbehaving (mistreating readers) or someone reposting or another spreading a PDF, please let me know. Please also spread this to anyone that may be concerned about this. I want my fics to be enjoyed by everyone but I wish to be respected too.
I will un-draft my fics eventually, because I don't want to take another piece of work from the fan fiction world, however bad or poor the writing is.
I'm really really sorry, thank you, and please wait for me.
Aside from that, I hope everyone has an amazing new year and I hope all your wishes come true!
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