I’m not officially back from hiatus yet, but I thought I’d say a little something about friend requests. More specifically, friend requests that are sent to me.

I like to think of my fics as a way to start conversations with people who like the same things I do (or have enough interest in them to take a look), and fortunately, I’ve met a lot of likeminded people on here through them, so it seems to have worked, to some extent.

However, as some of you may know, I had a nasty encounter with a subhuman plagiarizer awhile back, and as a result of that, made the choice to friends-lock all my fics (except my entries for ongoing contests). It was not a decision I made lightly. I have tried to always keep my fics open and available for people to enjoy. That’s kind of the point of putting my stuff online, isn’t it? When I first found evidence of plagiarism, it even took me some time to make my fics members-only, because I really didn’t like adding that extra layer of effort. It was such a hard decision to put that lock on, but I had to, and now, you can only read my stuff if you’re a friend of mine.

So on to how I deal with friend requests. Some of you may already know my conditions for accepting friend requests, but I thought I’d discuss it a bit in case you were interested. (I’ll also touch on why I remove friends, as well). Our dearest leader Sunggyu will help me to illustrate, because he’s a total expert on friends…

Uh, scratch that. I’m using him because he’s cute, and I might get a bit harsh and long-winded, so I hope he’ll keep this post from being be too tedious.

(If you really don’t want to wade through this, scroll down until you see TL;DR for the summary.)

1. Accepting friend requests

If you want me to accept your friend request, there’s really only one thing you need to do.

Have some kind of interaction with me.

Even if it’s just a merest nod of acknowledgement.

Seriously, that’s all I need from you. I’m aware that some people see friends-only fics, are curious, and add the author just to check out the fic, and that’s fine—but if the only button you’re clicking (or have clicked) is the “Add friend” button, that’s not going to cut it with me.

I ignore friend requests from people with whom I have not interacted.

There are a ton of ways for us to interact. Just on AFF alone, there are story comments, blog comments, wall posts, and PMs; if you’re inherently shy and don’t like directly talking to people, I will even be happy with a subscription to one of my fics. I’ve had people tell me they’ve recommended me to recommendation shops or to people on Twitter, ask.fm, tumblr, LiveJournal, etc. I have people who’ve gotten other friends to vouch for them. Just anything to let me know that you have a legitimate interest in what I’m interested in and that you’re, well, legitimate.

(Being subscribed to me as only an author, where you’re notified of my new stories, or are subscribed to my blogs, however, won’t count as interaction, at least not until AFF implements a way for us to search through these types of subscribers.)

Why do I ask for this? Well, other than the fact that I’d like to talk to you, I’d also like to hope that if you’re a potential thief, you’d reconsider stealing from someone you’ve interacted with in some way. I hope, though I don’t know for sure, since I’m not a thieving liar, but I would hope you’d think twice about stealing from someone you have some kind of connection to. Hopefully…

Call me selfish or whatever, but that’s what I need to be able to accept a friend request.

2. Removing friends

I removed a lot of friends who had no interaction with me whatsoever, because that’s the only way to really make the friends-lock useful. I’m assuming those people probably aren’t reading my blog anyhow, but if you were one of the people I purged, that’s probably why.

There were also specific cases of people being removed from my friends’ list because, honestly, they ticked me off in some way. They said something ridiculous or acted ridiculously, and I decided that life is way too short to waste time on that kind of thing, so I deleted them. I only wish real life were that easy! (This was only a small, small number of people, though.)

It’s not a perfect system, though, and I might have unfriended you by accident. If you think this is the case, please let me know!

I also removed some people who sent me friend requests that I accepted on good faith because they appeared to want to read my fics and be my friends, but they showed no signs of follow-through. It’s hard to believe someone who gushes that they love your fic, think it’s great, blah blah blah, when they have never commented or subscribed to it, and have never once talked to you about it in any way, shape, or form.

This is going to be harsh, but here goes: it’s okay to be a silent reader, absolutely—but you can go on and be a silent reader somewhere else. I used to be okay with it, still am really, but only for my open fics. After being plagiarized, and being subjected to continued lying (I think that thief was one of the most shameless wastes of oxygen I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter), I’ve really lost much of my tolerance for that.

I’m not asking for much. I just want you to show that you have some level of interest in what I have put my heart and soul into. My fics take days, weeks, months, even years, to conceive and create. Someone might finish reading them in a few minutes. If they didn’t like it, fine, they can move on, but if they did like it, well, I’m going to be harsh again and say it: is clicking one measly subscribe button or writing a few measly words to show they liked it too hard?

If they have time to read through a 6,000+ word fic, they don’t have the extra 15 seconds to sub, comment, make a wall post, or send a PM? Just once?

I appreciate each and every person who takes the time out of their day to read my fics, truly I do, but having been robbed has made see the value in being a bit more ruthless. I’ll never get to the level of “ransoming” my fics (X number of comments before I update! Ugh), because, let’s be real, that’s just pathetic, and I don’t want empty accolades (I’d rather have none), but people who don’t show any kind of pulse, I can do without.

Also, since I’m on the subject, I’d rather have opinions about my fics delivered to my face, instead of some other random venue. At least then I can address them or we can agree to disagree. There have been some people who read my fics and talked about them on social media (thanks for the information, friends), making claims that I think would have been helpful to me if they had had the guts to just present them to me. Things like “Man, all of her scenes are the same!” or “Why would she have Sunggyu call the OC ‘princess’? That is so dumb!” (I’m paraphrasing, of course). The first issue I think is a reasonable criticism to make, while the second one I’ll ignore, because clearly, that person has had a tough childhood, with very little food, which resulted in a poorly-developed capacity to understand simple matters, like how terms of endearment are a matter of preference.

My point being: if you think reading my fic was a waste of your time, why on Earth did you waste more of your time talking about it? Might as well make that time productive by giving me constructive criticism so I might someday write something that would appease your rarefied taste.

3. Taking off friends-lock

At present, I stand firm by my choice to make (the majority of) my fics available only to friends. For those who have asked me if I would ever consider taking off this security measure, my answer would be “possibly”.

If you asked me what would make it a definite “yes”, I would say, “When that blot-on-humanity who stole my work and lied about it is off this site permanently”. Yes, that’s right, folks, that pathetic thief is still active on this site. Reading all of your work and figuring out ways to steal it. If that shameless lowlife is still here, my fics will remain friends-locked.

I love writing, I always write (I can’t not), but it’s the sharing I’m really wary of at the moment. I never got into sharing my fics to be “famous” or whatever, and I don’t really care about subscriber numbers or karma points or views or all that stuff (which is why I never advertise those stats). I don’t even care about getting praise (I like it, of course, who doesn’t?). I’d just like to know my work is being read by people and that it gets some kind of response; compliments or well-constructed criticism are always welcome. If I ever feel like I don’t want that anymore, then I will leave and gladly so.

My friends’ list has been culled to leave only those who have shown me they are happy to give me some kind of response. It’s a work in progress, of course; I’m still removing people who don’t meet my one criterion.

And here endeth the g(y)uide. At this point, some of you might be thinking, “What a horrid drama queen! I will unfriend/unsub!” To you I say, “Good day.”

Or rather, G(yu)d day.

To everyone else, thank you. I don’t know when I’ll end this hiatus, but for those who are sticking by me and are supporting me, thank you for your patience.

(Special shout-out as always to my dearest Gyumate, pinnochi, for every awesome Gyumoment we share. I love all you other guys, too, but she’s the reason why I’m still here.)

TL;DR

1. Want me to accept your friend request? Talk to me, please.

2. Want to stay on my friends’ list? Talk to me, please.

3. Will my locked fics ever be free and open? Sure, when the person who robbed me has deactivated.

This post approved by Kim “Swallowing some harsh realness (adorably)” Sunggyu.

*Picture credits to their owners

**I’ve been thinking of posting open forewords, so people can see if they’re interested, then friends-locking the fic when I update. Not sure how or if that would work, but it’s something I’m considering. I’m always open to interacting with new people. Opinions?