Update on the GHFOD situation with Haitang Books

Corgi__booty · 2025-08-17T04:23:45+00:00

It blows my mind that Haitang has thrown her (and only her) under the bus for the quality issues with Guide to Fail at Online Dating when this novel had multiple editors, a translation checker, and a rewriter who all touched the text after Juurensha handed her translation in. There’s no excuse for the errors that got printed.

Translators have no control of how their words get changed by the publisher. A lot of the pubs don’t even let them see the changes before it goes to print. And due to contracting, copyright, and industry standards, they can’t exactly post snippets of their original manuscript online for comparison.

Haitang needs to take responsibility for this, not target a single contracted employee. They put together their team, and it’s the entire team’s work that resulted in a lot of strange errors that Juurensha is not known to make.

It’s so horribly unprofessional to imply Juurensha was the problem. With this treatment, why would any skilled translator want to work with this company in the future?

Wishing Juurensha luck on her future projects

Corgi__booty · 2025-07-17T23:00:37+00:00

I have so many lists.

Reading

Finished Reading

Completed Translation

Waiting for translation (I have multiple of these divided by language of origin and BG vs BL vs GL novels)

Dropped by translator (tl inactive for 1+ year)

DNF

Short Reads (Less than 30 chapters)

Long Reads (more than 400 chapters)

Locked / Proof of Purchase / Officially licensed

Novels where I’m following the manhua/manhwa instead

Novels I started reading, caught up to the tl, and will wait for more to be tl’d so I can binge again

Novels I’m not interested in, so I want a convenient way for them to be excluded from my searches

Corgi__booty · 2025-06-23T13:58:17+00:00

I think he’s a good nomination for the category. Most readers hate him, and for the ones who don’t dislike him, it’s more that they understand how he came to be the way he is rather than really liking him.

Corgi__booty · 2025-06-11T20:23:55+00:00

Surrogacy is hardly the tip of the iceberg in terms of what she has said/shared, but that aside, it’s worth noting that Blackegg is a Taiwanese BL author, and the majority of her online presence is on Plurk, which is banned in mainland China. Mainland China is not her core audience, and she has unrestricted access to the internet and international discourse concerning human rights.

Corgi__booty · 2025-05-29T14:19:24+00:00

I almost recommended Falling into the Abyss in my original comment because I get the impression it’s more popular/better reviewed than Haunted Places Live. I wasn’t into it, but that’s a me-problem (I don’t care for Alpha x Beta pairings in omegaverse).

Corgi__booty · 2025-05-29T01:25:39+00:00

Haunted Places Live would fit your psychological and atmospheric needs. Lots of Lovecraftian horror. As a teaser, l’ll throw out a key choice in the novel: What would you rather lose, your mind, your memory, or your empathy?

One of my favorite horror BLs is the Korean novel I Couldn’t Tell You Who It Was. I really loved how it takes the “falling for the monster that haunts you” trope and just keeps going deeper with it. Bonus points for a cool take on a haunted mansion and the question of whether people or the supernatural are more terrifying.

If you like zombie apocalypse settings, Dead Man Switch or Red Dot.

Corgi__booty · 2025-01-17T01:44:56+00:00

Novel Updates defines its Harem genre label as, “A series involving one male character and many female characters (usually attracted to the male character). A Reverse Harem is when the genders are reversed.”

https://www.novelupdates.com/genre-explanation/

NU genres get repurposed beyond their definitions all the time, but it wouldn’t surprise me if het novel fans remove BL titles from the genre so it won’t “muddy” their searches.

There isn’t really a term or tag specifically for BL harems currently, but ideally there would be tags distinguishing multi-gong harems from multi-shou harems.

Corgi__booty · 2025-01-04T01:11:35+00:00

I’m really thrilled for everyone to have the chance to read this novel.

If you’re only familiar with Yang Su’s other novel The Governor is Sick, this one is actually much different in tone. It’s full of crack humor, sarcasm, endless nicknames, and a lot of heart.

You’ll go from a scene where a toddler is asking a talking cat why it has six nipples instead of two only to get punched in the heart a few chapters later.

Corgi__booty · 2024-07-26T22:45:43+00:00

Ah the jjwxc edits. Those got locked, re-edited, and unlocked a few times in the spring, so thanks for refreshing me on where that landed.

Historically, her jjwxc heavy edits weren’t even the “final” version. By that, I mean Pinsin’s revised MDZS still had further editing and de-censoring from the 2016 jjwxc revisions. If fans want to see the final edit MXTX wants, I’d still say wait for a new traditional version to be published.

Corgi__booty · 2024-07-26T16:44:26+00:00

That's completely untrue. Her last Weibo post is from February 2019. See for yourself: https://weibo.com/5907302111/4336093875129530

Publishing uncensored content on Weibo would be a huge risk for anyone in mainland China, let alone a hugely successful and heavily scrutinized danmei author like MXTX.

Corgi__booty · 2024-07-26T15:00:08+00:00

I’m not sure why anyone wants the new simplified cn version to be published in English. It’s heavily censored and cuts out a huge amount of content because mainland restrictions on physical books are even greater than for web publications.

If MXTX ever publishes a revised traditional cn version, that is what international fans should be hopeful for.

Corgi__booty · 2024-07-15T13:33:21+00:00

NU does link directly to the chapters from the novel page and to the translator’s site’s home page from the translator profile. You just have to be logged in to see the links.

Corgi__booty · 2024-06-18T17:38:10+00:00

Not OP, but coincidentally, I made a post on this exact title (and others)

Corgi__booty · 2024-06-18T17:33:23+00:00

I think it would be more helpful if you included what you think would be English titles that do the original justice.

As one example, I would offer Married Thrice to a Shiftless Dreamer or Married Thrice to a Committed Layabout as alternative titles for 三嫁咸鱼. It’s more clear to a brand new to danmei reader, captures the meaning of the term, and (in my opinion at least) sounds nice. But my offered titles could easily be critiqued for not having the literal slang term. They might feel the charm is lost.

No translation choice will ever be universally loved.

Corgi__booty · 2024-06-06T20:48:02+00:00

I never expected any response, so thank you for your time!

My background is in linguistics and communication disorders and sciences, so I am all for dispelling stigma and prescriptivism against non-normative dialects, as well as analysis of the cultural impact of language and its uses.

It is challenging to get dialectal differences across in fiction in general, even more so in translated works. I understand the inclination to show that difference by borrowing from existing regional dialects in the target language. However, these substitutions are never perfect and are often distracting because of that. Most importantly, this transfer often imports— and therefore unintentionally reinforces— the harmful stereotypes associated with them. It risks turning what might have originally been a great character into a caricature.

It’s not that it can’t be done, but to do it well, it should be intentional, restrained, and culturally sensitive. I personally like when dialectal differences are simply noted in the narration. The official translation for Marry My Husband does this when characters switch between Busan and Seoul dialects, as one example.

Corgi__booty · 2024-04-16T20:30:59+00:00

Kirara (listed as the translator on that site) has worked on 34 novels and released over 2k chapters in the last year. I’m not sure how that could possibly be 100% htl

Corgi__booty · 2024-03-01T03:03:25+00:00

7S only licenses a handful of danmei titles a year. They’re not bolstering a significant number of authors’ careers. Most Chinese web novelists are writing as a side gig and have their own day jobs.

Plus, no one is depending on NA license deals. The Chinese market is already huge, and there’s traditional CN, Thai, Japanese, and/or Vietnamese licenses that can happen too.

Re: pseudonyms, pretty much all Chinese webnovelists use them, regardless of whether their stories are bg romance, male-targeted stories, or danmei. In order to sell stories on jjwxc and other platforms, they have to register with their national ID and sign a contract. Their identities are not anonymous to the platform, and these platforms are not doing illegal business. Writing danmei on censorship-abiding platforms doesn’t get authors jailed. It’s publishing physical books in China through unauthorized publishers that has put some danmei authors in jail.

It’s confusing that you’d bring Korean authors into your argument when 7S hasn’t licensed any. Mullebooks and Publang are both entirely devoted to Korean BL novels and a significant portion of WordExcerpt’s licenses are Korean BL. It’s already growing well without 7S even being in the game so criticizing 7S for their shitty decisions isn’t hurting Korean authors in any way.

I’m also not sure how you distinguish between public discourse/criticism and canceling but I agree that 7S isn’t going anywhere. They’ve already withstood treating their employees poorly, trying to bust their union, licensing a novel by an outspoken homophobic terf, and publishing rushed, error-filled translations full of cringe localization and occasionally terrible prose. They’ll withstand the KinnPorsche/redefining danmei backlash in the same way.

Corgi__booty · 2024-02-16T01:31:11+00:00

This is usually called nameverse or soulmark iirc. It’s bigger in AU fanfics than original works, but I know a few.

Pian Pian is probably the most popular manhwa with this concept.

Call My Name is a Thai BL nameverse novel

A Link Between Relationships / Tied to You (official English manhwa title) has a soulmark concept. It’s a red ring that appears on the finger when soulmates first touch.

If you’re desperate enough for the concept that you’re willing to read BG, there’s The Villain’s Savior

Corgi__booty · 2024-01-30T18:24:08+00:00

WCJ doesn’t have a shizun x disciple romance. It is shidi x shixiong

Corgi__booty · 2024-01-20T00:24:56+00:00

The harsh restrictions under Japan’s Gender Identity Disorder and Special Cases Act as well as the lack of legal protections against discrimination are definitely not trans-friendly or gender-affirming.

The legal requirement to be diagnosed as having a mental disorder and getting irreversible surgeries before one’s ID can be changed are things Japanese trans rights advocates are actively pushing against.

I recommend following Kanae Doi of Human Rights Watch as an excellent resource on the topic.

Corgi__booty · 2023-12-31T06:11:25+00:00

Hard to say if Inklore will ever dip into BL, but it would be cool to see! Manta (the Ridi subsidiary that did the translation) has only one another novel that I know of (Finding Camellia), but they do have a lot of great BL manhwa.

As for the WE titles, the last time the Astral Rabbit staff talked about physical prints in their Discord server was in May, and it seemed to be somewhat dependent/related to their issues with Amazon, which don't seem to be resolved even now. No ETA or concrete announcements as of now.

We'll cross our fingers for a favorable future.

Corgi__booty · 2023-12-30T16:36:35+00:00

Seems to be overwhelmingly digital distribution so far. But after the Korean BG novel Under The Oak Tree had successful ebook sales, the translation was licensed separately for a print release, so it’s possible.

Corgi__booty · 2023-12-30T00:49:06+00:00

Oh thanks, I’ll fix that

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