Fellow fans and haters,
First and Foremost! I’m not author madsnail but TRANSLATOR! and co-founder of wuxianation. The ones who are familiar with me should know me from The Dark King which was my flagship novel.
In short, we had a deal with QI regarding two novels that are hosted at wuxianation. Unfortunately, a member of our crew backstabbed us after the deal was made. Initially, he told me everything from a different perspective which I replied in a positive manner. I think he did it for money and I respected his choice but I don’t know how he expected lies to blindfold 3 more members.
Anyway, I don’t have anything against to those who work for WW, GT or QI. If you want to make money by translating then go on and do it. Actually, I have recommended and urged quite a few translators to join GT, QI or WW as they are companies. Translators who want to make money should work for companies instead of sticking with fan-translation communities such as wuxianation. There are people who want to live off by translating or pay their tuition fees and etc…and its normal.
My bottom line was crossed after we solved out that issue. An employee of China Reader using the nickname sunny double backstabbed me and GSD. This is the sole reason why I’m going to drop TDK. I hope QI will find a new translator who would be finishing the project in the future.
I was never doing it for money. I have gifted translation of more than 500 chapters of TDK without a cent in return because I’m a part of fan-translation community. I identify myself as a fan-translator and I hope that I will continue to be so until I retire from translating.
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Now let’s get into the second part of the announcement.
I’m not just a fan-translator but an avid fan of Korean novels. I love I am the Monarch, Maid Hunter Krei (yea, krei you read it right!) and many more. I respect the way translators of the Korean novels have kept the situation under control while CN translation scene has gone corporate. Yes, you read it right. It’s gone corporate. Nowadays, its all about money and number of page views.
I’m aware of three big companies in the scene right now. They are WW, QI and GT. Although QI and GT are under the wings of the same holding company but they are managed by different people so I still look at them as two different entities.
This link would lead you to an objective analysis of what’s happening with the leading company in the scene, Wuxiaworld.
I’ve been a contributor in this scene for more than half a year, so more or less I know what’s happening. A business can’t survive in the translation scene if they don’t ad-wall, paywall or membership-wall (pay not to see ads or shit like that) the chapters. All these companies will come with sweet or sour words but will ‘wall’ the chapters sooner or later. You know the funny thing about these “walls”? Trump always said that he would make the Mexicans pay for the wall. Trump couldn’t do what he promised but these companies will make you pay for the wall that they would create. Don’t want to believe? Wait and see what happens within few months.
I want to shout out to the NUF and r/noveltranslations community.
These companies are aiming only for their own profits as they can’t survive if they aren’t profitable. For the sake of profits, we have already seen a ‘leader’ of the company blatantly lie to the community and afterwards tell us that it was for the community.
I’ve listened to the tapes of RWX talking to his fellow employees. He says that they were given a chance to translate novels that would be televised in the future. It means that WW is already in a spot where they will be PR-ing a product of someone else by shoving it into the scene by saying that it’s for the good of the community.
Now, NUF and r/noveltranslations are the community. But the community is being blatantly lied, sweet-talked by these same companies.
I know that there are quite a many groups (small fan-translation groups as big as wuxianation) who share the same views like me. But most don’t want to come out because of fear of being attacked by the brainless herd that follows these companies.
I have a proposition. Don’t advertise the translations of these companies in NU or r/noveltranslations. Block them, remove them and ignore them!
P.S: edited, added membership-wall thing
Thank you for taking the time to write this up, and give us this update! I’m very sorry you were backstabbed, and hope you end up finding a new project to do! Good luck with everything.
being backstabbed sucks. i am very sad that TDK will no longer be on wuxianation. either way thanks for translating it. i hope you will find a ‘new’ one soon, albeit if i remember correctly you still have warlord to fall back on anyway, if WoW ever becomes too little work. 😉 about you not making a cent, yeah i actually noticed. wouldnt be the first time i searched the donationbotton here and most likely not the last. either way thanks again for the chapters and the risk you take as well.
As for the commercialization, the first day ren saw donation as a waya to faster transaltion, everyone knew it would come to this. commercialization in itself is actually not that bad, problem its how its done. no development in that region would have most likely meant slower releases and even worse something similar to what happend with japanese novels, if they dont det a cease and desist the groups crumble after a year and 10 released chapters.
i am still happy about every independent releaser though. not because i think ren and wuxiaworld are/is bad, in fact contrary to you i think he is quite honest in wanting to spread the novels all over the world. and him making money off of it is also not bad, i think its natural. but i do think that monopoly’s are bad. so i do not think we should ignore those bigger players. but it would be a good idea to help the smaller players shine brighter. novelupdates is actually something that can do that with the series finder, but i do agree it would be nice if the by now sizeable community also helped.
now QI is a whole other beast, with their forceful hireing practice, and their forceful cease and desist letters, but better not get started on this.
The backstab is a painful thing i know very well as a victim…really despicable.I’m an avid reader of TDK and the drop of your brilliant translation is a loss for all.
Nothing personal, i’m a little ignorant in this matter and not a fan of any translator, but i ever believed in more or less days the scene really go corporate because the novels are property of someone who have or not deals with his IP.We truly are passionate pirates from the right point of view.Some gain money, others nothing.Going corporate with quality and honesty are a good thing.
P.S: i’m a leecher, and truly happy with all translations for free until today, but if this change, it’s okay.For me Business is the way of the world, even if i’m not like this.
The novels are good, but the community is the best..the comments,memes and dramas…even with my poor english i laughed sometimes.
I wish the best for you and your team, ever.
It’s really sad to see you go, but it is also understandable. It was quite shameless of QI, but some people do whatever they can to get some more money, even if it’s a despicable thing.
Although I’m a quite “new” reader (I’ve been reading TDK for the last 2-3 months), I still kind of became attached to you and TDK, so it’s sad that you are dropping the novel. I wanted to ask if you were still going to read TDK (the Chinese version)? Because if so, I wanted to ask you if it would be possible for you to write a short summary every once in a while about what is happening in the story. If you will stop reading TDK, then I’ll just wish you luck in anything you do and thank you for all the chapters you translated so far.
Wish I read this before catching up on TDK. I’m completely and utterly heartbroken. This will take me a while to get over…
Truly a shame i thought i was only here for tdk but became attached to your little things you had to say before or after a few chaps. I fell in love with the #splitty’slivematters group in the comment i loved the overall clean design of the site. As someone who started reading novels 6 months ago because a friend forced me to read the first chapter of this beautiful and in-depht masterpiece i am quite depressed knowing that the first novel i ever read in my life wont be ended by the first and one of the best translators i’ve ever met. I was reading warlord when tdk was going slow but dropped it around 50 chaps (when zero decided to take that 12yr old bitch with him) and i was reading naruto in a different world but it became repetitive. Dunno what im gonna do 🙁 but getting backstabbed is fucked up and i kinda understand its just sad when i read you were dropping it the text kept on popping up the one you wrote that you wanted to be the one that will get tdk fully Translated to the end its just a really big fucking #feelsbadman
I really hate it when things like this happen to translators, I remember it happened to the translator of Soul Land, I mean its fine if there is a group translating 1 chapter every other month, and they do not mind someone else taking the project with their permission. However it sucks when people hijack other people without getting in touch with them, also it made no sense for them to do what they did you were at the top of your game, one of the fastest translators it showed your passion, you also asked for nothing and caused this novel to become as big as it did. This is my favorite novel, most translators tell you to expect something amazing but the story ends up becoming generic crap, however this novel was amazing to date, there are so many plot twists and the mc is true to his character. I hope you can translate another novel similar to it and not get back-stabbed for it.
Why not pick it up?