7seas should’ve been the company that went out of business, not Peach Flower House. Fuck them.
Okay! Let me start off by saying I love this blog and it has a lot of funny posts but this post I just can’t agree.
I think it’s great that 7seas has made many works accessible to a large foreign audience. It’s a great milestone for LGBTQ+ literature. Losing 7seas would mean losing a big part of Chinese work being put forward by queer artists, editors, and authors. It’s a shame we lost a publishing company, yes, but the reaction SHOULD NOT be wishing harm to a publisher that cares enough to cater to a minority group. If 7seas went bankrupt the only thing it would do is silence our voices even more.
But yeah, this is just my take as a queer person in the world. I’m not going to go advocating for the destruction of a publisher that’s helping to elevate the stories I care about.
Especially because homophobic people WANT publishers like peach flower house to disappear. And 7seas. They’re on the same team. It’s easy to forget that times are so divisive, but they are. We’re currently fighting for media that represents us like it’s the hunger games. At least 7seas is still alive and kicking, all we can hope is that it stays that way for now. We’re really lucky there’s a big enough publisher out there who can (legally) pick up all these titles from another at once.
Anyways. Rest in peace peach flower house 😔
This may sound harsh, but I don't intend it to be. I'm just gonna be as blunt as possible to be as clear as possible about why I find this an issue.
What I want is for the works that real people wrote to be treated with the respect that they deserve. I don't care for the "at least they're giving us something" argument, cause so are regular people... for free. There's not a single novel 7seas has translated or slated for translation that I can't currently pull up a fan translation for, and a good 90% will even be completed, non-mtl translations, too. The only upside to a company with 7seas's practices is spending money on easily-accessible physical copies. Other than that? There's no quality control, there are no worker's rights, there's no respect for authors, like? I'm not pitting these companies against each other to say "there can only be one;" I'm saying 7seas should go because the whole industry is brought down when they are allowed to thrive and become the top company in the business. I'm saying explicitly that Western companies that can't be bothered to treat the Asian authors of the works they translate with the dignity of getting those translations right rather than having fandom-obsessed translators play backdoor editor behind the scenes, then those companies should simply be barred from translating works from authors they do not respect. Wanting the option to spend money on the inferior copy of something is not more important than having a quality-controlled product created by someone who loves the actual work as much as the author did and cares to maintain its fidelity.
And this is just my take as a writer who loves my works as writing first and a money-maker second: I would rather a few people read my work and love it as is than someone take my completed work, fuck it up, change my carefully crafted story to fit their wishes, and have that bastardization reach and resonate with millions. Instead of asking how we feel as consumers having one less book to put on our bookshelves, maybe we should ask how the authors feel about us buying versions of their books we know have been tampered with just to get online to argue about which fake version "validates" our bullshit fanon.
Has MXTX publicly complained about the treatment of their self or their works by 7seas? I love your blog and your analysis of the translation inaccuracies, but as an English-language fan, I also love having a legal option that gives recognition and money to the original author. Because of 7seas, I can walk into a bookstore and see an entire shelf dedicated to MXTX's works. The best way for fans to show appreciation is to take out our wallets. It's a different feeling than supporting the author by reading free fan translations or buying raws.
Of course, the situation changes completely if there have been reports of abusive practices within 7seas. That's why I'm genuinely curious if I've missed some negative news about the publisher.




















