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This is a meta for gifset trade with @purple-fury! Maybe you would like to trade something with me? You can PM me if so!

Choosing a Chinese name, if you don’t know a Chinese language, is difficult, but here’s a secret for you: choosing a Chinese name, when you do know a Chinese language, is also difficult. So, my tip #1 is: Relax. Did you know that Actual Chinese People choose shitty names all the dang time? It’s true!!! Just as you, doubtless, have come across people in your daily life in your native language that you think “God, your parents must have been on SOME SHIT when they named you”, the same is true about Chinese people, now and throughout history. If you choose a shitty name, it’s not the end of the world! Your character’s parents now canonically suck at choosing a name. There, we fixed it!

However. Just because you should not drive yourself to the brink of the grave fretting over choosing a Chinese name for a character, neither does that mean you shouldn’t care at all. Especially, tip #2, Never just pick some syllables that vaguely sound Chinese and call it a day. That shit is awful and tbh it’s as inaccurate and racist as saying “ching chong” to mimic the Chinese language. Examples: Cho Chang from Harry Potter, Tenten from Naruto, and most notorious of all, Fu Manchu and his daughter Fah lo Suee (how the F/UCK did he come up with that one).

So where do you begin then? Well, first you need to pick your character’s surname. This is actually not too difficult, because Chinese actually doesn’t have that many surnames in common use. One hundred surnames cover over eighty percent of China’s population, and in local areas especially, certain surnames within that one hundred are absurdly common, like one out of every ten people you meet is surnamed Wang, for example. Also, if you’re making an OC for an established media franchise, you may already have the surname based on who you want your character related to. Finally, if you’re writing an ethnically Chinese character who was born and raised outside of China, you might only want their surname to be Chinese, and give them a given name from the language/culture of their native country; that’s very very common.

If you don’t have a surname in mind, check out the Wikipedia page for the list of common Chinese surnames, roughly the top one hundred. If you’re not going to pick one of the top one hundred surnames, you should have a good reason why. Now you need to choose a romanization system. You’ll note that the Wikipedia list contains variant spellings. If your character is a Chinese-American (or other non-Chinese country) whose ancestors emigrated before the 1950s (or whose ancestors did not come from mainland China), their name will not be spelled according to pinyin. It might be spelled according to Wade-Giles romanization, or according to the name’s pronunciation in other Chinese languages, or according to what the name sounds like in the language of the country they immigrated to. (The latter is where you get spellings like Lee, Young, Woo, and Law.)  A huge proportion of emigration especially came from southern China, where people spoke Cantonese, Min, Hakka, and other non-Mandarin languages.

So, for example, if you want to make a Chinese-Canadian character whose paternal source of their surname immigrated to Canada in the 20s, don’t give them the surname Xie, spelled that way, because #1 that spelling didn’t exist when their first generation ancestor left China and #2 their first generation ancestor was unlikely to have come from a part of China where Mandarin was spoken anyway (although still could have! that’s up to you). Instead, name them Tse, Tze, Sia, Chia, or Hsieh.

If you’re working with a character who lives in, or who left or is descended from people who left mainland China in the 1960s or later; or if you’re working with a historical or mythological setting, then you are going to want to use the pinyin romanization. The reason I say that you should use pinyin for historical or mythological settings is because pinyin is now the official or de facto romanization system for international standards in academia, the United Nations, etc. So if you’re writing a story with characters from ancient China, or medieval China, use pinyin, even though not only pinyin, but the Mandarin pronunciations themselves didn’t exist back then. Just… just accept this. This is one of those quirks of having a non-alphabetic language.

(Here’s an “exceptions” paragraph: there are various well known Chinese names that are typically, even now, transliterated in a non-standard way: Confucius, Mencius, the Yangtze River, Sun Yat-sen, etc. Go ahead and use these if you want. And if you really consciously want to make a Cantonese or Hakka or whatever setting, more power to you, but in that case you better be far beyond needing this tutorial and I don’t know why you’re here. Get. Scoot!)

One last point about names that use the ü with the umlaut over it. The umlaut ü is actually pretty critical for the meaning because wherever the ü appears, the consonant preceding it also can be used with u: lu/lü, nu/nü, etc. However, de facto, lots of individual people, media franchises, etc, simply drop the umlaut and write u instead when writing a name in English, such as “Lu Bu” in the Dynasty Warriors franchise in English (it should be written Lü Bu). And to be fair, since tones are also typically dropped in Latin script and are just as critical to the meaning and pronunciation of the original, dropping the umlaut probably doesn’t make much difference. This is kind of a choice you have to make for yourself. Maybe you even want to play with it! Maybe everybody thinks your character’s surname is pronounced “loo as in loo roll” but SURPRISE MOFO it’s actually lü! You could Do Something with that. Also, in contexts where people want to distinguish between u and ü when typing but don’t have easy access to a keyboard method of making the ü, the typical shorthand is the letter v. 

Alright! So you have your surname and you know how you want it spelled using the Latin alphabet. Great! What next?

Alright, so, now we get to the hard part: choosing the given name. No, don’t cry, I know baby I know. We can do this. I believe in you.

Here are some premises we’re going to be operating on, and I’m not entirely sure why I made this a numbered list:

Chinese people, generally, love their kids. (Obviously, like in every culture, there are some awful exceptions, and I’ll give one specific example of this later on.)

As part of loving their kids, they want to give them a Good name.

So what makes a name a Good name??? Well, in Chinese culture, the cultural values (which have changed over time) have tended to prioritize things like: education; clan and family; health and beauty; religious devotions of various religions (Buddhism, Taoism, folk religions, Christianity, other); philosophical beliefs (Buddhism, Confucianism, etc) (see also education); refinement and culture (see also education); moral rectitude; and of course many other things as the individual personally finds important. You’ll notice that education is a big one. If you can’t decide on where to start, something related to education, intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, etc, is a bet that can’t go wrong.

Unlike in English speaking cultures (and I’m going to limit myself to English because we’re writing English and good God look at how long this post is already), there is no canon of “names” in Chinese like there has traditionally been in English. No John, Mary, Susan, Jacob, Maxine, William, and other words that are names and only names and which, historically at least, almost everyone was named. Instead, in Chinese culture, you can basically choose any character you want. You can choose one character, or two characters. (More than two characters? No one can live at that speed. Seriously, do not give your character a given name with more than two characters. If you need this tutorial, you don’t know enough to try it.) Congratulations, it is now a name!!

But what this means is that Chinese names aggressively Mean Something in a way that most English names don’t. You know nature names like Rose and Pearl, and Puritan names like Wrestling, Makepeace, Prudence, Silence, Zeal, and Unity? I mean, yeah, you can technically look up that the name Mary comes from a etymological root meaning bitter, but Mary doesn’t mean bitter in the way that Silence means, well, silence. Chinese names are much much more like the latter, because even though there are some characters that are more common as names than as words, the meaning of the name is still far more upfront than English names.

So the meaning of the name is generally a much more direct expression of those Good Values mentioned before. But it gets more complicated!

Being too direct has, across many eras of Chinese history, been considered crude; the very opposite of the education you’re valuing in the first place. Therefore, rather than the Puritan slap you in the face approach where you just name your kid VIRTUE!, Chinese have typically favoured instead more indirect, related words about these virtues and values, or poetic allusions to same. What might seem like a very blunt, concrete name, such as Guan Yu’s “yu” (which means feather), is actually a poetic, referential name to all the things that feathers evoke: flight, freedom, intellectual broadmindness, protection…

So when you’re choosing a name, you start from the value you want to express, then see where looking up related words in a dictionary gets you until you find something that sounds “like a name”; you can also try researching Chinese art symbolism to get more concrete names. Then, here’s my favourite trick, try combining your fake name with several of the most common surnames: 王，李，陈. And Google that shit. If you find Actual Human Beings with that name: congratulations, at least if you did f/uck up, somebody else out there f/ucked up first and stuck a Human Being with it, so you’re still doing better than they are. High five!

You’re going to stick with the same romanization system (or lack thereof) as you’ve used for the surname. In the interests of time, I’m going to focus on pinyin only.

First let’s take a look at some real and actual Chinese names and talk about what they mean, why they might have been chosen, and also some fictional OC names that I’ve come up with that riff off of these actual Chinese names. And then we’ll go over some resources and also some pitfalls. Hopefully you can learn by example! Fun!!!

Let’s start with two great historical strategists: Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu, and the names I picked for some (fictional) sons of theirs. Then I will be talking about Sun Shangxiang and Guan Yinping, two historical-legendary women of the same era, and what I named their fictional daughters. And finally I’ll be talking about historical Chinese pirate Gan Ning and what I named his fictional wife and fictional daughter. Uh, this could be considered spoilers for my novel Clouds and Rain and associated one-shots in that universe, so you probably want to go and read that work… and its prequels… and leave lots of comments and kudos first and then come back. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

(I’m just kidding you don’t need to know a thing about my work to find this useful.)

Hey sweetie, I’m not sure what’s new for you, but here’s some lists I have …

John Bottoms for the First Time

ShakeMe byUpYourStreet (orphan_account), 7 k, explicit. John is having trouble bottomingfor Sherlock, so he decides that Sherlock restraining him is the only way to doit.

Ijust want you for my ownby cwb, 141 k+, WIP, explicit. American Teenlock AU. John and Sherlock are home from collegeon winter break, and enjoying a trip to Chicago and each other with utterdelight. (Locked to AO3 users.)

Take My Breath Away by Quesarasara,14 k, explicit. John and Sherlock have been taking each other’s breath awaysince they met. A lovely collection of vignettes as John and Sherlock realizetheir love for each other.

Tuck Me In by TheDevilsFeet, 17 k, explicit.Sherlock can’t sleep. It’s been months, but his mind just won’t shut the helloff. After nights of tossing and turning in his bed, he finally asks John tohelp. And not even the greatest mind in England could have foreseen theconsequences.

Guilty Secrets byEllipsical, 55 k, explicit. John has a prostate exam and discoverssomething surprising about himself. Experimentation follows. Sherlock wants tohelp. They’re in love. You know the drill.  

+++

Dom!lock & Sub!John

http://alexxphoenix42.tumblr.com/post/157628897288/do-you-have-and-dom-sherlock-sub-john-fics

Dom!lock & Sub!John – Part 2

http://alexxphoenix42.tumblr.com/post/167323568878/hi-alexx-is-there-any-new-sub-john-dom

Toplock and Bottom!John

http://alexxphoenix42.tumblr.com/post/151882225678/do-you-have-an-bottomjohn-fics-youd-rec-d

John is a power bottom

http://alexxphoenix42.tumblr.com/post/167317267623/hi-do-you-know-any-good-powerbottom-john-fics

John bottoms, Dub-con -Johniarty, Johnlock, Johncroft

Chapters: 44/? Fandom: Sherlock (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Philip Anderson, Greg Lestrade, Mycroft Holmes, Molly Hooper Additional Tags: Romance, Alternate Universe - Historical, Historical, Boats and Ships, Sailor!John, Aristocrat!Sherlock, AU, Johnlock Trope Challenge, Sexual Content, Explicit Sexual Content, sherlock POV, Pining Sherlock, Young!naive!Sherlock, Muscular!Sea-hardened!John, POV Sherlock Holmes, SailorLock, sailinglock, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Virgin Sherlock, Anderson has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, Sherlock is a sad gay baby, boxing lessons, Sherlock’s Violin, sailor!lock, Sailing, First Kiss, Bottom Sherlock Holmes, Top John Watson, Sherlock is a trembling gay flower petal, John is a golden god of sex, First Time, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Resolved Sexual Tension, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Frottage, Masturbation, Age of Sail, Regency, Threats of Violence, Threats of sexual violence, Angst with a Happy Ending, THIS STORY WILL HAVE THE HAPPIEST ENDING YOU CAN POSSIBLY STOMACH, but there will be angst and conflict along the way, and also lots and lots of sex, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex Summary:

When the youngest son of the aristocratic Holmes family is shipped off to sea in an attempt to cure him of his poor temper and bad manners, he fully expects to spend a long tedious voyage as miserable as ever. What he does not count on is having his heart stolen by the strapping young crewman, John Watson.

We all know that the pink case in ASiP represents the gay case…the gay case of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson that Sherlock (=the show BBC ‘Sherlock’) has had no trouble finding in a skip. Sherlock (the show) brings the ‘pink case’ to Baker Street and puts it in the client’s chair because, for now, it’s a case, a puzzle, that has to be solved. 

This ‘pink case’ is the johnlock case, basically. We all know that.

But there is another case in ASiP. A dark one. A very obscure one. One that Sherlock dismisses. And it belongs to this American gentleman here:

This ‘case’ was inserted into the episode very subtly in a blink-and-you’ll-miss it moment. And it’s not by far as obvious a metaphor as the ‘pink case’.

But if the ‘pink case’ is a metaphor, then the ‘black case’ has to be a metaphor too, right? This show is nothing if not consistent with its metaphors.

What’s interesting is that this ‘dark case’ visually appears mirrored (!) in the car window (=because it metaphorically reflects some event). Also, it’s interesting to note WHERE exactly it appears: reflected onto Sherlock’s body. Visually it’s part of Sherlock’s body!

And this has been done so subtly that it’s barely visible.

So, this image tells us there is another ‘case’ (apart from the pink=gay case of johnlock love) that Sherlock will have to solve over the course of the show.

(Ha! We knew it. It’s just like Sherlock says in TAB: There were always two (!) cases. Not just two literal suitcases in ASiP. But also two figurative cases that have to be solved over the course of the show: A pink=gay case in the present and a dark case from the past. The ‘pink case’ of how to get together with John Watson. And a dark case of ‘What made me this way?’).

This second ‘case’ in ASiP is visually far darker, far obscurer, which probably means it’s something half-forgotten from the past, right?

In the screenshot above, the ‘dark case’ looks like it’s visually part of Sherlock’s body, ie, it’s something in Sherlock’s dark past; it has become a part of him, basically. (A part that Sherlock has most likely repressed, but that’s in there, inside of him, somewhere.)

Also, and this is explicitly pointed out to us both visually with the luggage tag and verbally in the dialogue, this dark ‘case’ comes from America:

(You know that I think Sherlock’s trauma will turn out to be a story about how Sherlock’s dad was in love with his best friend, as I argued in the last part of my ‘Follow the dog’ meta: x).

What this ‘dark case’, that has arrived from America, probably tells us here is that the case of Sherlock’s dad falling in love with another man most likely happened in America. (This would instantly explain why there are so many America references on the show, too.)

Also, keep in mind that it’s the cabbie, an agent of Moriarty (=homophobia/evil), who’s driving the American guy with his ‘dark case’ around…

Yeah, an agent of homophobia is in control of this ‘dark case’ from America!

Not only did this agent of homophobia throw the ‘pink case’ (=gay case) into a skip, ie, disposed of the gay love story of Sherlock and John as if it were waste…No, this agent of homophobia is also steering the ‘dark case’. In other words: whatever happened between Sherlock’s dad and his best friend in America, homophobia was totally in control of that love story.:( Homophobia was literally driving it.

And let’s not forget that the cabbie has two children (like Sherlock’s dad!). The cabbie is acting on behalf of Moriarty (=homophobia) for the benefit of his two kids. Like arguably Sherlock’s dad…who probably stayed married and gave in to homophobia because of his two kids.

This would also explain why the cabbie, who is otherwise a Sherlock!mirror (like in the getting-shot-in-the-heart-by-John-in-a-locked-room scene) is nonetheless dressed to look a bit like John: Because the cabbie is also a mirror for Sherlock’s dad (who is, in turn, a John!mirror).

Last but not least, let’s keep in mind that the American guy with the ‘dark case’ is an obvious Sherlock!mirror, what with his high cheekbones and the open-collared, tie-less look he’s got going on:

So, this American guy (a Sherlock!mirror) who owns the ‘dark case’ looks very confused and doesn’t know what’s going on. Like Sherlock himself at this point! 

Also, if this ‘dark case’ is really about Sherlock’s childhood trauma, it’s interesting to note that Sherlock subtextually runs away from it at that point: He runs away as fast as he can. In episode one, Sherlock is not ready to deal with his past (and the case from that past) yet:

To be more precise, Sherlock first runs AFTER this American ‘dark case’ because subtextually he thinks it will help him solve the whole pink-case-conundrum (=his gay ‘case’ that he has with John in the here and now). 

So, he runs after the ‘dark case’, but then when he actually looks at it, he dismisses it. He clearly doesn’t understand it yet. And then he runs away from it as fast as he can. 

He will need time to understand that he has to solve the ‘dark case’ of his own childhood/meta past FIRST before he can get to a satisfactory conclusion on the ‘pink case’ front.

Did I say how much I love ASiP? I swear, in a show that’s generally brilliant, this is THE best episode ever…well, for now…I have high hopes for the one where they will eventually kiss in s5.:) Because they will kiss…right? RIGHT?

P.S. Remember that I read people who are tan as people who are in love (see this meta: x)? Because people who are tan have been touched by their metaphorical ‘sun’. They are literally sun-kissed. 

Yeah, well, the American who brings the ‘dark case’ from Sherlock’s past is very tan…Read: this case from the past is a case about someone being in love (and, as you know, I think that certain someone was/were Sherlock’s dad and his ‘best friend’).

All screencaps taken from here.

All my ‘Sherlock’ meta can be found: HERE.

This week we start with the mini series: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (E1)

Come and join us on the March, 6th. at 8.00 pm (Central European Time) - room link will be posted 30 Min. before the screening.

We have 3 Episodes and a lot of deaths ahead of us.

Sherlock + five act structure in John Yorke’s Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them

Hi Nonny!! <3 

I’m so happy you enjoy all my fic recs!!

John turned even redder, and then folded his arms in front of him.  “I would have thought by now you’d have figured out I’m bisexual.  Didn’t you deduce it after you met Major Sholto?”

I’d go with the What to Do series by hyacinth_sky747

HOLMES: Did you bring your revolver? 

WATSON: What good would that be against a ghost? 

HOLMES: Exactly. Did you bring it? 

WATSON: Yeah, of course. 

HOLMES: Then come, Watson, come. The game is afoot.

[and now quotes from the gifs:]

[Watson grunts in pain]

HOLMES: Get down Watson, for heaven’s sake!

WATSON: Sorry… cramp…

[during “the talk”]

WATSON: Hmm, good God, this is the longest night of my life. 

HOLMES: Have patience, Watson.

[…]

WATSON:  You are a living, breathing man. […]  Well, you must have had… […] Experiences.

HOLMES:  Pass me your revolver, I have a sudden need to use it. 

WATSON: Damn it, Holmes, you are flesh and blood, you have feelings, you have… You must have… Impulses. 

HOLMES: Dear Lord, I have never been so impatient to be attacked by a murderous ghost.

(transcript)

And now let’s take into account, that this all happens in Sherlock’s mind. So this is actually Sherlock exploring his own sexuality. And he comes to the conclusion, yes, he wants John’s “revolver”, he wants the ghost (as a symbol of homosexuality/queerness) to attack him.

These two scenes (the first and last that John and Sherlock share in s3) are almost exact mirrors of each other. 

We all agree that Sherlock nearly says “I love you” on the tarmac, but then deflects with humor.