imthepunchlord

[imthepunchlord]

A wild Fat HO-OH Appeared!

Inspired by this amazing plush Link

#pokemon

[imthepunchlord]

Reblog so everyone can hear what they need.

[imthepunchlord]

tips for choosing a Chinese name for your OC when you don’t know Chinese

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.)

Keep reading

#writing reference

[imthepunchlord]

[imthepunchlord]

you think your sister's bad...?

#atla

[imthepunchlord]

You know, seeing you mentioning Marinette weirdly having blue eyes reminds me of how often it's mentioned in miraculous DC crossover fics where they have Marinette be the daughter of Bruce Wayne and Sabine Cheng.

Oh the more you know.

Which given what Bruce can do, yeah that can be pretty plausible for him as Marinette’s father.

#ask Punchie #ml dc crossover #idk on how to really tag it #I don’t do crossovers myself

[imthepunchlord]

It could also be a way to make Marinette "special". Astruc does take a lot of inspiration from anime, and I think it's an old trope in eastern media for a protag to have blue eyes if they're "magical", but I don't think it's that popular a trope anymore?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong as I'm not entirely sure on that.

Alternatively, when thinking a more white passing/whitewashed Marinette would be more appealing, they really wanted a blue eyed protagonist, and decided it'd be best with her than the blond male lead who does have a blue eyed father.

But visually, it is weird that you just don't see blue eyes anywhere in the Dupain family. Clearly she wasn't much of a consideration when designing the family.

Maybe she's actually adopted?

So, even being flexible with genetics, it is so weird to me that they gave Marinette blue eyes but they don't give her a relative that has blue eyes.

All the Dupains (that we know of so far) have different shades of green eyes. Though Gina is hard to see with her eyes so dark, but they are green.

I don't know if genetically if blue and green eyes are close and that could be a reason; but it is just baffling to me that Marinette clearly wasn't really factored in when designing her extended family and offering where the eye color could've come from.

I really do wish that they stuck to Marinette having dark gray eyes as she did initially in some of her concepts.

And that when she was Ladybug, her eyes would turn blue cause Tikki has blue eyes, and we do see that a human's eye color can change to match the kwami's.

And it could've been a good way to hide her identity without needing to change herself up too much as blue eyes would suggested she's a full European instead of French Chinese.

#ml salt #thomas salt

[imthepunchlord]

#miraculous ladybug #mlb #ml #miraculous poll #ml poll #mlb poll #spider miraculous #spider kwami #kwami oc

[imthepunchlord]

Submitted by an anon.

reblogs for bigger sample size appreciated

polls can be submitted to this blog via asks or submssions

#typically I just scroll by and ignore it #if what I don’t like pops up a lot then I unfollow

[imthepunchlord]

“katara i can walk to the medical wing myse-“

“WHOS THE HEALER YOU OR ME🗣️💯💥🔥‼️‼️”

#atla #zutara

[imthepunchlord]

Random Story Setting Idea (you don't have to do anything with this if you don't want to, I just want to see writers' thoughts when they hear these prompts):

The whimsical and charming garden with topiaries and fountains in a world where people can see into the future.

Jasper Phlox has gotten through life with his cunning, charm, and confidence in knowing the human nature. It was his key as a master manipulator, the Maven of Shade, Overseer of all Shadows. And part of his success was the lack of faith. In Exaltare, if any discovered what he was, there'd be chains upon his wrists, if he was lucky. His mother had long warned that faith was a dangerous thing. If he was to keep his head, he'd keep enemies closer than any fancy of fondness.

But a month into their contract, Lady Calypso Tenebrae was working to unravel it.

The quiet but quirky noble insisted she could share the truth of fate, the reason she crept her way down in his lair, why she brought a prospect of a deal.

The Maven of Shade agreed to her contract out of amused curiosity. All the juicy information his heart desired, for an elusive ticket out of Exaltare. She even insisted that she'd know more than his spies.

It was a comical claim, until her words bore fruit.

And upon the acting of a weak whim, where his curiosity stood too strong against reason, he asked for her secret.

She already knew his, and he suspected she was the same.

But all she said was that she'd take him to the Garden of Insomnio. That his answer was there.

Which was surprising.

Before the day Arensia bore their metal and rule upon Exaltare, the Circle of Insomnio were the suspected royal family of Exaltare, the Sowers of Chaos. Before the Great Banning, they were the chessmasters of Exaltare. Nothing they did made sense to anyone but themselves.

So respected and feared, the Imperial family sought to honor their power and wisdom with the Garden of Insomnio. The only mercy they offered as all were slaughtered.

Through a passage way very few knew (of course Lady Tenebrae did), Jasper slowed as he took in the garden. It had the classic flowers of all kinds, various fountains stationed through the path, and a spread of owls made of stone and leaves, the symbol of Insomnio. At this time, the evening was around the corner, but it wasn't dark enough to light the lanterns.

Lady Tenebrae leaned out from the shadows, doing a quick look around, then telling him it was clear. She took the leaf, leading Jasper to the grandest foundation, though it bore the smallest owl, it's big eyes pointed skyward, little mirrors set for it's eyes to always reflect what it sees.

"Here," Lady Tenebrae decided, plopping down on the rim, glancing back to watched long finned koi lazily swim through the water.

In a cheeky tone, Jasper asked, "Is this where you reveal you're the long lost descendant of Insomnio?"

His smile grew at the flat scowl she gave him. She corrected, "I'm here to have you talk with an Insomnio."

That time Jasper didn't hold back his laugh. "Talk with one? You know a surviving Insomnio?"

Oh the Imperial family would be twisting in their silk to learn they missed one.

"No, she's dead like all the rest."

Jasper paused at that, the realization hitting him.

So he was right in his suspicions, just not what her magic was.

Lady Tenebrae held out her hand to him, bare and small. With a small frown, he pulled his own glove off, flashing the scars and nicks that covered his, setting his hand upon hers, letting her link their fingers. She was warm and smooth, easily dwarfed by his own.

He felt the tickle of magic, cold in contrast to the playful warmth of his. His vision blurred and his hearing seemed muffled. Disliking the shift in perception, he clutched her hand tighter, letting her ground him. When his senses cleared, Jasper gasped.

They weren't alone in the garden as he initially thought.

All around them were slightly see through people in robes, with hair all uniquely reflecting the colors of the sky, and all bore black starry eyes. It seems, in this garden meant to honor them, is where all of the Insomnio haunted.

"You brought me the Maven of Shade, just as I asked."

Jasper turned, coming face to face with an older woman, her hair reflecting the colors of twilight, her black eyes locked onto him, glittering with tiny little stars. She offered him a warm smile, and gave a small bow.

"I greet you, Overseer of Shadows. Would you like to know the coming future?"

#ask Punchie #original writing

[imthepunchlord]

Submitted by an anon.

reblogs for bigger sample size appreciated

polls can be submitted to this blog via asks or submssions

#typically I just scroll by and ignore it #if what I don’t like pops up a lot then I unfollow

[imthepunchlord]

[imthepunchlord]

3 seconds into dungeon meshi and they’re already living my dream. i love eating things I ought not in unfamiliar ecosystems

[imthepunchlord]

companies are delusional if they think consumers don't notice shrinkflation. less food in the package, less medicine in the jar, less whatever in the wherever, it doesn't matter where and it's almost always noticeable. like i just finished one box of medicine and we opened another allegedly identical one that we just bought and lo and behold, the four middle medicine segments were gone from the package. they took out four pills from the same sized box and sold it at the same price without any indication on the box other than the small number in the corner. ridiculous

[imthepunchlord]

Hey! So, I just need some help understanding something... I heard that people think that Zuko took Katara straight to Ember Island after TSR. I missed it on my rewatch, and I don't get where this interpretation comes from, and whether it is just a headcanon. Do you happen, by chance, to know more about that? I LOVE this tidbit by the way; I just don't know where it's coming from. Sorry if this is random.

Oh I’ve heard that before! From what I’ve seen, it’s based primarily on the visuals we see of the settings. Before leaving to find Yon Rha, everyone is camped out on this island:

It appears to be a small, uninhabited island (which makes sense if they’re in hiding) so clearly not Ember Island.

Then at the end, the final scene begins with Katara here:

This is definitely Zuko’s family home on Ember Island, with Katara sitting alone on the pier. In the second screenshot you can see Appa flying in.

Now here is the interesting part:

Zuko and Aang get off of Appa, and if you squint, it kind of looks like the others are in the saddle too. Based on the conversation that follows, it’s clear that this is the first time Aang has seen Katara since she left to confront Yon Rha.

So the implication here is that Zuko and Katara first went to Ember Island alone, then Zuko flew with Appa by himself to pick up everyone else from the other island. This actually makes a lot of sense logistically, because without Appa, everyone else had no way of getting to Ember Island from wherever they were before.

I really like this theory (and I think based on the evidence it’s pretty much canon) because it shows there are a lot of missing scenes between Zuko and Katara. It makes sense. He was the only one there to comfort her after something so traumatic. I love the idea that he thought to bring her to a place that was special to him, hoping to find her comfort. Then I’m guessing she wanted some alone time and he left her to go get the others.

I think it’s very sweet, to think about that time they spent together and what they talked about ❤️

#atla #it does feel logical narrative wise #she's going to need a bit of time to process TSR

[imthepunchlord]

Zuko finds out Katara was parentified from the age of eight and was a single mom friend of three until he stumbled into the position of gaang dad friend. So when she visits the Fire Nation Zuko dotes on her, making sure her every need is anticipated and catered to. He even goes as far as - to the horror of his council - kneeling to remove her shoes.

Because of this she earns the nickname Lady Katara among the palace staff which she finds amusing but a little confusing. So one day over tea she asks Iroh why they call her that and he explains:

"They're just practicing."

"Why would you need to practice a nickname?"

"Well my dear, they expect that within a few years Fire will preceed it."

And that's about when Katara chokes on her tea.

#zutara #atla