#and thats valid!! but it just makes things a lil more confusing delving into the fandom

[malachitebeck]

My dear friend got me into Mortal Kombat (specifically MKI, don't ask me about the older ones the very fact that the switched Sub-Zero and Scorpion but also Bi-Han?? Is dead?? confuses the shit out of me and that's just the tip of the iceberg) by comparing the franchise to the soapy, insane nature of X-Men comics which of course worked.

But something both franchises share, I'm learning, are HORRIBLE naming conventions. Like names that just make no goddamn sense. Shang Tsung??? Both surnames. They call "Kenshi Takahashi" just Kenshi sometimes so you think the names are in an anglicized order but Kung Lao?? Kung is a surname?? A diaspora surname?? And do not get me STARTED ON THE BROTHERS AGAIN, like is Kuai their last name?? It is a surname?? But then why doesn't Bi-Han have it?? HELP???? Basically, I am just wondering, if like X-Men there are fans who have tried to Fix this. One of my favorite X-Men characters is Xuân Cao Mạnh and I know for a fact that in the years before Marvel got a Vietnamese writer to fix her damn name a lot of Vietnamese fans had headcanons to try to make her name sound similar? But actually function as a Vietnamese name. Have people done this for Mortal Kombat?? If you have, I would love to hear them. Names are cool! Characters deserve names that Work! So I'm curious.