I am truly fascinated by slash and shippers, but also how media with this kind of fan base (Supernatural and the Twilight franchise come immediately to mind) capitalize on this phenomenon, and the resulting weirdo impact on the real lives of people who play these characters.

So, yeah...

Why is the Chinese Internet Obsessed With Writing Gay Sherlock Fanfiction?

I know there is some hardcore, super cray going on out there as far as Sherlock slash shippers are concerned, but after reading this PG take, a better question is: what makes Asia, and Asian languages, so conducive to teh adorables?

The 37-year-old [Benedict] Cumberbatch, whom the Chinese call Curly Fu, "is the reason a new wave of Chinese viewers have turned to British television." (‘Curly' describes the star's hairstyle, while 'Fu' is a shortened Chinese transliteration of 'Holmes.')

CURLY. FU.

Also: no worries about the impending Chinese takeover of the United States; we will simply harness the power of gaijin catmen.

One journalist with the Beijing-based newspaper Jinghua Times surveying viewers of the 2013 blockbuster sci-fi movie Star Trek Into Darkness found that most had gone to see Curly Fu, a villain they declared "impossible to hate" because they had "never seen a bad guy so handsome before."

As not only a fan of the Batch but a lifelong Star Trek and Khan fan, this line of reasoning is really hard to disagree with. Oh handsome brutality!

Anyway *fans self* what was I saying? Oh yeah, full circle...

Some fans cataloguing [Cumberbatch's] good traits also listed his "cute wife" Watson, whom they call ‘Peanut,' because the Chinese phoneticization of Watson, huasheng, is a homonym for the legume.

Speechless.

promotional photo from the third series of Sherlock

Oh Curly Fu and Peanut, I wish you good luck.

(original article from Foreign Policy, here.)