#I WILL THEREFORE MAKE MYDEI MY WIFE

[hakusins]

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[sleepynoons]

under the same sky author's notes.

first, thank you so much for reading under the same sky! i know it's a beast of a piece, so thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to even just skim through what i put together.

i'll try to keep this explanation very short. at its core, this fic is my interpretative retelling of the story of hou yi and chang'e. the story of hou yi and chang'e is, in fact, the story behind the mid-autumn festival that is celebrated annually by chinese people all around the world today, and the plot of it is the skeleton for under the same sky.

that being said, there are different versions of the story of hou yi and chang'e, as is the case for most folktales. part of my research process included talking to my mother, who is from beijing, so the northern half of china. the version she grew up hearing was that chang'e, the wife, stole the elixir of immortality from her husband hou yi, and feng meng's role as a character was greatly diminished. however, she thinks the plot that i ultimately used is arguably more accurate, because it is believed that the folktale originated in the southern side of modern-day china. even if it was less historically accurate, though, i'm not inclined to portray a horribly selfish or greedy reader/lead, so i stuck with the southern version. i cross-checked this with some other chinese friends of mine whose families are from the hubei province.

even though the story is told quite often, i found very little information about the story itself, if that makes sense? in that, there aren't a lot of details to go off of. there wasn't an explanation for why yudi's sons wanted to scorch the earth, exactly how hou yi's campaign proceeded and how he shot down the suns, why feng meng wanted to steal the elixir, etc. maybe if i had spent more time researching, something would've come up, but i just decided to take a lot of creative liberties, which is part of the pain and joy from retellings. on a slight tangent, this is why translation is so difficult, because there are so many things, from word choice to phrasing to tone, that you have to consider, but not every language can accommodate for all of those choices. that means you need to sacrifice certain aspects of the reading experience, and in the case of a retelling and this specific fic, it means portraying history inaccurately at times and making it more contemporarily relevant and understandable.

one confession i have to make is that i'm not actually at amphoreus yet in hsr. i did watch playthroughs of the quest and spoiled myself on some reddit threads, but i understand that the exploration itself lends a lot to character understanding and development. if mydei isn't portrayed in a way that you can agree with, that's totally fine, and it's kinda on me for choosing to write about a character that isn't playable yet and that i haven't interacted with either. that being said, i really couldn't think of anyone else in hsr who would've fit the character of hou yi as well as mydei does.

mydei is deeply loyal to his people, yet is spartan, and therefore, loves to fight. he is also deeply serious and, frankly, not very good at mincing his words, so those traits made him very compatible with the reader's personality. i do think he would be a very passionate lover, and he can lose his patience! and it's not like he's very reserved or spare with his words. with all of those things considered, i thought mydei fit the role for hou yi very well, even if his name is... not very chinese lol

i'm recognizing this explanation is... not very short anymore, so i'll just conclude with this: i did try to stick to the folktale of hou yi and chang'e as best as i could. it is true that mooncakes and their rabbit motifs are inspired by chang'e's love for cakes and her rabbit friend that she took with her when she was imprisoned in the moon. it is true that we honor our ancestors during this holiday. this story is meant to evoke a sense of romanticism and longing and nostalgia, and i hope i was able to convey those emotions through my writing as well.