#below them are their lunar names btw

[peanut-with-wifi-access]

MOON🐇PAW

[base by lilliepaws on deviantart]

design notes, bonus images, hopes & headcanons, and other stuff below the cut!

-–·—Design Notes—·–-

•yes chimeras can look like this. they don't all look the exact same ofc, and split-face torties exist, but a chimera CAN be this

•ginger "spotted" (can't remember the exact term) tabby w/ green eyes + black/blue colorpoint tux w/ yellow eyes

•two tails bc this is a fantasy series I do what I want (the orange tail doesn't work btw)

•ears are two different sizes! it's slight but fucks with her hearing a bit

•her pupils are colored like that bc on her ref image only the green eye has sparkles

•the bandaids are supposed to be bits of cobweb, please refer to hc:❢

•wearing daffodils bc unrequited love and narcissus iykyk (moon^2 💞)

•wave patterns like rippling water, sun-shape patches, and moon face/tail markings! bc yeah!

•orange side meant to resemble a sunrise, black side meant to resemble a cool night sky

•this design will 100% change, I am incredibly indecisive [times changed: 2] ~🥜❦

•bonus images!

-–·—Hopes & Headcanons—·–-

•intersex transfem, she/her, objectum pan/ace

•not thrift & bay's bio kit cuz incest. they found her in the woods.

•moon^2 lowkey owns my soul. this cat is in love w/ a puddle.

•might be related to Sol somehow idk I hope

•voice in her head is the twin she absorbed in the womb, they're not actually evil just wanna help and give warnings while also being a little silly :3 Moonpaw just calls them Voice since she's bad at naming things

•I need Moonpaw to be a weird girly. I want her to play with bugs and ask weird questions and be so so strange and zone out during attempted medcat lessons and invent taxidermy and—

❢manifesting clumsy protag plz I need some rep for "can see perfectly fine just zero spacial awareness" girlies

•please have her dramatic moment be during a blood moon/lunar eclipse please that's all I need in life

•BECOMES A WARRIOR PLEASE ERINS PLEASE

•full name will be Moonrabbit (jade rabbit on the moon iykyk)

-–·—Other Stuff—·–-

•leaf and tawny are so gonna adopt this strange baby

•once again, design and stuff subject to change

•the moonpool is gonna get poisoned/polluted and moonpaw's gonna dive in to fix it, therefore becoming one with her love (the moonpool)

•once she emerges as Moonrabbit, she becomes the new connection to starclan (rock kinda deal) and leads the clans to a new territory as the twolegs close in

•beach territory post big timeskip arc 10 please—

•she eventually retires and becomes a kp bc girly needs a warm fireplace and a nap 😔

･ ｡ ☆∴｡　*　･ﾟ*｡★･　　･ *ﾟ｡　　 *　 ･ ﾟ*｡･ﾟ★｡　　　☆ﾟ･｡°*. ﾟ*　　ﾟ｡·*･｡ ﾟ*　　　ﾟ *.｡☆｡★　･　　* ☆ ｡･ﾟ*.｡　　　 *　★ ﾟ･｡ * ｡　　　　･　　ﾟ☆ ｡

[imaginethezeldaverse]

Okay okay so imagine Yunobo being so down bad, head over heels in love with his hylian friend that anytime he's left alone with his thoughts, either laying in bed or in his office at YunoboCo. he can't help but touch himself to the thought of them. your just so warm and friendly and soft he can't help it!

And he always feels soooo guilty afterwards because there's no way you reciprocate his feelings (you do) and he shouldn't be thinking of you this way, but once again as night falls his mind wanders back to you and your plush hylian body. 🤭

Trying so hard not to giggle and kick my feet rn because listennnn (super nsfw below btw just fyi)

You are everything to him, understand? The softness in your features from the top of you head to the tips of your toes has the poor Goron wanting to hold you so desperately. That sweet voice of yours, always being so genuine and a pleasure to simply be around, Yunobo is so smitten with you. He treasures your hugs, enjoys your company and all around thinks the world of you. Behind the solid wall of his chest lies the most tender-hearted Goron, and you've captured that Goron's heart for sure.

...But when the sun goes down in Goron City, his thoughts plague him. Thoughts of what it'd be like to go down on you. What kind of noises would you make when he kisses you there? Are you a hushed whimperer? Or do you prefer to whine aloud? Hylia, what he'd give to hear you moan his name, your cute features all scrunched up in pleasure. Or maybe you'd prefer to go down on him...your soft lips wrapped so tightly around his cock, tongue lapping up the length of him as you slightly struggle to suck him off. His grip is firm on his shaft as he passes stroke for stroke on it to the thought of what your pretty moans would sound like. He imagines your smaller hands are wrapped around him, wrists circling to stroke him where the rest of your mouth can't fit.

His mind pulls him down further: the vision of your soft, sweet body under him. Yunobo "sees" the love in your eyes, "hears" the need in your voice. The call of your gentle curves and supple flesh crying out for him, all for him. Ecstasy builds in the pumping of his length as he imagines taking you - slowly at first, he would never want to hurt you, but with some gentle love and acclimation, soon enough you're begging for more. For him to go faster. For him to fuck you. And he does - in the confines of his mind he holds you at your hips, eyes half-lidded as he absorbs the feel of you clenching around him, the sound of your voice wavering in octaves as he fills you over and over.

You tell him how good he feels. You tell him how you've wanted this for so long. You tell him you love him.

In a sharp gasp that melts into a low, low groan Yunobo spills into his hand and onto the floor, the fleeting sound of his name cried out from your lips fading from his ears. His breath is ragged as he cuts back into the real world, the image of you spent alongside with him ghosting out of his subconscious. As the haze of sex filled fantasy lifts from his mind he immediately shifts into discomfort and guilt. The sigh Yunobo let’s out is desolate, he shouldn’t be thinking about you like this…you don’t even see him that way. And it’s that thought that strikes the Goron entrepreneur’s heart with a devastating blow. How he so genuinely loves you. So desperately wants you…and he's so sure you wouldn’t feel the same.

Yunobo runs his fingers through his lunar shaded locks and groans. He feels pathetic. Tucking himself back into his garment he makes his way to his bed after some cleaning off. It was better to rest than to sit on heartbreak.

But oh poor Yunobo…he doesn’t see how you blush when his hand caresses the small of your back when you hug. He doesn’t see the warmth in your eyes when you see him smiling from afar, doesn’t hear the quickened beats of your heart when those smiles end up turned in your direction. He doesn’t see how you bite your lip when you watch him train with the Boulder Breaker, his broad frame coated in a thin sheen of sweat. He hasn’t heard all those nights you’ve had alone, your own fingers slipping betwixt your thighs - the flex of his rigid musculature and the imagined hum of his gentle voice taking on a rougher timbre at the forefront of your thoughts.

…But oh, how you wish he did.

[shifting4mels]

Kingdom Lumina DR

Lumina gave me very lunar vibes, so it was the moon to my neighbouring kingdom, Solstice. My name is Princess Victoria Evercrest, daughter of Queen Catherine and King Edward III. I have one younger sister named Emory. My subjects call me "Princess Perfect" because I have blonde hair and blue eyes, which is the beauty standard in my kingdom (i literally just wanted to be the beauty standard HAHA). My father has blond hair, but green eyes, and my mother has brown hair and blue eyes. I'm 18 btw(like in my or). Below is a picture of me.

Kingdom Lumina and Kingdom Solstice were friendly and like this 🤞. That is until King Edward III died. King Henry of Solstice was all like "guys you can't just not have a king!! have your oldest daughter marry my oldest son and then make them king and queen" (as if remarrying doesn't exist). I really don't wanna marry a man named Geoffrey(pronounced joff ree), and also Geoffrey is kinda a dick. He only thinks for himself and is very narcissistic. Also, he is 27. (I'm thinking of making him older hence why me not really being into him bc 27 is perfectly fine for me to like)

Luckily for me, I hate the patriarchy, so i run away and i find myself in with the commoners. I meet this HANDSOME BEAUTIFUL SEXY man named Bryan (Dechart). He is 25, and is an intp. (i'm an entj in this)

World building is hard, but I have to do a bit of that for this DR.

[astralartefact]

Divine Akeha Analysis Post

the gacha game gives us another lore bomb on a random thursday and i felt a calling, this is my moment to shine

this is your warning, voice of cards forsaken maiden spoilers below. seeing as it is legit canon nier now, you might want to check it out before looking at this! i will spoil my personal favorite reveal of that game, so be warned

this hastly made conspiracy board is brought to you by a "I told you so"-induced fugue state

The Pink Petals

The Lunar Tear is firmly on the spot of "most notorious flower in the NieR universe", so much so that people more often than not conflate them with Zero's flower - and while her flower is probably very much purposefully similar to a lunar tear it actually was precedented by something else too:

Pink Petals have actually been a thing since Drakengard 1, where they were used with Manah to give her a "flower girl at a wedding" sort of thing, probably just to make her creepy man voice even more creepy or to serve as a visual side piece to Furiae's twisted romance.

Even if they didn't intend this to mean anything back then they later picked that back up with Zero's pink eye flower which now continues this symbolism for the 'influence of the watchers/gods'.

2. The Black Flower (sword not entity)

Divine Akeha's sword kind of resembles Zero's sword from her Collab Design, mainly in the way the sword neck (?not the handle, the part right in front of the handle) is decorated going down into the blade and the shape of the blade towards the tip. While I'm not as convinced on this point as on the others, this might be on purpose too: The Black Flower (this time the entity in Zero's eye) is as we know some extension of the watchers/gods. Symbolically it makes sense to me to now take that blade as a reference point for weapons based on the power of gods - and especially since the "Black Flower" in Zero's eye is actually pink, this would serve as a full circle moment too.

3. Lac and Mommy

Her design is 100% based on Lac. There's just absolutely no way it isn't. The colors are the same (grey, red and black), she wears a crown like both Lac and the Ivory Spirit and has two red hair ornaments where his red horns would be - but especially the area around the ornamental piece on her obi is strikingly similar to the button on his belly, the design on the metal piece itself is very similar and then above it is red just like his mouth and below it she has the white of his belly..

For the people that haven't played Forsaken Maiden, Lac is one of your party members and as it turns out towards the end of the game he is a god who's out to sacrifice Laty for his own survival. Laty then sacrifices herself to basically imprison the gods into her dream realm.

There is this other god though, she barely has a presence in the story, but she eventually appears as the person who held Lac's puppet body the entire time: The Ivory Spirit. You can read more about my thoughts about her here, but in summary even if she is not the Mother Beast from Drakengard, she very much could be Mommy, who I miss dearly and I just want to see her again.

(That's btw the reveal I mentioned in my warning blip, the moment when the game non-chalantly turns Lac's card around and she's just there is just so eerie, even knowing that it's coming takes so much away from it and combined with the "THAT'S HER RIGHT???" of thinking she has to be the mother beast, especially given that lanca/mini-zero is her maiden... hands down my favorite moment of all VoC games, I think about it so often)

And now we're here and Divine Akeha with a pink petal sword wears a Lac outfit.

Basically, Voice of Cards is 100% confirmed NieR canon. Expect some of the other Divine costumes to look like the other spirits.

Btw, the Lead Scenario Writer of the Sun and Moon arc Yuki Wada was also the Lead Writer of Forsaken Maiden, just so you know whose name you can curse for this.

(This also fuels my Laty => Seeds of Destruction => Cage theory btw)

edit: character story

How many times have I heard. Have I seen. How their words fade into the air. Drown in fresh blood. Is someone there. Is someone present. Yes. If so, there is no reason for me to exist in the same space.

──────────────────────────────

May salvation come to those who wait for it. May punishment come to those who need it. We worship. We pray. We believe she who sits on the heavenly throne is listening.

weapon story

Flowers bloom when she smiles. Her joy spreads vitality. Buds bloom as she does.

Birds sing when she sends word. They lend their wings as she speaks to us.

The wind howls as she despairs. The heavens rage as she weeps for our tragedies.

The moon shines when she comes to us. She leads our human sacrifices away as we sleep.

(thank you nierrein.guide, you provide a most valuable service)

There aren't any particularly outstanding references in the stories as far as I can tell, even the mention of flowers isn't particularly noteworthy tbh. The most !!! to me is the line "We believe she who sits on the heavenly throne is listening" since it refers to a female god, but that doesn't have to be the Ivory Spirit/Queen Beast, that could just as much be referring to Divine Akeha or an entirely different god such as Amaterasu or something like that, same with the entirety of the weapon story.

I personally also like the line "May Punishment come to those who need it" using "need" instead of "deserve". Very CrimePun of them.

[feral-lore-creature]

Gonna rant about this on main cuz why not. It's my account lmao.

Anyway. Idk how long this'll get so rambling below cut.

In MLP:FiM I always got the vibe that Luna, even after the "Luna Eclipsed" episode in season 2, never got the love, attention, or credit she deserved in the show itself. I'm not going to blame any one specific character (even tho I don't like Celestia, that's for different reasons.)

First thing I noticed when I got older is that no lunar imagery is really present? Mostly in the architecture. The buildings, banners, etc. we see in the background. Most of it is a pretty abstract design, or sun related.

Luna's WHOLE existence was boiled down to ONE traumatic life event, that turned into a fucking child's tale??? Damn, that would sting...

Even when she comes back, later in the show (before the Canterlot Castle redesign), she has NO THRONE??? Celestia didn't make room for her in a castle she (assumingly) already knew she would come to live in, after being reformed, but never made space for her? Like ever???? Why???

⬆️ Thinking about it, before the castle redesign, there's VERY little lunar-related imagery at all present. Not shocking, ngl.

Luna pretty much doesn't exist throughout the show unless it's a part of the plot. She's never really mentioned, no one ever swears by her name (like how some swear by Celestia's name), etc. etc.

I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH how Celestia doesn't take her sister's experiences seriously. They act like they're on even ground. They aren't... There's clear favoritism/advantage that Celestia has, which Luna doesn't have, and won't have.

⬆️ Again, CANNOT stress this enough! It took 1000 years of separation, having a strained relationship for who knows how long, a switch of cutie marks/magic, and a whole ass EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWN for her to give her sister a SLIGHT bit of credit towards the end of one episode. (A Royal Problem, season 7)

The fact that Celestia has like... What? One royal celebration? (Two, actually, Twilight calls one of them her "One-versery") That were founded on the sun, history, and magic. Luna's one celebration, "Nightmare Night" is based off of, again, one main traumatic event, that was watered down to scare small children.

⬆️ Ya'll remember when Luna didn't lower the moon in "Horse-play" from season 8, because it was still night, so when the sun was raised during the play, it pushed the moon out of the sky? Everybody cheered? Luna didn't look happy tho. Great example. Luna just would have been sucker-punched with magic for pulling a reversed version of that.

⬆️ Fucking speaking of which, why did Celestia even celebrate/allow the Summer Sun Celebration to exist? Who created it? Why? Talk about a slap in the face. (For context: "The first Summer Sun Celebration was celebrated not long after Nightmare Moon's defeat and banishment, the event mainly commemorating Celestia's defeat over her foe.")

⬆️ It took until season 6 for the tradition to be rewritten, btw.

In conclusion, I guess that's why I never cared for Celestia much. I also just genuinely hate the "regal loving motherly sun" and "edgy overshadowed moon" dynamic. It's boring, overdone, and never sits right with me.

[rmegars]

completed on 8/5/2023

character's name is Yuánshǔ (yuanshu's fine) (I don't use the tone mark things out of laziness sometimes lmao)

additional info about her and the drawing below

so this was painful lmao

so basically I was working on a request for a friend whose character is best described as if the wing gundam zero from endless waltz and shiny darkrai had a baby but then I sat there and realized something

"oh" "I can't draw gundam for shit dude"

which is fine and dandy so I decided to just take a break and try drawing something else which leads to an OC I've had on my mind way too much and I sat there like

"hey! she's just an anthropomorphic fox" "how hard can this be?"

then art block fucking killed me and it deadass felt like I forgot how to draw

whoops!!!!!!

but I managed to drag this out after mentally shaking myself in a VC with friends and erasing and redrawing shit fifty different times needed to remind myself that it did not have to be good it just had to be SOMETHING

and now here we are

yuanshu is a fox spirit, aka a kitsune or a huli jing (they're basically the same thing) she was created to protect a dying kingdom on the lunar plane, but then some events happened that led to her being instated as the kingdom's new ruler some of those events that led up to that moment costed her ability to feel emotion / sentiment. she essentially slowly removed aspects of herself that were deemed "impure" by the previous ruler, and over the years and eventually centuries, she became an embodiment of her desire / duty to protect her people. however, to some, she was seen as no more than a weapon or a machine.

or, well, that's how it was in the past. things got better when she met someone, but then things got way worse at some point, leading to her "death" and banishment into oblivion. in this image, this is where nothing went to shit yet

yuánshǔ is heavily based off of junko from touhou project, especially my variant / AU of her for a friend's RP setting. much of yuan shu's current personality and background is pulled from this alternate version of junko, as seen here.

anyone off of twitter or on discord likely saw this character before, as seen in a comic I haven't posted here (yet)

I mostly wound up making yuánshǔ cuz I felt like I was horribly butchering taaran (ponzoan, actually) junko's character lmao I was probably the only person who cared and people have said that I did fine, but. still

like yeah it's an AU, things should be different, but if you make things too different you can't really recognize the fact that the alternate version of this specific character is still supposed to depict this specific character so at that point it felt less like an alternate version of junko and more like. a new character parading around in a junko skin suit. and a white dress. so, yeah, I sat there like "well might as well make her an oc now" except since this is a rp setting, having junko suddenly use a new name and be a whole ass actual furry would be. awkward. and inconsistent.

then again I don't think anyone would've cared about that either lmao it's mostly just me maybe I'm just too prissy about it lmao

(junko isn't the only one I fucked up btw, there's also kaguya and hecatia. maybe someone else too) (so I'll. probably be making characters based off of them too)

[timefospookies]

WIP BUT HERE’S (some of) THE MOON CHILDREN!!!! IN 2011!!! MOON CHILDREN ARC!!! YAHOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

[blacknbluejustice]

I swear this is relevant to my Steven Flint DeMayo posts!

For my fanfiction, I will name some unknown gems and their occupations.

This gem is

Prasiolite

(green Amethyst is another term in our world. Before anyone complains I would like to point out, Rubies/Sapphires are the same gem in our world, Nephrites/Jades, the different types of beryls are EXTREMELY different in sizes and occupations and thus I am making Prasiolite very different from a typical Amethyst.

Their job is to sing at large gatherings.

They are rare and are NOT humanoid beyond their face. The hands below are not apart of them though... that's their special stages stage if performing in Pink's Balls.

Clear Quartzes

Heaven and Earth beetle was currupted so they're now color locked to where they were but in my fic(s), they are clear quartzes who:

change color depending where they are. They are spies and are not fighters (natrually).

Kunzite

Better known as the Water Bear in the OG SU and has a green counterpart in the comics. (BTW those are real). Kunzite is associated with water so it double works.

These gems are for scouting oceans for certain types of life forms (since some planets have advance sea life) and finding places suitable for building gem structures like the Sea Shrine and the Lunar Sea Spire. THEY ARE NOT FIGHTERS (natrually).

>>>>===<<<<

That's it for now. I do plan on these being relevant later so I wanted yo give them official names and jobs.

[electricfied-wolf]

Hrgnh Lunar Wish (that’s their name btw) edit that took me a hot second because Zulius is kinda taller and older than them+ he’s built WAY different-

But ye here they be. Original below-

[epic-summaries]

Women in Mythology - Hausos the Dawn Goddess

Has anyone thought about how weird it is to have a deity for the dawn. The dawn isn’t like the sun or the moon, you can’t really see it. It’s not an important everyday function like caring for the hearth. It’s not a job like blacksmiths. It happens and it’s beautiful but it’s not physical. I googled “dawn definition” and the first thing that comes up is “the first appearance of light in the sky before sunrise.” (The Google Dictionary). It’s weird to deify a small period of time. It’s probably why there are so little dawn deities. There are only two mythologies with dawn deity/spirits (maybe three but Tefnut is the goddess of the morning dew and moisture, that’s not really the dawn) which are not from Indo-European cultures. These deities are the Shinto’s Ame-no-Uzume-no-mikoto and the Sioux’s Anpao (which btw has two faces and I love that fact, it makes a lot of sense to me). All other deities are from Indo-European countries. Which is why “Dawn goddesses are crucial in Indo-European comparative mythology…” (Source 1 to an article about Eostre and Bede.) Dawn goddesses, lunar and solar chariots and Sky Fathers are the backbone of comparative Indo-European mythology studies. (I seriously considered doing something comparing Indra and Zeus but I was already looking up dawn goddesses for funsies. This whole thing was written for funsies tbh).  

What is Indo-European Mythology? Short of it, so I can get to the comparing of deities, is that Indo-Europeans are a theorized people that that originated the Indo-European languages (English, French, Spanish, Sanskrit, Hindi, Hittite, Persian, Greek, etc.). There are also a few similarities between the mythologies. Which, you can explain as surrounding cultures influencing each other or if you a psychoanalyst you believe that the similarities between all of them is because of a deep shared self conscious or that they all originated from one original deity. Indo-European mythology exist because of the last mindset.        

Using comparative mythology, we can assume some of the Indo-European Pantheon. It’s a bottom down perspective. And I want to do this exercise, so let’s compare some Dawn Deities. 

Was the original Indo-European Dawn Goddess really named Hausos? I can say with 99.9% certainty no. Hausos is scholar’s best educated guess

1. Auseklis - Latvian Mythology

Sadly, I can’t find to much about him (or her, Auseklis is either one). Yeah, this is the god of the dawn and morning star (aka Venus). He is subordinate to the moon but also serves the sun. He is associated with marriages, bath-houses and birth.

2. Aušrinė - Lithuanian Mythology

I can find more about her then I can about her Latvian counterpart. She had an affair with the Moon God, which caused Sun Goddess and the Moon God to basically divorce. Aušrinė lived on sea-girt island where she takes cares of magical apples that will bring love to people who eats them. Also she had cows that made boiling milk (ummm) that will make you beautiful (sure). Also, she’s connected to maidens, weaving, love, weddings and baptism (she’s later connected with the Virgin Mary when Lithuania was Christinized). And there is a myth of a man falling in love with her after finding her golden hair in the water of a lagoon. She also makes the sun’s fire every morning (that makes a lot of sense). 

3. Aurora - Roman Mythology

Sadly we don’t have much from just Aurora and most stories with Aurora are actually stories about Eos. She gave sight to Orion.

She is the mother of the morning star, Lucifer. It’s cool that the dawn and the morning star are separated. 

4. Brigid - Irish Mythology

Every list of dawn goddesses has her or some articles will say that she comes from the original Indo-European dawn goddess. But they never explain why. In her list of what she is the goddess of, they never mention the dawn. She’s the blacksmith goddess, the goddess of the spring, the fertility goddess, the healing goddess, the poetry goddess.

My favourite quote from my research is “About Brigid there has been scant evident. (...) questions need to be asked about her origins, her functions, in early Irish society, and existing tradition (...)” (Mother Worship:There and Variations, source below)

Sure, spring and beautiful things are often associated with the dawn but that is not enough to convince me that she is a dawn goddess. Also, her name doesn’t fit well, unlike Ēostre.

5. Eos - Greek Mythology

She’s properly the goddess who’ve heard the most about, she’s Greek. She’s the daughter of Hyperion (titan of light) and Theia (she was a titaness and probably had something to do with light, being also called wide-shining). Eos is the sister of Helios (the sun) and Selene (the moon). She is also married to Astraeus (dusk), but if you didn’t know that, I don’t blame you. Eos was well known for getting around a lot. She loved Orion, Tithonus, Cephalus, Cleitus and Ares. Tithonus is a pretty famous story, Eos asks Zeus for Tithonus to become immortal which Zeus does, but as the asshole he is, he didn’t make Tithonus eternally youthful and Tithonus becomes dust. (Zeus it was in the subtext to make him eternally youthful.) When she has an affair with Ares, Aphrodite curses Eos to be constantly falling in love or just to have an unsatisfied sexual desire. Eos also had some children in the Trojan war, when he died, she cried which created the morning dew. And she was the mother of the anemoi (aka the winds).

She had the classic job of announcing the coming of her brother Helios. She seems like his assistant. She also rides her own chariot of Pegasi.

I love how she is constantly being called the rose finger goddess. I find that pretty.  

6. Ēostre/Ostara - Germanic Mythology

She’s more of a spring goddess then anything. But I keep seeing her on list (not just Wikipedia), so I have to add her. Though, I’m more confident in adding her because she linguistically looks like she belongs. And I can see how the dawn goddess becomes a spring goddess (still very iffy on Brigid mainly due to linguistics). Spring announces summer, like dawn announces day (I have no proof of this, it’s just logically I can see how this can happen). Though, there are some scholars who believes that Ēostre might have been an invention from Bede, because that’s the first time they hear about her.

So, Ēostre is associated with spring and fertility. Then there are tons of theories of how she very probably connected with Easter celebration, rabbits how she might just be a spring goddess and not a dawn goddess. She can’t be both? She couldn’t have started out as dawn goddess then became a spring goddess? Bede is writing in the 8th century, at the very least over a thousand of years after the Indo-Europeans migrated. Things change in a thousand years, especially without writing. Hell, Eos and Ushas changed even with writing.

7. Thesan - Etruscan Mythology

She was the dawn goddess and evoked in childbirth. All I could find about her.

8. Ushas - Vedic Hindu Mythology

For brevity sake, there are many different sects of Hinduism. Anyway, Ushas is found in the Rigveda which is one of the oldest texts written in an Indo-European language. In this text the three most important gods are Agni (fire), Soma (moon and plants) and Indra (the king of gods and the weather god). The most important goddess is Ushas, she’s found in many hymns. Her sister is Ratri (night) and her brother is Chandra/Soma (moon) and sometimes she is married to Surya (sun). In her Vedic hymns she is considered the most beautiful of the goddess. She rides a chariot of either horses or cows so she could make way for Surya. She chases away demons and the dark. Interestingly, she is renewed or made young again everyday (reminding me of Ra’s journey). She also breaths all life. I’m very interested in the fact that in that she’s all seeing much like Helios is in Greek Mythology. And, she is sometimes the sister of the twin horse gods Ashvins (and health and medicine gods too), which also are theorized to be originally Indo-European.

9. Zorya - Slavic Mythology

Hahahaha, who decided they would also be known as the Auroras. I have a feeling it was some Western European with classical knowledge decided that. Anyway, one is the dawn and the other is the dusk and one is midnight. The dawn Zorya, named Utrennyaya, has been described as Perun’s wife (Perun is the law and weather god) or both her sister and her were the wives of Jarylo, the god of springtime (interesting). Utrennyaya’s job is to open the gates for the sun every morning. She was the goddess of horses, protection, exorcism, and the planet Venus. I like how there job was guard a chained dog who wants to eat Ursa Minor, because if that happens the end of the world would start. Zoryas are also protectors of warriors where they would show up like maidens with veils and shields of their favourite battles.  They also lived on a paradise island, much like Aušrinė (though the two cultures are neighbours).

So, what educated guesses can we make about the Hausos? The dawn goddesses is beautiful (who would have guessed? It’s not like sunrise is stereotypically the most beautiful time of the day? Sarcasm btw). Dawn goddesses usually have a story involving immortally and aging (see I didn’t just mention Tithonus because it was famous). Many are either springtime goddesses or somehow connected to the deity of the spring. Hausos might have also been a love goddess, since the other dawn goddesses will either be love goddesses or have many lovers (of course there were the apples that made you fall in love too). I don’t know where Wikipedia gets that she might be a weaving goddess. I get it. She weaves the the cloth like she weaves the day but I didn’t see weaving as a theme in enough goddesses (only one) to be confident in making an educated guess that the Indo-European dawn goddess would have anything to do with weaving.

Women in Mythology Series: Previous Morgiana  

Links to sources because I got lost in research a lot: 

1.  The Goddess Eostre: Bede’s Text and Contemporary Pagan Tradition(s)

2.  Indo-European Deities and the Rgveda

3. Wikipedia 

4.  The Routledge Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons

5.  SIGNS OF MORNING STAR AUŠRINĖ IN THE BALTIC TRADITION: REGIONAL AND INTERCULTURAL FEATURES 

6.  Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines 

7.  Sun Myths in Lithuanian Folksongs

8.  Mother Worship: Theme and Variations 

9. Theoi 

10.  Greek and Roman Mythology, A to Z 

[notesofarichlycolorednight]

hot take

if you’re gonna write a story that takes place in china

maybe actually do the research abt china???

fair warning: if you like really like cinder and/or marissa meyer you may just wanna sit this one out

in these trying times of lost innocence of childhood and being more aware of social justice issues, i find myself being very critical of the entertainment media i consume

esp when it comes to representation, bc representation is important to me. and it’s becoming more and more important to me the older i get, as an asexual chinese-american woman. i’m still on the fence abt no rep v. bad rep, but this isn’t what this post is mainly abt

i’m currently reading cinder, by marissa meyer for my book club

and i just...i have a lot to say abt it. a lot that i really gotta get off my chest before i feel i can continue to read it

i’d preferably like to talk abt it with my friends (and maybe i will when the time comes), but i’d have to wait until june 1 and finish the book. as i said above, i really have to get this off my chest before i can finish it, so here i am, screaming into the void

so to begin, and i usually comment abt this when it comes to A LOT of east asian rep i see in entertainment media: my beef with the combination of east asian culture to mean one (1) asian/east asian culture

in this case, a combo of east asian cultureS (plural) into one (1), which would be china

honorifics

there are honorifics in china--like you definitely want to apply the correct honorific to your authority figures (i.e., parents, teachers, doctors, bosses, etc.)

and that part of china’s culture was taken, and then adapted into japanese culture today, HOWEVER, the way it’s used in japanese culture today is very different than how chinese ppl use them

okay so disclaimer real quick, chinese is my second language, and i have not taken up learning japanese, and am i’m going off information i’ve learned from my friends who took japanese as their second langauge; so the information i provide here may not be precisely accruate (hence, having trouble finding better words to explain this)

a lot of china’s honorifics aren’t as “““specific”””--for major lack of a better word--as japan’s

they have mr., miss, mrs., teacher/master, doctor, etc., and, in general, it’s custom to use them bc they are important--authority and hierarchy is v important to collectivistic cultures

japan has “““specific””” identifiers that are often, if not always, used to identify any of those older, younger, or equal to you

senpai, -chan, -san, -sama, etc., as well as other identifiers as placeholders for the person’s name to communicate who they are in relation to the person speaking (e.g., oniisan, oniichan, oniisama)

how honorifics are used in cinder is almost completely wrong, not just in culture, but also through translation

from meyer’s website:

-dàren: for a high-ranking official today is simply means adult, or grown up. it can be used as a respectful honorific toward superiors, but it mostly just means adult. archaically it did mean “your/his excellency.” but again, today, it’s mainly used to refer to an adult. and i imagine however far into the future this book takes places, they’d use it the same way??? but i mean i guess if they went back to imperialism

-shìfu: for an older male this is actually master (as an honorific, such as teacher is, or to specify a very qualified worker). sometimes it can be used to address strangers, specifically older men (not necessarily specifically, or often, used for an older male)

-jūn: for a younger male idk where she got “younger male” from bc it’s mostly used as a measure word. it can be used as an honorific, but translates to “your” not younger male. had she been going by the “honorifics” she uses below, it should be dì, which comes from dìdi (弟弟), which means younger brother (but not necessarily younger male)

-jiĕ: for an older female my best guess is this is derived from jiĕjie (姐姐), which means older sister (not necessarily older female)

-mèi: for a younger female once again, she probably derived this from mèimei (妹妹), which means younger sister (not necessarily younger female)

these specific pinyin (more specifically the last two/three) that she picked cannot be separated from the other pinyin that help to identify them. jiĕ and mèi don’t exist by themselves in the chinese language (compared to -chan, or -san do in japanese), and therefore do not translate as such in meyer’s book. not to mention, multiple characters can be applied to jiĕ and mèi depending on the context and other pinyin/character next to it that helps form the word, or helps distinguish the context

she perhaps simplified these honorifics a little too much. so much so in fact that they lost their meaning. quite literally

and, as i said before, these honorifics aren’t used like they are in japanese culture/language. you don’t tack on honorifics behind someone’s name (like a suffix) as they do in japan. the whole honorific (not just half of it, not like a suffix) comes after someone’s name, such as Lín lăoshī (林老师), which means Teacher Lin. or replaces their name entirely, such as tā shì wŏ de dìdi (他是我的弟弟), which means “this is my younger brother” (as opposed to, “this is bob, my younger brother” or variations of that same sentiment)

names

now, in this futuristic world, i can understand if there are names from other countries (esp. other east asian countries)

however, if your crown prince’s name of china has a japanese name...i’m probs gonna call you out on it. esp bc china and japan don’t have The Best history. now maybe they’ve worked thru it after all these yrs, but still

he’s the crown prince of china

he’s mostly just refered to as prince kai. which i would be okay with if it was just that bc kai is chinese

however, his full name? kaito. kaito is japanese

rikan? japanese. like wtf, if your the emperor of china, you should probs have a chinese name. i mean, you’d think hope?

iko? also japanese (i admit this is being a lil nit-picky, bc cinder or adri or whoever is free to name their android whatever-the-hell they want to, i’m just saying)

and i mean, i guess i can see names from other countries in the real world too, but you have to remember china has the largest population of ppl in the world, so the chances that there are ppl within a certain district who don’t have chinese names is v slim (esp bc you have to take the hsk to show you can contribute to society in china before they grant you a visa to live/work there).

compare that to cinder’s district, where we have cinder, adri, iko, peony, pearl, sacha, fateema, and dr. earland. oh and then the lab tech named li, who’s most definitely the only one i can assuredly say is chinese (and i would hope looks chinese)

now, again, bc it is the future, maybe more (like A LOT more) ppl have moved to china lbr tho, they’ve moved back to imperialism, why would you choose to live there? but i’d still be bitter abt it regardless, bc like china, in theory, should have chinese ppl? w/ chinese names??? i imagine it’s still a p big country in this future

optics

i really wish cinder looked chinese. this is more of a personal thing, and i get that genes aren’t so cut and dry, and if she’s a lunar, then yeah she probably won’t look completely chinese

but a girl can dream for representation other than just mulan ya know (not saying mulan sucks or anything, but it’s like, kinda the only thing i have so)

esp bc the book takes place in china. and she is said to be at least mixed “““““asian”””””

i also wish the fucking prince looked chinese--his skin is fair according to the wikia

bruh

why are you so afraid to make your main characters brown

on a more serious note, and this is getting really nit-picky (kinda) again, but i really wish meyer had put more thought into dr. earland’s character. okay, now, i haven’t finished the book so the good doctor may, in fact,,, be...a...good....................doctor..............?

but my point still stands in that dr. earland comes of as very sexist (with undertones of racism, wheeeeee) bc he hates fateen (who has dark skin, btw) bc she’s taller than him

and he’s also super creepy (as in, “where i’m from, that’s called pedophilia” kind of creepy) bc of his strange interest in young, teenage (cyborg) girls...

yeah

and okay, again, i haven’t finished the book, so maybe he’s supposed to come off that way

but an old, white dude showing too much interest in finding a young woc? not v good optics, regardless of dr. earland’s character yeah?

the fact the fateen points this out does absolutely nothing (aka lampshading).

if you point it out, but continue to fall into a harmful stereotype, you are still perpetuating the stereotype. full stop

misc

i say “misc” but most of this really falls under criticism of the author herself, misc is just shorter

i think it’s great that she’s taking this age-old fairy-tale and putting it into my place of birth, bc representation means the absolute world to me. also i really like this idea that the first telling of cinderella took place in china like fuck yeah, steal that white disney princess from the europeans

but i really wish you’d do it right

in her faq, she apologizes if she got anything wrong, but that’s like putting a band-aid over a bullet wound

how much research is research? did she just google a bunch of stuff, or did she sit down and actually talk to ppl from china? or chinese-americans who have kept their chinese culture?  participate in chinese culture to gain a better understanding?

going by the fact that she wrote cinder in a month, she probably stuck to google

which...i mean i guess i’m glad she made the effort, but it woulda been nice if she’d, after getting a book deal, consulted chinese ppl and edited what needed to be edited yeah? i know she did a little editing, but she said the whole process took 3 months from the time she found an agent to getting a book deal, so like...i’m willing to bet she didn’t sit down with some chinese folk and talk abt their culture (and so on)

and look, it’s really not that hard. and, sure it may delay when the book gets published, but at least it’d be more accurate. and better representation.

rather than falling into what most ppl do these days (i’m looking at you miraculous ladybug) and combining all the east asian cultures to make one (1) culture, and call it--not even east asian--but asian

as if that one (1) monster culture that’s mostly made of up east asian cultures could speak for the variety and diversity of a total of 48 countries, and their respective cultures, that are within the asian continent

now, this whole “calling it asian culture” isn’t meyer’s fault--it’s a side-effect of our society. like i get that, and i’m not trying to put the blame solely on her shoulders

but she still perpetuates it by choosing not to talk to chinese ppl abt a folk tale the may have originated in china, in order to ya know, make it more accurate to china. considering it takes place...IN CHINA