Latona Zhou

"past the milky way, past the constellations, we will be beautifully remembered"

- wherever i am, it shines

Latona Zhou, born Zhou Shuolü and commonly referred to as Shua [she/her], is a 2019-introduced original character, Martian moon bunny, and... Joshua Li?!? She is destined to be the next Yutu, or Jade Rabbit, from Chinese folklore. She is currently attending her First Year (otherwise known as Freedom Year) at Ever After High.

Personality
Shua is a compassionate young girl, with a heart of gold, or maybe jade!

She is known by many to be exuberant, always with a bunny hop spring in her step. Being around her is almost like being around a miniature sun, quite ironically. Her sunny temperament is complimented by her extreme empathy. Shua is easily affected by the people around her, mood rising and falling depending on who she's around. As she is associated with the moon, Shua is similarly reflective of the environment around her.

To most, she comes off as a little idiosyncratic, quite literally out of this world. She's too eager, too curious for her own good, and often accidentally oversteps boundaries. It's never malicious (Shua and malicious are words that don't go together), nevertheless

Shua has a desire to be "in" with the crowd, accentuated by her herd mentality. This subconscious desire to please others often manifests as her being a bit of a yesman. That, and the fact that she's already easily impressionable, means that she often places the authority and knowledge of others over her own judgement.

It's not that she doesn't trust her own instincts, but this is Earth! With her limited knowledge of the place, Shua latches on to earthlings because she assumes that they will be able to help her, explain to her all the mysterious workings and customs of Earth! And it never occurs to her that there won't always be a higher figure able to explain

Unfortunately, life has other plans for her. Shua finds it hard to really blend in with other students, even when she tries her best to mask her excitement at the newness of

quirky awkward, too much, just overall really eager and sort of overbearing. cause from moon and all

because shes from the moon shes easily swayed and v impressionable.

shes only interacted with other people and seen earth here and there so she has some misconceptions

very rose tinted view of the world, everything is nice and pretty, villains get their just desserts, heroes win, black and white no greys


 * Bright-eyed bushy-tailed village kid who really likes food, making food, sharing food. Literally a grandma that makes you eat even if you're full.
 * a little awkward, but has a good heart, very hospitable.
 * views everything through rose-tinted glasses. thinks in a black and white mentality, and believes that all people are good until they become villains, in which they're completely irredeemable.
 * grew up on the moon, had no company except stories for a long time, so she's very excited to interact with people.
 * big on celebrations and festivities, goes all out.

Appearance
As her lineage is of aliens (very human aliens but aliens nevertheless), Shua has some oddities about her appearance. Namely, her jewel-esque hair.

Shua is extremely tall for her age, at about 5'11", simply because there isn't as much gravity where she's from. She's on the chubbier side from being well-fed her entire life, with very round, pinchable cheeks.

Her skintone is pale, and her eyes are large and maraschino cherry red. Shua has a bit of a sensitivity to sunlight and much prefers going out at night instead. Her skin's prone to irritation, angry red patches forming on her skin if she's not careful. She also has a hard time hearing, so she wears a white hearing aid on her right human ear.

Shua's hair is a lovely pastel green, appearing not to be hair but translucent gems shaped like hair. Think Houseki no Kuni. She wears it tied up in two loops resembling rabbit ears at the back of her head and neat bangs in the front. When let down, her hair is about shoulder length.

Sprouting from her head are two white rabbit ears that don't look like actual rabbit ears. She also has a tail that doesn't look like an actual rabbit tail, resembling a cotton ball instead. Shua has the habit of pulling on her ears when nervous.

She also sports silver framed glasses shaped like the iconic alien eyes, with lenses enchanted to be protective against UV rays.

Food
Shua is a major foodie, and would cite cooking as her favorite hobby. She loves eating, she loves cooking, and she especially loves cooking for others. The only thing she does not love is washing the dishes. If Shua cooks for you, prepare to clean up a huge mess.

It's a small price to pay however, because her food is magical. Literally.

Her innate healing powers manifest themselves the strongest through the food that she makes, so people are bound to enjoy it. Even if you're completely healthy, the healing isn't necessarily physical. It heals your heart, like any good comfort food should, and makes life seem just a little bit better.

However, Shua's food would be delicious even without her little cheat trick. She's spent ages helping her dad in the kitchen, gaining all of the knowledge passed down for god-knows-how-many millennia.

Medicine
While her healing meals are good and all, Shua is also very curious about actual medicine. Specifically, modern medicine, and all its high-tech advancements and processes.

The Jade Rabbit cures with magic and traditional medicine. Shua learned of herbs and acupuncture, cupping and a balanced diet. She knew of more concrete, science-based methods of course, but there never seemed to be enough time to look into it properly.

Now that she's on Earth for a while, Shua can fully immerse herself in the wonders of human achievement. She's thinking of maybe going to medical school before carrying out destiny. It's good to have multiple methods under your belt!

Holidays
Shua really really really like holidays. You get a break from school (usually... curse Headmaster Grimm for not recognizing Mid-Autumn Festival!), friends and family gather together, there's food! And gifts! Thank the Man in the Moon holidays exist because Shua really thinks people should celebrate the good in life more often.

She enjoys learning about holidays from different cultures, organizing celebrations for those holidays, and generally spreading joy. Shua's generous with her family's wealth, using a long line of jade, gold, and medicine to put up decorations, prepare foods, and games, and gifts. You might mistake her for a Christmas elf, perhaps.

Abilities
Shua really should join track and field. She claims she still isn't used to Earth's ("awful! terrible!") gravity, but her ability to straight up rise in air says otherwise. In addition to that, she's the one to go to if perhaps your kite is stuck in a tree: as a rabbit her legs are extremely powerful. The long jump team jumps (heh) at a chance to recruit her.

The next is her immunity to fire. This was a fairy gift, not a natural ability she was born with. Shua's parents had decided to have the procedure considering 1) she'd need to be immune to fire by the time destiny rolls around anyways, and 2) they really didn't need a child wandering around the fire... ful kitchen.

Most prominent really, is her healing abilities. They're not terribly strong or weak, by any means, just a happy medium. She conducts the best through making food, which could just be her own imagination, but Shua likes to think it's for a reason. Like most things are!

How The Story Goes

 * How the Jade Rabbit got to the moon: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese_Stories/Jade_Rabbit
 * The Jade Rabbit saving Beijing from a great plague: https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/moon-rabbit
 * Generally just living on the moon making elixir for Chang'e

How Does Shua Fit Into it?
The last Yutu was Shua's father, who, after destiny, went on to become a successful plastic surgeon. He met her mother, an entrepreneur with a recently established skincare brand famous for their jade rollers. They fell in love, got married, and had Shua.

Before attending Ever After High, Shua lived with her parents and grandparents on Phobos, the larger of Mars' two moons. She loves her family, and loves spending time with them. Her childhood was full of listening to her grandparents' never ending stories, being her dad's sous chef, and making thousands of lanterns to light up the lonely surface of the moon.

Obviously, she had a loving childhood, but it was still so unbearably lonely. As soon as she was old enough, Shua started begging to travel with her dad and visit the world outside of Mars. She went with him to Earth whenever he had an operation (though she was obviously not allowed in the operating room) or needed to fight a plague, and went with him to visit all the previous Chang'es, turned into stars scattered across the universe.

Now that she's at Ever After High, Shua wants to make the most out of her time. She's never been around so many new people for so long, and if she doesn't make any friends, it'll all be for nothing!

In the future, Shua is to meet the Jade Emperor, disguised as a beggar, and throw herself into his fire. Only then will she gain all the powers of the Jade Rabbit. She will continue her father's position of delivering the elixir of immortality to every previous Chang'e, and visiting Earth to protect the people from disease.

Honestly, she can't wait.

Parallels

 * Because there are so many other similar moon rabbit folklore from other countries, Shua's family lives on Mars and its moons. It just got a little too crowded on Earth's moon.
 * Mars has two moons, Deimos and Phobos. Two moons -> tù moon -> rabbit moon.
 * She often smells like cinnamon, as a reference to how the Yutu is sometimes portrayed as standing under a cinnamon tree.
 * Shua has ocular albinism. This is due to how common albino rabbits are (hh pet breeding) and how iconic that image is. Her sensitivity to the sun is a culmination of that and her being from the moon.

Viewpoint on Destiny
really hyped for her destiny, easily impressionable and scared so she doesn't want to poof. royal

Name
Shua's full name is 周朔绿, or Zhou Shuolü. Her unofficial English name is Latona, though she mostly uses Shua.

The character 周 is read zhōu. It means "cycle", relevant because of the cycle of the moon or the cycle of life and death, since the Yutu makes elixir of immortality. It shares its pinyin with 粥, meaning "porridge", since her identity is strongly tied to food. And 州, which is a word to indicate "states/prefectures/cantons/etc", since the moon sees all of Earth. 周 also somewhat resembles the character 月, aka "moon".

The meaning of 朔 shuò is "the first day of the lunar month". You may notice that its right side looks familiar. That's because it's the previously mentioned 月!

绿 lǜ means "green". Jade is green, and so is grass, which the rabbit gathers for the Jade Emperor.

As a name, Zhou Shuolü is incredibly similar in pronunciation to Joshua Li. It's become common that Shua is mistaken for a Joshua Li. It's also why her nickname is Shua. Yes, this is incredibly contrived.

As for explaining Latona, a little bit of background knowledge is needed. Firstly, "rabbit" in Mandarin is 兔, or tù, pronounced similarly to "two". Secondly, Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos. With that, we can continue.

Latona is the Roman form of Leto, who was the mother to Apollo and Artemis. In some accounts she took the disguise of a wolf in order to hide from Hera. Twins you say? Two! Tù! Rabbit. Additionally, wolves are commonly connected to the moon.

But wait? Roman? Wolf? Goddess? Hmm, sounds pretty FOUNDING OF ROME to me! A she-wolf raised Romulus and Remus, who were yet another set of twins.

And oh, hmm what? What? Oh who's the father of these two? Ares, right? Oh sorry, I forgot, it's Roman, I meant MARS.

Year-round Secret Santa
The idea is to go around and give gifts to people. Except, she doesn't need to limit herself to Christmastime.

Trivia

 * Shua's birthday, June 10th, was the last day the Mars rover Opportunity was active.
 * Furthermore, this makes her a Gemini. The whole twins thing... yeah.
 * Originally her birthday was Jan 21st as a Capricorn, as Lunar New Year is always Aquarius central, save for that one day of Capricorniness.
 * Also, Gemini season is about 9 months after Mid-Autumn Festival, if you catch my drift.
 * ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
 * Her page was uploaded on September 13th, 2019's Mid-Autumn Festival.
 * Her least favorite song is EXO's "Two Moons", simply because she was excited for a song that related to her but it ended up sounding like That.
 * no hate to two moons though, roll like a buffalo

Quotes
"tell me, muse, of the lonely astronaut, skipping on the stepping stones leading down to earth, her stars lighting the way, her helmet separating two worlds"

- speak to me, muse, of bright eyes and dark hands