ateez mascots, characters, avatars, emojis, and faeries (so far)
multiple rounds of mascots? well, yes.
So, there have been at least three rounds of mascots. Four if you include the ones they did for their individual birthday MDs (merchandise). We'll go through them chronologically, but I find that the oldest set is the least memorable and most confusing, and they are largely obsolete (in a fannish cultural sense) except that Mingi seems really fond of his, Ikemon, from this set and has turned it into his birthday MD plush. But we'll get there. Let's start with emojis first.emojis
- 🐿️ Hongjoong. Yes, a squirrel.
- 🐰 ⭐ Seonghwa can be either of these. Officially he’s the rabbit (despite being born in the year of the tiger and there being five actual rabbits since there’s so many born in 1999), but because his name in Chinese characters means “become a star,” he is often a star too
- 🐶 Yunho has been a golden retriever from the get, has big bounding puppy energy in the earlier days. More serious now (and major forays into a Sexy Lapsed Catholic Phase) but still ultimately a goofy little giggly boy at heart
- 👑 🌻 both are Yeosang for the same reasons. He’s an angelic prince.
- ⛰️ 🐈 San means mountain, his sister’s name is Haneul which means sky. So he’s very consistently just the mountain emoji. But he’s also a cat because of a number of reasons: he’s a cat dad to Byeol, a spoiled Siamese that lives with his parents, and he’s paired so much with Wooyoung who’s a black cat. So San is the other cat, but black’s gotta go to Wooyoung.
- 🐤 🐥 🐺 Mingi is very much a self professed baby chick offstage but onstage, he’s a wolf. He talks about the dichotomy himself. When he’s not performing, he’s very much a spoiled princess, raised that way by his mom who he continues to take out on dates even now. Very mama’s boy. There’s a reason we have :princessminki: :princessmingki: emojis.
- 🐈⬛ 🖤 Wooyoung our Chrome Hearts brand loyalist is a black cat through and through so.. that’s the explanation for both these emojis.
- 🐻 🧸 Jongho is very consistently associated with a bear but you’ll also sometimes see 🍎 I think? Because his big trick in debut was cracking apples in half with his bare hands while singing
teez-mon, est. 2019
hehetmon
aniteez, est. 2024
alright, now it's getting good, right?- Jjoongrami = Hongjoong (n.b. J -> JJ makes it cuter, so Joong/Joongie turning into Jjoong is cute)
- Ddeongbyeoli = Seonghwa (n.b. S -> Dd is both cute and like..a speech impediment kinda? And Byeol, like San's cat, means star, so it's a little like a doubled up star star with a cute lisp)
- Tyudeongi = Yunho (n.b. Yunho signs off all his lives with some kind of "heart you" or "hatyu" so this "tyu" comes from that)
- Hetmongi = Yeosang (n.b. same Het as Hehet/hehetmon, which I didn't explain, but hehet is literally the way he says "hehe" like it's swallowed at the end but it's just his very cute HEHET because Yeosang is like cute aggression levels of adorable HEHET, I can't with him 😭 )
- Sandeoki = San (n.b. San wanted Sandeoki to be a girl originally and KQ apparently told him no?? These plushies are all, like, just random animals that both represent the members and are their own little chaos gremlins, so "officially" Sandeoki is a boy but who cares, San wants to be a girl dad/cat dad/girl cat dad, let Sandeoki wear dresses)
- Bbyongming = Mingi (n.b. like with the JJ sound, this Bbyong is there to sound stupidly cute, and it IS, damn them)
- Wooyonyang = Wooyoung (n.b. literally has a "meow" sound added to "Wooyo" 10/10 no notes)
- Jjongbear = Jongho (n.b. hilariously the only one with English attached to it, and once again featuers the J -> JJ cute shift)
so you definitely have people coloring in Hetmongi brown/black like a doberman, or saying he's a white doberman or somesuch. I have doberman suits for my Hetmongi plushies, a big one and a small one 😭
he finally did get some recognition as a doberman starting...super late, I dunno, 2024ish? 2025? But honestly, it feels like good natured teasing usually but it also makes me a litlte bit sad for him to see him just be like "oh well, I'll keep trying to be cool on stage and maybe one day you'll see me as a doberman"