#askjeimos

VADAMIO OPTIMOS (BIRTH NAME: VADAMIO BOROS)

Vadamio was born in the rough, crime-riddled Shadow Sector of Damijana. He was an ambitious child with big dreams of one day living it up in the lofty Star Sector, so he studied hard and joined the Damijani military, working his way through the ranks from grunt to heavy weapons mechanic. His decades of hard work paid off, and eventually he was able to ascend into the Middle Sector. Only then did he decide to settle down and have a family.

He married a Middle Sector elfenne named Darleen Optimos, and in traditional Damijani fashion, adopted her surname. They had a child together, but this boy was born with profound disabilities. Vadamio was relying on his children to get rich and help him ascend to the higher sectors, so he decided to have another child. This boy, too, had significant health issues and could not live up to Vadamio’s high expectations.

Vadamio’s third child, Ojio, was his best bet. He placed immense pressure on this boy to study hard and get into a good college, so that one day he could carry the Optimos family higher in Damijani society. But it seemed no matter what Ojio did, it simply wasn’t good enough. Years passed by and Vadamio found himself still stuck in the Middle Sector, fighting hard for another promotion while struggling with the chaos at home. On top of everything else, he was diagnosed with cancer, and his job performance began to slip due to his poor health.

One day, his wife Darleen was accused of betraying the empire and snatched away by the Damijana Guard. Vadamio was investigated as well. Though he was found not guilty, the empire labeled him a “person of suspicion” and he lost his job with the military. Now depressed and too sick to work, he survived off of unemployment checks and his childrens’ welfare benefits while he pushed teenage Ojio to save the family from falling back into the Shadow Sector.

Ojio would go on to marry a woman from the Sun Sector and finally ascend a level. Unfortunately, Vadamio died of his cancer shortly before his son’s wedding, and never got to see his accomplishments.

DARLEEN OPTIMOS

Born to a painfully average Middle Sector family, Darleen wished to be anything but average. She had a powerful creative streak and a gift for the arts. She embarrassed her family with her edgy fashion choices and increasingly rebellious behavior, speeding around on her motorbike and blasting music late at night. They feared her behavior would reflect poorly on them and draw the attention of the Damijana Guard, so they kicked her out the day she became of legal age.

Darleen needed money, but she hated working for “the man”. She decided she would be a homemaker instead and managed to seduce a hard-working military man named Vadamio, marrying and having three children with him. Two of her sons were born with profound special needs, and the stress of managing so many kids proved overwhelming to her. Suddenly, working for “the man” didn’t sound so bad anymore.

She ended up working for the Jelly Magic Candy Company, manufacturers of the famous Hot Jellies candy. This Damijana-exclusive candy came with a piece of propaganda in every package, usually in the form of a history lesson, stickers, or a short story with strong pro-Damijana themes.

Darleen’s job was to design new propaganda items for the company. She excelled at her job, but deep down she hated the authoritarian themes she was forced to push onto her people. Eventually she couldn’t take it anymore and began sneaking her own anti-propaganda into certain packages, highlighting the empire’s many flaws.

These little acts of rebellion kept her sane as she drudged through her job, but there came a day when her luck ran out and her superiors caught on. Darleen was snatched away by the Damijana Guard, never seeing her husband or three sons again. Her fate is still unknown.

OJIO PARAMONIMOS (BIRTH NAME: OJIO OPTIMOS)

Ojio was born in the Middle Sector to Vadamio and Darleen Optimos. His father was an overworked weapons mechanic for the Damijani military, and his mother chose to work a low-wage job at a candy manufacturer just to get a break from her kids. Ojio had two profoundly disabled older brothers, and all three children were left in the care of a nanny more often than not.

His nanny was usually occupied with his brothers’ special needs, so Ojio spent much time by himself and learned to be independent from a young age. He had a habit of taking apart his toys and putting them back together, and as he grew older, he began doing this to furniture and appliances. He was fascinated by all things mechanical, particularly robots. His father had impossibly high expectations of him. Any grade less than 100% was punished with violence, so Ojio resorted to cheating his way through school whenever possible. At one point he even hacked his highschool’s computer system to raise his grades.

When Ojio was a teenager, his mother was imprisoned by the Damijana Guard. His father lost his job and was diagnosed with cancer shortly after, and Ojio became the Optimos family’s last pillar of hope. Vadamio expected Ojio to get rich and help the family ascend to the Sun Sector by any means necessary. Ojio eventually accomplished this by marrying a Sun Sector woman named Tarajeen, but unfortunately, Vadamio died from his cancer before their wedding. Ojio adopted his wife’s surname, Paramonimos.

Ojio would go on to invent a new version of the infamous Damijani vending machine, which was notorious for taking money and failing to dispense items. In reality, Ojio stole this design from his college mentor, but took all the credit and got rich from it nonetheless. He used his earnings to buy a condominium in the Sun Sector and start a family with his wife. They had just one child, a daughter named Kaseen Paramonimos. From then on, Ojio worked as the head product designer for Prodigy Electro, Damijana's largest electronics manufacturer.

His brothers became wards of the empire after their father’s death, having never seen a coin or a visit from Ojio since. He resents both of them for “stealing his childhood”.

FABNIO PARAMONIMOS (BIRTH NAME: FABNIO JARATOS)

Fabnio was the sole child of two wealthy, Sun-Sector born parents. He favored musical toys as a boy, so his parents enrolled him in children’s music classes. Fabnio learned to play several instruments such as chordophones and woodwinds, but his favorite was always the piano. He displayed a real passion for music that only grew as he did, and by the time he was a teenager, he was already conducting his highschool band.

After high school, his parents enrolled him in Damijana’s most prestigious musical college. Fabnio graduated with several degrees, and between his good looks, his natural charisma, and his parents’ connections, he was able to land a job at the Damijana Guild of Theatre. This government-funded guild is responsible for producing all domestic media in the Empire of Damijana, from films to stageplays to music. 

Fabnio started his career writing commercial jingles, but before he knew it, he was composing scores for movies and ghostwriting music for pop stars, both domestic and foreign. He was the mastermind behind one of Damijana’s most popular musical groups, Starlight Supernova. 

Fabnio created this band specifically to schmooze up to Chieftess Serafeen, as the chieftess had just announced Project Starlight, her big campaign to colonize the moon. Fabnio wrangled up three cute teenage girls and composed catchy songs about astrophysics for them to perform for the chieftess. Chieftess Serafeen enjoyed the performance so much, she commissioned several albums of this music and funded a live tour for the group to perform worldwide, spreading hype over Project Starlight to foreign lands.

Though the lyrics promoted Damijana propaganda, younger audiences were oblivious to this. Kids and teens worldwide were captivated by the catchy music and the bold, futuristic aesthetic of the performers. The band made big money, but the actual performers barely saw a coin of it. Due to the deal Fabnio signed with Serafeen, most of the profits went directly to Project Starlight.

He still ended up with a decent chunk of change in his pocket, but it suddenly disappeared as sexual harassment lawsuits began rolling in years later from the girls in his band. Fabnio settled these matters out of court, buying the performers’ silence before deciding to retire. He now spends his golden years coasting on the fortune he made by exploiting young people.

EMALEEN PARAMONIMOS

Emaleen was born in the Sun Sector to highly-educated parents. Her brain surgeon mother and physicist father had high expectations for her, so they pushed her into many extracurriculars before she could even walk. Emaleen became fluent in several languages by the time she was a teenager, and she scored far beyond her grade level in math and science. As a young adult, she practiced ballet at Damijana’s Guild of Theatre, and during this time she fell in love with another guild student named Fabnio.

With their parents’ blessings, Emaleen and Fabnio married. Emaleen gave birth to two daughters, but this did not slow down her academic pursuits. She decided to drop ballet in favor of a more lucrative career path, following in her father’s footsteps in physics. She became a physics professor at one of the most prestigious STEM colleges in Damijana, and she encouraged her daughters to follow the same path, as Damijana’s Project Starlight was ramping up and physicists would be in high demand for the foreseeable future.

Her husband Fabnio was a famous music composer. At some point he signed a deal with Chieftess Serafeen and created a pop music group to promote Project Starlight. The band was called Starlight Supernova, and they turned out to be a worldwide smash hit. Its performers were all teenage girls, and their beauty and flashy outfits appealed to youths all over Gaia.

Apparently they appealed to Fabnio too, for his performers eventually accused him of sexual assault and threatened to sue him. Fabnio settled the lawsuits out of court, used his fortune to buy his victims’ silence, and retired from the music industry. Emaleen was shocked and deeply upset by the allegations, and though she knew they were likely true, she feared the fallout of bringing more attention to them.

She did not want to divorce him and potentially destabilize her daughters’ lives, so Emaleen decided to stay quiet about her husband’s crimes and pretend they never happened.

TARAJEEN PARAMONIMOS

Born in the Sun Sector to Emaleen and Fabnio, Tarajeen was the younger of two sisters. Both parents were wealthy, highly-educated, and highly-esteemed people, and they expected their daughters to ascend even higher than themselves in Damijani society. Emaleen encouraged both of her daughters to pursue STEM, enrolling them in every relevant class she could afford. Emaleen already had her childrens’ whole lives planned out for them, deciding that they would both work for Chieftess Serafeen on Project Starlight, Damijana’s campaign to colonize the moon.

Emaleen also pushed her children to join the Eyes of Damijana, a team of government-sponsored agents responsible for spying on their fellow citizens. These agents had to pass rigorous testing, but Tarajeen made the cut and proved her loyalty to the empire. She was assigned to spy on a young man from the Middle Sector named Ojio, who was marked as a “person of suspicion” due to his mother’s traitorous behavior. Tarajeen found herself charmed by this strange fellow, and the more she watched him, the more she fell in love.

Tarajeen and Ojio decided to marry, but Tarajeen’s parents and sister were furious with her for marrying someone from a lower sector. Though Ojio’s inventions would earn him enough money to ascend to the Sun Sector, Tarajeen’s parents still did not approve of him because he was not born there. Tarajeen’s relationship with her family became strained. She worked hard to earn their approval back, even achieving her mother’s dream of getting hired on to Project Starlight as an astrophysicist.

At last, Tarajeen and her family were starting to make amends…at least, until Fabnio was accused by his teen performers of sexual assault. Her parents demanded that Tarajeen ignore the allegations, but she refused, and had another big blowout with her family. She and her sister were particularly vicious towards each other, and at one point Tarajeen used her authority as an Eye of Damijana to snitch on her sister’s son, Lorio, for illicit drug dealing. Tarajeen’s CEO nephew was imprisoned for ten years and lost his whole company, prompting Tarajeen’s family to shun her completely and pretend she didn’t exist.

Tarajeen would have just one child with Ojio, a daughter named Kaseen. Tarajeen had developed a close personal relationship with Chieftess Serafeen during her time working on Project Starlight, and Serafeen promised she would hire her daughter as a space ranger if she could meet the high qualifications. Tarajeen and Ojio pushed Kaseen very hard in academics, hoping to make that promise a reality and finally ascend to the Star Sector–the highest tier in Damijani society. But Tarajeen still had two jobs to work: she was a portal technician and a government agent, which left her very little time for her child. She was forced to hire a nanny to pick up her slack.

One fateful day, a portal component exploded at the Project Starlight lab, releasing mysterious particles into the air. Tarajeen was injured in the blast, but soon recovered unscathed…or so it seemed. Shortly after, she began experiencing hallucinations and strange paranoid delusions. Kaseen suspected that the arcane particles from the explosion had driven her mother mad, but both Serafeen and Tarajeen denied this. Tarajeen only slipped deeper into insanity, even falsely accused Kaseen’s nanny of being an enemy spy and got her imprisoned. Her erratic behavior at work finally drove Serafeen to imprison her, as Serafeen felt that she was putting Project Starlight at risk. Tarajeen was snatched by her fellow agents and has not been seen since.

KASEEN “JEIMOS” PARAMONIMOS

Kaseen is the child of Tarajeen and Ojio Paramonimos, born in the Sun Sector of Damijana. They prefer to go by their gender-neutral middle name, Jeimos, and do not consider themself man or woman, but something in-between. Jeimos’ parents did not understand or accept their whimsical identity, however, and forced them to keep it a secret, fearing they would attract attention from the Eyes of Damijana for “suspicious or disruptive behavior”.

The only one to indulge Jeimos’ identity was their beloved nanny, Felice. Jeimos’ parents worked such long hours that Jeimos spent more time with Felice than with them, and came to love her like a parent. All their actual parents seemed to care about was their academic success, forcing Jeimos into every extracurricular they could squeeze in. Their mother, Tarajeen, worked on Project Starlight and was a friend of Chieftess Serafeen. Serafeen promised to hire Jeimos as a space ranger when they came of age, but only if they met the high qualifications. Tarajeen sacrificed Jeimos’ happiness in favor of their grades, but Jeimos could only take so much before succumbing to the pressure.

After Tarajeen falsely accused Felice of being an enemy spy, Jeimos ran away and used drugs to cope with their pain. They got addicted to a powerful drug called “pyre dust”, which left their overworked father scrambling to cover for their bad behavior. Tarajeen’s madness came to a head one day, and she was imprisoned by the Damijana Guard for “disruptive behavior”. Jeimos confronted Chieftess Serafeen about this, but the meeting did not go well, and Jeimos was forced to flee Damijana altogether as a refugee.

THIO AND SANJIO OPTIMOS

Thio was the first-born child of Vadamio and Darleen. He was born with a malformation of the brain, which left him with a severe intellectual disability. His father Vadamio was devastated, as he was counting on his children to get rich and help him ascend to the Star Sector one day. Vadamio hired a nanny to care for Thio and decided to have another child to fulfill his dreams for him. His second son was Sanjio, who was intellectually healthy but physically twisted and paralyzed.

Yet again, Vadamio was disappointed by his child’s condition and immediately wrote him off as an invalid, leaving him in the care of his nanny while he gave all his time and attention to his third child, Ojio, who didn’t appear to have any major disabilities. Ojio was under immense pressure to get into a good college and save the family from poverty, while Thio and Sanjio were starved for attention from their overworked parents.

Thio became closely attached to his nanny, believing she was his mother. He constantly tried to get his father’s attention and approval, but was always met with disdain. Vadamio was so ashamed of his eldest sons that he forbade them from going to school or leaving the home unless necessary. Thio listened to the radio and terrorized his brothers to entertain himself, while Sanjio used books from the library to give himself an education. With his voracious appetite for knowledge, Sanjio surpassed even his father’s intelligence by the time he was a teenager. He was particularly interested in philosophy. He even managed to teach himself the arts of telepathy and telekinesis, using magic spells to manipulate things around him and speak to others, despite his paralyzed vocal chords.

One fateful day, the boys’ mother Darleen was accused of treason and imprisoned by the Damijana Guard. Things only got worse from there, as their father lost his job and was then diagnosed with cancer. Ojio was under more pressure than ever to take care of his family. However, after Vadamio passed away, Ojio married a wealthy Sun Sector woman and refused to accept responsibility for his brothers. Thio and Sanjio became wards of the empire, locked away in a bleak nursing home for the severely disabled, and never saw Ojio again.

The brothers had been forgotten by their family and society, but Sanjio did everything in his power to make sure they still had each other. He insisted on staying in the same wing as Thio, where he could oversee his care. Despite his condition, Sanjio used his sharp wits and magical prowess to protect his brother from the corrupt staff at the institution. Likewise, Thio’s body was healthy and strong, and he too would protect Sanjio with his muscle. The two rely on each other to get by in such an inadequate environment, praying that one day their little brother will remember them and welcome them back into his life.

KATEREEN PARAMONIMOS

Katereen is the eldest daughter of Emaleen and Fabnio, born into a privileged life in Damijana’s Sun Sector. Katereen’s mother had her whole life planned out for her since the day she was born, deciding that she would one day work for Project Starlight. Emaleen pushed her into STEM fields and filled her schedule with all the relevant classes she could afford, leaving her with little time for leisure.

However, it quickly became apparent that STEM wasn’t Katereen’s calling, for her soul yearned for the stage. Emaleen eventually gave up on her plans and allowed Katereen to pursue her dreams, against her better judgment. Katereen was passionate about acting. Her father was a highly-esteemed member of the Damijana Guild of Theatre, so he was able to pull the strings necessary to land big roles for her. As much as Katereen loved being an actress, she was never very good at it. While her acting skills were critically panned, her good looks kept drawing big audiences, and she became more famous for her sex appeal than anything else.

Katereen went on to marry a very old, wealthy Damijani film director and have a child by him, a son named Lorio. Her husband soon died and Katereen inherited his great wealth, using it to fund her son’s business ventures when he grew older. Lorio became the CEO of his own health supplement company, and Katereen helped promote it by starring in its commercials. She publicly attributed her good looks to Lorio’s supplements, but in reality, she had countless cosmetic surgeries.

Katereen never remarried after the death of her husband. However, she did hire a live-in female “assistant” who she seems unusually affectionate towards, and happens to follow her everywhere she goes. There are rumors that the two are romantically involved, but Katereen refuses to comment on this.

When her sister Tarajeen got married, Katereen and her parents disapproved of her groom because he was born in a lower sector. Katereen once tried to seduce him in order to sabotage their marriage, but this only caused more drama between her and Tarajeen. The sisters were sour with each other for years, but things really blew up between them when their father was accused of sexually assaulting the girls in the tween pop group he managed. Tarajeen shunned her father for this and would not allow him to see his grandchild anymore, while Katereen believed she should let it go and forgive him. Katerine admitted that Fabnio had assaulted her in similar ways when she was younger, but argued that it was best to forgive and forget, as bringing attention to it would only make the family look bad.

Tarajeen was furious with her sister for keeping their father’s despicable crimes under wraps for all these years. Tarajeen not only worked on Project Starlight, she was also an Eye of Damijana–government agents that were assigned to spy on their fellow citizens. She used her intel to build a case against Lorio, whose supplement business was doubling as a drug dealing front. Lorio was imprisoned for ten years, and this act of hostility enraged Katereen so much that she refused to speak to Tarajeen ever again. She still maintains a close relationship with her parents, including her abusive father, so long as he keeps sending her checks and landing her new roles in her career.

LORIO PARAMONIMOS

Lorio was born in Damijana’s Sun Sector, the sole child of Katereen. His father was a wealthy film director who died of old age when Lorio was still a toddler. Lorio has no memory of his father, but his inheritance allowed Lorio to attend a prestigious business college and go on to start his own business selling vitamins and supplements. Katereen was a popular Damijani actress, and her endorsements boosted Lorio’s brand. Before long, Lorio became the CEO of a retail chain, with his supplement stores present in every mall in Damijana.

However, the secret to Lorio’s success wasn’t just due to his mother’s endorsements. His stores were actually fronts for a large drug-dealing operation. He ran this business successfully for many years, until one fateful day, his aunt Tarajeen exposed his crimes to the Damijana Guard. Lorio’s assets were seized, his business was shut down, and he was forced to work at the prison camp on Slegelse Island for ten years.

He was released from prison with nothing and no one. Even his own mother was too ashamed to associate with him, so Lorio sank into the Shadow Sector and turned to petty thievery to support his alcohol addiction. He currently lives in a storage unit with his scant belongings, hoping that one day the universe will give him another chance to shine.

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