main verse timeline + name guide + selfee culture thoughts + ideas
sol + nehm = 1920s. sol is effectively around 9 years old when he's trafficked to nehms manor in france
sol escapes after stabbing nehm a bunch, stealing all his shit, and setting his manor on fire which he thinks kills him (it would if nehm wasn't a very powerful mage) = 40s -> japan, taken in by a kind dojo sensei, sparking his love for the martial arts and the art of the sword especially. sol is a approximately a preteen at this time. his sensei's family comes from a long line of demon hunting onmyoji, as demons often come to the human plane to eat humans. this is where sol got his start with monster hunting as well.
his sensei gifts him with a talisman that hides his fae appearance.
sol starts travelling in the 60s after his sensei passes away. he doesnt inherit the dojo ofc but his senseis family insist sol keep his senseis katana. teenager, but dresses femininely so his height doesnt indicate his age as much, uses makeup and his clothes to look older and get less questions about travelling alone. he eventually lands in the usa. his talisman gets fucked at some point, forcing sol to invent various means of keeping himself disguised to blend in - including his holograph ear cuffs.
sol + kenn - 80s (sol is effectively around 19). sol and kenn continue to hunt demons for a bit, eventually upgrading from sols truck to a 1985 Fleetwood Southwind RV motor home and a beater car (a souped up morris marina?), but settle down when sol becomes pregnant with ren and ava. sol promptly submits a bunch of patents he'd been working on as a hobby. solkenn basically immediately become stinking rich. ren and ava are concieved approximately 1988
ed, blue, and sol reunite around the year 2000 after blue sees her bro on the tv when sol makes the switch from the tech sector into medicine
ren + chrys + callum + con - 00s - private school. oops, teenage pregnancy via ren and callum -> vasya and vivian
chrys and alex's parents die around 2006 when alex is 7 (born 1999) and chrys is 18. ada, enkh, and the quads stay primarily in the summerlands to help lior's health
evan + alex - about 14 at approx 2013 - attend the same private school as rccc. solkenn sponsor alex's tuition because chrys otherwise wouldnt be able to afford it. chrys insists on paying for everything else, however, incl alex's extracuriculars (ballet + guitar lessons) and hobbies (video games).
evan gets schlorped into demon-plane by nehm along with kenn and sol. blue breaks into hell and punches nehm into a pulpy smear, rescuing her bro n bro in law. trauma abounds.
cori does a project for school on masters medical tech that saved lior's life, ada sees, enkh promptly drags ada by the scruff to show up on the master's doorstep, kids (andi, vie, cori, lior) in tow.
vie + evan + alex - together from 2014 on when theyre all 15. alex gets injured during the nehm fiasco, has to take a break from ballet, but heals, and is able to pursue ballet as a career still if she chooses
callum and ed become friends. theres strong mutual attraction but callum is too traumatized to be in a relationship, in ed's opinion, so ed gently says as much. callum does some thinking and agrees, but is too in love with ed to pursue other relationships though he tries at least the once. this ends his streak of seeking out abusive relationships to propogate his self hate. callum and ed eventually get together, eventually get engaged, and eventually married+do the life splitting ceremony when callum is in his 30s. HAHA NOPE CHRYS X REN X CALLUM OT3 FOR LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE
callum and terry leave at around 20 after buying a house together where they promptly experience one fuck of a hell year, falling out of contact. callum drags himself back home. terry goes to jail because thats what happens when you chainsaw your boyfriends leg off, even if you are possessed by a demon. he gets a dove tattoo in the joint after breaking up with callum. ren and chrys, who got there just in time to beat the door down and prevent possessed!terry from getting callums other leg, promptly say 'hey wanna be our third' cus they cant stand the thought of losing him and callum, who's never had a head for healthy or appropriate romance, still all cloistered up in his hospital bed, is all 'uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh lmao sure'. (ren is the one to bring up the possibility to chrys, freaking out all the while. chrys takes a couple of days to think it over and read the printout ren made for him about the glories of polyamory and is all 'yeah lets do it')
evan fucks off at around 19 cus oops, trauma from hell schlorp. has a one night stand with a woman vacationing in mexico at approx 2016. vie and alex go after him to drag him back. even if he doesnt want to be with them anymore, he clearly needs help. they do all get back together though.
lilah is born in 2017. rosa is born around 2018, taken in by solkenn shortly thereafter.
lilah + rosa - attached at the hip right from the start
gigi is born approx 2039, meets oscar and church at around 2054 at the age of 15, oscar is saved by a mysterious vampire half a year later after suffering a brutal attack by a rival at a dance competition - 2055 - they set off to #vanlife it shortly thereafter to find said sire and bully him into their polycule
oligarchy based on magical power
shapeshifting is a natural talent of the species but is reliant on magical power. onism isn't necessarily rare, but this means selfee en masse see gender and sex as separate. gender is spiritual, sex is physical. children are largely encouraged to shift their sex to match their gender to soothe dysphoria - which is considered a spiritual illness. -> sol cannot do this.
deer fae. extremely long lived, which reflects on rate of maturation, and as a very stagnant culture. sol is modelled after a white tail deer. sol has 4 points. selfee are not generally considered 'adults' until they gain 6-8 points, but usually their fawn spots begin to disappear by the time they hit 4 points. this is in spite of the fact that, by sol's 4 points, his maturation is on par with a human in their 20s. the joys of a long lived species.
ada is the eldest and most powerful selfee alive at the point sol and blue are born. suffice it to say, this creates tension when sol's inability to perform magic or even shapeshift are noticed - and that's not even getting into his neurodivergence.
selfee and humans have similar senses, similar rates of intelligence, and similar methods of interpersonal/social communication. ergo, a person who is neurodivergent will be as such in either society.
selfee are by and large vegan but in lean times, like deer, will eat meat. eating meat outside of lean times is considered taboo, and thought to corrupt the person's magic.
ada is so powerful because he eats a fuckton of meat.
selfee's teeth are all flat because of this. no sharp incisors. unlike humans, they have evolved to be perfectly healthy on a meat-free diet (though meat does provide a significant boost) and this is reflective in their biology.
selfee have deer ears, hooves, antlers depending, and tails. juvenile selfee will have fawn spots on their face and down their neck and back. selfee of any age will have rocking white eyeliner.
selfee and humans share a similar range of skin tones.
the main door to the summerlands where they live was created by ada to enable the selfee to flee persecution and invasion. selfee are technically of the earthen plane, hence the many similarities between species and their ability to breed together. the main door is located in france, which is why nehm made his home there. they were probably fleeing charlemagne.
marriage is traditionally held on solstices to represent sharing life. life-splitting ceremonies - where the partners will undertake a magical ceremony to effectively conjoin their lives and ensure they die together - are held on the equinoxes to symbolize sharing death. marriage is considered the initial commitment ceremony, life-splitting a re-commitment. divorce is possible in marriage but impossible with life-splitting. people of any sex and or gender can marry.
during a marriage, the selfee will bring their pelt, folded, and one of their shed antlers if antlers are present with a sprig of, usually holly, tied around it. if there is no antler, the plant will instead be woven into a crown. these are exchanged during a handfasting ceremony. the plant is then buried at the foot of an elder tree. antlers are kept by the receiving spouse or spouses.
polyamory is not uncommon.
selfee do have a mating season. ayooooo lmao to this end, childrens birthdays are often a community celebration.
the human age equivalent of a selfee being considered a legal adult is 30.
a selfees natural form is a hybrid between a human and deer. fully deer is also considered a natural form. fully human, thanks to the nature of the exodus, is. not.
bigotry against humans is embedded in the culture. this is part of the discrimination that sol experienced in his early childhood - if you dont have magic, you're the next best thing to human. this, ofc, ignores the fact that humans often have magic, but because magic is not a common trait, etcetc. selfee often have european 'human' names, but insist that humans got those languages from selfee, so humans are thieves, and selfee are fine to keep these naming conventions therefore lmao
humans who have magic are typically elevated from their magicless peers to an extent. this is why nehm was allowed to hang out in the summerlands after accidentally falling into it - he was considered 'one of the good ones' and promptly took advantage of that.
this is a big part of why sol relates to humans so much, and is more comfortable among humanity than selfee-kind despite the circumstances that brought him into the human world and the person who brought him there.
sol remembers bits and pieces of his culture, but not that much of it.
nehm - from german 'nehmetic' meaning 'to take'. nehm is his surname. nehm is a very handsome man with dark auburn hair, a short beard and moustache. he is very tall and well built and has a good, powerful reputation. he is considered family by the head honchos of france of the time. despite this his 'death' was covered up. buddy got ganked by his 12 year old child bride that everybody knew he had soooooo.... they moved to cover their own asses. to this end, sol was never pursued.
nehm's magic flexed when the room he was busy dying in began to burn down, transporting him to the demon realm. demons tried to eat him, thinking him easy pickings. he ate them instead. by the time he pops up again, he's effectively transitioned from a human into a demon.
school name - st crucis academy
kenn -> kennedy santos, then masters
chrys -> chrysanthemum jeremy slate, goes by chrys <- paternal grandfather's name for middle name
alex -> amaranth alexander slate, goes by alex <- maternal grandfather's name for middle name
jeremy and alexander were chosen with the full intention of allowing them to go by a name that wasn't a flower, even if their mom won the battle to make the flower names their first names. alex decided to go by such because none of her peers could pronounce her fucking name when she was little, so she got fed up, decided 'alex' was a unisex name, and was therefore good enough <- not that she used those exact words at the time but that was the gist. she actually doesn't mind 'alexander' even if she'll never go by it cus its too masc, but she thinks being named after, effectively a historical tactician-genius queer of the 'great' variety is pretty cool. alexander's solution has, therefore, become her favourite go-to problem solving method. her family figured out pretty quick that alex is trans, and she socially transitioned at around 6.
chrys started out going by jeremy, then pearl jam dropped jeremy, and chrys went 'NOPE'. people did try to bully him about his full name, but being one of the most popular kids in his class made that short lived. pretty privilege man.
peach -> cooper delaney. boy is so obsessed with princess peach he stole her goddamn name.
oscar -> oscar diego de leon valentine <- peurto rican -> familial nickname = carito? quq
sensei - tadashi ishimaru ('right' 'unweilding'), formerly tadashi kaburagi. from a long line of demon hunting onmyoji. in his young adulthood he and a kitsune working at a tea house fell in love with each other but his family killed her for 'using her magic to seduce him' which was vmuch not the case. he killed the perp back and left, spending a decade wandering, dealing with his grief, getting back into life. eventually he came across the ishimaru dojo (aikido????) and challenged the head for the rights to it. upon winning, he didn't kick the ishimaru family out, refusing to make them homeless just so he had a job and a place to live. they gradually developed a close relationship and he was effectively adopted into the family. a couple years after that he met the woman who would become his wife and had three kids with her.
sol, having a very difficult time supporting himself and aware he can't subside on the jewels and gold he stole from nehm, equally aware he shouldnt flaunt them as thats just asking for trouble, goes into pick pocketing. the power of child logic. he pickpockets tadashi, is caught by him after a bit of a chase where his head covering (hat? scarf?) falls off to reveal his ears. sol panics and kicks tadashi in the nuts and escapes, leaving even the money. tadashi, worried for this deer-eared kid, spends a couple days looking for him then, upon finding him, offers him food and shelter.
many many years later, sol does this very same thing for evan, and then several children after that.
sol remains close with the ishimaru family and helps support them need be, though they generally refuse to ask him for money once he strikes it rich. the truth of him remains the ishimaru family's well guarded little secret.
