#since normal calendars actually do label the season by lunar cycle and I don't

[overlyimmersed]

How Fairies Keep Time

This came from the constellation thing, kill me.

This is 100% headcanon. I had to frickin make this up myself after learning about how ancient cultures tracked time. This could go totally ignored by most since it's been established that Fairies are terrible at keeping time because they're so long lived.

But since my AU introduces the concept of a history keeper for the Fairy Clan, it would just make sense to also have a way of keeping time.

I don't want to use star charts for this because...the fuckin constellation thing...I'm not interested in learning about and renaming every star and constellation that can be seen from Scotland. And I don't exactly thing Fairies would be star trackers anyway, just culturally speaking. I don't doubt that Fairies like to stargaze as much as anyone else, but I don't think they think that hard about what they're seeing, yknow? I think it'd be more like the stargazing we see in the Lion King movies. This cluster looks like that, that one looks like this and it's all just fun and games.

So how would they mark time?

Well I do headcanon that the Fairy Realm and The Fairy King's Forest change throughout the seasons. I haven't illustrated that completely yet because there are images that need to be finished... But I do think the Forest looks different depending on the season. So they can mark the time of year by what's going on around them, like a game of Stardew Valley or something. Just like instant, overnight change to everything. And keeping track of seasonal cycles like that would make it easy to keep track of years, if it were, say, your entire JOB to pay attention to that kind of thing.

This wouldn't exactly tell a Fairy what day of the season it is, but since Fairies don't have agriculture or anything they don't exactly need to know when to plant and when to harvest and those kinds of things that ancient civilizations used this kind of time keeping for. That kind of specific date keeping probably isn't really necessary for them.

I do imagine they have holidays though, so maybe they do need some way of tracking days. But that's not too hard, lunar cycles work for that. 12 cycles in a year, 3 cycles per season. Knowing what phase the moon is in and when it was full last, combined by knowing what season you're in can tell you what day of the year it is.

So a Fairy putting today's date on something might look like "84th of Summer" or "3rd New, Summer". Roughly anyway. The new moon is in two days. Could say something like "3rd Half, Waning, Summer" or "3rd Crescent, Waning, Summer" since the current moon phase is technically a Waning Crescent. But if you just look up at the sky tonight the moon will probably look close enough to new that I don't know how much that specification matters.

As far as the year goes, it would depend on when the Fairies started keeping track of time, obviously. And I don't know when that be exactly. Whenever Gloxinia decided that was something he wanted to know I guess... probably whenever the Holy War started. It's only ever said 3000 years ago, but it's probably not literally that on the button, so I suppose I could pick just about any number between 3 and 4 thousand. I'll worry about that one if it ever comes up...

#seven deadly sins #nanatsu no taizai #seven deadly sins au #nanatsu no taizai au #7ds #nnt #7ds au #nnt au #7ds fairy #nnt fairy #heacanons #SDS-RBF-215* #This is actually how *I* keep time #Well I own a regular calendar #But I pay attention to the moon phases and I divide my year by season rather then following what the calendar says exactly #which actually makes me usually a kind of wrong #since normal calendars actually do label the season by lunar cycle and I don't #I suppose the Fairies would actually use the equinoxes and solstices #for me March April and May are Spring #June July and August are Summer #September October and November are Autumn #and December January and February are Winter #So my new year is on March 1st rather then January 1st #but the Fairies' new year would be March 20th #yeah def not doing stars #it was hard enough to figure out the moon