Lyra and the Dustlings

I know the popular term is “cieday” but, that word just never clicked with us, so we call it his birthday instead. I asked Semaphore what he wanted and he said cake (but of course). So I bought us a slice of black forest cake, sang Happy Birthday, and enjoyed our dessert-turned-lunch :3 It was really good too! Not too heavy or overly sugary. Because we were eyeing up the “death by chocolate” cake 👀... hahaha, really not something we need to be eating!

A little short notice - but time for a 2021 His Dark Materials fan week to round out the year! Get thinking, and get creative; this fandom never ceases to amaze me.

The days are as follows:

Day 1 (December 25): A favourite minor character

Day 2 (December 26): A favourite place

Day 3 (December 27): A favourite object

Day 4 (December 28): A favourite moment in The Amber Spyglass

Day 5 (December 29): A favourite adaptational change (from any adaptation - play, radio play, movie, graphic novels, TV show...)

Day 6 (December 30): A favourite non-canon ship

Day 7 (December 31): Free choice

The Golden Compass + Cut Scenes which they didn’t even have the courtesy of including in the DVD Bonus features 

back in april last year i started making a fic and i worked on it during break time between classes and now it’s been running for almost a year. i don’t really like to advertise because it’s really something that belongs to me. like one of those “i’m writing this for myself but you’re welcome to read” type of works. its a personal gift to myself because i could never find anything like this before and it’s a gift to my friends. but i’ll be brave and put it out there. it’s also partially fueled by pure spite and fueled by pure love. and also really really weird (like me lmao)! this fic ended up being really hard to categorize for ao3 for a few reasons

most of the hdm fics on ao3 are daemon aus but this isn’t a au of anything since every character that shows up is a oc i made

this fic is taking place in the hdm multiverse but not in any world that’s actually mentioned in canon. i made up characters and i made up a whole world because there’s literally infinite worlds out there if that’s true in hdm and you could make up a world and call it fanon. so is it really his dark materials? none of the hdm characters show up either except maybe in urban legends and mentions of historical events

it’s a slice of life fanfic with only ocs, original world, fanon in universe rules (haha listen pullman made rules for his worlds but this is a multiverse and things can always be different) includes headcanons about things that may or may not have a slight chance of being true, references to concepts that have happened irl and also. memes. and normal teenage life, no saving the multiverse just chilling and having existential crises instead and looking up at the moons and stars.

so i did what any star wars fan who’s used to things like that would do and made a new ao3 his dark materials tag called His Dark Materials: Expanding Multiverse. i stand by this decision!

if anyone were to make transformative works similar to mine or with a structure like it then in order to indicate that this fic isn’t about canon hdm characters or about canon hdm worlds if you’re into that sort of thing

Expanding Multiverse implies exactly that! additional or created universes in the unused multiverse of hdm. i say unused because literally pan and kirjava see more worlds do lyra or will do and we don’t get to see them actually experience them? that sucks. but this is a big opportunity to start making our own stuff!

i know (even though it’s dumb) some people may end up not liking this. people in this fandom in particular are really attached to big canon events and canon pairings. it shows in most of the fanfic that’s written about it. mine sticks out with a crocodile in the middle of a family of bunny rabbits. people may not also like that i broke concepts like how the multiverse “works” and dæmons over my knee and put the pieces back together. there are some people that actually think that a adaptation is a insult to the author i can’t fanthom how they’d feel about this but i can say: grow up! people have been writing fanfics as a creative fuck you to authors since the dawn of time and people will keep doing it. me (and one of my friends) got sick of only ever finding a wall of the same pairing or a wall of daemon aus. this fic is made with love for characters and world but it also has Big I Don’t Give a Fuck Energy. it’s called Fan Fiction for a reason

in all, if your HDM fic includes fanon universes as a main setting, original characters, fanon concepts based on hdm but not hdm canon, doesn’t feature main characters or secondary from hdm canon or your fic really likes playing around with those concepts? this tag is for you! right now it’s not showing up on ao3 unless i search from my fic so if you’ve been harboring works like these let them out! i want to read them so bad! this is one of the main reasons mine exists now, i could never find anything else like it. maybe this will make things easier for people who write things like this? hopefully! have fun 🌟

unlike rabbits, a baby hare can run, fight, or flee almost immediately after birth.

hmmm this his dark materials fanmade animated trailer is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen this year… wow

i havent stopped thinking about mary/marisa (his dark materials) since i saw the ep on monday and they occupy all the space in my brain.

various more mary/marisa things, the ripe pickings of the monkey being all OVER mary at any chance he can get is just too good.

mary/marisa his dark materials, first time mary touches monkey,

Hello!

We are still fairly new to daemonism and I may have interacted with you anonymously under the name Stoaty but I've decided to come out my shell (maybe my form should be a tortoise?) and dedicate a blog to daemonism so I can interact with people a bit more.

I read His Dark Materials a couple of years ago and, like most people, ended up longing for a Daemon. With the TV series being made, more daemon quizzes appeared which were fun but never felt accurate. Eventually I did one that said I was a stoat and I had my standard knee jerk reaction of thinking this doesn't fit at all. I think part of me was hoping that one of these quizzes would say I had a "cool" daemon like a panther or falcon or even a pine marten (my personal favourite of mustelids. I was delighted when that's what pan settled as) but I couldn't stop thinking about the stoat. I began looking into daemonism and discovered the difference between Symbolic and Analytical forms. The more I thought about the stoat the more I felt that it was actually a very good balance between symbolic and analytical for me and it was a very comfortable form. I ended up following a bunch of daemonism blogs and became more serious about my daemon, seeing him take form in my every day life, singing in the car with me, helping me at work and cuddling up to me as I fell asleep.

We've been like this for the past few months but his name eluded me. I knew in HDM parents' daemons named their children's daemons but I couldn't exactly ask my mum and dad to name an invisible daemon. After an ask to @oliverthedaemon about how they had discovered their name it gave me an idea and I ended up asking my mum what she would have named me if I'd been born a boy. She didn't have a particular name in mind but knew she'd have wanted a Scottish name (I had also wanted a Scottish or Greek name for my daemon) and she mentioned the name Hamish. At first I wasn't sure but, like his form, it just kind of stuck to me and ended up feeling really comfortable.

So that's how we came to be.

Let’s first get this out of the way: being gay does not automatically mean your dæmon is the same sex as you. Are we good? All on the same page? Lovely. The whole idea behind gay people having a same-sex dæmon came from a singular character who was implied to be gay in the books, who also had a same-sex dæmon, and as far as I’m aware, Pullman has neither confirmed nor denied any theories regarding sexuality and dæmons. Even if he has, there are times when disagreeing with an author about their work is absolutely acceptable, and this would be one.

When examining dæmon genders in regards to human sexuality, I think it’s important to look at why dæmons come out a certain gender. I’ve seen a lot of theories floating around, one of the most popular ones (that I’ve seen, maybe it’s changed though) having to do with balance. For example, a masculine person needing a feminine dæmon to even them out. I wholeheartedly reject this idea, in part because it’s a bit derogatory, as it implies that gay men are feminine and gay women are masculine, therefore needing a dæmon of the same sex to even them out. I personally believe that when it comes to figuring out the gender of your dæmon, you should remove sexuality entirely.

When trying to decide what gender fits best, the consideration I think needs to be whether you’re more drawn to masculine or feminine energy (or other, but I’ll get back to that in a bit). Now, this doesn’t mean whether you’re attracted romantically/sexually to masculine or feminine people. It also doesn’t mean how you personally prefer to present. For example, I am female. I enjoy being feminine, acting feminine, and exuding feminine energy. However, I feel a strong connection to masculine energies, which is why I feel my dæmon is male. I like observing masculinity, hearing from the male perspective, and I also appreciate masculinity in part because I am not masculine. I appreciate the contrast to myself. For some people, they might feel very drawn to feminine energies, but again, this is not sexual or romantic. You could be a straight woman with a female dæmon because you simply prefer female energy, not because you dislike dick. A person might not want/need the contrast in gender the way I personally do, and that can be for so many reasons it isn’t even really possible to list them all.

Now, having gotten all that out of the way, I do think that non-straight people are more likely to have same-sex dæmons. A correlation rather than a causation, if you will. In part I think this has to do with non cis-het people generally being more flexible in their gender performance (this is a big generalization, I am aware, don’t bite my head off) and because of this, might be more comfortably with a same-sex dæmon. As I said before, sexuality/your gender does not directly determine your dæmon’s gender, but there will probably be a correlation.

If you’ve read this whole thing and are asking, well, what about me? I/my dæmon don’t fit under male or female? Then the answer is that honestly not much changes, but deciding how your dæmon portrays themselves may be more challenging.

For those of you who don’t identify as male/female (I understand that there are a large number of labels you could use, but for the sake of brevity I’m going to use genderqueer as an umbrella term) you can absolutely still have a dæmon that identifies as male or female. As I pointed out earlier, your gender does not inherently determine the gender of your dæmon. If you feel particularly drawn to female energies and are genderqueer, congratulations, you probably have a female dæmon.

In regards to dæmons being genderqueer/not fitting the traditional gender binary, this is also an option if you feel that your dæmon does not fit within the confines of the gender binary. You do not need to identify as genderqueer for this to affect your dæmon. Admittedly I don’t think of genderqueer dæmons as particularly common, but that certainly doesn’t mean that it can’t/doesn’t happen. Again, this would probably be more commonplace in queer safe spaces, but not always.

Onto some commonly asked questions:

Gender is, at its core, a social construct. If we accept this, why then do dæmons have to conform to any gender at all?

Well, they don’t. Besides, just because gender is a construct doesn’t mean it isn’t useful. Money has no inherent value, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t massively influence our daily lives. You may decide that the traditional gender binary doesn’t suit either yourself or your dæmon, but that doesn’t mean that those who feel it does ought to be belittled.

So, if I’m gay, is my dæmon the same gender as me?

Nope, not necessarily. You can be gay and have a same-sex dæmon if that feel right, but you can also have a dæmon of the opposite sex. Both are completely fine.

What if I’m straight? Can I still have a same-sex dæmon?

Yes, you can!

What if I’m bi/pan/ace/whatever, does that affect my dæmon’s gender?

Your dæmon’s gender is separate from both your gender expression and your sexuality. Therefore, whatever you identify as does not inherently affect what your dæmon will present as.

Do dæmons have sexuality?

This is a harder question to answer, and I’m going to go with a resounding “eh”. I don’t think dæmons would have sexuality in the sense of desiring to have sex with another dæmon—at the very least, I have never experienced this. I do, however, think that some dæmons would show a marked preference for the gender of the dæmon that belongs to their human’s romantic interest. For example, a dæmon might be drawn to male dæmons than female dæmons. Could this affect their human’s romantic/sexual endeavors? Yes, I think so. Maybe not overtly, but a dæmon that likes male dæmons might encourage their human to go after their preferred gendered partner who also has a dæmon that is the gender they prefer. Does that make sense?

I still don’t know what gender my dæmon is, how do I figure that out?

If after reading this you still aren’t clear, that’s totally fine! Gender is a very complicated topic that uses a lot of abstract language; dæmonism is the same. Put the two together and nobody knows what’s going on anymore. There’s no need to immediately gender your dæmon. You can play around with what gender they present as for as long as you want. A lot of this is very instinct and vibes based, so it really is just whatever feels right to you.

I used to think my dæmon was X gender and now I think they might be Y gender. Is that okay?

Yep! Totally okay. Who’s going to stop you, the dæmon police?

What if I don’t want to gender them at all?

Again, perfectly fine, and really, who cares? Is anybody going to break down your door and tell you to stop imagining a talking animal that does or does not conform to a certain gender? I highly doubt it, or else you’re living a much more exciting life than I am.

this was a long undertaking but i’m beyond excited to post what i believe is the most comprehensive daemon-finding quiz to date, featuring 34 categories of animals and over 320 total possible outcomes! from insects to owls to seals to wild cats, you’re sure to find a unique result that fits your personality.

tag or comment what your daemon would be! :) mine’s a cocker spaniel!

this is pretty heartbreaking for me since this was the first big quiz i ever did and i can’t edit it anymore because ex.co is on a subscription-only basis now — all of the links to the sub-quizzes were removed, i’m guessing ex.co doesn’t allow links in results now. a real bummer because it breaks the quiz. :(

for anyone who’s still taking this, attached are all of the subquiz links!

(I don’t know, guys. This thing just happened and demanded to be written. Excerpt from a college student’s sociology paper on daemon settlement.)

(Un)settled: An analysis of atypical patterns of daemon morphic fluidity

The ‘standard’ pattern of morphic fluidity in daemons is a bell curve[1], punctuated by the long tail of settled adulthood. The brief window of infant stability, transitioning to the rapid-fire shifts of childhood peaking around age ten, before slowly dropping to a stable set of preferred shapes and ending with settlement into a final adult form by the point of legal adulthood.

There is no public conception of non-traditional settlement except as a stigma, a moral failing. Non-traditional settlement is pathologized, treated as a sign of mental illness at best, moral depravity at worst. [2] This refusal to teach or consider other settlement patterns leaves many of the most vulnerable members of society out in the cold.

In this essay, I will discuss the most common alternate settlement patterns: delayed settlement, precocious settlement, two-stage settlement, long-phase polymorphic settlement, short-phase polymorphic settlement, traumatic resettlement, and traumatic unsettling.

Delayed and precocious settlement are both recognized medical conditions, akin to disorders related to puberty and development. [3] Two-stage settlement, polymorphic settlement, and trauma-based settlement patterns meanwhile fall under the umbrella of psychiatric disorders. [4]

Delayed settlement is defined medically as any daemon settlement after the age of sixteen, but is not considered ‘serious’ unless a daemon remains unsettled past the age of majority. The oldest recorded settling was Bazhenov Vyacheslav|Emiliya at 39 years old. [5]

Precocious settlement, on the opposite end of the spectrum, is daemon settlement before age thirteen.[6] Precocious settlement is most diagnosed in boys, despite studies [7] which suggest girls are three times as likely to settle precociously than boys are. The youngest recorded settlement was Faraji Shabani|Jahaira at five years old. [8]

Two-stage settlement, also known as ‘false settling’, is defined by the DSM-5 as ‘periods of involuntary quasi-settlement, where a daemon is morphically stable for a minimum of six months’.[9] The DSM-5 definition is not without controversy – proponents of neuro-morphic theory argue that ‘quasi-settlement,’ by definition, is only applicable to daemons who retain metamorphic ability. 10]

Long-phase and short-phase polymorphic settlement are marked by limited retention of metamorphic ability. Polymorphic daemons have a set range of forms – as few as two, or as many as twenty [11] have been recorded. In contrast to unsettled daemons, polymorphs often describe their shifts as involuntary or situation-based. (e.g. a polymorph is always a yorkshire terrier at home, but shifts to a husky while at work.) [12] The division between long and short phase polymorphs is largely artificial, useful more for describing the entire population than any one individual. A polymorph who shifts more than once a month is considered a short-phase, one who shifts less often is a long-phase. [13]