HIS DARK MATERIALS FANWEEK 2020 Day 3 ∣ Favourite Dæmon / HESTER (in Once Upon A Time In The North)

so, post-canon…

Capheus wins the election, of course he does. He wins re-election, too…but probably not the one after that. It’s difficult, you see, to be the face of anti-corruption when your father-in-law is a drug lord.

He stays in politics, though. Zakia needs someone to drive her tour bus. 

Wolfgang and Felix go with the India Plan, and the story is that, after the scare of Kala being shot, she and Rajan hired this scary-looking Germans as bodyguards. After a year or so, Kala’s parents suspect something but would rather not think about it and Rajan’s father is oblivious. 

They’re all pretty good at keeping up the act - Felix is surprisingly fantastic at covering for the three of them - but now and then, someone will approach Rajan and suggest, sometimes genuinely sympathetically, that his wife might, just maybe, be…

Rajan is amazing at looking shocked and offended that you would even imply this about his beautiful wife. Of course she is perfectly honest, and their marriage has never been steadier! How dare you!

They have two daughters. The second is conspicuously light-skinned. People have almost given up commenting.

Lito has like two weeks in the middle of filming where he’s half-convinced that Hernando is going to leave him for Blake Huntington, because Blake can talk about Kant and metaphor and all those things that make Lito love Hernando so much but he Does Not understand. Hernando, of course, is stifling completely irrational spikes of rage every time he watches Lito kiss Blake, because…it never bothered him when it was women, you know, because he knew Lito wasn’t really interested. That it could never be real. But not only is Blake Huntington, well, Blake fucking Huntington, 3-time Academy Award winner, hot as a steaming griddle, and clever and educated to boot, but he’s male and Lito is out, and playing this role that is 50% his own story anyway, and here’s Blake being the love of his life… Meanwhile, Lito is off crying on a pillow somewhere because Hernando and Blake were talking about Proust…

Dani sorts this out by

a) shutting them in the bedroom until they talk to each other, and

b) sleeping with Blake Huntington and claiming dibs by right of First Bang. 

she also, incidentally, prints cards for herself as an agent, and gets a lot of calls

The whole cluster, plus friends and family, flies to LA for the opening night of Iberian Dreams. Lito spends half of it full-on sobbing, at his own acting and more importantly because his dream is coming true. 

The only one crying harder is Bug. 

Nomi and Amanita stay in San Francisco, for the most part. They take a lot of romantic vacations to visit their family around the world, and take turns bringing each other coffee and pastries while they co-write a fictionalized, urban fantasy version of their story. Because even if the details need to stay secret, there are some things you need to say loud and proud. 

Sun and Mun probably get married eventually, but they never have biological human children. They have a lot of dogs, and eventually Mun gets shot one too many times and she convinces him to quit the force and go work in a dojo. He loves it. Sun, meanwhile, is back at Bak, rebuilding her family name and doing finance by day and fistfights by night. The other fighters know her now, though. As do the kids Mun trains. It’s a really great extended family. 

Will does not move to Iceland so much as move to Riley, and Riley’s home is Iceland but she cannot stay there, not always. Fortunately, there are clubs all over Europe that will open the doors and vive la resistance for Riley Blue. 

In only a few years, she is pregnant again - though not with a child this time. With eight. 

They go home for this. She has nightmares, of the car and the frozen hill and the empty church in equal parts. 

It is nothing like that. They are on the beach, because it felt right, righter than her living room. Will holds her hands, as do Nomi, Lito, Sun, Capheus, Kala, Wolfgang. The sun is setting, but it is summer in Iceland; it is warm. Around the world, eight other people open their eyes and see the sunset as well, and their mother exhausted but smiling.

They will never be hunted. 

Eurasian Otter Traits:

Playful, Intelligent, Defensive, Protective, Social, Charming, Resourceful, Fun-loving, Adaptable, Night-Owl, Mischevious

Some concepts:

Boys who teach their non-witch boyfriends about witchcraft

Boys who aren’t witches but still get excited everytime their witch bf talks about witchcraft

Boys who become witches together and practise everything with each other

Boys buying each other witchcraft supplies and drawing sigils on them

Boys making personal sigils for each other

Witch boys supporting each other’s craft and practising together to grow as individuals

Bee memes, or beemes. On corporeality.

(Worry not, fair reader! She loves me. She just won’t admit it. :3c)

Rereading/reading His Dark Materials can be so satisfying as a daemian because of stuff like this; because you know exactly what it's like to have them "call you silently", because you also clock their form at any given moment...seeing those experiences in print is nice.

shitty memes are my specialty

Finding Your Daemon

Within the daemon community you will discover that there are many ways people communicate and co-exist with their daemon. How these same individuals found their “brain buddy” is just as unique. Some may have created with intent or gave an identity to their internal dialogue, and others reached out into the void seeing what came forward, while some daemons have been there as long as they can remember or spontaneously came into their life. Before you begin, I would like you to leave behind your doubt. I know, I know, easier said than done. But keep in mind when reaching out to a daemon doubting yourself and your intuition will only hinder their progress and cause you unneeded stress. 

 Before you delve into daemonism stop and think about what you expect from this new relationship. Is it companionship, self-improvement, someone to keep you on track, or any other unlimited number of things? Is there a specific job or role you have in mind? If you don’t know or feel unsure about assigning a role, they luckily do not need a purpose to be a daemon so please enjoy the experience and worry less about the “should and should not"s of the practice. Keep in mind you may find your daemon has other plans or expectations for the relationship. They may feel what is best for you is addressing issues you may be avoiding or repressing, or they could be harsher than you had wished, or say things that can hurt. Those instances are extremely rare and far more often than not a daemon is going to work perfectly in sync with you, be kind, supportive, and our defender against negative and intrusive thoughts. If you find when you reach out to your daemon they cause any kind of negativity pause and think about if there is something you are upset with or need to work on. Is this something you can do alone or is your daemon exactly what you’ve been needing to get through it? Daemonism is about building a relationship with yourself, and while some relationships are a piece of cake others require work and are far more complex than we were expecting.

The exercise below will be focused on reaching into the void to find your daemon. This may be quick or take quite a few tries so don’t beat yourself up if it doesn’t go as you hoped. Experience in similar concepts or what an individual is comfortable with will greatly influence how easily someone may reach out to their daemon for the first time. Are you use to talking to yourself? Daydreaming? Are you more visual, verbal, or emotion driven? You know your brain better than anyone else so I recommend starting with a process that sounds familiar to you. I will also be referring to your daemon in this exercise as a single entity but you may find as you reach out you could have more than one. I recommend the standard duo pair of human and daemon as it is much easier to build your skills with a single target. This is only a recommendation, and not a rule, as I would never dream of driving a hopeful daemon away.

No matter if you believe daemons to be spiritual, mental constructs, a combination of the two, or external beings you can utilize this exercise. If these do not work for you or are uncomfortable feel free to change and adapt the method to meet your needs. If after a while you are still struggling to make a connection please seek out other methods people have used within the community. Like creating a template for their daemon’s form and personality that will change and adapt as the daemon grows. Those may connect better with you and that’s okay!

If you have stumbled upon daemonism for the first time there are many good references out there to clarify exactly what a daemon is. Here are a couple sources.

https://daemonsandanalyses.tumblr.com/daemons

https://ofthoughtformsanddaemons.tumblr.com/post/187624346048/daemonism

https://ofthoughtformsanddaemons.tumblr.com/post/159859058403/spiritual-daemonism

Exercise: Your daemon’s essence and location inside your body (Great for when you cannot hear your daemon)

Keep reading

THIS IS SO IMPORTANT

Simon’s friends in the movie were so mean to him. After he was blackmailed they left him on the sidewalk in tears. And were straight up RUDE. 

Simon’s friends in the book were so fiercely protective of him. After martin outed him they stayed by his side and glared at anyone who even looked at him sideways Abby nearly beat up some bully’s and they all stayed with him nearly the entire day to make sure he was okay.

Conclusion book Simon’s friends deserved all the love and movie Simon’s friend’s do NOT.

this has been a psa 

Predator/Carnivorous Dæmon Profiling: some of my long-winded thoughts

One of my biggest pet peeves in the dæmon community is the characterization of prey animals as being gentle/good, and predator animals being mean/bad. This is not an everybody-does-this kind of thing, by the way, but it crops up sometimes. It’s an easy trap to fall into (heck, I’ve done it before), and this isn’t an accusation towards people who personality-type this way. This is mostly to help A) newer or confused dæmons, B) start a discussion, and C) let me rant.

            I think one of the largest hurdles when dealing with characterizing predator dæmons is working through what it means for a dæmon to be carnivorous. To best do this, let’s look at why some animals evolved to eat meat rather than plant matter. In the simplest terms, meat, and especially organ meat, are incredibly nutrient-rich compared to pretty much all plant matter. Herbivores spend the vast majority of their days foraging for food, eating that food, and then repeating the process. If you’ve ever had a pet like a goat, cow, or horse, you know how long they’ll spend grazing, if you let them. While herbivores expend comparatively little effort meeting their nutritional requirements, the payoff is also relatively low; that’s why they’re forced to spend so much time eating. Consider, then, that while herbivores trend towards low risk—low reward, carnivores trend towards moderate/high risk—high reward. When examined in this way, it’s easier to see that predatory/carnivorous dæmons are people who work based on efficiency above all else. While I noted the possibility of “high risk”, what carnivorous animals really want is to put in the least amount of effort for the highest amount of payoff. This is why they frequently target the old, the young, the sick, the weak, and the slow; if a carnivorous animal can avoid putting in excess effort, they will. Also, fun fact! Most herbivorous animals can and will eat meat if it is made available to them. They might not be able to eat much of it, but they can digest at least a little bit. It’s actually quite common for herbivores to eat meat (birds, rodents, frogs, lizards, even carrion), so if you want to put some kind of moral judgment dæmon-wise on carnivores because they eat other animals, it’s going to have to extend it to herbivores, too.   

            When it comes to profiling dæmons, I understand that a certain amount of anthropomorphizing animals is required to do so accurately. However, I think sometimes people in the dæmon community take this to the extreme. I do get it—when you’re anthropomorphizing one animal, you’re obviously going to anthropomorphize them all, so the circle of life previously untethered from morality comes out a little more murder-y. Here’s the thing though: there is no such thing as sadism in the animal kingdom. The closest thing I can think of is animals that envenomate their prey and then follow them until they die so they can eat them (like Komodo dragons), but even in those cases this is, again, a case of a predator using the lowest risk action to gain the highest reward. And like, I do get it. Animals dying is sad! It’s violent, and brutal, and often extremely bloody! We all feel bad for Bambi, but that isn’t very helpful when it comes to dæmon profiling.

I frequently see predators characterized as vicious, when what they actually are is vulnerable. Predators aren’t competitive over territory and breeding rights because it’s fun, they’re competitive because if they lose their territory they will likely die. Without a safe area for them to live and hunt, they will probably starve or be killed, so when predators act aggressively towards other animals or people, they’re usually doing so out of desperation. Predators in particular have to be extremely careful about what fights they pick; as a general rule, they want to avoid conflict. Serious injuries are a death sentence to predators in a way that they aren’t even to prey animals, because predators are on a ticking clock to heal fast enough that they can hunt again, or they’ll starve to death. If a lynx were to somehow break its leg, that’s it, that animal’s life is over, so if a predator is willing to actually fight over a resource, they’re doing so because they have no other choice. The general list of what predatory animals will fight over can usually be summed up as follows: breeding rights, cubs/babies (if they have them), food, territory. These are the essentials of the animal kingdom, so to speak. To put this into perspective for why this list matters in regard to dæmons, people with predator dæmons will not be constantly aggressive, or evil, or cruel. For the most part, predator dæmons are very conflict-adverse, and will only involve themselves if said conflict directly affects them and/or something that holds an extremely high value for them.

            Now, that being said, most predators are also opportunists. A pack of wolves will go after a human like they would a deer because humans are, generally speaking, relatively easy to kill. While we may attach a moralistic perspective on that killing because as humans, we relate to said prey, these hypothetical wolves are just trying to meet their needs in the way that is the least strenuous and least likely to result in them being injured. This is a characteristic which often gets labeled selfishness—which I’m not denying that it can be—but which I think might be better labeled as individualism. I’ve seen people describing carnivorous dæmons as taking care of themselves at the expense of others, but often times what they’re referring to is an anthropomorphized approach to carnivorous behavior. I personally think this is a bit lazy and doesn’t get at the heart of what predator dæmons are like, because predator dæmons do invest in themselves above others (especially for animals that are lone hunters), but it isn’t because they kill other animals; it’s because, as I mentioned before, they’re inherently vulnerable. I’ve seen people refer to predator’s natural prey drive (such as tigers in zoos stalking patrons, or wolves overkilling livestock) as a sign that people with predatory dæmons are constantly looking to fuck someone else over, but the reality is that predatory animals (and therefore dæmons) are simply extremely aware of how vulnerable they are, and will take every occasion to meet their own needs, especially if that can happen without them needing to put themselves at risk.

            So how do we translate this into dæmonism? Mostly with a lot of generalizations and patience. Generally speaking, carnivorous/predatory dæmons are conflict-averse, efficiency-based, need/interest-focused people. Despite the aggression stereotype, most predator dæmons just want to be left alone, and will likely only engage if they feel like or someone/something extremely important to them is being threatened (this is slightly less true for animal forms that are group hunters, as they have a wider support network to fall back on and can manage more risky behavior). Predators are also efficient animals, and dæmons of the same kind will reflect that. This means that people with predator dæmons won’t usually be inclined to expend effort unless they’re actively gaining something of high value from it. This doesn’t mean that people with predator dæmons can’t be active, it just means they aren’t likely to take on a challenge without a sufficient reward waiting for them at the end. Predators dæmons are also going to be need/interested-focused, which I tend to translate into predator dæmons having a few categories of things that are actively important to them; it might be their career, their family, their hobby, whatever. These categories tend to overlap, and become the main concerns for people with predator dæmons’ happiness. Everything outside of those specific concerns don’t matter overly much to people with predator dæmons. If something doesn’t directly affect a person with a predator dæmon, they probably don’t care. This is where the selfish characterization comes in, and while it isn’t wrong, I think it lacks the awareness that the downside to this blasé attitude predator dæmons carry towards things outside their interest is that, should that person lose any of the things they consider vital to their own life, they will experience a huge amount of upheaval and distress. This is what makes them vulnerable. A lion needs to eat, you know? And if a predator dæmon can’t feed themselves (metaphorically speaking), they’ll waste away. These three traits (conflict-aversity, efficiency, need/interest-focus) all tie into one another, and present a person who will likely only take on challenges in their own life if they can either do so without significant risk to their personal comfort, or see the potential reward as worth significant possible loss. So, it’s a somewhat contradictory personality that stems from wanting the best for the lowest price.

            Just some disclaimers, since anyone who’s read this far deserves them! Not all predator dæmons are going to meet this personality type exactly. Predators higher on the food chain, and predators that hunt in groups are going to be more prone to risky behavior than lone hunters, and predators lower on the food chain, generally speaking. There are also outliers, as with any broad category (fisher cats have successfully killed lynxes, those little bastards do not fuck around). A lot of omnivores also get stuck in the carnivore/predator category, when they can, but don’t always follow the same personality type (some bears do, like black bears, but not all). So, while I hope this essay/rant helps people, I also hope that anyone who reads this understands that personality-typing dæmons is complex, so if you feel like this doesn’t apply to a form, don’t worry about it. Or, hey, reply to this and let me know. If anyone thinks I’m completely wrong, I’d also be curious about your take on predator/carnivorous dæmons. 

Me: *is on the phone to a relative*

Me: *sees Pan out of the corner of my eye*

Me: don’t do it..

Pan: 👀

Me: don’t. Do. It.

Pan:........

Me:

Pan: *starts wiggling violently and making me laugh*

*when we get off the call*

Me: but was that necessary though?

Pan: absolutely.