dragon-and-daemon

[dragon-and-daemon]

Not to proselytize or anything, but boy do I have some good news for you about a thing called daemonism

...No seriously though, go check out daemonpage.com and daemonpage.com/forum; we may not be able to have physical daemons but nonphysical ones is well within the realm of possibility

fucked up sick and twisted that daemons aren’t a thing in real life. i want a little guy

[dragon-and-daemon]

Helped me with sensory overload by giving me a non-physical sound to focus on and drown out the physical senses overloading my brain

Helped me learn what matters to me when it comes to my sense of self and identity

Given me someone to rubber-duck my emotions and my writing out with when my friends aren’t available

Dæmons Have...

Shown me there is more to reality than meets the eye.

Been there for me when I couldn't stand for myself

Taught me how to love myself

Given me a community to call home

[dragon-and-daemon]

I have a friend whose daemon is currently in a similar form to that of their kintype. They know that the daemon isn't exactly the same as their kintype, but seeing as how their kinself is a past version of them, their daemon kind of developed with a personality similar to that.

That makes sense!

@fluffnstuffq Since this is directly related to your post!

[dragon-and-daemon]

Probably the best source for daemonism information is the website and forum it was created on/by, daemonpage.com and daemonpage.com/forum! There’s also a couple of Discord communities out there.

What I can say is objective truth on the matter: The daemian and otherkin communities overlap heavily, but they’re not inherently connected. They arose separately, although they share a good chunk of history, and although both share a passion for self-examination and introspection, ultimately they’re separate communities that for the vast majority of people probably serve different purposes.

What’s my subjective opinion: Your daemon could hypothetically share the same form as a kintype, but that doesn’t mean your daemon is your kintype - personally I don’t think I would be able to reconcile that with otherkinity being a personal identity and daemons being partially separated beings. Yes, a daemon is a part of you, but they’re a part of you given partial separation and fauxtonomy, and that just.. doesn’t make sense with a kintype. I wouldn’t be able to separate Rani from myself as a daemon, because I am Rani; I am inherently dragon and trying to extricate that from any other part of my identity would be impossible.

However, I guarantee you’ll find at least one person who’s both otherkin and a daemian who disagrees with me on that, because daemonism is a little different for everyone and there’s no “wrong” way to do daemonism (and that’s good!). I’d be fascinated to hear the opinion of someone who does think their daemon could be a kintype as well, and how that would work for them within the frameworks of both communities.

Does anyone know any good sources to learn about daemonism? Preferably including guides and anectodes.

I don’t know. Having a mental construct to talk to seems right up my alley.

Also, I get mixed answers from whoever I ask, but does daemonism have any relation to otherkin? I know they’re separate, but in what ways do they intersect? Can one of your kintypes be a daemon as well?

I just wanna learn, man-

[dragon-and-daemon]

Friendly neighbourhood reminder that in the world we live in being settled has nothing to so with if your daemon personally chooses to change form day to day.

[dragon-and-daemon]

Honestly that makes a lot of sense, especially considering that even in the daemonism community where daemons exist but definitely haven’t been a part of humanity since the dawn of time, some people use semiplural first-person pronouns to refer to themself + their daemon (wei/muis/muir/muirs/muirself or muirselves)! The semiplural pronouns were coined for the use of median systems, but they can also apply to other situations, including daemians and daemons. (Link to a post by the coiner of the pronoun set)

A Thought:

If daemons really existed, and had really been a part of humanity since the dawn of time, then it seems to me like most (if not all) languages would have evolved pronouns to reflect that.

You’d think most if not all languages would have a human-body-only pronoun (“he took down the glass from the shelf”), a daemon-only pronoun (“he took off with a powerful wingbeat”) and an entire-being, human-daemon combo pronoun (“they left early this morning”) that could be used to refer to a singular human-daemon pair as opposed to multiple human-daemon pairs.

(And it would make sense, since most humans and their daemons differ in gender, for that singular-pair pronoun to be genderless, but tbh they would probably be flavored by the human’s gender at least some of the time, because we can’t have nice things.)

This post brought to you by a writer and fan of daemon AUs who gets sick of playing with pronouns, thanks for your time.

[dragon-and-daemon]

"You live in a society" FUCK YOU

Inspired by this by @isashi-nigami / @daemonduo

[Reblogs are appreciated. Please do not repost without permission.]

[dragon-and-daemon]

People actually read the 30 days of daemonism posts? I got frustrated with those because people just answer then forget about them, no discussion gets generated from them, nobody comments on anybody's answers.

Honestly, same - I didn’t think anyone actually kept track of them either

[dragon-and-daemon]

Okay I’m not gonna lie though, I have it and I’ve tried it and it’s been frighteningly accurate all things considered

You know what would be cool? An alethiometer tarot deck.

[dragon-and-daemon]

[dragon-and-daemon]

Yo do you plan on finishing that 30 days of daemonism challenge? It's just we're a small community and others' answers are fun to read :3

local daemian completely forgot that existed, more at 7

(possibly but probably not at this point in time honestly, sorry! xD)

[dragon-and-daemon]

having a daemon is all about self love, baby!! it’s about love yourself!!! that’s what it’s all about! & that’s that on that!

[dragon-and-daemon]

I've been wondering about something for a while. If you see Locke as a manifestation of your soul, then why isn't he a dragon?

Oh boy, this is a fun one.

Essentially, we’ve determined that kintypes are literal, and daemon forms are (generally, and definitely for us) symbolic or figurative. To elaborate on that:

I am a dragon. I identify myself as “dragon” in a very literal way. However, even if it were possible to run my species through the TDF analysis system (which it’s not, I don’t have enough information on our behavior/culture and we were/are sapient anyway which renders us unviable for being an analytic form), I wouldn’t necessarily expect that analysis to fit my personality traits. Furthermore, taking a dragon form usually feels definitively weird to Locke, for reasons we can’t quite put our fingers on - possibly because of the sapience thing - so we knew right off the bat it wasn’t his settled form.

I do not identify as a red-ruffed lemur. I am not a red-ruffed lemur in any literal sort of way. However, red-ruffed lemurs have behaviors that line up extremely well with my personality traits when run through the TDF analysis system, and it “feels right” to Locke, so we accept that as our settled form.

Honestly, there’s also a question of whether we do see Locke as a manifestation of my soul. He’s certainly a part of me, but we’ve debated whether or not that’s a soul-part or purely a psychological part (and whether there’s a difference between the two) basically since the start of this adventure together without coming to any real conclusion. So...  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Out of curiosity, any other otherkin daemians - do your kintype(s) and your daemon(s)’ settled form(s) match or not? What are your thoughts on this? How do you feel about your daemon taking the form of your kintype?

[dragon-and-daemon]

A Guide to Dæmons, Sexuality, and Gender

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.

In summary: dæmons do not derive their gender from their human’s gender nor their sexuality, and dæmon gender is an entirely separate category.

[dragon-and-daemon]

I took a "What Is Your Daemon?" quiz bc Scully and I were curious and the results were an anteater. Guess who had to shift into that form the second she saw it?? 😂

Wild xD I took a similar one (probably the same one; it’s been going around) and got the german shepherd! Locke wasn’t super enthused but it’s also not inaccurate xD

[dragon-and-daemon]

What do you think it would be like to meet up with other dæmians? Could you tell when and where a dæmon is projected? Would we all be a bunch of dorks holding doors open for each other extra long haha

Honestly? Dream scenario, second only to “otherkin meetup” in terms of community meetups for me. (So not counting meeting, like, Internet friends.) I don’t imagine we could inherently tell where and when other peoples’ daemons are projected, however I imagine we’d probably be much more likely to pick up on subtle cues (people looking at/gesturing to apparently empty spots of air) that others would blow right past. Also, I imagine that speaking for your daemon would be a lot less awkward in a group where everyone’s doing that and where it’s just considered part of the norm.

Also everyone knows that daemians hold doors open longer than other people that’s just how we are :P

[dragon-and-daemon]

I really really hope this doesn't come across as rude but have you ever encountered someone with a daemon form that hunts your daemon form? Because hi

I mean, not all that much eats red-ruffed lemurs, so no, but *waves* hi!