Here there be Daemons

[memester]

THE DAEMON MEME

In the universe of the His Dark Materials trilogy (or the movie The Golden Compass), every person has a creature called a daemon that accompanies them all their lives, and is emotionally and metaphysically a part of them. Daemons are often described as sort of external souls (while the part of the personality in a human's body is the spirit).

Basic Daemon Facts:

- They take the shape of animals
- They can talk, no matter what their shape
- Children's daemons can change form at will; around puberty they 'settle' and become one animal permanently
- Neither the person or the daemon chooses the final settled form, but it always reflects their personality (although not necessarily in obvious or simple ways)
- They are almost always the opposite sex as their human
- If a daemon feels pain, so will their person, and vice versa
- Being physically apart from one's daemon causes horrible emotional and physical pain
- Daemons frequently talk to and touch each other, in ways that reflect or complement their persons' interactions, but daemons talking to humans other than their own is considered strange, and touching humans not their own is extremely taboo; it generally occurs only between long-time lovers. Touching someone else's daemon without permission is a terrible violation.

How it works:

- Design a daemon for your muse and put as little or as much information as you like about them (shape, name, link to a picture or species wiki if you are so inclined) in a comment, with your muse's name and series in the subject.
- Check out other people's daemons and let your daemons interact too.

Comments

Kabal | Mortal Kombat | OTA

[hooked_on_kaballin]

[I am such a sucker for this meme. Anyway, Kabal's Daemon is a Sidewinder Rattlesnake named Nalani.]

Dr. Rowan O'Cleary | OC | OTA

[medicalling]

[Even the fae have daemons, and Rowan went through his long (so far) life with Rue; a fox that mostly showed her sun glow colouring, but any time Rowan delved too deeply into his Winter roots, her colouring matched his power. He only figured that out recently.]

Steve | Stranger Things | OTA

[the_hair]

[Most people suspect Steve's daemon is something small, easy to hide in a pocket or a sleeve, and he's happy to let them think that, mostly because he and Ursula have had to learn to have some distance between them.
She's definitely not as small as people think, and while she's smaller than an actual grizzly, she's still big enough to have carried Steve off after a fight or two.]

Shiny \ Fabulous Killjoys OC \ OTA

[twice_as_shiny]

[Shiny couldn't really remember what shape Ghost had been when they'd still been in the City, couldn't remember if he'd even existed then. But that hardly mattered now, because she knew the jewel-bright hummingbird was hers as much as she was his, and sometimes making sure he was safe and cared for was easier than taking care of herself, even though it amounted to the same in the end.]

Apollo | Inception OC | OTA

[apollodreaming]

[Hera was usually a reptile of some kind while she could still shift, and settled on a cobra before she'd settled on albino, having gone through a range of colors first. Interestingly, in dreams she shows up usually as some kind of fantasy lizard, a small dragon or wyvern, and usually a metallic cobalt blue.]

Chrissy Cunningham + Stranger Things + OTA

[cheerybomb]

[Before everything that happened, Simon was a corn snake, maybe a foot long, thinner than a garden hose and pale blue with pistachio-green mottling.
Now, however, he's longer than she is tall, thicker than her wrist, and a deep cobalt blue with a scattering of equally deep green scales across his face. He takes his job of protecting her very seriously.

Equally okay with 'everyone lived' as I am with 'back from the dead', whatever suits!
Also available as a dude at ccunningham if preferred, just let me know.]

Techie | Dredd | OTA

[clan_techie]

[Techie has Grace, a usually vibrantly yellow and green Leopard Moth, who keeps close, generally hidden up his sleeve or under his collar, mostly because MaMa Madrigal either tried (unsuccessfully) to sever them, or repeatedly threatened to, perhaps both.]

Ilya | Heated Rivalry | OTA

[doesnotblush]

[Raisa is a shrike, probably a Northern Shrike, she's small, grey, and can scream like a banshee when she wants to.
She's also at least twice as ready to throw down at any given time as Ilya is, the rage is stored in the bird, apparently.]

El | Weird Stuff Happens: The Series | OTA

[e11e]

[11a, now known as Lee, is still capable of shifting, though not as frequently or as widely as he could even just a couple of years ago. He tends to stick to mostly-wild animals that still aren't out of place in a town like Hawkins, rabbits, raccoons, opossums and even a fox sometimes.
Also available in 'found by the Munsons instead of Mike Wheeler' flavor at not_011, just let me know which version you'd prefer.]

Armitage Jade-Hux | Star Wars (AU) | OTA

[empires_heir]

[Kiorè is a crystal snake, and is usually doubly hidden by lurking under the collar of Armitage's coat or coiling around his wrist under the cuff, somewhere that even stray light refractions won't give her away.]

Shane Hollander | Heated Rivalry | OTA

[fluentinbird]

[I feel like stupid Canadian wolf-bird Loon is too on the nose, but I also feel like it's exactly perfect just for reasons.
Molly was probably good at being bigger things when he was a kiddo, something to just hide against when he got too anxious or the panic started to set in, but eventually they learned that smaller was actually better, and feathers made a good tactile sensation to focus on and drag himself out of it. She also just likes lurking.]

[akalily]

[ Hi just stopping by to say Shane with a loon named MOLLY is delightful. ;; Ilya would make fun of her name if he wasn't slightly terrified of her. ]

Pixel | Inception OC | OTA

[inkedchemist]

[Rocco might look big and tough, but he's mostly a sweetheart, the same way Pixel can be prickly at first, but does have everyone's best interests at heart. In dreams, he's always a different kind of dog, and never the same kind twice in a row.]

Torii | OC | OTA

[java_squirrel]

[Irving the chipmunk is usually perched on Torii's shoulder or sprawled on her head, occasionally tucked into a pocket or just perched on whatever mannequin or dress form she's using at the moment.
Sure, he looks like a chipmunk, but he's always some color not usually found in nature, or at least, not natural for a chipmunk.]

Eddie + Stranger Things + OTA

[jukebox_hero]

[People look at Eddie and expect his daemon to be something like a rat or a snake, maybe a bat to match the ones inked on his arm, maybe a spider, even.
No one expects Betty. Which is how they like it.]

Charles - Dead Boy Detectives - OTA

[just_aces]

[Do ghosts even have daemons any more? I feel like he's probably got the memory of one, at least, and she probably manifests the same way clothes do once in a while. My first instinct is cricket because of the bat and I love puns. But in truth I think probably a budgie, tiny, brightly colored, and sweary as fuck.
I'm also cool with alive!AUs, whatever works.]

Henry Stillman | X-Verse OC | OTA

[malesiren]

[Gator was generally curled around Henry's wrist -or sometimes his upper arm- like some kind of bangle during shows, but on the road or just off-stage, was most often tucked into a breast pocket or lurking under the collar of his jacket.]

Petit | X-verse OC | OTA

[prettylittlebunny]

[Bambi is a majestic creature, and neither he nor Petit will hear any argument to the contrary. He's a good lookout when she's working, and at least as fearless as she is when doing roof-level parkour.]

Mina / Urban Fantasy OC / OTA

[raisedgrimm]

[Jacobi settled as a raccoon early on, because Mina needed something that could keep her warm when they were traveling in cold places, but also needed something that had grabby hands for helping with first aid or carrying supplies or even locking doors and boxes. The two of them can stand to be fairly far apart if needed for a job, though they prefer not to do that.]

Rogue + Doctor Who + OTA

[roll_for]

[Crit, originally for 'Critical' and lately for 'Critique' had always been some kind of insect, and had settled as a brightly-colored beetle the size of a teacup well before Rogue had been in his current line of work. She was generally green, but in some light looked blue, or purple, and sometimes even black, a little bit like the reflections off of an oil slick.]

Edwin Payne - Dead Boy Detectives - OTA (M/M for romantic/smut but anything goes for platonic)

[technicallyhellbound]

[Feels a little too on the nose to say that his daemon is now a death's head moth, if ghosts even have daemons at all. But I'm going with it, because it's the first thing I thought of.
I'm down for alive-type AUs as well, if that's easier, it'll have to be compelling, though.]

Scott Hunter | Game Changers/Heated Rivalry

[outintheopen]

(( Scott's daemon is a red wolf named Kalli. She is loyal, nurturing, and fiercely protective ))

Dorian Storm | Critical Role C3 | OTA

[makingmyway]

(( Dorian’s daemon is a bluebird named Ottava. The feathers of her wings have an ombre blue-black gradient ))

[baron_badass]

Percy's daemon would normally eat birds like Ottava for a snack, so the young lord of Whitestone was surprised when his dire wolf Sata allowed the bird to nest in her fur and groom her.

The wounded lord should have seen that as a huge clue, but there was a clear difference between book smarts and emotional ones.

He is currently bent over his workbench working on some bits of clockwork occasionally looking up to watch the two creatures cuddle.

Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter | MCU

[ricochetingbullets]

[Up to date on DD:BA Season 2 but mark spoilers for others!

Dex's daemon is a Belgian Malinois named Cressida or Cress for short. Much like the stereotype of the dog daemon goes, she's ridiculously loyal to anyone she cares about and is very good at following orders. However, she actually has much more of a temper than Dex, who also has to occasionally hold her back from her more foolhardy instincts.

If you would like to play around with their mental health stuff, I've also got a scenario where Dex and Cress have a condition called Daemon Detachment Disorder or DDD. Often found in people with PTSD, ASPD, and other conditions which make it difficult for people and their daemons to properly bond emotionally. It's rare to find children who have it but those that do often have daemons that take an unusually long time to settle. The main symptom is that the "glue" that holds them together is weak, which means they can travel a very far distance from one another, a disconcerting sight that often leads to people shunning human-daemon pairs that have it due to a stereotype that such people are emotionally volatile or even insane in a violent way. Due to this reason, Dex and Cress have spent most of their lives trying to hide the fact they have DDD from everyone.]

Willow Park | The Owl House | OTA

[anything_grows]

(( Maybe an AU where a witch's daemon doubles as their palisman. So in Willow's case, hers is a bee named Clover ))

Igarak [Dark Urge] // Baldur's Gate 3 // OTA

[wasisweetonce]

[ Igarak's daemon is this majestic creature, a brown hyena named Serafina. They both suffer from amnesia, though she has a greater sense for when something feels familiar.

There was a long period of time when their bond was strained. Although neither of them can recall why, the effects of it linger. Serafina is the more openly caring of the two, quick to show her concern for him and try to mend that bond, while Igarak struggles to reciprocate. He is making an effort, though! ]

[lost_and_foundry]

There are three small moving bodies in the little room in the Last Light where Barcus has set up his makeshift workshop. One is him. One is His Majesty, who oversees the proceedings with quiet (sometimes) dignity. The third could just as well be His Majesty's shadow for how similar they look, but anyone who's traveled with the gnome by this point would recognize his daemon. Mustikka speaks to almost no one aside from her person, and her perpetual wide-eyed look suggests she's either scared of everything or enraptured with the wonder of it all.

At the moment, she's studying Jaheira's daemon in the next room, a deceptively small and sweet-looking shrike, but when Igarak and Serafina enter, she sniffs the air delicately, hops across the workbench and picks her way through assorted pieces and ingredients, and head-butts Barcus to alert him. Everyone gets +1 to perception checks with a daemon on their metaphorical shoulder.

"Mm? Oh." He looks over his shoulder and puts the book he was consulting down. "You made it! Well done. I was wondering when you'd get here."