#this got.... long

[pfhwrittes]

okay alright here we go. disclaimer here: i am not an expert on his dark materials. i am just a nerd that read the books at the age of 11 and fell in love with them. i have started to re-read them again as an adult but i can't find my copies of the subtle knife or the amber spyglass. things in this post will be wrong. i'm using the knowledge i have in my head. also, i'm going off the book lore, not the film (we do not speak of the film) or tv show lore.

also, there are spoilers under the cut for his dark materials.

so, for those of you that are unfamiliar with Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, daemons are a sentient animal companion that is a reflection of your soul/personality that appears when you are born. they can talk, have independent thoughts, express emotions, feel pain, and also have a telepathic link with their human counterparts.

pre-pubescent children's daemons can change shape/type at will. at the onset of puberty (or, it's heavily implied that trauma is a factor too) the daemon will "settle" into its adult/mature form and can no longer change shape.

in his dark materials lyra's daemon, pantalaimon, is shown to change forms multiple times during her childhood/adventures before "settling" into the form of a pine marten. pan commonly changes forms to represent a mouse, a small bird (a sparrow i think?), a dolphin when she was travelling via sea voyage, and the book referenced that pan turned into a dragon when playing with other children and their daemons too. daemons can and do express a preference for certain forms throughout childhood.

according to the books (please note the first was published in the 90s), daemons are most commonly the "opposite sex" to their human counterparts. so males would have a female daemon and vice versa, but it was noted in the books that an unnamed character was considered an oddity because his daemon was the same sex as him. so it's not unheard of, just uncommon (or at least, uncommon according to the author - but i digress. i'm not getting into gender stuff on this post. i'm trans. i have Other Thoughts regarding gender stuff and daemons but i'm trying to keep this as short as possible.)

important stuff to know about daemons that could be considered spoilers if you haven't read the books/watched the TV show (sidenote: do not watch the 2008 film. it's bad. it's so so bad.)

social etiquette is that humans do not touch another human's daemon. it's an exceptionally intimate act, usually reserved for familial/romantic relationships or incredibly close friendships.

daemons are usually named by the parent/guardian's daemons.

daemons can and do talk to each other, groom each other, play, cuddle, and otherwise interact with each other. it's not uncommon for children's daemons to get into scuffles with each other.

if you are hurt, your daemon will feel it. if your daemon is hurt, you will feel it. if someone else touches your daemon, you will feel it. (in the books it's described as a kind of paralysing, anxiety inducing sensation if someone with hostile intent touches your daemon.)

if the human dies, the daemon turns into Dust (they turn into a shower of gold sparks and float away). if a daemon turns into Dust before the human does the human may not necessarily die...

there is a finite distance with how far a daemon can travel away from their human. some types of daemons (birds, dolphins) can travel further than terrestrial daemons but that is entirely dependent on the size/motility of the daemon AND on whether or not the pairing have been Separated.

being Separated hurts. it's agonising. it's not something that most people or daemons would willingly choose to do but there are exceptions...

people are very much stereotyped on their type of daemon. for example, in his dark materials soldiers usually have canine-type daemons. "common" folk usually have "common" types of daemons but more wealthy/better educated/higher social classes have "uncommon" daemons. in his dark materials lord asriel's daemon is a snow leopard called stelmaria, marisa coulter's (a wealthy socialite) daemon is a golden monkey (unnamed in the books, but according to the tv show and radio adaptation is named ozymandias) compared to various staff members at jordan college who all have daemons like house sparrows or small dogs or cats.... make of that what you will.

so yeah, consider this a primer on daemons as inspired by his dark materials. hopefully i will be able to weave this lore (and some of my own headcanons) into the au i'm noodling away on for the 141!

[thatndginger]

Hey! Please tell me more about the mirrors! :D

I'm tagging @vcaudley in this since Ria also wanted to know ^.^ (Thank you both so much for feeding into my shenanigans)

The story of Kronos is a pretty easy one, right? Kronos the titan, god of time, who deposed and castrated his own father. [Interesting and relevant tidbit: Kronos may have been the god of time specifically viewed as a destructive, all-devouring force.] Anyway, Cronus, fearing the prophesy foretelling that he'd be deposed by his own son, devours all of his children with the titaness Rhea, goddess of motherhood and generations. But Rhea gives birth to her youngest son Zeus in secret, tricking Kronos with a swaddled rock, and Zeus grows up to depose his father and free his siblings.

What I'm proposing, and bear with me here, is that the story of Kronos can be a cyclical one. Kronos devours his son [ie destroys whatever made his son different from himself] and when he becomes a father himself, the son perpetuates the cycle and devours his own son. It's a role forced upon each generation. The more you fight it, the more painful your devouring becomes, so why fight it at all?

There's a quote from the play Elektra by Sophocles:

I always think of it when I am working on the Montrose family and their dynamics.

Laurent Montrose, current family head and rotten old bastard, is Kronos. He clings to power, despite his age, and does so with an iron fist and a cruel smile. He knows what makes the perfect Montrose leader, the perfect crime boss, and that is himself. He won't allow his descendants to be any less.

Caesar Montrose, son of Laurent, is another Kronos, molded and guided by his father. He knows his duty; that he must devour his son, to make him the perfect leader. It does not matter that he has not one, but four children. He will devour them all.

Xiaoli Yuen-Montrose, wife of Caesar, is Rhea. This one caught me a bit by surprise, because Xiaoli is every bit as mercenary and cold as her counterparts. But she is a mirror for Rhea. She watches Caesar devour two of their children, and decides that her youngest will be spared. And perhaps, by being spared, they will end this cycle of father devouring son.

Lucas Montrose, the eldest child of Caesar, is set to be another Kronos. He takes after Laurent, cruel and proud - and thanks to two generatons of Kronos before him, sees no other path for himself. His Rhea did not save him.

Adrien Montrose, youngest child of Caesar, is Zeus. The cycle breaker. Shielded by Rhea from Kronos' all-devouring force. Not completely, he still learned hatred and ruthlessness at his father's feet, but enough. Enough to give him strength to step out of the cycle, to say 'no more'. Strength to fight back against the three generations of Kronos trying to devour him.

Anyway, I realized that I have three different paintings of 'Saturn/Kronos Devouring his Son' by de Goya, Muttoni, and Rubens in my 'Montrose' folder, as well as 'Sacrifice of Isaac' by Caravaggio, 'Dante and Virgil' by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and 'The Struggle for Existence' by George Bouverie Goddard and they make me feel some kind of way towards this fucked-up family

I haven't decided what the eventual trajectory of Adrien's deposement of his grandfather/father/brother will be, but I have plans >:3

[itsscaredycat]

so ok yeah fine i watched gravity falls again and read the book of bill

[mintaii]

take responsibility

[kensatou]

make men slutty again.

HEAT STROKE | GQ CHINA Photographer: Wintam; Editor & Image: Shawn Gao Ding; Makeup: Lucas; Hair: Tao Liu; Art: Grade 2 & Lei Min; Art Assistant: Jiang Mi; Models: Kim; Ye Hao, Yu Hang, Ho Jun; Fashion Assistant: Yiyi, Coco; Photography Assistant: Li Zhenxi; Song Luanyi

bonus as rightfully added by @polyabathtub:

[buzzrds]

here's my wonderful isopod child, handcrafted in leather

[daeyumi]

I am what you made me 🩸

[eggwishing]

I ONCE TRIED TO WASH THAT SCUFFED OLD THING WHILE HE WAS TAKING ONE OF HIS NAPS, BUT WHEN I TOOK IT OFF HE WAS WEARING ANOTHER IDENTICAL ONE UNDERNEATH! AND ANOTHER! I GOT THROUGH TEN MORE LAYERS OF THE SAME THING BEFORE HE WOKE UP. I WAS SO FRUSTRATED! WHERE DID HE EVEN GET THOSE FROM? THEY ALL EVEN HAD THE SAME STAINS!!

[endusviolence]

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.

[tofixtheshadows]

I've been thinking a lot lately about how Kabru deprives himself.

Kabru as a character is intertwined with the idea that sometimes we have to sacrifice the needs of the few for the good of the many. He ultimately subverts this first by sabotaging the Canaries and then by letting Laios go, but in practice he's already been living a life of self-sacrifice.

Saving people, and learning the secrets of the dungeons to seal them, are what's important. Not his own comforts. Not his own desires. He forces them down until he doesn't know they're there, until one of them has to come spilling out during the confession in chapter 76.

Specifically, I think it's very significant, in a story about food and all that it entails, that Kabru is rarely shown eating. He's the deuteragonist of Dungeon Meshi, the cooking manga, but while meals are the anchoring points of Laios's journey, given loving focus, for Kabru, they're ... not.

I'm sure he eats during dungeon expeditions, in the routine way that adventurers must when they sit down to camp. But on the surface, you get the idea that Kabru spends most of his time doing his self-assigned dungeon-related tasks: meeting with people, studying them, putting together that evidence board, researching the dungeon, god knows what else. Feeding himself is secondary.

He's introduced during a meal, eating at a restaurant, just to set up the contrast between his party and Laios's. And it's the last normal meal we see him eating until the communal ending feast (if you consider Falin's dragon parts normal).

First, we get this:

Kabru's response here is such a non-answer, it strongly implies to me that he wasn't thinking about it until Rin brought it up. That he might not even be feeling the hunger signals that he logically knew he should.

They sit down to eat, but Kabru is never drawn reaching for food or eating it like the rest of his party. He only drinks.

It's possible this means nothing, that we can just assume he's putting food in his mouth off-panel, but again, this entire manga is about food. Cooking it, eating it, appreciating it, taking pleasure in it, grounding yourself in the necessary routine of it and affirming your right to live by consuming it. It's given such a huge focus.

We don't see him eat again until the harpy egg.

What a significant question for the protagonist to ask his foil in this story about eating! Aren't you hungry? Aren't you, Kabru?

He was revived only minutes ago after a violent encounter. And then he chokes down food that causes him further harm by triggering him, all because he's so determined to stay in Laios's good graces.

In his flashback, we see Milsiril trying to spoon-feed young Kabru cake that we know he doesn't like. He doesn't want to eat: he wants to be training.

Then with Mithrun, we see him eating the least-monstery monster food he can get his hands on, for the sake of survival- walking mushroom, barometz, an egg. The barometz is his first chance to make something like an a real meal, and he actually seems excited about it because he wants to replicate a lamb dish his mother used to make him!

...but he doesn't get to enjoy it like he wanted to.

Then, when all the Canaries are eating field rations ... Kabru still isn't shown eating. He's only shown giving food to Mithrun.

And of course the next time he eats is the bavarois, which for his sake is at least plant based ... but he still has to use a coping mechanism to get through it.

I don't think Kabru does this all on purpose. I think Kui does this all on purpose. Kabru's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be understood as informing his character just as much as Laios's autism informs his. It's another way that Kabru and Laios act as foils: where Laios takes pleasure in meals and approaches food with the excitement of discovery, Kabru's experiences with eating are tainted by his trauma. Laios indulges; Kabru denies himself. Laios is shown enjoying food, Kabru is shown struggling with it.

And I can very easily imagine a reason why Kabru might have a subconscious aversion towards eating.

Meals are the privilege of the living.

[incredubious]

MODERN AU ACESAN !!!! first impressions with a guy who barely passes the No Shoes No Shirt No Service rule

[datcravat]

DANDADAN

[spearxwind]

I think it's sad that most people always think of bottlenoses as the "classic dolphin" since its the one that's always used for shows, and always think of dolphins as just straight grey when in reality there's so many varieties with so many different amazing patterns

Look at the common dolphin! They have a gorgeous X pattern and even some dull yellow/gold!!

Hourglass dolphins have gorgeous white streaks

Spinner dolphins have really pretty banding as well, AND they have a really sleek cute silhouette!

The atlantic spotted dolphin!!! Theyre spotted!!!!!!

and the pantropical spotted too!!

Dusky dolphins have a gorgeous airbrush look going on like straight out of a 2000s fantasy illustration

Striped dolphins sure have stripes!! How cool!!

And these I've shown you aren't even all of them at all, there are so many of them:

There's so so so many different types of dolphins people dont know about this isnt even all of them and some are SO gorgeous and underrated because people just dont know they exist so I'm here to fix that

[shopwitchvamp]

“Omg, I love these! They go up to size 6X AND they have pockets?! Wow!! But do you have anything longer?”

Sure do, no problem!!

“YES these are great!!! But what about.. longer?”

I gotcha!! Comin’ right up!

“Perfect! But I have just one more question… what if I’m feeling spicy? How about skirts that are even shorter than the first ones?!” Oh, you’re in luck! We’ve got minis now.

*wild cheering* /scene

🖤witchvamp.com🖤

[kensatou]

"we know how to move our bodies, but i didn't know how to manage my heart, so you need help for this"

hi we need to talk more about judo gold medallist christa deguchi.

[serpentofdusk]

i don't know how to flirt so i just stare at you like a cat dragged out of a dumpster and hope you can see the longing in my panicked gaze