Daemon primer, or me fretting about my fic

I just finished Daemons! at the Disco fic (8,000 words!), and it is now off with the betas who are mostly all asleep. *facepalm*

In the interest of people who've never read His Dark Materials, here are some short facts about daemons:


* Daemons are basically a physical embodiment of your soul. Sort of. They are not your conscience, really, but they are a part of you. All daemons take animal shapes, and the animal is usually a representation of what type of person you are.

* Boys have girl daemons, and girls have boy daemons. In very, very rare occasions, a person can have a daemon that is of the same sex. It's not automatically viewed as homosexuality, though; Phillip Pullman, the author of HDM, has said that same sex daemons "might indicate some other sort of gift or quality, such as second sight" (thank you for correcting my faux pas, madsciencechick!).

* Children's daemons change in and out of shapes until the child hits puberty, usually around age thirteen. The daemon then "settles" on a shape of their choosing. The person does not choose their daemon's shape.

* People do not communicate psychically with their daemons, but they are deeply emotionally interconnected. If your daemon is in pain, you feel pain, and vise versa.

* Touching another person's daemon is considered taboo. Daemons, for the most part, do not speak or touch anyone other than their human. They do, however, interact with other daemons, and only when a human is badly hurt/sick or in danger will a daemon touch another human (the exception to all these rules is, of course, Brendon Urie and his daemon, Ani. *g*)


Ummm, hope that helps? If you've read HDM and think some of these need tweaking, let me know!