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Canon characters
Tom Berenson
"I can’t get away from this shit. No matter how hard I try. All I ever did was wander into some stupid back room at some stupid nonprofit meeting because I had a stupid crush on a girl. That’s it, I swear. I don’t want this crap taking over my life. But that doesn’t stop other people from watching me any time I go to the store because they’ve seen footage of Visser Seventeen on the news, or talking to me like I’m five years old when I get stressed and start mumbling, or following me around to take pictures because they know about Jake."
— Tom, Back to the Future
The main point-of-view character. The former host of Visser Seventeen, he's able to escape within an inch of his life when Rachel tries to kill them both. Now, he wants people to understand that he's not the monster who wore his body, while dealing with Post-Infestation Affective Blunting Syndrome and a traumatised family. He helps Eva run Matter Over Mind.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: He barely had the chance to interact with anyone in canon, but here he's close friends with Eva, begrudgingly gets along with Marco, helps Tobias deal with his grief, tries to fix Jake and Cassie's relationship, et cetera.
- Animal Motifs: His main battle morph is the king cobra. While Essa picked it out for him, the author nevertheless made it fit the real Tom's character
; he looks passive, but he's quick to strike back in anger. - Ascended Extra: While the real Tom was a constant presence throughout the books and the crux of Jake's arc, he was also an Impersonation-Exclusive Character who appeared Yeerk-free a grand total of once and only had about three lines of his own. Here, he's the narrator.
- Berserk Button: Tom is normally passive and slow to react to things, but call him "Visser Seventeen" and he'll have to resist the urge to murder you on the spot.
- Big Brother Instinct: Tom is extremely protective of Jake. After he falls out of the sky and saves himself at the start of The Day the Earth Stood Still, his first concern is that his little brother and younger cousin are risking their lives on a couple of spaceships in low orbit, while he's still figuring out how to walk on his own. Played for Drama in Ghost in the Shell, where he remembers screaming internally while Essa gave Jake a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
- Centipede's Dilemma: In the first few fics, he surprises himself by moving just by thinking about it, yet tends to fall over when he thinks too hard about walking.
- Character Tics: He clenches his right hand when he's upset.
- The Dog Bites Back: Tom takes great pleasure in biting Essa to death in retaliation for years of abuse at the start of The Day the Earth Stood Still.
- First-Person Smartass: Tom snarks a lot in his narration. He insults authority figures he disagrees with, muses about how weird his life is now, and makes self-deprecating remarks about his brain damage.
- Forgot About the Mind Reader: Inverted. Tom sometimes addresses his thoughts to a Yeerk that's no longer there.
- Gentle Giant: He's a 6-foot-4 jock who spent his late teens possessed by murderous aliens, but his biggest priorities in life are watching out for his little brother and helping anyone else who was hurt by the Yeerks.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Tom has shattered most of the bones in his human body from impact multiple times, broken his wing as an owl and almost plummeted to the ground, and been bitten in half as a snake, among other things. Good thing that Shapeshifting Heals Wounds, or else he'd be as dead as he was in canon.
- Human Shield: Tom describes himself as one a few times; the Yeerks used him to get the morphing tech because none of them expected Jake to be willing to kill his own brother.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: He has a disdain for Yeerks and tends to refer to them as "it" in his narration.
- It's All My Fault: Tom blames himself for wandering into the back of a Sharing meeting and getting infested at first.
- I Thought Everyone Could Do That: At the end of The Thing from Another World, everyone is surprised when Tom partially morphs his face into a snake's just to freak Marco out. Tom thinks it's just basic morphing, but the others point out that only estreens can morph one body part at a time.
- Impersonating the Evil Twin: Escape From L.A. and How I Live Now each feature a part where he must pretend to be Temrash 114 and Essa 412, respectively, to fool Yeerks into compliance.
- Mental Health Recovery Arc: A major theme in this series is Tom recovering from his Yeerk-induced mental trauma; this is at the forefront of THX 1138, where Tom learns that it has a name (Post-Infestation Affective Blunting Syndrome) and helps some similarly-affected children, and Ghost in the Shell, which revolves around a support group.
- Mundane Utility: He's used his morphing ability to buy alcohol without being ID'd and escape from traffic.
- Mythology Gag: His habit of clenching his right hand is similar to a scene in the TV show's adaptation of The Capture. After Jake's phone call at the end, Tom's right hand starts shaking, and it's strongly implied to be his true self Fighting from the Inside.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: His first name is "Thomas", but he's only called that by strangers trying to be formal.
- Psychoactive Powers: Tom sometimes starts to morph by accident when he's feeling particularly angry. He spent so long as a Controller that he tends to forget he can do things just by thinking about them.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: It's mentioned a few times that everyone assumed Tom was dead after he fell out of the Blade Ship.
- Scaled Up: He mainly uses his king cobra morph to inject venom into morph-capable opponents, giving them enough time to demorph before it kills them. The only person he's killed this way was Essa, and he deserved it.
- Self-Deprecation: Tom has a lot of self-loathing left over from his time as a Controller, which manifests itself as snarky remarks about how he was better that way.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Tom got into the habit of swearing mentally to annoy Temrash 114. He never broke it, so he sometimes forgets to watch his mouth while talking to children and/or relatives.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Eleutherophobia's main divergence from canon is that he survived the final battle.
- Sympathetic Sentient Weapon: Several times throughout the series, Tom is disturbed by the idea that he's now the perfect host because the Yeerks turned him into a weapon when they forced the morphing power upon him.
- Technical Pacifist: Whenever he fights morph-capable opponents, his main plan of attack is to bite them in king cobra morph and hope they demorph before the venom kills them.
- Tragic Bigot: He hates Yeerks because he suffered with being controlled by two particularly cruel ones for three years.
- Trauma Button: Tom can't bear to listen to "O Come Emmanuel" because his Yeerk snapped a child's neck for singing it, and he freezes and has flashbacks when he has to go into the Yeerk Pool in How I Live Now.
- Unskilled, but Strong: It's mentioned that Tom might have a natural talent for morphing, but he doesn't think he's that good at it because he hasn't has as much practice as the Animorphs.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: He values the lives of humans much more than aliens, especially Yeerks. In Ghost in the Shell, it takes him a while to entertain the idea that the serial killer is human. In The Thing from Another World, he's horrified by the sight of dead humans on the Skrit Na ship, but shoots an "innocent baby smooshball" with no remorse to protect Marco.
Essa 412 (Visser Seventeen)
"Visser Seventeen was cut from the same cloth as Visser One, and most other vissers for that matter. Ambitious. Ruthless. A few fries short of a Happy Meal. The yeerks' whole system of rewarding crazy stunts with massive promotions meant that they got a lot of innovative thinking without risking mass disobedience. But it also meant that then you had your whole empire run by the kind of people who went off on harebrained schemes any time the impulse struck."
— Tom, Slaughterhouse-Five
Tom's infamous second Yeerk. The series begins with Tom killing him on the Blade Ship, so his only major appearance is in the prequel City of Lost Children.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: In canon, Tom and his Yeerk were both killed in cobra morph when Rachel bit his head off. In The Day the Earth Stood Still, Rachel slams into him while he's in human form; Essa 412 escapes from his cracked skull, giving Tom just enough time to morph into a cobra before he bleeds to death, then he injects Essa with a more-than-lethal dose of venom.
- Kick the Dog: Tom recalls several times when Essa 412 was excessively cruel to him, from taunting him with the idea that Jake was going to die of a drug overdose, to snapping a child's neck because his singing made Tom and the other hosts feel hopeful.
- Named by the Adaptation: He was only referred to as "Tom's Yeerk" in the books.
- Posthumous Character: The series starts with Essa's death, but the mental scars he's left Tom with are a major part of the plot.
- Shout-Out: He's named after Boy 412, which was Septimus Heap's name when he was a child soldier.
- Smug Smiler: He's frequently described as wearing a twisted smile on Tom's face.
- Terms of Endangerment: He called Tom "Tommy" when he was feeling particularly cruel.
- Would Hurt a Child: In Ghost in the Shell, Tom recalls a time when a boy sang a Christmas carol in the Yeerk Pool, inspiring hope in all the caged hosts. Essa 412 abruptly snapped the child's neck while with the excuse that he found it annoying, but in reality he did it to spite Tom.
Jake Berenson
"Bossy" wasn't the word for his ability to sit you down and calmly explain why jumping off a bridge was a good idea for several different reasons and always have the end result that half an hour later you'd be standing on the edge of a bridge wondering why you hadn't thought of the brilliant idea of bridge-jumping years ago but only grateful that you had come up with the concept all on your own today. But I wasn't lying about my confidence in his ability to figure out a way to end the war without the entire planet ending up in the possession of the andalite army.
— Tom's narration, The Day the Earth Stood Still
Now that the war is over, Jake is struggling with survivor's guilt and doesn't know what to do with his life. The military highly respects him... but he's not on the best terms with them.
- Adaptational Angst Downgrade: While he's still traumatised from the war, Tom being alive gives him one less thing to angst about, and his relationship with his parents is less strained as a result.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: In Akira, he learns the hard way that he's allergic to housecats. The subsequent morph allergy causes sniffles, sneezing, and turning into an anaconda, an orca, or a Howler at inopportune moments.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: He gets annoyed when Tom says that Cassie is his girlfriend.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Like in canon, he has symptoms of post-traumatic stress. He's hypervigilant, sometimes reflexively flinches when Tom comes near him, and has a panic attack during his testimony in Total Recall.
- Trauma Button: He panics at the sight of houseflies because he's had several near-death experiences while morphed as one.
Eva Alvarez
I admit it: Eva scared the hell out of me. She’d been intimidating even back when I’d been stuck babysitting Marco and Jake all the time and she’d had dozens of very specific and dire threats about what would happen to me if I let them eat candy and watch TV all afternoon.
— Tom's narration, Ghost in the Shell
Marco's tough-as-nails mother, and the former host of Visser One. She runs a support group for ex-hosts called Matter Over Mind.
- Character Tics: She sometimes fiddles with her bracelets.
- In-Series Nickname: Tom calls her "Visser Mom", but not to her face.
- Intergenerational Friendship: She and Tom bond over being former involuntary hosts. She's old enough to be his mother.
- Meaningful Name: Sol said on Tumblr that she gave Eva the surname "Alvarez" because it means "protector of all"; she protects both her family and the ex-hosts of the world.
- Named by the Adaptation: Her surname was not given in canon.
- Troll: In Ghost in the Shell, when Matter Over Mind gets a phone call from a man harassing them for (supposedly) harbouring former voluntary controllers, she decides to rack up his phone bill as high as possible.
Cassie Day
“It’s not every day I get formally introduced to Cassie Day. The youngest member of a presidential cabinet in the history of the country, the girl saving every nonhuman zombie on the face of the planet, objectively the coolest feminist icon alive since Nellie Bly kicked the bucket...”
— Bonnie, A Straight Line Down Through the Heart
The youngest member of the presidential cabinet ever, Cassie works to improve alien relations on Earth.
- A Day in the Limelight: A Straight Line Down Through the Heart is from her perspective. It focuses on her relationship with Jake and gives insight on her home life by contrasting it with the Berensons'.
- My Greatest Failure: She regrets letting Essa get away with the morphing cube, which ultimately led to Rachel's death. Tom tells her not to feel guilty about it.
- Named After Somebody Famous: Her full name is Cassandra Day, a homage to Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
- Named by the Adaptation: Her surname was not stated in canon, nor is it specified if "Cassie" is a nickname or her given name, not short for anything.
- Power Incontinence: In How I Live Now, she morphs into a Yeerk and infests Tom. Since she's not used to mind-controlling, she accidentally opens too many of his memories as soon as she connects to his brain.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Not to the extent of Jake, but A Straight Line Down Through the Heart mentions that she flinches at loud noises, feels half-suffocated by outer layers of clothes in case she needs to morph in a hurry, and automatically mistrusts ex-hosts.
Marco Alvarez
Other people—newscasters, yeerk vissers, Jake for that matter—tended to describe Marco as scarily intelligent. But most of the time all I could think of when his name came up was the hyperactive never-serious kid I’d babysat for dozens of times, who hadn’t shown any particular spark of analytical brilliance outside of insane skill levels at Mario Kart.
— Tom's narration, Akira
Marco may be a celebrity now, but he's still Jake's best friend and willing to come to his aid if he needs it.
- The Casanova: He's openly bisexual and has gone through several boyfriends and girlfriends every time he shows up.
- Named by the Adaptation: His surname was not given in canon.
- Quit Your Whining: In Akira, he tells Jake to stop being stubborn and accept that he needs help to handle his morph allergy.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Famous!: At the end of The Thing from Another World, he claims to have "paid" at restaurants by signing his autograph on a napkin, which the waiters can then sell for a lot of money.
Tobias Fangor
"Coming up next, our investigators tackle one of the biggest mysteries of our time: Tobias Fangor, national hero... and missing person!"
— A news programme in Lost World
While he's become a recluse since Rachel's death, Tobias occasionally returns to civilisation to help out the Animorphs.
- Adaptational Angst Downgrade: Tom helps him deal with his grief for Rachel.
- The Cavalry: In Ghost in the Shell, Tom is losing his aerial fight against Margaret until Tobias swoops in to save him, and succeeds despite being several times smaller than the condor.
- It's All My Fault: He blames himself for Rachel's death, because he thinks that refusing to stay human was what caused her to have nothing left to live for. Tom talks him out of it.
Rachel Berenson (UNMARKED SPOILERS)
She was loved, and she was feared. Both with good reason.
— Tom's narration, The Day the Earth Stood Still
Just like in canon, Rachel died on the Blade Ship... or did she?
- Bears Are Bad News: Her first two physical appearances involve her trying to kill Tom while in bear morph. In The Day the Earth Stood Still, Tom compares her slamming into his body to a sledgehammer hitting a watermelon; and in Escape from L.A., she has a "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude as she pursues him through the sewers.
- Let's You and Him Fight: In Escape from L.A., she's all too eager to kill Tom even as he tries to explain that he's from the future and not infested.
- Living Emotional Crutch: She's unhappy to realize she's this to Tobias, and threatens to break up with him if he continues acting like she's the only part of his human life that matters.
- Matchmaker Crush: She entertains the possibility of Tobias pairing off with Melissa, which Megamorphs #3 showed was possible.
- Posthumous Character: Subverted. We're led to assume she died the same way as in canon, and her absence looms over the characters... but then How I Live Now reveals she's alive.
- Present Absence: A running thread throughout the series, most prominent in The Day the Earth Stood Still and Back to the Future, is characters remembering and grieving Rachel.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: She was not killed by Efflit 1318, who infested her instead, and forced its original host to morph into her and get Thrown Out the Airlock to fake a body for her.
- Spared by the Adaptation: How I Live Now reveals that she was alive as a controller all along.
Efflit 1318 (UNMARKED SPOILERS)
"With Visser Seventeen dead, the next in command would be Efflit thirteen-eighteen. Clean record, served long. Unranked. Also the type who would think to grab the more powerful host, even if it meant sacrificing a body with fewer morphs to making sure they got away with it."
— Tom, How I Live Now
The new Yeerk in charge of the Blade Ship after it escapes the Battle of Santa Barbara.
- Arc Villain: The main antagonistic force of How I Live Now, even after it's dead.
- Death by Adaptation: Efflit 1318 survived to become a herald to The One in canon. Here, it's killed as soon as it exits its host.
- Disc-One Final Boss: For How I Live Now. It's the first opponent the Animorphs face in that story, and is killed halfway through it, leaving its underlings as the next problem to solve.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Was Essa 412's second-in-command, and unlike Essa, was more careful and calculating about its goals. It's visibly annoyed when its former boss apparently comes back from the dead to strong arm it into relinquishing the Blade ship.
Original characters
Bonnie Park
Bonnie Park, who finally noticed all my pathetic attempts at flirtation midway through tenth grade and asked me out, an unfamiliar tone to her voice as she did so. Bonnie Park, who immediately after invited me to join her at a meeting of this new organization called The Sharing. Bonnie Park, who watched in apparent apathy as controllers dragged me down the pier and forced my head under the surface of the kandrona that first time.
— Tom's narration, Ghost in the Shell
Tom's high school crush and current girlfriend. She's the girl he followed into the Sharing meeting that changed his life forever. Now, she works for CNSB and is a frequent visitor of Matter Over Mind.
- Drives Like Crazy: Bonnie passed her driving test while a Controller, but her licence was cancelled after the DMV learned it wasn't her who was driving. Now, she's terrible at turning corners, but she can park just fine.
- O.C. Stand-in: She's the pretty girl Tom liked who was mentioned in passing in The Capture.
- Odd Name, Normal Nickname: Bountiful Sunshine Park, better known as Bonnie. According to Tom, her parents were "whacky hippie atheists".
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Her full name is Bountiful Sunshine Park. According to Tom, her parents are "whacky hippie atheists".
- Punny Name: The author chose her name because "Bonnie" is an old slang word for a pretty girl, which is all we know about her in canon.
Margaret White (UNMARKED SPOILERS)
"I’m Margaret. And you’ve got more sweetness in you than you know, stopping to check on an emotional crazy lady like me."
— Margaret, Ghost In The Shell
An ex-host who regularly attends Matter Over Mind meetings.
- Anti-Villain: After learning she was used as a Breeding Slave by Yeerks and humans, Tom feels like stopping her might have been the wrong thing to do.
- Arc Villain: For Ghost In The Shell, being the Serial Killer that murders voluntary hosts.
- Breeding Slave: The Yeerks used her body to conceive babies that would subsequently be used as hosts, turning them into Empty Shells that wouldn't develop the brain power to fight back.
- Cyanide Pill: After being found guilty for eleven murders, she morphs into an angelfish in the middle of the courtroom. As angelfish are small animals that breathe saltwater, there's no way for anyone in the courthouse to save her.
- Identity Impersonator: Her favorite tactic for killing is to morph into someone else, preferably someone close to her target, kill them when their guard is down, and escape to demorph where no one can see her.
- Motive Decay: She starts out targeting the voluntary hosts who were complicit in her rape, then voluntary hosts in general, then anyone she remotely suspects was a voluntary host, and then anyone who would stop her from killing voluntary hosts.
- Rape as Backstory: The story doesn't sugarcoat the lack of consent that Yeerk hosts have when it comes sex.
- Samus Is a Girl: Tom assumes that the serial killer is male until Margaret thought-speaks to him during their aerial battle.
- Shout-Out: She's named after the mother of Carrie.
- Terminal Transformation: After Margaret White is found guilty of murdering the voluntary hosts, she commits suicide by morphing into a fish in the courtroom. By the time someone brings her water, she's already dead (and given that she picked a salt-water fish, it wouldn't have done any good anyway).
- Terms of Endangerment: She calls people "sweetheart", even those she's trying to kill.
- Vile Vulture: Her bird morph is an Andean condor, which is big and powerful enough to kill an unsuspecting policeman and nearly kill Tom in barred owl morph. Tobias, on the other hand, flies rings around her.
