Literature / Differently Morphous

The Ministry must face the greatest threat they have ever known: the forces of political correctness . . .

"Wait, you're a Fluidic?"
"Well no, but I identify as Fluidic-kin."

Differently Morphous, released in March of 2018 as an Audible exclusive, is the 4th novel written and read by notable internet personality Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. It was released in physical and e-book format in April 2019. The story explores a combination of two topics Yahtzee has shown himself to be quite fond of: Cosmic Horror and Scathing political commentary. The story follows various members of The Ministry Of Occultism, a secret organization dedicated to suppressing and keeping secret, the otherworldly creatures that threaten our world, when a mass emigration of "fluidics" (read: Shoggoths) demanding British citizenship put a bit of a spanner in the works.

A sequel, Existentially Challenged, was released December 2021.

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Differently Morphous provides examples of:

• Apathy Killed the Cat: Invoked by Alison to keep her job. She was originally employed by the Ministry solely for the sake of secrecy, but is still hanging around after that's out the window. Nobody thinks to ask why until the end of the book, and she's well enough established by then that they're fine with her staying.
• Broken Masquerade: The fluidic's mass-migration blows all of the Ministry's careful obfuscation clear out of the water. Much of the plot (and humor) derive from the results of this and society's subsequent shift to incorporate knowledge of the supernatural into their lives. The results are decidedly non-apocalyptic; while something horrible did happen ten years ago (with similar incidents constantly possible due to humanity's close proximity to The Ancients), day-to-day life doesn't change much. Politicians and government workers swoop down to either control the situation or else exploit it for their own benefit, people start heated debates on forums... and life just goes on otherwise.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: While Dr. Diablerie is entirely unhelpful in nearly every scene he appears in, Elizabeth informs Alison that, despite his persistent lack of intervention, not only has not a single one of his partners ever been seriously injured, but he has been with The Ministry longer than anyone else, and has never failed a mission once. This leads Elizabeth to become extremely suspicious of him (see: Obfuscating Stupidity). During their time together, Alison discovers that Diablerie does indeed possess a proficiency at lockpicking, a surprising amount of physical strength and, an affinity for Rune-Crafting.
  • It should also be noted that other demon-hunters, like Mike and Chris, have enormous respect for Dr. Diablerie, and break into cold sweat at the mere mention of his presence.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Victor almost delivered one to Jessica-Shgshthx at the climax. Due to having a power that is especially suited for combat, the fight went overwhelmingly in his favour before a moment of last second hesitation cost him his victory and nearly his life.
• Dastardly Whiplash: Dr. Diablerie is a black-clad Large Ham Attention Whore who proclaims his intentions to everyone in a five-mile radius while driving a ridiculous car around the countryside. Even Adam hangs a lampshade on his "villainous" persona. He does deviate from the formula in two vital ways: first, he's (probably?) on the side of good, and second, that he's actually good at what he does.
• Distinction Without a Difference: Nita refuses to let usage of the words "Possessed" or "Possession" slide in her presence, insisting that everyone use the term(s) "Person of Dual Consciousness" or "Dual Conscious Person" instead, despite it having no actual difference, and being significantly more difficult to say during a time sensitive situation.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: When the Ministry loosened the secrecy restrictions after they found out they could get away with a lot thanks to Weirdness Censor, Badger misunderstood and started just introducing himself as a Demon Hunter and casually mentioning what he's doing to bystanders. This was what gave the whole game away and broke the masquerade.
• Everything Is Racist: Nita perceives virtually every traditional term for various magical occurrences as insensitive, even going so far as to call them slurs.
  • She also begins to suspect Elizabeth's actions as intentional personal slights, and feels the need to ask "Is it because I'm Indian!?" a fact which no one present was even aware of, nor ever brings up again.
• Exact Words: Dr. Diablerie does a lot of this when he's totally-not-mentoring Allyson. He loves hiding things in flowery language or using somebody's misconceptions, like assuring Allyson that he is "as real as the consequences of reading Richard Danvers' unguarded words to his father's face" when everyone at the ministry but her fully realized from the beginning that she would face none whatsoever.
• Feigning Intelligence: Dr. Diablerie has quite the knack for saying things that certainly SOUND like something a master of the occult would say, many of which, characters in the know are quick to observe, possess little to no actual meaning. Subverted when it's revealed that he is actually Obfuscating Stupidity. Subverted AGAIN, when it's revealed that the Dr. Diablerie persona actually IS that stupid, and it's his TRUE personality that actually isn't. Subverted YET AGAIN in the same scene where it turns out the true personality's read on Diablerie is definitely wrong in the specifics.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Dr. Diablerie mentions in passing that dabbling in rune-crafting runs the risk of erasing one's personality. This is precisely what happens in the climax/ending of the story.
  • A borderline Interface Spoiler exclusive to the Audiobook (and which can initially be dismissed as a mistake); whenever Jennifer is chatting with Reaver online the typing effect keeps going when he replies.
• Functional Magic: Infusion, wherein a particle from Another Dimension becomes fused to the atomic structure of a person. There is also Runecrafting, wherein symbols associated with The Ancients are drawn, and activated with a chant in the Language of Magic.
• Good All Along: Shoggoths are actually quite nice people, once you get past the "formless alien horror" part of them.
• It's All About Me: Nita’s tendency to make everything about her and accusing Elizabeth of sabotaging her interview hints that her crusade is more for attention than actually caring about discrimination.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Victor is always flippant toward "politically correct" viewpoints. He especially shows little sympathy toward individuals who "carry the taint" of an Ancient. Near the climax of the story, he was dismissive of Aaron's heartfelt speech and later repeatedly mocked Adam for "buying into it". However, when he had Jessica at his mercy, an individual possessed by an explicitly malicious Ancient, he hesitated in finishing her off, nearly costing him his life. A later scene implied that Victor bought into Aaron's speech more than he let on and his hesitation might have stemmed from a desire to show mercy to Jessica.
• Magical Society: The Ministry Of Occultism, before the fluidic emigration.
• Muggle with a Degree in Magic: Both Dr. Diablieré and Arthur.
• Noodle Incident: Something happened when an Ancient tried to invade ten years before, but nobody who was in the ministry that long ago is willing to talk about it to anyone who wasn't there. Even the head of field operations doesn't know. Later in the book this cripples the conservative part of the Department's ability to push back against the progressive wing; they have some supposedly very good reason for their position, but refuse to tell anyone what it is.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Liz suspects Dr. Diablerie of this, citing how his suspiciously impeccable track record contrastes with his apparent ineptitude. She's right of course, but only on a technicality (see:The Reveal)
• Planet of Steves: The Fluidics, having originally been one part of the same entity, all possess the same name (Pronounced: Shug-shuh-thx). If you suggest this is confusing the internet hate machine will be all over you for being racist.
  • Later subverted when the fluidics begin to grasp the concept of individuality, and the fluidic who lives beneath Alison's apartment expresses a desire to be called Dennis instead.
  • This becomes a plot point later in the novel when Alison's neighbor claims Shgshthx is the Fluidic Killer. Unfortunately they can't identify which Shgshthx it is clearly enough for Alison to understand. Turns out the Shgshthx in question is the original body who's killing its renegade bits via its infusion in Jessica.
• Political Correctness Is Evil: As a Central Theme is society's slow but inevitable acceptance of things it previously ignored or denied, some of this is inevitable. Most of it comes from Nita, but in-universe comments and chats show she's far from alone.
  • One of the most blatant is that public opinion declared a "Shoggoth" an N-Word Privileges level slur after one of them mentioned the preferred term was "Fluidic"; its lampshaded a few times that the Fluidics are never the ones getting offended.
  • In the very end Alison gets publicly eviscerated by the press for forcibly undoing a Demonic Possession, even though it was a clear act of immediate self-defense that saved hundreds of people. Possessed Jessica is viewed as nothing but a victim and martyr for dual-consciousness rights, with the fact that she was actively committing an explicitly racially-motivated mass murder at the time ignored by the public at large. That the original Jessica did not consent to the situation is also conveniently ignored.
• Post Modern Magic: Diabliere has his spell book on his phone. In fact, he has an app for that.
• Psychic Block Defense: Elizabeth once assigned an assistant to Dr. Diablerie with the express purpose of using his magically infused telepathy to probe Dr. Diablerie's mind for secrets; the end result was the assistant being sent to an insane asylum.
• The Reveal: Eventually it is discovered that The Fluidic Killer was Jessica the entire time. However, the trope gets taken a step further, as it is then revealed that her online “friend” xxReaverxx was actually Jessica’s Ancient, who is THEN revealed to be the original being the Fluidics escaped from.
  • Dr. Diablerie is revealed to the audience (unsurprisingly) to have been a double agent the whole time in the final chapter, the persona of "Dr. Diablerie" is actually an incredibly elaborate spell, that transforms him—personality and all—into the "character" of Dr. Diablerie.
• Sequel Hook: In the last chapter we see some sinister figures plotting a new attack on the Department in the vaguest possible language.
• Shout-Out: Multiple instances, continuing the trend that all of Yahtzee's works all occur in the same (or a very similar) universe.
  • Jessica is apparently an avid fan of Mogworld, as she renews her 12 month subscription With Alison's "stolen" company credit card.
  • While Dr. Diablerie is spouting blatant lies after being dosed with truth serum by Liz, he declares that "Peanut Butter can be used to neutralize biological weapons!", a reference to the Brick Joke from Jam.
  • The fictional IP "Interstellar Bum Pirates" appears yet again in this book. An episode is discussed wherein Captain Blaze takes Zoobster to the vet. I guess we finally know what his saturday-morning cartoon was titled.
  • While The Ministry itself appears in several of Yhatzee's previous works, several characters make reference to a specific event from "10 years ago". While the actual details provided about said event are slim, they do bare a suspicious resemblance to the events of The Consuming Shadow, a game which Yahtzee also made, and which takes place at approximately that time.
  • Dr. Diablerie's name is an allusion to the forbidden act of Diablerie from the World of Darkness universe (confirmed by Word of God).
  • Derek Badger is the protagonist of Yahtzee's game Poacher
• Title Drop: Alison offhandedly recalls that Nita disapproves of calling the Fluidics "Amorphous", and prefers the term "Differently Morphous" (potentially a play on the real world term "Differently Abled" which similarly never gained much traction.)
• Urban Fantasy: Set in modern-day England, and has magic, demons, and monster-slayers who use shotguns.
• Wrong Context Magic: Part of Dr. Diablerie's shtick is to act like an extremely old-school spiritualist in contact with Arcane Energies of the Beyond, and he doesn't even pull it off well (his Cold Reading especially is so blatant that it's kind of sad). The fact that it really clearly shouldn't work but he somehow still has a perfect mission record is a big part of the mystery around him.
• Xanatos Gambit: Sean Anderson's ultimate goal regarding the Department - use it as a magnet for bad publicity to draw heat away from the government's more mundane failures - bears fruit: "I'll let you in on a little government secret, Liz. A department that occasionally makes massive public cock-ups is slightly more useful than one that's just generally crap. We're gonna be getting away with some crazy shit while you're dominating the [news] cycle."
• You Didn't Ask: This a recurring problem when dealing with the Fluidics. It's not out of any real desire for secrecy, they just really hate "causing a fuss".