History Fanfic / Daemorphing

* ThrowTheDogABone: For much of the series, Tom is only slightly better-off than in canon. [[NotHisSled He's freed, sure,]] but he has bipolar disorder brought on by years of brain damage, regularly gets into fights with the other human refugees, and [[spoiler:accidentally-on-purpose becomes a [[ShapeshifterModeLock nothlit]]]]. At the end of ''The Cost of the Fight'', though, he gets a girlfriend. Even Jake is surprised to see him be happy for once.

* SeldomSeenSpecies: Most dæmons fit. One single named character has a dog dæmon (Marco's stepmother Nora), one single named character has a cat dæmon (Rachel's father Dan). Two people have corvids, Jake and Rachel's mother Naomi, but they're a whiskeyjack and a bluejay respectively rather than crows or ravens. Canines, felines, and large black corvids are all very popular animals for dæmon fics.

* AdaptationalLateAppearance: Events are shuffled around so that [[spoiler:the Animorphs evacuate their families to the Hork-Bajir valley]] (''Welcome Home'', based on #49) ''before'' they find the various Andalites stranded on Earth in ''Destroyer of Worlds''. Additionally, Mertil and Gafinilan are introduced before Arbat's team, which was the other way around in canon (#40 and #38, respectively).

* AdaptationalVillainy: Estrid is portrayed more harshly as her canonical willingness to create a genocidal virus that might jump species is more fully examined and condemned and her doubts and discomfort about doing so are nonexistent, not to mention the usual suite of Andalite -isms that applies to her. [[spoiler: She also decides to secretly clone Toby, apparently ForTheEvulz.]] [[spoiler:She gets better.]]

* ChekhovsArmory: Earlier installments in the series set up giant walls of guns to go off - some of them get fired, [[spoiler:like ''Bridge to the Stars'' having the Yoorts being Yeerks modified by a retrovirus going off all the way in ''Destroyer of Worlds'' when Cassie talks Estrid into making a contagious version of said virus using DNA from a Yoort morph.]]
* ChildOfTwoWorlds: In the alternate universe of ''A Place To Stand'', Tobias is this for humans and Andalites.

* CompositeCharacter: Tom's second Yeerk is DemotedToExtra, but Sub-Visser Fifty-One (Korin) takes his place as [[spoiler:the Yeerk who usurps Esplin]] in the finale.

* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade: In canon, Cassie had the fewest problems in her personal life. In this series, she feels a lot of guilt about killing David, and in ''[[WhamEpisode Welcome Home]]'', [[spoiler:her mother gets taken by the Yeerks because she couldn't evacuate her in time.]]

* AnAlienNamedBob: One of the Peace Yeerks is known only as Helen.

** Edriss 562 (Visser One) dies in ''The Bright Clear Line'', the adaptation of book 30. She died in book 45 in canon.

* ShapeshifterModeLock: Arbron, Elfangor, and Tobias all become nothlits as in canon, but Aftran doesn't become a whale, nor does David get trapped as a rat. [[spoiler: Tom ends up spending too long as a Hork-Bajir instead, and after Alloran is killed, Esplin infests Gafinilan and nothlits him in Alloran's body.]]

%%* InterspeciesRomance: {{Downplayed}} with Ruby (a human) and [[spoiler:Tom (a human-turned-Hork-Bajir).]]

* EvilColonialist: The Yeerks. And then ''A Place To Stand'' reveals that the Andalites are only marginally better.

* FantasticRacism: Is absolutely everywhere. Everyone is prejudiced against someone, more or less.

* HerbivoresAreFriendly: Thoroughly subverted, both with dæmons and with herbivorous aliens. A motif Poetry uses repeatedly is "predators are cowards".

* InterspeciesRomance: {{Downplayed}} with Ruby (a human) and [[spoiler:Tom (a human-turned-Hork-Bajir).]]

* [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/40356759/chapters/101090637 The Presence of Justice]]

''[[https://archiveofourown.org/series/8983 Daemorphing]]'' is an ''{{Literature/Animorphs}}'' [[AlternateUniverseFic AU]] that [[FusionFic incorporates]] the cosmology of ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials''. It explores how the events of ''Animorphs'' would play out differently if all the human characters had daemons, and the relationships the various alien races have with the Dust.

* AdaptationSpeciesChange: Euclid is Nora's daemon instead of a regular dog. [[spoiler:Also, Tom becomes a Hork-Bajir nothlit, a morph he never even acquired in canon.]]

* AnimalMotifs: Humans in this setting have daemons, animal-shaped manifestations of their souls. Poetry prefers a scientific angle to Pullman's more symbolic approach, so snakes are not symbols of evil or deception and lions don't denote nobility. Tobias's Elhariel is a European storm-petrel, a bird that flies great distances alone. Jake's Merlyse is a whiskeyjack, a corvid that thrives in the harshest winter. Cassie's Quintavion is a vampire bat, manipulative towards its prey and intensely altruistic towards its cave-fellows. Marco's Diamanta is a timber rattlesnake, a patient ambush predator with close bonds to its friends. Rachel's Abineng is a sable antelope, a huge beautiful antelope that contends against lions to protect its herd. And SixthRanger Loren's Jaxom is a zebra duiker, a tiny shy antelope that will nonetheless fight ferociously to defend its territory.

* BondCreatures: As in Lyra's world in ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'' all humans have daemons, which here are explicitly parts of themselves. Non-humans morphing humans do not form daemons, but unlike in HDM characters can't tell at a glance that something is an animal or a daemon - so when Ax morphs human and goes out in public, Tobias rides on his shoulder.

* DecompositeCharacter: Loren's HandyHelper is her daemon, Jaxom, instead of Champ, who's now a regular dog owned by the Chee.

** In canon, it's strongly implied that Rachel killed David near the end of the series. After he betrays them in ''The Cowardice of Lions'', Aftran tells Cassie that turning David into a rat and leaving him in solitary confinement would be too cruel, so the Animorphs come up with a plan to kill him instead. Rachel deals the finishing blow on his daemon.

* DifferentWorldDifferentMovies: Various existing works of fiction are referenced, but all the characters have daemons.

* DisposableVagrant: In ''The Guided and the Lost'', the Animorphs learn that the Yeerks have figured out how to sever people from their anchors, and have already successfully separated several homeless humans from their daemons (and Alloran from his guide tree). They're able to save one of the humans before she can be severed, who then becomes a refugee in the Hork-Bajir valley.

* TheDividual: Ax considers humans and their daemons to be one being in two bodies, and a Yeerk who controls a human controls their daemon as well.

** Having a large daemon is akin to a physical disability; people with them need special accommodations such as ground-floor classrooms and can't ride in normal-sized cars.

** The description says that the Animorphs can't reveal their last names, and it's implied that their daemons go by pseudonyms. Later fics ignore this, and the Animorphs' surnames are frequently mentioned even before the Yeerks figure out who they are.
** The cop-controller grabs Quincy (Cassie's daemon), but this is never mentioned again. Later, David touching Marco's daemon is a traumatic experience that haunts Marco for the rest of the series.

** Morphs have no consciousness of their own, and are controlled by the morpher's brain in Z-space, which is why human morphs don't have daemons.

* FantasticReligiousWeirdness: Loren wonders if Jesus died for the sins of all sapient beings, not just humans. There are also several religious rituals related to daemons; Christians believe that daemons are closer to God, while Jews self-mutilate theirs at funerals (similar to ripping garments in real life).

* HerbivoresAreFriendly: Thoroughly subverted, both with daemons and with herbivorous aliens. A motif Poetry uses repeatedly is "predators are cowards".

* ImHavingSoulPains: In ''Prometheus in Chains'', Temrash kicks Merlyse ten feet away from Jake while he's in control of them in order to torture them. Humans and daemons feel immense psychic pain when they're separated from each other.

** Tobias has closer relationships with several different people, so his life has more joy in it, plus he's never singled out to be tortured - and because he acts as Ax's daemon whenever Ax is in human morph, he stays closer to humanity.

* LiteralSplitPersonality: Humans and daemons are described as two halves of the same mind, and frequently have inner conflicts when making difficult decisions.

* MindRape: Touching someone else's daemon is a serious taboo. We learn why in ''The Cowardice of Lions''; when David grabs Diamanta, Marco describes it feeling like David is licking his brain. In-universe, it's legally ''considered'' a kind of rape.

* NotHisSled: The series starts off with straightforward adaptations of ''Animorphs'' books but with daemons, but gradually goes in a completely different direction. For example:

* OurHumansAreDifferent: It's brought up many times that daemons are a fundamental part of being human.
* OurSoulsAreDifferent: While the humans have daemons, the other alien races have their own connections to the Dust, called "anchors":

** It's possible to change one's anchor. Approximately two years after Arbron became a Taxxon [[ShapeshifterModeLock nothlit]], he changed his anchor from his guide tree to the Living Hive.

* PosthumousNarration: This series has the FramingDevice that all of the narrators are writing down the events in a journal, but there are several cases of characters narrating up to the points of their deaths, such as [[spoiler:Melissa]] in ''The Abyss''.

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Touching someone else's daemon is considered a form of rape. Marco is shaken up when David touches Dia in ''The Cowardice of Lions'', and this is the final straw that convinces the Animorphs to get rid of him. Actual rape comes up later; the reason why there are no Hork-Bajir-Controllers in the Yeerk Peace Movement is because they're all involuntaries, and the Yeerks forcibly propagate them.

* SharingABody: When a human morphs, their daemon disappears, and both of their consciousnesses exist within the morphed form. The human controls it, but both of them can mentally communicate with each other and thought-speak to everyone else.

** Loren's daemon, Jaxom, is named after a character from ''Literature/DragonridersOfPern''.

* SignificantNameShift: When Mr. Tidwell comes to trust Illim, Illim tells him his actual name, Iniss 799.

* TheStationsOfTheCanon: Are increasingly missed as the series progresses. The first few installments are essentially Animorphs + Daemons, but by ''The Tree Of Life'' the specifics of canon events have fully left the building.

** Notable cases include Tidwell and Illim, Cassie and Aftran and Eva and Aftran while impersonating Visser One.

* ThereAreNoTherapists: Defied. Thanks the Chee and Elgat Kar therapy is actually available.
* ThreesomeSubtext: Subverted. Poetry deliberately built up Jake Marco Cassie subtext and then it actually happens in ''Destroyer of Worlds''.

* TheWormThatWalks: The Kelbrid are hive-minds of thousands of bioluminescent worms.

* AdaptationNameChange: The Dust is usually called hrala, rarely Rusakov particles, [[spoiler:and even rarer the Kolumnatiy]], but the only time it's called "dust" is at the end of ''Prometheus in Chains'', where Jake uses it as a description rather than a name.
* AdaptationRelationshipOverhaul: This series features many characters interacting who either never met in canon, had minimal characterisation, or both. For example, Melissa hates Rachel after she learns who the Animorphs are because she doesn't understand why they have to do such harsh things; and Tom becomes close friends with Ax, Tobias, and -- crucially -- the free Hork-Bajir.

** Since ''Animorphs'' was written in TheNineties, there weren't any overtly queer characters. In this series, the teens discover their sexualities as part of their arcs, the Hork-Bajir practice polygamy, and there are a few transgender characters.

* AdaptationalLateAppearance: Events are shuffled around so that the Animorphs evacuate their families to the Hork-Bajir valley (''Welcome Home'', based on #49) ''before'' they find the various Andalites stranded on Earth in ''Destroyer of Worlds''. Additionally, Mertil and Gafinilan are introduced before Arbat's team, which was the other way around in canon (#40 and #38, respectively).

* AdaptationalVillainy: Estrid is portrayed more harshly as her canonical willingness to create a genocidal virus that might jump species is more fully examined and condemned and her doubts and discomfort about doing so are nonexistent, not to mention the usual suite of Andalite -isms that applies to her. [[spoiler: She also decides to secretly clone Toby, apparently ForTheEvulz.]]

* AnimalMotifs: Humans in this setting have dæmons, animal-shaped manifestations of their souls. Poetry prefers a scientific angle to Pullman's more symbolic approach, so snakes are not symbols of evil or deception and lions don't denote nobility. Tobias's Elhariel is a European storm-petrel, a bird that flies great distances alone. Jake's Merlyse is a whiskeyjack, a corvid that thrives in the harshest winter. Cassie's Quintavion is a vampire bat, manipulative towards its prey and intensely altruistic towards its cave-fellows. Marco's Diamanta is a timber rattlesnake, a patient ambush predator with close bonds to its friends. Rachel's Abineng is a sable antelope, a huge beautiful antelope that contends against lions to protect its herd. And SixthRanger Loren's Jaxom is a zebra duiker, a tiny shy antelope that will nonetheless fight ferociously to defend its territory.

* BiologicalWeaponsSolveEverything: Zig-zagged. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. The Iskoort world ended up the way it is now (quite nice) thanks to judicious use of a retroviral weapon, the quantum virus used on the Hork-Bajir world solved nothing, [[spoiler: the one the Andalites were planning on using against the Yeerks on Earth would not have accomplished much, but the Guardians Of The Galaxy are planning on using a modified version of that to deliver the Iskoort retrovirus to all Yeerks on earth.]]

* ChildOfTwoWorlds: In ''The Presence of Justice'', Loren realises that they need ''feshlath'', children of two herds, to talk the Andalites out of [[spoiler:blowing up Earth]]. She and Tobias can act as go-betweens for the humans; the Hamees for the Hork-Bajir; and Arbron for the Taxxons. All of them are related to Andalites in some way.
* CompetenceZone: Defied. While the team starts at thirteen, Loren is in her late thirties or so and Eva and the Governor are likely older than that.

* CubCuesProtectiveParent: In Loren's first battle she's able to tap in to her battle morph(bison)'s [[MamaBear protective rage]] when Tobias is in danger by telling the bison instincts that predators have her calf.

* DittoAliens: {{Defied}} multiple times. When [[spoiler:Mr. Tidwell]] morphs a Yeerk for the first time, he notices that Illim has one palp shorter than the other and a reflective patch on his front; the Animorphs use the [[ShapeshifterMashup frolis maneuver]] to create Taxxon morphs because they don't want to steal sapient beings' appearances; and Jake can't distinguish [[spoiler:Tom's]] Hork-Bajir morph from any others at first, but soon comes to recognise it.

* EmotionControl: Some Andalites are good at ''djafid'', or projecting images and emotion with thought-speech. The emotional effect is compared to hearing acapella music in an unknown language. Esplin's constant aura of malice is compared to singing The Imperial March at all times.

* EpiphanyTherapy: Defied. Rachel understanding she has anger issues doesn’t fix them, not even when two allies die to keep those issues from getting her killed. Tobias finding a real family doesn’t fix the damage his aunt and uncle did, Marco’s extra-strength PTSD can’t be vanished.

%% * FantasticRacism: Is absolutely everywhere. Everyone is prejudiced against someone, more or less.

* FromTheMouthsOfBabes: In ''The Presence of Justice'', when [[spoiler:the free Hork-Bajir]] arrive on the Pool Ship, Sky Hive (a telepathic mass of fungi with the curiosity of a child) asks Eva if their leader is another queen she wishes to mate with. Everyone is either embarrassed or confused.

* GoodRunningEvil: After the Bright Clear Line, 'Visser One' is actually Eva and Aftran 942 working together.
* GuiltFreeExterminationWar: How the Andalites see the war, how the Yeerks see it (with kill replaced with enslave), how the team starts off seeing it until Aftran shows up.

* GunsAreWorthless: Absolutely not, Rachel very nearly gets killed by a sniper with a simple conventional rifle in Welcome Home.

* HasTwoMommies: Mertil's parents, seen in ''Shattered'', are both women, but he calls them his mother and father - to Poetry's Andalites, "mother" refers to which parent more usually [[BizarreAlienBiology carried the infant in a pouch]] marsupial-style, riffing off of Ax's observation in canon that all human fathers are male.

%% * HerbivoresAreFriendly: Thoroughly subverted, both with dæmons and with vegetarian aliens. A motif Poetry uses repeatedly is "predators are cowards".
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: In ''The Presence of Justice'', half of the Animorphs and Gonrod go on a mission to a mundane human prison. Marco is horrified to see so many people his age incarcerated there just because they're Hispanic, while Gonrod is ''shocked'' that humans arrest minors.

** The Animorphs, Free Hork-Bajir, and the Guardians in general are fighting to keep their (sometimes adoptive) planet free from imperialist bodyjacking brainslugs

* IThoughtEveryoneCouldDoThat: The Hork-Bajir take for granted that they're the only species who can see the Dust.

** ''Love the Warriors''[='=] chapters are named after Bible quotes, while ''Abel or Cain''[='=]s are all Jewish funeral rites.

* InterspeciesAdoption: Mr. Tidwell (a human) and Illim (a Yeerk) adopt Estrid (an Andalite) [[spoiler:to show that there can be peace between their three species as part of the end-of-war negotiations.]]
* InterspeciesRomance: {{Downplayed}} with Ruby (a human) and [[spoiler:Tom]] (a human-turned-Hork-Bajir).
* KickTheDog: During ''The Abyss'' [[spoiler:Ax, suffering the effects of being underground and in a bad situation, starts attacking Estrid. After she deliberately infects the Aftran Plisim Pool with her virus he tries to kill her, then when prevented destroys her lab. Overlaps with KickTheSonOfABitch, because Estrid has done nothing but kick dogs and Ax's family immediately shows up to comfort him for being upset.]]

* KillAndReplace: At the climax of The Bright Clear Line, Eva executes a captured Visser One, and works with Aftran impersonate the Visser, allowing them to act as a mole at the very top of the invasion.
* KilledOffForReal: Besides characters who die in the backstory or very early on, such as Elfangor, various characters who either live or die at some later date are killed. [[spoiler: These include David, Edriss, Tom's Yeerk, Alloran, Edriss's son Darwin, Arbat, Melissa, and several original characters.]]

* LighterAndSofter: In some specific ways, Daemorphing is lighter than canon. Tobias has closer relationships with several different people, so his life has more joy in it, plus he's never singled out to be tortured - and because he acts as Ax's daemon whenever Ax is in human morph, he stays closer to humanity. Ax connects with his 'aunt' Loren, and with the free Hork-Bajir, so he's not as lonely. Marco's mother is saved from Edriss, and even if she then walks back into danger with Aftran in her head, it's a different kind of stress. The Animorphs manage to save Tom, so even though that leads to its own woes Jake isn't tormented knowing about his brother's suffering. Rachel is able to stay more in touch with her inner joy and protectiveness, not lashing out as readily. Cassie has a very hard time either way, but the other Animorphs are more sympathetic to her points of view than in canon, and she doesn't give the Yeerks the morphing cube, so they have one less problem to worry about. And thanks to Loren's efforts the kids all get therapeutic talks with Chee until that alliance splits, so they're not quite as trapped in cycles of trauma.

* MayflyDecemberRomance: [[spoiler:Tom]] becomes a Hork-Bajir, who only live for about twenty years, and then falls in love with a human called [[OriginalCharacter Ruby]].

* MeaningfulRename: In chapter 4 of ''The Presence of Justice'' [[spoiler:Tobias comes out as non-binary to Toby Hamee and changes their name to Toby in admiration of all she's done; then Toby Hamee changes her name to Kalij after her mother's home valley.]]

* MindRape: Touching someone else's daemon is a serious taboo. We learn why in ''The Cowardice of Lions''; when David grabs Diamanta, Marco describes it feeling like David is licking his brain.
* MistakenForGay: Rachels mother Naomi mistakenly assumes that Rachel is dating Cassie. While Rachel at no point says she’s not into girls she’s definitely into guys and is dating Tobias.
* MoodWhiplash: Jake's section in the first chapter of ''Destroyer of Worlds'' begins with him having a serious conversation with his parents about what happened to Tom, and ends with him feeling embarrassed about his sexuality.

* LiteralSplitPersonality: Humans and daemons are described as two halves of the same mind, and frequently have inner conflicts when making a difficult decision.

* HerbivoresAreFriendly: Thoroughly subverted, both with dæmons and with vegetarian aliens. A motif Poetry uses repeatedly is "predators are cowards".

All spoilers prior to the end of ''Welcome Home'' are unmarked, to avoid whiting out half the page.

* TheWormThatWalks: The Kelbrid are hive-minds of thousands of biiluminescent worms.

** In canon, it's strongly implied that Rachel killed David near the end of the series. After he betrays them in ''The Cowardice of Lions'', Aftran tells Cassie that turning David into a rat and leaving him in solitary confinement would be too cruel, so the Animorphs come up with a plan to kill him instead. Cassie deals the finishing blow on his daemon.

* NamedByTheAdaptation: Several human characters are given surnames; David's is Finley, and Tobias' is Calladan, Marco's is López Chen, Cassie's is Clark, and Loren's is St. Clair. Mr. Tidwell is also given the first name Julian, Tobias' human uncle is called Leo, and the Governor from ''The Absolute'' is named Celia Hernandez. Tom's second Yeerk is named Carger 8957 (though it's only mentioned once), Sub-Visser Fifty-One is named Korin, Erek's real name is Chee-naxes, and Arbron's full name is Arbron-Roaldwur-Ashul.

* WiseTree: Daemorphing takes a concept which comes up once in canon - that Elfangor has a psychic Guide Tree that can't quite speak or comprehend events like a person can, but can hear and understand his feelings - and develops it into the Andalite equivalent of dæmons, much as in His Dark Materials bears have armor.

* IJustWantToBeFree: The motivation of basically everyone. Even the Andalites profess to treasuring freedom but do not lack it, as a species.
** Most Empire Yeerks, thanks to a horrifically toxic culture, believe that they can only be ‘free’ with a host and don’t care what the host thinks or see them as a person.
** The Animorphs, Free Hork-Bajir, and the Guardians in general are fighting to keep their (sometimes adoptive) planet free from imperialist bodyjacking brainslugs
** The Yeerk Peace Movement wants to be free of the fascist government that would destroy them for daring to care about other species and not want to enslave them.

* IThoughtEveryoneCouldDoThat: The Hork-Bajir take for granted that they're the only species who can see the Dust.

* NamedByTheAdaptation: Several human characters are given surnames; David's is Finley, and Tobias' is Calladan, Marco's is López Chen, Cassie's is Clark, and Loren's is St. Clair. Mr. Tidwell is also given the first name Julian, while the Governor from ''The Absolute'' is named Celia Hernandez. Tom's second Yeerk is named Carger 8957 (though it's only mentioned once), Sub-Visser Fifty-One is named Korin, Erek's real name is Chee-naxes, and Arbron's full name is Arbron-Roaldwur-Ashul.

* AdaptationRelationshipOverhaul: This series features many characters interacting who either never met in canon, had minimal characterisation, or both. For example, Melissa hates Rachel after she learns who the Animorphs are because she doesn't understand why they have to do such harsh things; and Tom becomes close friends with Ax, Tobias, and -- crucially -- the free Hork-Bajir.

* AdaptationSpeciesChange: Euclid is a daemon instead of a regular dog. [[spoiler:Also, Tom becomes a Hork-Bajir nothlit, a morph he never even acquired in canon.]]

All spoilers prior to ''Destroyer Of Worlds'' are unmarked, to avoid whiting out half the page.