History Fanfic / Eleutherophobia

* ConditionedToAcceptHorror: Tom and the Animorphs are almost completely accustomed to injury and dismemberment. Cassie considers losing a hand a minor injury when discussing a television program. [[spoiler:Jake likewise writes off being shot in the chest; he's survived much worse. Except he's doing this in front of his mother.]]

* CatchPhrase: Human-Controllers had 'KTVH', or 'Keep The Visser Happy'- in essence, if a Visser wanted to do something stupid, wasteful or pointless, they'd just go along with it because the alternative was usually getting fed to Taxxons.

* ForWantOfANail: The entire ''Eleutherophobia'' series only happens because Rachel attacks Tom on the Blade ship ''before'' he morphs, rather than after, giving the real Tom a brief window of time to save himself.

* PetTheDog: A soldier named Leslie Burke believes Tom when he says he isn't infested, as passes information onto to him (namely that Jake is alive).

* MusicForCourage: Tom recalls a night on Christmas Eve (and the first night of Hanukah) where a young boy begam to sing "O Come, O Come Emmanuel". After a few moments of shocked silence, a few others began to join in. Then Temrash 114 snapped the boy's neck.

* APlaceHoldsMemories: PlayedForDrama. When Tom enters the tunnels leading to the ruins of the Yeerk Pool, the smell of Kandrona brings back awful memories of all the times his Yeerks forced him to swallow it.

''[[https://archiveofourown.org/series/151619 Eleutherophobia]]'' is a series of ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' {{Alternate Universe Fic}}s by [=SoloMoon=]. The overarching premise is that Tom survived the final battle, but the Yeerk in his head did not. Now, he's learning to live again in a world reeling from the aftermath of a war, while dealing with his inner demons, his broken family, fellow ex-hosts, inconsiderate strangers, and occasionally aliens.

Six of the fics have [[https://archiveofourown.org/series/667874 audio readings]] by [=AlcatrazOutpatient=]. The same author also wrote ''Fanfic/AllAssortedAnimorphsAUs''.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: The Blade Ship snuck back to Earth not to start another infiltration or war, but because the host bodies they're using are starting to suffer from malnutrition, or "space scurvy" as Rachel calls it. Freeze-dried nutrition pills are a poor substitute for actual human food, which they can only reliably get on Earth. The author mentions on her blog that an early draft had them morphing bears, cutting out their livers, and eating those for vitamins.

* ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated: [[spoiler:Rachel is shocked to learn that everyone on Earth thinks she's dead.]]

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: The Blade Ship snuck back to Earth not to start another infiltration or war, but because the host bodies they're using are starting to suffer from malnutrition, or "space scurvy" as [[spoiler:Rachel]] calls it. Freeze-dried nutrition pills are a poor substitute for actual human food, which they can only reliably get on Earth. The author mentions on her blog that an early draft had them morphing bears, cutting out their livers, and eating those for vitamins.

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: The locals of Santa Barbara are unfazed by two aliens, five human war heroes ([[spoiler:one of whom was presumed dead for almost two years]]), and Tom chartering a bus.

* DeathFakedForYou: [[spoiler:The Animorphs figure out that the Rachel whose body was jettisoned into space wasn't Rachel at all, but rather someone forced to morph into her while another Yeerk infested the real Rachel.]]

* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: [[spoiler:Rachel]] rips Efflit 1318 in half once its tricked into leaving her head.

* OpenMouthInsertFoot: When [[spoiler:Rachel]] chastises the Animorphs for drifting apart, she starts to mention how Marco let Jake sleep over at his place when Jake didn't want to deal with "Tom", but interrupts herself when she remembers that Tom is present.

* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:This fic reveals that Rachel was alive the whole time; her canonical death has been referenced, but not shown.]]

* WhamEpisode: Turns out Rachel was alive this whole time, [[spoiler:and the Animorphs get rid of the threat of the last human-Controllers on the Blade ship.]]

* TakeThat: Some of the channels Tom flips through contain real-life politicians who disbelieve that the Yeerk invasion happened and that everything regarding it is a conspiracy against them, [[Creator/JossWhedon certain showrunners]] who proudly do no mythological resource appropriating Andalite culture, sitcoms retconning character behavior as them having been infested by Yeerks, and so on.

-> "Remind me not to get wrapped up in any time paradoxes any time soon, then." I grimaced. "There's already enough bad sci-fi crap in my life."

* CessationOfExistence: Tom asks Jake what it felt like to be dead[[note]]Jake died and then came back to life due to time travel shenanigans in ''The Forgotten''[[/note]]; Jake responds that he remembers ''nothing'', and it terrifies him.

* DramaticIrony: Tom sees a comment on the Matter Over Mind forums saying that broccoli is from space and dismisses it as nonsense, even though ''In the Time of Dinosaurs'' revealed that it was an alien race's crop that they brought to Earth.

* NoSympathy: Taylor has been trying to get into Mind Over Matter for a while, but since she infamously sold out the human race to have a pretty face again, nobody there wants her around.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Marco starts his testimony by telling the defence attorney that if Jake isn't "mentally sound enough" to deliver one, then neither is he, because he's had trauma symptoms since his mother disappeared when he was eleven.

* TheNthDoctor: Jean says that in the cheesy soap opera she writes for, an evil scientist injected a character called Emily with a drug that turned her into a different actress.

* SuperWindowJump: Tom carries Eva and jumps through a fourth-storey window in order to escape from the Animorphs. He breaks several bones on impact, but fortunately he has a HealingFactor.

* CommonLawMarriage: There's a minor lesbian couple who consider each-other wives, but WordOfGod is that they're not officially married because same-sex marriage wasn't legal in 2001 California.

* FaceYourFears: Tom's plan to save Rachel involves [[spoiler:getting Cassie to morph a Yeerk and infest him so he can pretend to be a controller. He's squicked out by the whole process, and Cassie accidentally opens so many traumatic memories that he has a panic attack, but it works.]]

* APlaceHoldsMemories: PlayedForDrama. When Tom enters the tunnels leading to the ruins of the Yeerk Pool, the smell of kandrona brings back awful memories of all the times his Yeerks forced him to swallow it.

* WhamEpisode: Turns out Rachel was alive this whole time, [[spoiler:and the Animorphs get rid of the threat of the last human-controllers on the Blade ship.]]
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The story begins with Tom trying to jailbreak a Yeerk phone, but after the main plot with Rachel gets going, it's never mentioned again.

* BodyHorror: When Tom demorphs from his cobra form in the sewers, his organs start changing shape while he has no skin.

* ArtisticLicencePaleontology: Jake discusses this while watching ''Film/JurassicPark''; during the scene where a character says a ''T. rex'' can't see them if they're standing still, Jake says that's not true, which he knows from first-hand experience.