Fanfic / Morphic

Morphic is a Pokémon fanfic intended as a deconstruction of "Pokémorphs", a fandom term for a character with mixed human and Pokémon characteristics, generally at the level of Beast Men. (Not to be confused with ordinary humans who can transform into Pokémon à la Animorphs, which are also often referred to as Pokémorphs but do not appear in the fic.)

In a World… that is basically Real Life with Pokémon!, a group of scientists try splicing human and Pokémon genes to observe the results, intending to destroy them after finishing their tests and analysis of how they develop. This backfires horribly when the Stop Abortion Movement steps in and forces them to let the embryos develop and live. The scientists take them in as their own children; due to their strange mutations, life is difficult, but they manage.

...and that's where the Church of Holy Truth, a religious organization believing that the merging of humans and Pokémon is blasphemy and must be stopped at all costs, comes in.

The end result is a story that is dark and with solid, believable characters. The Pokémorph children also have varied but realistic personalities, in many cases exploring what an average, normal person would do in the situations that the characters are thrown into.

There are also multiple "Dave and Mia discuss..." shorts, which can be found on the author's fanfiction page on her website, and were added directly onto the fic itself on fanfiction.net. They involve Dave and Mia discussing various subjects, including as of writing sex, politics, and horror.

Early in the morning of April 1st 2011, a sequel written by a new author was posted. In the evening, however, it was revealed to be a hoax, and the real chapter (written by the original author) was supposedly posted. The day after, it was revealed that, too, was a hoax.

The author also posted an additional AU fic featuring Dave stuck in a time loop.

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This fic provides examples of:

• Alternate Universe: Pokémon are not as powerful as they are in the games, and are also less important politically. (The world is not ruled by gym leaders and the Pokémon League, for example.)
  • To be fair, only Pokémon Adventures (itself an Alternate Universe) established that the world was ruled by the League, we don't see any really powerful Pokémon because the villains use guns and everyone else with a Pokémon only use them as pets. I don't think the author even mentioned what region/country the story takes place in, nor does it really apply to the story. Of course given that this story is much more Darker and Edgier compared to mainstream Pokémon, it would probably be safe to assume that this is the case.
  • Wherever it takes place, Peter does mention having started training, and at the end is slightly upset that because of the permanent house arrest, he'll never get to be a Gym Leader. It's likely safe to assume that training is still important in this universe, it just gets less mention because the story focuses more on the kids dealing with their Pokémon DNA.
• The Alcoholic: Dave tends to drink a lot when he's stressed.

• Anyone Can Die: Kids are not immune to bullets.
• Beast Man: Most of the Pokémorphs are mostly human with a few Pokémon features.
• Big Damn Heroes: Cruelly subverted in chapter 13, where Lucy arrives far too late to save most of the kids.
• Bittersweet Ending: Mia and Will are dead and the kids are going to be under house arrest for the rest of their lives...but the Church of Holy Truth is no longer a threat, Gabriel was saved, and the kids' fates could have been a lot worse if Dave hadn't pulled strings.
• Blessed with Suck: Most of the kids, especially Gabriel, who was fused with a Slugma. Also, Katherine needs to be in sunlight constantly or she gets tired and groggy. Peter gets hit with this the least out of all the kids.
• Blood Knight: Every Pokemorph has at least some aspect of this—Mia the most, Lucy and Gabriel the least.
• Chekhov's Gun: Subverted with Felicia, who is killed almost immediately after it looks like she's going to be useful.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Monica Sellers is given a very brief mention in chapter 4. Later on, she tries to warn Dave about the Church of Holy Truth's real plans. Unfortunately, this directly leads to Gabriel getting kidnapped.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Mia is a rare non-comedic example, seeing as she simply does not understand society's conventions to any real degree.
• Creepy Blue Eyes: Jacob and Isaac Daniels are both mentioned to have these; their eyes are referred to as piercing multiple times.
• Designer Babies: Well, duh.
• Determinator / The Unfettered: Dave. He regularly goes to court and pulls strings to the point of obsession in order to give the Pokémorphs a normal life. (This is an interesting juxtaposition with his normal Jerkass personality)
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The circumstances of Pokémorphs' birth; the scientists were drunk when they started making them and initially intended to simply dispose them, until pro-life activists interrupted them and demanded they rise the kids like normal kids. Dave then initially regrets the whole Pokémorphs project, but comes to love them all, slowly.
• Fantastic Racism: It's basically X-Men with genetically-engineered Pokémon gijinkas.
• Freak Out: In chapter 13, Lucy when she sees that Mia is dead. It's so bad that she uses Perish Song.
• Genki Girl: Jean and Lucy are both pretty cheerful for the most part, though Jean a bit more so.
• Guilt Complex: Jack and Katherine get this during the ending. The former because he was the one who led the suicidal rescue mission in the first place and the latter because she was the most "mature" of the Pokémorphs and repeatedly kicks herself for not knowing any better and stopping the others.
• Half-Human Hybrid: The whole point of the story.
• Hollywood Atheist: The author has admitted that Dave has a lot of these traits.
• Hyper-Awareness: Mia, on account of her Scyther genes. It takes a single glimpse of the leader of the Church of Holy Truth for her to figure out that the police arrested the wrong man.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: In a non-fictional example, this series of comments, starting from one Mudskipper and in retrospect painfully obvious.
• Interrupted Suicide: Jack, arguing that I Am a Monster. Gabriel talks him out of it, on the basis that Gabriel deserves to die a lot more than Jack does.
• Jerkass: Dave.
  • Subverted, as he is also extremely selfless when it comes to protecting the Pokémorphs, and will stop at nothing to ensure their safety and survival. The juxtaposition is rather intriguing and somewhat bizarre.
    • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: ...maybe?
• Kid Heroes: Natch.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: The kids' personalities seem to be, at least in part, based on the Pokémon they were fused with. In addition, it's later revealed that it also makes them feel violent and aggressive sometimes.
  • And there's also an example of this that borders on You Fail Biology Forever: Katherine, due to the fact that Roselia mature much faster than ordinary humans, is physically much older than the other Pokémorphs. Okay. But the story apparently interprets physical age as mental age; she skips grades, eventually learns how to drive, and is often regarded as the wisest and most mature of the group. Except that she is the exact same age as everyone else mentally — none of that would ever be possible in Real Life.
    • Her capacity for rational thought, judgement, processing power, hormone levels etc. develop at the speed of her brain, which is the same accelerated speed at which the rest of her body ages. However, she has still only actually lived in the world for ten years, the same as everyone else, making her just as inexperienced as they are.
    • Sort of lampshaded by Dave in one of the "Dave and Mia discuss..." bonus chapters. He points out that while she looks and acts more like a teenager, she's still technically ten.
• Missing Mom / Parental Abandonment: Jean. Ironic, as her mom specifically volunteered to take her.
• Mood Whiplash: Chapter 13. Previously, the story started drifting into an optimistic, kid-adventure-style sort of plot. But when the kids actually try to launch an all-out assault, we are reminded that kids are not bulletproof.
  • And before then, Chapter 7. It goes from Jean bragging about the movie contract to Brian getting killed.
• Nice Guy: Brian and Gabriel.
• Odd Friendship: Dave and Mia, despite his abrasive temperament and her unfamiliarity with most social norms. They did get five extra chapters together, after all.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Dave gets noticeably nervous whenever Mia brings up that he had sex with her mom.
• Personality Powers: Overlaps with The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body; the kids' personalities tend to match the Pokémon they were fused with. Inverted with Gabriel, however, who is a Nice Guy.
• Pet the Dog: Dave is genuinely a Jerkass, but he gets fonder of the Pokémorphs eventually (especially Jean and Mia), and in some of his interactions with Mia (mainly the Dave-and-Mia-discuss chapters), he's quite noticeably less of a jerkass.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Some argue that Issac Daniels and the Church of Holy Truth are this.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gabriel internally calls Dave out on a truckload of things at Brian's funeral.
• Required Secondary Powers: Averted hard with Jean and Gabriel. Despite being fused with Fire-Types, they are not fire-proof. Gabriel is constantly at risk of organ failure due to his high body temperature, and this nearly happens after he figures out how to use his fire powers. Meanwhile, Jean burns her mouth after evolving and accidentally unleashing a fire attack.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Brian.
• Sacrificial Lion: Will and Mia.
• Shout-Out: Gabriel and Brian's mystery novel has the same plot as an Icelandic murder mystery novel.
• Sir Swearsalot: There is a lot of swearing, at least 90% of which is in Dave's dialogue and internal monologue.
• Sociopathic Hero: Mia.
• Spoiled Brat: Jean.
• Take That!: Part of what kicks off the plot is the mention of a series of books about a Half-Human Hybrid named "Sarah Hooter" fighting an evil organization. Why does that sound familiar?
• This Is Reality: In chapter 12:
  Dave: This isn’t some fucking kids’ action movie where the good guys win. This is real life with real-life murderers waiting to murk the life out of you because the invisible man in the sky told them to do it. You’re just a bunch of kids. By God, Jean, you’re all going to fucking die.
  • He's right.
  • Also in chapter 14. Dave likes this trope:
  Dave: Thing is, the heroes you read about in books aren’t real. There’s always a writer watching over them and making sure they win out in the end and the bad guys get caught. In the real world, we aren’t that lucky. There’s nobody watching over us, and the bad guys win all the time.
  • Will also gets a brief moment of this in Chapter 6.
  "...if only he were a fictional character everyone would probably love him."
• Thou Shall Not Kill: Subverted in chapter 13, when the kids opt to knock out or paralyze the religious extremists instead of killing them, they get up again just when the kids think they're safe. The result is not pretty. It only gets better when they start killing the fanatics.
• Too Dumb to Live: Mia, arguably. While she's able to detect where the members of the Church of Holy Truth are, she's so focused on killing one of them that she doesn't notice Isaac Daniels sneaking up on her.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Mia likes hot dogs, though she doesn't really get the point of the food and usually eats them plain. It's also mentioned that meat is one of the only gifts she'll find a use for, the other being things she can cut.
• Transformation Trauma: In Chapter 13, Jean accidentally touches a Fire Stone and evolves. However, since they're only part Pokémon, only half of them evolves. Their human body struggles to keep up, and the result is...not pretty.
• Uncanny Valley: Directly mentioned in Chapter 13 after the above Transformation Trauma. Detail is given as to how wrong Jean looks after she evolves, and is said to be "smack dab in the Uncanny Valley."
• Unscrupulous Hero: Mia, and to a horrifying extent in Chapter 13.
• Wham Episode: Two. The first is chapter 7, in which things start going downhill fast and the Sacrificial Lamb dies, and another in chapter 13, not only because it contains extreme Mood Whiplash, but also because Anyone Can Die comes into effect.
• Winged Humanoid: Mia and Peter have Scyther and Taillow wings, respectively.
• Wings Do Nothing: However, neither winged character is able to fly. Mia is too heavy, due to being on a normal-sized teenage(-looking) girl, and Peter's wings are too small and deformed.
• Younger Than They Look: Most of the morphs, though especially Mia and Katherine. Lucy is the only one Older Than They Look.

Tropes used in the April Fools' Day "sequel":

• Alternate Universe: The "real" version was stated by Word Of God to be an "alternate universe".
• Back from the Dead: Mia and Will. Not really.
• Easy Evangelism: Bubbles pulls this one on Jean. Dave is at least a bit more canny...
• Genki Girl: Bubbles who is really Isaac Daniels's Mew.
• Not as You Know Them: Almost everyone in the version by the "new" author. Justified in that the author in question never actually read Morphic, and was just given a bunch of short, one-sentence descriptions of each character. The defining moment of which is when a dead Mia suddenly has the hots for Dave and starts chasing him all over the afterlife.
  • Averted in the "real" version, where the author even says she was trying to keep Dave as in-character as possible.
• Stealth Parody

Tropes used in Groundhog Dave:

• Alternate Universe: This one is also labeled as an AU.
• Bittersweet Ending: Dave ends up back in the original timeline (where Mia and Will are still dead), and if all the other scenarios created their own branches, then he made several timelines that are significantly worse than the first one... But he also created three timelines where all the kids make it out alive, and one where everything goes perfectly, which gets him out of the loop. Lucy also seems to retain some awareness of what happened, giving him someone to talk to afterwards.
• Driven to Suicide: Dave shoots himself in at least one timeline from the stress of dealing with the loop.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: Dave is stuck reliving the events of Chapter 13 over and over again until he finds a way out.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Dave retains all his memories of the previous loops, which eventually helps him figure out a way to get out of it. The ending implies that Lucy is at least somewhat aware of what happened, though to what extent is ambiguous.