Resurrection Men

Resurrection Men is a serial Discworld Fanfic by TMOH, currently being published on fanfiction.net and on deviantART.

On the twenty-fifth of May charming serial killer Carcer Dun was apprehended by Commander Samuel Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. On the twenty-sixth, he was tried before the Patrician and hanged in front of half the city. On the twenty-seventh, he woke up among the specimens at the Surgeons’ Guild with his veins full of formaldehyde and a suspicious lack of pain in his neck.

At the same time, another dead man came to unlife in a basement of the Assassins’ Guild. Jonathan Teatime, missing since last Hogswatch and presumed dead, had remained at the Guild as a ghost. Possessing the body of a freshly deceased student, he walked out into the city—and straight into Carcer.

One fight, several corpses, and a bank robbery later, they’re on the road to Genua with every watchman on the Sto Plains behind in a deranged buddy comedy full of murder, mayhem, and maggots.

Contains examples of:

 * Author Appeal – Road movie tropes and references medical and funeral history are surprisingly common considering that neither really shows up in Canon. TMOH, however, is quite fond of both.
 * Bank Robbery – The entire point of Chapter 3 and the reason the Sto Lat watch is after them in the first place.
 * Beard of Evil – There’s a brief mention of Carcer having one.
 * Body Surf – Teatime is periodically forced to do this due to injury and/or decomposition.
 * Bonnie and Clyde – Neil and Dave, though they’re even less dangerous than the usual version of the trope.
 * Determinator – Conan’s orders: track down Dun and wait for backup. Thus begins a Stern Chase ‘’across an entire continent’’.
 * Different for Girls – It’s not too much of an issue, given that the first and only thing most people notice about him is “mortally terrifying,” but Teatime still runs into some of this when he’s possessing a female body, especially when he has to interact with a real woman. Being a Proper Young Gentleman helps, too.
 * Dudley Do-Right Stops to Help – Part of the reason the Stern Chase is such a long one: as dedicated as Conan is to catching Carcer, she’s just as determined to clean up the messes he leaves behind. Dahl, who’s not afflicted with Chronic Hero Syndrome, doesn’t appreciate it.
 * Evil Duo – With Teatime as the Superego and Carcer as the Id.
 * Evil Is Cool – Basically the entire reason why this fic exists.
 * Evilly Affable – Carcer and Teatime have their moments.
 * Fantasy Gun Control – For a fic about a couple of Knife Nuts, there’s quite a lot of crossbows about.
 * Fan Verse – Resurrection Men is set in the same universe as TMOH’s earlier drabbles, with appearances from several members of Carcer’s fanonical Dysfunctional Family.
 * Fix Fic – In the “Alternate Universe Fic used to Retcon deaths” sense.
 * Gender Bender – When there’s no other alternative, Teatime possesses female corpses, too. Surprisingly, it’s not really played for Fetish Fuel so much as Rule of Funny and plot convenience.
 * First Law of Gender Bending – Somewhat complicated. It’s male-to-female and he’s stuck like that for a while, but there’s never any suggestion that it’s permanent. On the other hand, he does stay like that for a while, but it’s of his own accord and more out of convenience than anything else.
 * Second Law of Gender Bending – Averted. He’ll stay in a female body as long as it’s convenient without much concern, but when she’s no longer useful he’d prefer to go back to his original gender.
 * Third Law of Gender Bending – Averted. Every new female body gets a haircut and trousers at the first possible opportunity.
 * Man, I Feel Like a Woman – Averted; when Teatime acknowledges the sex of the body he’s inhabiting, it’s only to complain about the impracticality of long hair and skirts.
 * Homage – Several:
 * Stagecoach in Chapter 4
 * “The Highwayman” in Chapter 7
 * Important Haircut – Teatime’s attempts to Body Surf into female corpses almost invariably results in haircuts which, though not necessarily character-developing, at least facilitate plot-furthering conversation.
 * I Work Alone – Carcer’s not exactly a team player.
 * Knife Nut – Both protagonists, though that hardly stops them using crossbows, swords, candlesticks and whatever else comes to hand when the plot or Rule of Cool demands it.
 * Last-Name Basis – Every major character so far but Carcer, Neil, and Dave.
 * Line-of-Sight Name – Thanks to a female cadaver and a floral nightgown, Teatime spends several chapters answering to “Rose.”
 * Murder Is the Best Solution – It’s Carcer and Teatime. Murder is always the best solution.
 * Named After Somebody Famous – Nearly all of the Original Character watchmen are named after authors picked randomly off TMOH’s bookshelf.
 * Original Character – Several, largely because the setting tends to go outside the places, and consequently the people, who've been explored in the books. Those Two Guys, the Sto Lat watchmen,, and a few of Carcer’s relatives are the most fleshed-out and plot-relevant.
 * Our Ghosts Are Different – lack of specific goals, intangibility (mostly), and the ability to possess inanimate objects up to and including corpses are all featured, but all that might be more a case of Our Ghost Is Jonathan Teatime.
 * Our Zombies Are Different – Carcer’s a typical Discworld zombie: sentient, inhumanly strong, and smells of formaldehyde.
 * People Puppets – How ghostly!Teatime acquires a physical form.
 * Psychopathic Manchild – Teatime, though not quite as much as he is in the Canon.
 * The Remake – Of We Rob Banks, the poorly-planned Drabble series Slash Fic-turned-Buddy Comedy TMOH wrote, grew ashamed of and abandoned in 2007.
 * Road Movie – or Road Fanfic, in this case.
 * Shout Out – To anything and everything, because this is, after all, a Discworld Fanfic written by a Troper. Noteworthy instances include:
 * Bonnie And Clyde: “We rob banks.”
 * Doctor Who: “John Smith” and his young female companion "Rose"
 * Star Wars: “These aren’t the men we’re looking for.”
 * Run for The Border - More or less a Type A, though the main characters hope to be safe in Genua because Carcer has a brother there, not because it's out of anyone's jurisdiction.
 * Stern Chase – The reason for all the Road Movie tropes.
 * Those Two Guys – Neil and Dave, at first; they get more involved in the plot later on.
 * Villain Protagonist – Carcer and Teatime, in a slightly more literal sense than most given that both were standard villain antagonists in their respective canon appearances.
 * Vitriolic Best Buds – Teatime and Carcer become this around the end of Chapter Six. It starts as something of a Type I, with Teatime as the “genuine” friend (for a given value of “genuine”, anyway) and gradually edges into Type II.
 * Waking Up At the Morgue – Carcer at the Surgeons’ Guild, Teatime at the Assassins’;
 * Web Serial Novel – posted in installments on Fanfiction.net and Deviant ART.
 * Wicked Cultured – Teatime lives and breathes is this trope.
 * Wunza Plot – One’s a newly-risen zombie with a sadistic sense of humor. The other’s a Crazy Awesome ghostly Assassin. They commit crimes.