Teratogenesis
is a Resident Evil fanfic by Ferric that is fairly unusual, to say the least. Rather than a general story fic or romance, it tells a series unconnected AU ficlets, each of which deals with a character from the series being infected (and mutated) with one of the many viruses or parasites from the series and needing to deal with the consequences.
Despite the unusual premise, the fic is extremely well-written, and positively loaded with tearjerkers and nightmare fuel, as well as segments of absurd humor.
Due to the nature of the fic and the difficulty of troping ficlets without giving away major plot points and details, expect many unmarked spoilers for both the fic and the games.
One set of ficlets was later expanded into its own story, Ship of Theseus, and tropes for that are also listed below for convenience.
Teratogenesis provides examples of:
- Adorable Abomination:
- Despite the horrific mutation she goes through, "Tracy" is still more or less the same chipper person after her transformation, and still mostly retains her face and...assets.
- The leech-Rebecca is indistinguishable from the original one, including to herself for a while.
- Attractive Bent-Gender: In one ficlet, Chris and Piers turn into clones of Ada Wong.
- Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: In Ship of Theseus, the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service forces end up being the ones who kill Dr. James Marcus.
- Behemoth Battle: Diptych 1 and 2 feature a character mutating from the T-Abyss virus and fighting Jack Norman.
- Bittersweet Ending: Ship of Theseus. Rebecca fully realizes and admits to herself that she (or rather, the original person she's based on) is dead, but the fact the leeches copied her perfectly means that she'll continue to do what the original Rebecca would have in regards to Umbrella and against weaponized viruses in general. However, with her leech swarm growing both in number and size it's only a matter of time before she's discovered, and she seems to realize this in that she works nights and stays as far away from everyone as possible.
- Body Horror: Each and every single chapter. To recap just a few:
- Some Give All: Piers becomes a Tyrant-like organism, with extra eyes and lower jaws that split to become mandibles.
- Of Monster and Men: While Sherry seems outwardly human, there is a large mass of mutated tissue under her breast, and it also happens to have a G-Virus eyeball.
- Kafkaesque: We are not told the full extent of Moira's t-Phobos induced mutations, but we are quite graphically told about her hand undergoing necrosis before falling off, and the bone blades that eventually grow from the stump.
- Holding On: Jill appears to be similar to a normal Ooze, which may not sound like much. Considering the beautiful woman Jill once was though...
- Someone Posted This On A Forum, Is It?: "Tracy" emerges from the cocoon with numerous insectile limbs, most of which are poorly formed, and tree of which are gigantic scorpion pincers and a blade on the body of a young woman. It should be noted her design is similar to the original concept art of mutated Deborah.
- Burrow Your Way To My Heart, Monsters Inside Me, and Ship of Theseus: Appear to be subversions at first as Rebecca still resembles a normal human. Then she realizes at the end that this is because she has become a Worm That Walks...
- Chekhov's Gunman: The Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service members who Rebecca meets during her aborted attempt at going back to the facility in Ship of Theseus end up getting more heavily armed reinforcements that take out Dr. James Marcus.
- Continuity Nod: Ship of Theseus has Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service members threaten Rebecca when she initially goes to look for Dr. Marcus’s lab and end up being the ones who take out James Marcus.
- Cry Laughing: Diptych 2 ends with Chris doing this.
- Downer Ending: Moira's ficlet; she (apparently) dies at the end. It's ambiguous exactly what happened in the climax though.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Lisa Trevor still loves her family as much as ever, and so does Moira during her months of isolation on the island.
- Foreign Language Title: "Teratogenesis" is a word for the development of congenital malformations, derived from the Greek words for "Monster" and "Origin".
- Foreshadowing:
- “Kafkaesque” has a ton of foreshadowing for Moira’s Face–Monster Turn, most notably the section where she reminisces about The Monster at the End of This Book.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: There are a few chapters which diverge from Body Horror.
- We Won't Get Fooled Again involves a group of cancer researchers being stymied by ill-informed protestors.
- The Enemy of My Enemy involves a duo of BSAA agents investigating an incident at an island lab.
- Life, Love, Friendship, and Lemons is a character piece on Albert Wesker, pre-Raccoon City.
- Gender Bender: Both Chris and Piers transform into physical copies of Ada Wong in The Truth, female anatomies and all.
- Horror Hunger:
- Moira, when she realizes she has a very strong desire to hunt down and eat the human coming to the island at the end.
- Steve from The Little Things That Matter finds himself devouring zombie corpses quite often early on in his mutation.
- In Animal Companions, Leon has a hard time differentiating between good and rotten food, and the plaga seems to prefer rotten stuff.
- Humanoid Abomination:
- Arguably all the characters who have a humanoid figure.
- Rebecca from Ship of Theseus looks and acts normal for the most part, despite being composed entirely of T-Virus mutant leeches wrapped around the original Rebecca's skeleton.
- Left Hanging: The Enemy Of My Enemy leaves what exactly transpired hanging.
- Lighter and Softer: The Truth, Hearts and Minds, Someone Posted This On A Forum, Is It?, and We Won't Get Fooled Again are this to the rest of the ficlets, being far more focused on humor and having little horror in them.
- Ms. Fanservice: "Tracy" becomes an In-Universe example of this trope when "Ian" films her emerging from her C-Virus cocoon, and focuses the camera on the "certain unchanged parts of her anatomy." But from the point of view of other characters, though...
- Nightmare Fetishist: Both "Tracy" and "Ian" from Someone Posted This On A Forum, Is It?
- No Medication for Me: Leon stops taking the plaga-inhibiting drugs in Animal Companions when he starts losing muscle control. Without a dominant-strain plaga to give orders, his doesn't take control utterly, but it does have very pronounced effects on Leon.
- Shout-Out: Probably unintentional, but the general themes and plot details of Moira's ficlet concerning her slow and painfully gradual mutation (as well as what appears to be a Mercy Kill at the end) is highly reminiscent of The Fly (1986).
- The Stoic: Rostam from Hearts and Minds. Fitting, considering he's a Tyrant.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Rebecca actually dies around the halfway point of Monsters Inside Me; the Rebecca whose POV we see through for the rest of the fic is likely a Queen Leech that has completely assimilated the deceased original Rebecca both physically and mentally, and it's only at the end that she realizes this.
- The Worm That Walks: Rebecca ultimately realizes she has become one, rather than being a human infested by the leeches as she previously thought.
