I always heard that having blood on your hands was the worst feeling in the world. I feel fine, though. A bit sad, but fine...is there something wrong with me?
—Nate, Beyond Moral Support
The Walking Dead: Real Monsters is a The Walking Dead Fan Fic written by Visambros
and can be read here. Published in November of 2013, it follows the story of 400 Days character Nate, accompanied by his friends Vaughan and Charlie. The fanfic now has a website of its own.
- Please note, there now exists a revamped version, a PDF, and a fanfiction.net version (near identical to the PDF) of this fanfic. Meaning that some tropes might conflict with each other due to the differences in the original and the other versions.
This fanfiction contains the following tropes:
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General
- A Day in the Limelight: Nate was a secondary character in 400 days.
- Aerith and Bob: Most of the characters, regardless of race, have European sounding names. So when the doctors at the camp have Indian names, it comes across as this. Compare Nate and Nāgá for example.
- A Friend in Need: Nate's continuous support of Charlie and especially Vaughan.
- Amicable Exes: For all the fighting that goes on between Charlie and Nate, they do like each other.
- A Threesome Is Hot: It's stated explicitly in the revamped chapters that Nate, Vaughan and Charlie are all sleeping together.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Nate comes from one.
- Call-Forward: Several throughout the story.
- The chapter title "Hatred of Thieves" refers to Nate's warning in 400 Days that if Russell steals from him he will "get [his] throat out." Similarly, "Walk Among Cobras" is a reference to the music playing in his truck.
- Nate's nicknames for other characters are reminiscent of the "affectionate" names he calls Russell.
- The exchange between Nate and Charlie after she killed Hanna and Guatier is somewhat similar to the excahnge Nate has with Russell if Russell chooses to stay with Nate after he killed the elderly couple.
- When Nate first tries whiskey, his reaction is to cough and splutter, similar to Russell's reaction if you choose to drink it. The difference being that Nate perseveres and enjoys the buzz, whereas the initial kick is enough to put Russell off entirely.
- Vaughan touches Nate's face to force him to meet his gaze in Chapter 4 in much the same way Nate does to Russell later, although Vaughan is far more gentle about it.
- Pushing the dumpster in Chapter 4 is arguably reminiscent of pushing Nate's truck for cover in 400 Days, complete with mashing prompts.
- Childhood Friends: Nate and Charlie.
- Childhood Friend Romance: After the death of Casey, they hooked up for two years.
- Crapsack World
- Dark and Troubled Past: A flashback sequence in Chapter 4 provides glimpses into Nate's childhood. Vaughan also mentions caring for his terminally ill mother before moving to America. And Jude mentions that he suffered from depression before the apocalypse began.
- Doomed by Canon: Seeing how Nate appears alone in 400 Days, Charlie and Vaughan.
- Dr. Jerk: All the doctors at the camp are this to varying degrees.
- Friends with Benefits: Nate has this relationship with both Vaughan and Charlie in the revamp.
- Gen Fic
- Hallucinations: This is a recurring theme in the story; with Vaughan and his cancer, and Nate with his deteriorating mental state.
- Harmful to Minors: The apocalypse is not kind to children. The adults don't always help.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Subverted. In the original version, "heterosexual life partners" Nate and Vaughan turn out to be in love, although Nate isn't brave enough to confess. In the revamped version, the trope is averted completely.
- Hide Your Children: Averted, sometimes with horrifying results.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: From ordinary people to bandits to evil doctors, even the protagonist becomes a monster eventually.
- Not in Front of the Kid: Averted. Hardly anyone seems to care about what they do in front of children.
- Official Couple: Charlie and Vaughan. Nate is sort of added to this as well in the revamp since he's sleeping with the both of them, though he's not considered to be their boyfriend.
- Only One Name: Everyone but Charlie, Dr. Nāgá, and Sissy.
- Opposites Attract: Cold, aggressive Charlie seems like an odd match for the timid, sweet Vaughan, but they're romantically involved.
- Original Flavour: Even going as far as to add action prompts in the story.
- Sex with the Ex: Nate and Charlie in the revamped version.
- Shout-Out: A few.
- In Chapter 1 of the revamp, there's a shout out to Rambo. This can also be seen as foreshadowing.
- In Chapter 4 of the revamp, "I find your lack of faith disturbing" is a shout-out to Star Wars.
- "Ho ho ho, motherfucker!" is a shout-out to 11 Drunk Guys, of all things.
- STD Immunity: Zigzagged in both the original and the revamp. In both, it's never stated that Charlie caught anything from the bandit she slept with, even though said bandit was a rapist. And in the revamp the trio never passes anything to each other. But in both versions, there are people who have AIDS.
- Toilet Humor: Nate and Charlie make several crude jokes over the course of the story, especially when referring to Dr Nāgá.
- The Topic of Cancer: Vaughan having cancer drives much of the plot.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Nate and Charlie are constantly at each other's throats; Nate even threatens to choke her at one point, but finds he can't do it.
- With Friends Like These...: Nate and Charlie fight a lot, and occasionally they both gang up on Vaughan too.
- Zombie Apocalypse: Obviously. Though like the game it's based on, the zombies aren't the main problem.
Chapter 1
- Bystander Syndrome: Most of the crowd members do nothing to help the situation, choosing to watch and judge Nate, Charlie and Vaughan instead of helping out. That is, until they decide that Vaughan needs to die.
- Blatant Lies: Hilariously so in the original version. "He's 'doing' me."
- Conveniently Empty Building: Subverted. The only person in the house when the car crashed through it was upstairs and therefore wasn't in harm's way. However, Everyone that was in the backyard went into the house to see what happened, which lead to them getting attacked by zombies.
- Every Car Is a Pinto: Averted. The car that crashes into the house never explodes, and the characters never once mention the possibility of it exploding.
- Liquid Courage: The reason why Vaughan and Nate were drinking in the first place, so they can confront an angry Charlie and deal with Vaughan's cancer.
- Police Are Useless: Various characters wait for the police to arrive but they never show up. Justified, as they're probably busy with a thousand other zombie cases or dead.
- Zombie Advocate: Downplayed in the revamp. People in the crowd seem realize that the zombies aren't human, but still want Nate and Charlie to tie a zombie up instead of killing it in order for the police to question it.
Chapter 2
- Abandoned Hospital: They go to one due to Vaughan wanting to find some medication.
- A Real Man Is a Killer: Charlie gets annoyed with Nate when he refuses to kill the baby.
- Babysitting Episode: Most of the chapter is this.
- Parents for a Day: Type one with a dark twist at the end.
- Children Are a Waste: Charlie certainly thinks so- her argument against adopting the child was that it would do nothing but weigh their group down.
- Darkness Equals Death: Though the group enters the hospital sometime during the day, the interior of the hospital is dark. This is where the baby dies.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: Hanna and Guatier.
- Eats Babies: Fuck zombies.
- Room Full of Zombies: Nate opens the doors to the stairwell of the hospital and comes face to face with a horde.
- Time Skip: It's been thirty-three days since the events of Chapter 1.
Chapter 3
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Nate ruthlessly tortures a bandit, setting him on fire after Charlie is kidnapped.
- Half-Breed Discrimination: One of the bandits refer to Charlie as a half-breed while talking about her.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Nate's feelings at the beginning of this chapter.
- Mistaken for Masturbating: Nate's excuse for the noises he makes in his sleep, which are actually due to nightmares.
- Murderers Are Rapists: Played straight with the bandits, except for one. Maybe.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: The bandits get what they gave.
- Rape Discretion Shot: This would've happened if Charlie hadn't decided to willingly sleep with the bandit.
- Safe Zone Hope Spot: The doctor camp becomes this. By episode 4 it's apparent that the camp was just a trap.
- Suddenly Sober: Nate goes from being somewhat drunk to completely sober in a matter of seconds. Justified, since the appearance of bandits trying to kill him and his friends snap him out of it.
- There Are No Therapists: At the end of the chapter, Vaughan mentions that either all the therapists are dead or need therapy themselves.
Chapter 4
- Bilingual Dialogue: Happens between Nate and Sissy.
- This might seem a bit odd, since Nate tells his mom in a flashback that he can't understand her when she's speaking French, but it's implied that Nate is young at the time. So he would've had the time to understand it better as he got older, even if he couldn't speak it himself.
- Foreshadowing: A particularly cruel example: Nate refuses to take away Jude's weed on the basis that a stoner never hurt anybody, but of course, Eddie kills Charlie in the final chapter.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: A dream sequence has Vaughan playing the shoulder angel and Charlie the shoulder devil for Nate.
- Female Angel, Male Demon: Inverted in the dream.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Nate and Sissy.
- Laughing Mad: Nate goes through an unhinged fit of laughter after beating the zombie, who tried to kill Sissy, to death.
- Lured into a Trap: Getting the gas for the doctors turns out to be this, but they don't find that out until chapter five.
- Mistaken for Gay: Subverted. Sissy asks if Nate and Vaughan are a couple. There turns out to be some truth to her assumption.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Nate, to a zombie that tried to eat Sissy.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Nate says this to Raymond after he mistakes Charlie to be his girlfriend, but soon tells him that they use to date each other.
- Suddenly Bilingual: In the original, Nate being able to understand Sissy when she speaks French comes across as this. This is somewhat justified, since later on in it's revealed that his mom was French too, but there was no build up to this before the flashback.
- Tragic Keepsake: It's revealed that Nate never got rid of the baby supplies he took. He doesn't have them after chapter 4 due to the doctors taking the majority of the supplies.
Chapter 5
- Aborted Declaration of Love: Nate doesn't say anything to Vaughan after the latter said that he loved him and Charlie, even thought he wanted to.
- Anyone Can Die
- Back from the Dead: Subverted. Vaughan returns to life after being eaten, but as a walker.
- Big Damn Heroes: Nate, Raymond, Jude, Charlie, and Ritika.
- Dead Person Conversation: Nate has a conversation with his dead brother Casey in a dream.
- Downer Ending: Charlie is killed, and soon after, Vaughan succumbs to his cancer and is torn apart by zombies, leaving Nate to realize how much he loved them while sobbing.
- Bait-and-Switch: Since Eddie talks about shooting "a guy" in 400 Days, the implication is that Vaughan will be the one shot on Day 41. Instead, the androgynous Charlie is shot, and Vaughan is eaten alive.
- Heroic BSoD: The trauma of losing them causes Nate to blank out for months, as shown in the epilogue.
- Evil All Along: Turns out the doctors were just using sick people to find a cure for the zombie virus.
- Failure-to-Save Murder: Nate is accused by Raymond of killing them because he choose to leave the clinic with Charlie and a very sick Vaughan instead of saving him, Jude, and the other kidnapped patients.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: Kidnapping people and injecting them with a virus is clearly not okay. But the doctors aren't doing this just to be terrible. They're trying to find a cure and save humanity. The other survivors are not in the wrong for wanting to save their friends and family. But ultimately they're doing nothing to try and make the world a better place.
- A Lighter Shade of Grey: The other survivors are portrayed as being more heroic however.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Subverted. Vaughan asks Nate to leave him behind at the end of the chapter to prevent him from causing any more harm to the group, but Nate refuses to do so.
- The Needs of the Many: A rather dark version. This is the mentality the doctors have for kidnapping and killing random people. It's in order to find a cure and save humanity, even if a few people have to die for it.
- An achievement in this chapter has this in the title, referring to the option Nate has to try to save everyone else and put himself and his friends in danger, and how he ultimately decides not to do that.
- Overcome Their Differences: Most notably when Nate, Charlie and Vaughan are joined by Ritika, who wants to help them and the others to escape from Dr Nāgá's hospital.
- Roaring Rampage of Rescue
- Sadistic Choice: Nate had to choose between saving the patients and the captured allies and risk himself and his friends dying, or leaving them to die to save himself, Vaughan, and Charlie. Nate chooses the latter.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Downplayed. It doesn't go into much detail, but it does say that Nate had to move out of the way when Vaughan throws up after seeing Charlie get shot in the head.
- What Happened to Mommy?: Averted, since Dr. Phanin shoots Sissy's reanimated mother and Nate doesn't go back to the abandoned campsite to tell Sissy what happened.
