History PlayingWith / StrangersOnATrainPlotMurder

** Bob and Charlie had fictional targets and agreed to a HateFic Story Swap.

* '''Averted''': Neither Bob nor Charlie make plans to murder each other's preferred victim.

%%* '''Implied''': ???

* '''Exaggerated''': Bob and Charlie make a complete list of everyone they have a motive to murder, and agree to murder ''everyone'' the other hates.

* '''Downplayed''': Bob and Charlie both agree to do something nonlethal to Duncan and Alice respectively.

* '''Doubly Subverted''':

* '''Downplayed''': Bob and Charlie both agree to do something nonlethal to Duncan and Alice respectively.

** Bob and Charlie's swapped crime is something illegal but non-lethal such as insider trading.

** Their attempt at an untraceable WhiteCollarCrime still goes to shit for [[DidNotSeeThatComing an unseen reason]] (ex. a member of the oversight commitee getting too nosey) and [[MurderIsTheBestSolution Bob and Charlie are forced to commit murder anyway]]. [[AlwaysMurder It's just the way crime happens in this show]].

* '''Inverted''': Bob and Charlie, who have never before met, join forces to discover who is murdering people close to them and trying to frame them.

** a DirtyCop, this isn't a sting.

* '''Exploited''': A fifth person, Emily, hates Alice and Duncan. She puts Bob and Charlie together on purpose in the hopes that they'll make this kind of agreement.

* '''Defied''': "You're suggesting we commit a murder based on a movie? That's ridiculous, and I'm not having any part of it."

* '''Subverted''': Bob and Charlie make a pact, but both get cold feet and decide not to go through with it.
* '''Doubly Subverted''': Only Charlie gets cold feet, but he assumes Bob has; Bob, in fact, hasn't, and murders Duncan with the expectation that Charlie will now kill Alice for him.

* '''Downplayed''': ???

* '''Parodied''':

* '''Exploited''': ???

* '''Discussed''': "Dude, didn't they get ''caught'' in that movie?" "... Our plan will be better."
* '''Conversed''': ???

* '''Zig Zagged''': After planing crossed homicides, both waits for the other to be the first, to the point that the homicides are aborted. Then they agree to give a serious try both on the same target, once at a time, but during the first attempt, they acknowledge that this would attract suspicious. So they abort again, but while chatting about the original reasons to kill the targets, each agrees that the other's target deserves to die. So the original plan is restarted, but before they can put it in motion they find out that everyone else noticed their newborn friendship, and it burst the whole alibi business.

* '''Enforced''': "Wasn't ''Film/StrangersOnATrain'' [[AdaptationDisplacement a great movie]]? We should totally do a MurderOfTheWeek plot based on that."

* '''Parodied''': Unfortunately for them, neither Bob nor Charlie are actually that competent at trying to murder someone, and make numerous attempts with increasing frustration at their failures. This results in them frequently meeting up to lick their wounds and commiserate with each other.

* '''Deconstructed''': Bob and Charlie's plan is unfortunately flawed in that the police are nevertheless able to establish connections between them and the murders they ''do'' commit. Furthermore, motive isn't the sole factor that the police examine when investigating the crime. The police are able to establish connections between Bob and Charlie and successfully prove their plan, and both are arrested.
* '''Reconstructed''': Though neither Bob nor Charlie make a pact, they are each moved by the depths of the other's frustration to [[ShootTheDog commit the murder]] the other is not willing to do.

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* '''Lampshaded''': During their meeting, Charlie notes how similar the plot Bob is approaching him with is to ''StrangersOnATrain''.

* '''Enforced''': "Wasn't ''StrangersOnATrain'' [[AdaptationDisplacement a great movie]]? We should totally do a MurderOfTheWeek plot based on that."

** Bob and Charlie meets in a "Speed Omicide Switch" Pub, where ''everyone'' goes to find a dilettant killer with a target on his own.

* '''Zig Zagged''': After planing crossed omicides, both waits for the other to be the first, to the point that the omicides are aborted. Then they agree to give a serious try both on the same target, once at a time, but during the first attempt, they acknoledge that this would attract suspicious. So they abort again, but while chatting about the original reasons to kill the targets, each agrees that the other's target deserves to die. So the original plan is restarted, but before they can put it in motion they find out that everyone else noticed their newborn friendship, and it burst the whole alibi business.