Dear Bite-Sized Fandoms Creator,

[paleomnesis]

This is such a fabulous concept for an exchange and I'm looking forward to whatever you write for me!

Nightmare - Cornell Woolrich (Novella)

Cliff Dodge/Vincent Hardy (Nightmare – Woolrich)

I ship the hell out of Vince and Cliff and the way Cliff just softens towards Vince, keeping him from losing either his mind or his life. It's one of those stories that easily could have had one of the typical grim endings from Woolrich, but because Vince trusts Cliff, listens to him, and keeps trying to unravel the mystery, he's rewarded at the end with a gruff, but caring, detective who's willing to strip his clothes off to save him. I mean, sure, Cliff is married to his sister, but by the end, the only person Cliff has eyes for is Vince and he spends more time in Vince's bedroom than he does in his own. What I'm saying is that Cliff and Vince are adorable together even with the murders and I want more of them solving mysteries and falling in love.

DNWs: No animal harm, extreme underage (15+ fine), body fluids (blood is fine), permanent nominated character death (transformations/resurrections are fine). No focus on unrequested pairings involving nominated characters; Cliff is canonically married to Vince's sister so I'd prefer that either they had an amicable separation before Cliff and Vince get together or that they were never together at all.

Prompts:

Maybe Cliff never married Vince's sister, but he gets this case about a couple of murders and the more he investigates it, the more he thinks there's something awfully fishy about it. Or maybe they're together from the beginning so when Vince starts getting these nightmares, Cliff's right on top of it to protect him and catch the killer right away.

It would be fun to see Cliff and Vince on a case where Vince isn't the one that needs help. Maybe Cliff needs someone that's on the force to lend him an unofficial hand, or maybe it's Cliff himself who's in trouble and it's Vince that has to figure out how to get him out of the mess.

Anything that deals with the aftermath of all the shit that Vince went through (and it was quite a bit) would be great. Even though Cliff says that he's going to be looking out for him, it's not going to be that simple and I'd love to see anything where Cliff realizes just how hard it's going to be for Vince to recover – and how much he wants to be a part of it.

I'm not going to lie – anything to do with the fact that Vince couldn't remember what we doing afterwards and the evil hypnotist was able to get him to do anything he wanted is like catnip to me. Maybe he does something where he's planning on taking advantage of Vince, since you know, waste not, want not, but Cliff manages to save him, only Vince can't break out of the suggestion unless he, well...

Paranoiac (1963)

Simon Ashby/"Tony Ashby" (Paranoiac 1963)

I've always been particularly fond of Josephine Tey's novel, Brat Farrar, but I never realized just quite how... interesting it could be until Hammer Films got a hold of it and decided to turn it from a mystery about a family dealing with a supposed long-lost relative returned from the dead into a psychosexual thriller with Oliver Reed as Simon alternately menacing and flirting with both his sister and “brother.” Yes, it does turn out that the brother, Tony, isn't really related, but then you watch the finale where Simon's tied up “Tony” up in the chapel while he plays the organ for the real Tony (now a skeleton) and informs “Tony” that they've decided he should join them and you realize that incest is in the eye of the beholder and Simon is all about it. So I'd love something that really delves on the implications there – it's pretty clear that one level Simon definitely knows that “Tony” isn't really his brother, since you know, he killed him, but it's also pretty clear that he'd be fairly happy if he was. So mistaken identity, manipulation, “Tony” getting lost in the role and Simon encouraging it by breaking him, even “Tony” really turning out to be related after all (as per the original novel) -  any of this would be splendid!

DNWs: No animal harm, extreme underage, scat/watersports, no focus on unrequested pairings involving nominated characters (mentions of past canon relationships are fine), no permanent nominated character death (character transformation/resurrection is fine as are ghosts).

Prompts:

Maybe “Tony” really is Tony and the body in the wall was the fake all along – Simon just convinced himself he killed his brother and now that he's realized he hasn't, well, he's got to welcome him home. Or maybe “Tony” is  a cousin or bastard brother, and Simon's got the best of both worlds: family he can fuck who won't be a threat to his inheritance.

I'd love it if rather than deciding to kill “Tony” at the end, Simon decided that he needed to turn over a new leaf and quit all this murder business so he can properly make up with his brother and share the inheritance.  Oh, does “Tony” not want to cooperate and keeps insisting that Simon is a murderer? Well, Simon will just have to fix that too through the time-honored family tradition of gaslighting and mind-fucking.

Simon wouldn't have to keep “Tony” captive if “Tony” would just stay out of trouble, but with Aunt Harriet around, constantly trying to murder “Tony” because she thinks she's doing what's best for Simon, well, he has to keep his “brother” safe the only way he knows how.

Hammer often means supernatural horror and I'd definitely be into that sort of thing here. Maybe the family's all vampires and “Tony” gets welcomed in by his loving brother, or werewolves because Oliver Reed's been down that road before and it always ends well. Or you know, Simon dies at the end, but he comes back, even more obsessed than ever, just to possess “Tony” for the rest of his life.

CBS Radio Mystery Theater

George/Martin Jerome (CBS Radio Mystery Theater)

So this is a radio program from the 1970s about a man who discovers his wife has cheated on him and it breaks him. He speaks to no one for years, only venturing out to visit a cave once a year to have a vacation until one day, he discovers a young couple there and that's the final straw. Now I thought I knew where this might go, but I was not prepared for the attempted cannibalism nor the utter mindfuck of a relationship at the end between the older man and the younger one. I love that they have this weird non-verbal communication where Martin just shows up at the hospital and George just shrugs and thinks, yep, living with this complete stranger now for the rest of my life and goes off with him without a word. And I love that there's this weird fluctuating power dynamic between the two where Martin's the one that's looking to get help for George, while George seems perfectly content to just spend the rest of his life being a reminder to Martin of how genuinely fucked-up a person Martin is.

DNWs: No animal harm, extreme underage, body fluids (blood is fine), focus on unrequested pairings involving nominated characters (mentions of past canon relationships are fine), permanent nominated character death (transformations are fine).

Prompts:

Maybe Martin starts out really meaning well, but finds that he's utterly shit at helping George out (which is perfectly fine by George because he's the one that's actually in control). Or a nice little fucked-up scenario where George leaves for a bit, making Martin both relieved and nervous until he returns, and there's blood under his nails, and a police officer at the door, politely asking Martin if he's talked to his ex-wife recently...

Or, you know, things are bad, but they work through them and realize that Martin can never make up for the hurt, but that George really doesn't need him to. He just needs him to realize that and stay with him. It's codependent still, but in a “maybe everything won't all catch on fire” kind of way.

If you want to go the related route (or just one where the age gap between them makes for some very fucked-up roleplay), I'm all for it. Maybe George knew once he saw who had done all that to him and decided that his revenge would be far more fucked-up, or maybe Martin realized once he did some research into George's background and you know, everything's gone to hell anyways, might as well take the express route.

Also, vampires. Martin's still not entirely sure how George became a vampire (he barely remembers becoming one himself) but it's his responsibility now to take care of him.

The Outer Limits: Judgment Day (TV)

Everett Costello/Declan McMahon (TOL: Judgment Day)

All right, so this is one of these shows that got into my head a few months ago, and I crave content for it so badly. For me, it's the story of two guys, one an alleged murderer seeking to clear his name and the other a TV executive having some qualms about his producer's increasingly morally reprehensible reality program, who end up working together at the end to bring the real criminal to justice and apparently get some deliciously spiteful revenge. I love  the weird character progression where Everett goes from “this Declan guy is a criminal and we should have just killed him” to “I am one of the only people that believes he's innocent and apparently, he's going to trust me enough to let me jam a camera into his--” well, warning for eye trauma, because it's definitely in abundance in this show, even if the low-budget special effects make it far less disturbing than it would normally be.

DNWs: No animal harm, extreme underage, body fluids (blood is fine), focus on unrequested pairings involving nominated characters (mentions of past canon relationships are fine), permanent nominated character death (transformations are fine).

Prompts:

I really want to know how Everett managed to convince Declan to let him help him out. I mean, it's one thing to say, hey, just so you know, I'm definitely not the one that set you up and be reluctantly believed, and another to somehow reinstall a camera in someone's eye, set up an entire new camera feed to play at just the right moment, and then apparently give him a ride over to confront the killer? Like so many questions here that I would love answered.

Something in between the confrontation and the final hunt at the end would be amazing. Declan goes from being shot, missing an eye, and being deeply against the very fundamentals of the show he's on to having a snazzy new wardrobe, replete with eye-patch, and talking about how he really didn't have a choice but to track down and kill the guy who set him up. What happened in that period of time – I'm so intensely curious about how the new trial worked, how the network dealt with the big mess they had on their hands, and why Everett is just smirking as he watches Declan stalk down the street.

Canon divergence would be fun too – what if Everett knew Declan before the show and had to war with his memories of the man versus what everyone, including the courts, said he did. How would that impact how he treated Declan and Declan's decision to trust him at the end?