likeadeuce

Books:

Finished:
Thursday Murder Club
Changeover
Now Is not the Time To Panic
Carmilla
Tonight in Jungleland
The Rose Field
The Listeners (R)
The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and his Kingdom of Clay
Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

Started:

Black Cake (Q)
Bridge of Sighs (Q)
Evelina
Run for the Hills
The Ten Year Affair(Q)
The Road to Tender Hearts


TV:

Hunting Wives S1
Reacher 1, 2 . . .
Les Miserables miniseries
The Lowdown (R)- 1
The Pitt 2x1, 2x2, 2x3, 2x4, 2x5, 2x6, 2x7
All her Fault S1
Wayward 1x1, 1x2, 1x3, 1x4, 1x5, 1x6
Wonder Man S1
Knight of the Seven Kingdoms 1x1, 1x2


Movies:

Wizard of Oz (R)
One Battle After Another (R)
All We Imagine as Light
Thursday Murder Club
The Fall
Bugonia
The Wiz (R)
Is This Thing On? (T)
Pavements
28 years Later
Rififi (T)
Brick (T) (R)
No Other Choice (T)
The Testament of Ann Lee (T)
Morvern Callar
Return to Oz (R)
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
The Secret Agent (T)
Crime 101 (T)
Promising Young Woman (R)
You Were Never Really Here
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (T)
Saltburn (R)
Wuthering Heights 2026 (T)
Wuthering Heights 1992


(R) -reread or rewatch
(Q) - quit
(T) - Movie in a theater

I wrote yuletide promo posts (or just recommendations for two movies I love):

2024's Babygirl (office romance with age gaps and adultery, but in a tender way) and

2013's Inside Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac! The Coen Brothers! Mid-century American folk music! A cat! Llewyn Davis walking so Patrick Zweig could run!)

I swore off exchanges after last year, ESPECIALLY yuletide, but I keep getting obsessed with weird little movies and so i have submitted nominations.

username: Likeadeuce
Did you add this to the spreadsheet already?: Yes
Nomination OR Request?: Nomination
Fandom: A History of Sound (2025)
Character 1: Lionel Worthing
Character 2: David White
Character 3: Belle White Sinclair
Character 4: Vincent (The History of Sound)

Fandom:Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Character 1: Llewyn Davis
Character 2: Jean Berkey
Character 3: Mike Timlin (Inside Llewyn Davis)
Character 4: Al Cody

Fandom: A Complete Unknown (2024)
Character 1: Bob Dylan (A Complete Unknown)
Character 2: Johnny Cash (A Complete Unknown)
Character 3: Joan Baez (A Complete Unknown)
Character 4: Pete Seeger (A Complete Unknown)

Fandom: Babygirl (2024)
Character 1: Romy Mathis
Character 2: Samuel (Babygirl)
Character 3: Esme Smith
Character 4: Jacob Mathis

Fandom: Saltburn (2023)
Character 1: Oliver Quick
Character 2: Felix Catton
Character 3: Venetia Catton
Character 4: Farleigh Start

DC, Open (2844 words) by likeadeuce
Chapters: 1/?
Fandom: Challengers (Movie 2024)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Art Donaldson/Patrick Zweig, Art Donaldson/Original Female Character(s), Patrick Zweig/Original Male Character(s)
Additional Tags: Tennis, Missing Years, watches and other status symbols, Patrick Zweig's POV, tashi haunting the narrative
Summary:

Patrick is trying to get his tennis career together when he runs into Art again at a tournament in Washington, DC.

Are they so back, or is it so over?

Dear Candyhearts creator!

I know it's the thing these days to write a bunch of bullet points for likes and DNW's and honestly, I don't feel like it, this is a short-word-requirement exchange, please write what you're feeling and have fun with it!

Treats welcome.

My requests:

( The Raven Cycle )

( Challengers )

( Babygirl )

( Babygirl/Challengers )

I've been enjoying reading in the archive, which is quite rich in the fandoms I've enjoyed most over the past year. I'll try to another pass through the archive, casting a wider net (recs welcome, as always) but here's my initial list:

Bikeriders

Triptych (3600 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Bikeriders (2023)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Benny/Johnny/Kathy (The Bikeriders)
Characters: Danny Lyon, Johnny (The Bikeriders), Kathy (The Bikeriders), Benny (The Bikeriders)
Additional Tags: Love Triangles, Period Typical Attitudes, Happy Ending
Summary:

“There’s plenty I like about Johnny,” Kathy says. “Like I said, he keeps his head. And he’s loyal. I seen women throw themselves all over him but he’s only got eyes for Benny.”

“Betty.”

“Betty. That’s what I said.”

Later, Danny plays back the recording and confirms she did in fact say Benny.

Or: Johnny tells Danny about the blizzard of '67. Kathy explains how Benny dodged the draft. And Benny finally agrees to be interviewed.

The interview format of Bikeriders creates so many storytelling possibilities and I love what this author has done with it. (Also this movie is great, it's available on Amazon Prime in the States, give it a shot!)


on occasion, into oblivion (1708 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Bikeriders (2023)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Benny/Johnny (The Bikeriders)
Characters: Benny (The Bikeriders), Johnny (The Bikeriders)
Additional Tags: Angst, unidentified yearning
Summary:

Some scenes from a bike race.

Benny POV is a challenge because Benny may never actually have any idea what is going on, and this author takes that on so well. This really captures the slippery sense these characters have in the film and it's worth it just for Danny trying to tell Austin Butler's character that he looks like Elvis.

Challengers

There's a lot of good quality Challengers stuff, particularly rich in Tashi character explorations, and here are a couple of my faves:

only see (5048 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Challengers (Movie 2024)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Art Donaldson/Tashi Donaldson/Patrick Zweig, Tashi Donaldson/Original Male Character(s)
Characters: Tashi Donaldson
Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Character Study
Summary:

Instead of everything beginning, Tashi retreats to her childhood bedroom.

In which Tashi, who can't play tennis anymore, tries to live in a world where she could do something else. It goes like everybody knows it will.

in the company of ghosts (6584 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Challengers (Movie 2024)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Art Donaldson/Tashi Donaldson/Patrick Zweig
Characters: Tashi Donaldson, Art Donaldson, Patrick Zweig
Additional Tags: Threesome - F/M/M, Post-Canon, Relationship Negotiation, Developing Relationship
Summary:

After the challenger, what they should do is talk, but what they actually do is fuck. If it was supposed to fix anything, it doesn’t.

Post-movie threesome is, with good reason, the richest and most popular genre of Challengers fic, and this one is especially insightful and sexy. My favorite part is when Patrick and Tashi agree that, based on their personal experience, Art does not enjoy being (conversationally) ambushed while he's naked, and then they do it anyway. If these dumbasses (complimentary) were good at respecting boundaries, they wouldn't be in this situation.

Saltburn

the architecture of the minotaur's heart (3072 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Saltburn (2023)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Felix Catton/Oliver Quick
Characters: Oliver Quick, Felix Catton
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Scheming, Murder, Madness, Gothic, violent imagery, Ambiguous/Open Ending, maybe it's ghosts, Yuletide 2024
Summary:

Saltburn demanded a sacrifice.

Fantastically gothic, satisfyingly murderous. Forget it, Jake, it's Saltburn.


Ways Out of the Labyrinth

Speaking of the difficult task of giving interiority to a character who may never have any idea what is going on, this story has one of the best and convincing Felix-POV's that I've read. These guys deserve each other.
I love it.

Tennis RPF

Boléro (1753 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Tennis RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Carlos Alcaraz Garfia/Jannik Sinner
Characters: Carlos Alcaraz Garfia, Jannik Sinner
Summary:

Carlos thinks he felt it start before anyone else did.

A really sweet look at a budding rivalry in the tennis world. From watching the other guy puke in a trash can to sort of accidentally inviting him to dance with you, while your coach/mentor/father figure tries to warn you not to give too much of yourself away. You don't need to know these guys (though they're cutie pies IRL) to enjoy the lovely writing here, I think.

I've been mostly absent but in the spirit of much-needed cheer, here's my thread at love meme! ✨ holiday love meme 2024 ✨
my thread here

I've been watching 'The Durrells' ('The Durrells on Corfu' in the US) and I find Keeley Hawes and Josh O'Connor to be the highlights of the cast who have the best scenes together and excellent sexual chemistry.

They are, unfortunately (?) playing mother and son.

(I think this is the first one on one Patrick & Tashi interaction I've done? And they have some of the snappiest scenes in the film)

Tashi smiles toward Art and Lily, tired and fond, and it ought to be a lovely scene but Patrick needs her looking at him.

“Whose idea was the kid?” he asks.

Her gaze pivots and she starts, he is sure, to say something sharp and vicious, but changes her mind and speaks with exaggerated patience. “You see, Patrick, when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much --”

Patrick laughs.

Tashi glances across the lawn toward Art and Lily, though there’s no way they can hear her, then leans closer and speaks quietly as she continues -- “and they have mind-blowing, adventurous, emotionally fulfilling sex --”

“Okay.”

“-- on the night Mommy coached Daddy to an instantly legendary victory at the Australian Open --”

“Most of the time when people are having mind-blowing, adventurous, emotionally fulfilling sex, they don’t need to work so hard to tell you all about it.”

“Did you even make the main draw in Melbourne that year? I’m pretty sure you washed out of the quallies before we even landed.”

“Okay, so one of two things is happening here. Either you have been paying a weird amount of attention to the results of somebody you weren’t even speaking to. Or. You went back and memorized my entire record so you’d be able to change the subject to something that has nothing to do with. . .Wait, seriously. . .” He can’t help looking back over at Art and Lily, who still don’t give a shit that he’s watching. “That’s when you got pregnant?”

It makes sense. Art had won his first AO, and Tashi had been visibly pregnant six months later when he won Wimbledon, ready to pop by the US Open. It didn’t take a superfan to know all that; you just had to watch TV. The British tabloids had been particularly vicious about Tashi's looks (which was insane because it was Tashi) and the next year Art made an off the cuff comment about how he did “not particularly” enjoy the atmosphere at Wimbledon which got blown up into a thing about American arrogance, and (coincidence or not) Art never had a good tournament there again. This was all basic Donaldson lore.

This is the way it is: Patrick has been on his own for more than a year now. Around the time of the Tashi disaster (who could say what was cause and what was effect?) he fired the coach his parents had been paying, partly with USTA player development money, threw the gear Head had given him into the Mercedes M-Class he’d gotten for his sixteenth birthday, and signed up for a gym membership he could use in any city. He lied about his income and status as a college student to get a credit card in his own name, registered Unforced Terror LLC in the State of Maryland, and had all the paperwork and tax documents sent to the Zweig family financial manager, who (presumably, because the card still worked) paid it out of an account funded by the leftover parental and USTA subsidies, along with his intermittent prize money. At nineteen and now twenty years old, Patrick is an entrepreneurial American small businessman, just bad enough at math to tell himself he’s breaking even.

On his own doesn’t mean alone. It doesn’t even mean lonely, most of the time. Between his people skills and his juniors résumé, he can always find someone who wants to play doubles with him, which means he has someone to hit with, work out with and, when he needs to, split a hotel. He’s showy enough on the practice courts that people want to hit with him. He gets a reputation, coaches want him to train with their players -- and if he does a good enough job looking regretful, like he has somewhere to be, really he shouldn’t -- slip him cash or buy him a meal so that, when tournaments actually bother to provide a per diem, he can save it for a rainy day. He’s Patrick Zweig, hitting partner and drinking buddy for rent. He fills his aging T-Mobile Sidekick with numbers, so that he’s got his choice of temporary BFF’s at every tournament.

And when he’s sick of eating sleeping breathing the tour, the phone gives him other options -- people from Juniors and the Academy who washed out or went to college, the older siblings of kids whose bar and bat mitzvahs he attended. He can almost always find a couch to crash on. More and more often, between gyms and bars and an irregularly-tended OK Cupid account, he can find a bed. That’s the other thing that’s different, being grown up and on his own. If he sees someone and he wants them -- wants a touch, a kiss, a fuck, either end of a blow job, if he thinks they want it too -- Patrick might as well give it a shot. Not with the tour guys, mostly, and only occasionally with the women; it turns out too many of them know Tashi. But, compared to the person Patrick was even a year ago, he knows much more about who he is and what he wants. There’s no room in him for shame, if there ever was. Nobody in his extensive list of contacts matters more than anyone else, so if he reads something wrong and burns that bridge, it’s not the end of the world. When you don’t care where you’re going, one bridge is as good as anything else.

So, it turns out, Patrick is completely unprepared for the situation he currently finds himself in: sharing the back of a Washington DC cab with his gear bag jammed against the window, the other side of his body pressed against Art Donaldson, trying to act like the proximity doesn’t get to him. He likes the way this feels and he’s not sure he’s doing a good job of hiding it from Art. He’s not sure how much he wants to.