#tashiartpatrick

addiction vs. sobriety as metaphor for tennis mindset in CHALLENGERS (2024)

while all of art's attitude surrounding tennis is extremely disciplined and sort of detached outside of his relationship with tashi, patrick literally can't quit tennis like tashi suggests. he'll get insane withdrawl symptoms without it, just like he's had withdrawl pains for 13 years regarding arttashi. it would KILL him to stop pursuing, and tashi to some level understands that as another "addict" - unlike patrick, she has a second backup body in art to cope with her loss.

framing patrick's spiral into mediocrity and self sabotage as well as his relentless pursuit of his loves as being akin to substance abuse is SO SO interesting -- i wish justin kuritzkes had left the bruise on patrick's inner arm ambiguous (tl;dr: people were speculating that they were track marks, but justin disregarded the theory)

patrick is so clearly an addiction-prone character (smoking, his career, arttashi), and part of me thinks it was a missed opportunity to not expand on this, even subtextually! it would also provide some insight into why patrick is broke, living in his car, and is no-contact with his parents outside of "haha he's cosplaying being poor bc he's just too proud" which feels a tad shallow

Society: "You can't undo the mental fuckery caused on queer people and racism implied by Saltburn".

Zendaya: "Fuck that, like every other Spider-Man M.J. before me, here's my tennis movie, and, just like the one before mine, it will involve queerness, and will also have two posh white boys in love with each other even more so than they are with my character and it will be rife with metaphors alluding to that".

Tashi just wanted them to be their best. The way that Art was literally in-frame on the poster that she okayed as his manager when she cheated on him with Patrick ... The way in which the ball is served can signal "I fucked your wife," and "I love you," as well as "I love you, too, asshole". Patrick was indeed an asshole because he knew that Art and Tashi would let him be one. I also think that he knew some time before the sauna scene that they were in love, whereas Art didn't know until he mirrored his own preferred serve at the end, and Tashi knew all along. The focus on their knees at the end was also a clever nod to Tashi's injury. She makes Art and Patrick the best players that they can be, Patrick will always catch Art, and Art will always be the ice to Patrick's fire. ... I kind of wish that Zendaya would make them do a sequel where they're a happy polycule, during which, Art and Tashi are coaching Patrick through a Grand Slam.

Sorry because this is a self-plug but,

I wrote a Challengers fanfic on Ao3. It was intended to be a sort of character growth in college years where Patrick let Art win and to give them the space to grow into people who'd make it all together. The original goal was OT3, but I added an OC in there for character growth and she ended up making so much sense with them and being loved by the audience (and I) so much that it became an OT4. I really tried to write the beginning of something that could last. Which, in the end, amounted to 174k words.

Anyways, I used to have consistent readers who would comment on every chapter. Like genuinely EVERY chapter. The last one however, crickets. Not a word. And I'm still scratching my head over it. Like, did I fuck up? And what do I do with the extra content I still have? It is worth posting?

I know, I know you're supposed to be your first reader and enjoy what you write. And I did. And I'm proud of my work, I genuinely do like it, a lot.

I just don't get why everybody went quiet. So I'm throwing this bottle at the sea. If anyone has a minute to read the final chapter of the fic and wouldn't mind giving me their opinion, it'd be appreciated.