melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)
melannen ([personal profile] melannen) wrote2021-09-21 11:37 pm

100 Days of Enemy Recs: 48. Casablanca

Okay, the thing about the movie Casablanca is that Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine has chemistry with every single creature on this blue Earth. Yes, even if you haven't seen the movie, you have chemistry with him, you just don't know it yet. So, you know, I ship all the things.

(This is just to say that there's been some good Rick/Sam fic lately but even I can't figure out how to call that enemyslash, except to the extent that any pairing with Rick in it contains at least one person who hates Rick.)

There are two obvious enemyslash pairings for him though.

The first one is Victor Laszlo. Victor Laszlo is a hero of the Resistance against the Nazis, and Rick hates him for two reasons: the first one is that he is the husband of Rick's One True Love, Ilsa. When Rick and Ilsa were together, they both thought he was dead, but he was actually just rotting in a Nazi prison, and now he's escaped, and Rick's lost Ilsa forever. The second reason is that Laszlo actually deserves to get the girl: he's handsome, and noble, and strong, and a hero, and survived years of brutality, torture and war, still standing tall, and that makes him the man Rick thought maybe he could be, until he lost his faith and his hope and sank into bitterness and stopped believing that sort of thing was possible or worth trying for. Victor doesn't even have the decency to be jealous of Rick for sleeping with his wife!

So here's the thing: Rick's in love with Ilsa. Ilsa's in love with Rick. Ilsa's also in love with Victor. Rick hates Victor with the kind of hate that makes you want to shove him into a wall and kiss it out of him, and Victor is the kind of awful man who wouldn't even hate him for that.

You'd think this is something that could be solved with OT3, but the thing is there is a place between scenes in this movie where you could have the threesome happen - and having the threesome wouldn't make anything better, because there's still only enough Letters of Transit to get two people to America, and Rick still has to choose which two of them go.

(I really want someone to write that mid-movie threesome someday.)

The other pairing of course Rick Blaine/Louis Renault. Renault is the movie's real antagonist (to the extent it has one, other than The War and The Nazis.) Renault is the head of the Nazi-controlled police, and possibly the only person in the movie who has more cynicism and self-hatred than Rick. And at the very end, when Rick has finally decided to make the sacrifice for the person he loves, to reclaim his idealism and let Ilsa and her husband go to safety without him - we find out that Renault has done essentially the same thing. But he did it for Rick.

And then Rick and Renault go off into the desert together to have a boy's own road trip and find some Nazis to fight. It's the beginning of a beautiful friendship! (It's the original source of that quote. Renault is a) definitely in love with Rick, and b) nearly as quotable as Rick.)

This fandom doesn't have a lot of fics but it's a Yuletide perennial so here are favorites!

  • Nom de Coeur (12725 words) by Dorinda
    Fandom: Casablanca
    Rating: General Audiences
    Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
    Relationships: Rick Blaine/Louis Renault
    Additional Tags: Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2004, World War II, Travel

    Rick: And remember, this gun's pointed right at your heart.
    Louis: That is my least vulnerable spot.


  • The Beautiful Dawn (6930 words) by Lyrastar
    Fandom: Casablanca (1942)
    Rating: Explicit
    Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
    Relationships: Rick Blaine/Louis Renault

    Well, Rick is the kind of man that.... Well, if I were a woman--and if I were not around--I should be in love with Rick.


  • While There's Moonlight and Music (2564 words) by NervousAsexual
    Fandom: Casablanca (1942)
    Rating: General Audiences
    Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
    Relationships: Rick Blaine/Victor Laszlo
    Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort

    In all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, they both walk into the same one.
beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)

[personal profile] beatrice_otter 2021-09-22 04:26 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you for the recs! I love Casablanca
princessofgeeks: (Default)

[personal profile] princessofgeeks 2021-09-22 12:35 pm (UTC)(link)
I really need to watch this movie again.
jadelennox: Senora Sabasa Garcia, by Goya (Default)

[personal profile] jadelennox 2021-09-22 01:26 pm (UTC)(link)

this is an always true statement about casablanca.

princessofgeeks: (Default)

[personal profile] princessofgeeks 2021-09-22 02:54 pm (UTC)(link)
YES
jadelennox: Senora Sabasa Garcia, by Goya (Default)

[personal profile] jadelennox 2021-09-22 01:26 pm (UTC)(link)

Throwing out rec lists like that, melannen? Someday they may be scarce.

marginaliana: Buddy the dog carries Bobo the toy (Default)

[personal profile] marginaliana 2021-09-22 02:25 pm (UTC)(link)
These were all good but damn, Nom de Coeur was fuckin' fantastic.
dhampyresa: (Default)

[personal profile] dhampyresa 2021-09-25 10:41 pm (UTC)(link)
I am shocked -- shocked I tell you! -- to find enemy shipping going on in this establishment.