inception

[khana]

so, months after everyone else ever, i finally watched inception last night.
and i don't get it.
i mean, i get the plot, and the ending, and how it's probably all some kind of dream and how there are dozes of different interpretations.
i just don't get the big fandom thing.
just from the three or four lines of banter between arthur and eames and their otherwise pretty much nonexistent characterization (noone but coob was really characterized, for that matter), fandom got to a place where there's pretty much only that ship?
I'm confused.
does anyone have a rec or two to convince me otherwise?

Comments

[dooropener.livejournal.com]

those are the times that I'm glad that I can watch a movie without thinking about fandoms :)

[khana.livejournal.com]

well, for months my flist was full of inception fics and recs, so i couldn't help but find out what the dominant pairings were. and once i know sth like that, it's hard to forget about it for the duration of the movie.

[paeroka.livejournal.com]

Do you know Paprika (http://www.amazon.de/Paprika-2-DVDs-Susumu-Hirasawa/dp/B000S6EMV4/ref=cm_cr_dp_orig_subj)? Similar theme and I really enjoyed it.

I can't say anything about Inception as I haven't seen it. :)

[khana.livejournal.com]

yes, have seen it a few years ago and liked it. :)

[zeraphita.livejournal.com]

I did not get into even a bit of the fandom, but that might be because in 99%, I don't like the fandom versions because they are highly unrealistic.
I did enjoy Inception a lot though. I loved the ideas of the dreamworlds and the controlling of the dreamworlds and the impact a dream can have on the daily behaviour and personality of a person, which is what an inception eventually does in the end - changing the perception of a person through a dream.
I kind of stopped watching movies with slash intentions in mind. If there is possible slash, there is, but I don't need any construction of things that are not there and of which there are no real traces. Also, I did like the tiny story evolving around Arthur and Ariadne, I don't need any forced slashing of Arthur and Eames. I also loved Cobb and Mal and the concept of losing yourself in a dream so that you lose the connection to real life. In my opinion, there was a whole lot to love about the movie, but not in a slash-fandom-based way.

[polaris-86.livejournal.com]

I don't ship Arthur and Eames (or any other Inception - peirings, like Arthur/Ariadne) but I do understand who it is so appealing to ship characters which weren't characterized a lot. It means the writer has plenty of freedom. That's not a bad thing IMO. At least it never gets boring because you're too restricted...

[polaris-86.livejournal.com]

Ich wünschte ich könnte auf dem Laptop tippen, ohne hunderte von Fehlern einzubauen. XD

[khana.livejournal.com]

i get that it's appealing, i just don't quite get the "explosion".

[lian-li.livejournal.com]

1) characters have undefined prior history
2) characters are played by incredibly attractive people
3) character can easily be molded into popular archetypes

BOOM

pairing explosion. I don't think anyone really believes that the canonical "darling" was meant affectionally (it's condescending as hell), but pffft, canon, fandom has taken less and run with it :D

(if I was basing my shipping on canon, I'd go with Arthur/Ariadne. Since I'm basing it on what my id craves, Arthur/Eames alllll the way.)

[khana.livejournal.com]

okay, okay, yeah.

i think i just don't get why *this* fandom seemed to get to big overnight. its one of those explosive ones (lots of shippic/ficcing for some time, then everyone moves on (to hawaii50, it seems like?). And I had the impression that those were, hm, geekier, before. and had more likeable characters, not just eye candy. the sources, i mean.
maybe i just don't get it, this time. i'll give lu's rec further down a try and see if it is for me after all. :)

[lian-li.livejournal.com]

Maybe this post might interest you, since it kinda asks similar questions.

But I have to second another commenter -- it's also the quality of the fic. It's simply incredible. Yeah, that still leaves the chicken/egg question; and I think there are interesting infrastructure and external factos that helped the fandom explode, completely unrelated to eye candy or quality factors (like, I think Inception fandom very successfully utilized and built on existing fandomn structures [kink memes, audiencing, a very different approach to WIPs which helps get more fic written]) or the fact that the source is instantly accessible in the way that, say TV series aren't: it's a mere ~2h, and almost guaranteed to run in a cinema near you, globally.)

It's puzzling, sure, but form a meta perspective I find the fandom dynamics incredibly fascinating and -- *drools* -- someone should do a study and pull all these threads together, haha *_*

[khana.livejournal.com]

montags geht nicht. wie gesagt, dienstag, donnerstag, freitag. ... also 7. nicht, aber 8., 10., 11.?

vielleicht guck ich ihn mir bei gelegenheit auch nochmal an. fand ihn plot-technisch ganz spannend, hatte nur (weil so viel aufhebens um die *koplizierte struktur* gemacht wurde, mehr spiel mit den timelines erwartet... war erstaunlich linear)

[luthien82]

While I agree that the movie itself does not lend too much in the slash department, I more or less fell into the fandom due to good writers I knew from other fandoms and from whom I would read pretty much anything so... yeah. But if you want a fic rec, I can only come up with one which, for me, is my personal canon for Arthur and Eames. As someone already said, there is no prior history for the characters except what Nolan told the press (i.e. Arthur and Eames both having military backgrounds) and this fic is pretty much running with that, weaving in a lot of the movie which makes it better. Just... if you want to give it a shot, this is the fic to try:

The Music Makers by mami_san (more or less gen with a lot of action and violence and some Arthur/Eames slash near the end) - it is finished with about 50.000 words.

[khana.livejournal.com]

thanks for the rec! will see if i won't be converted. ;)

[khana.livejournal.com]

oh, that was amazing. thanks!

[luthien82]

Heh :) Anytime. Glad you liked it. It's my go-to stroy for character background, really :)

[starsystems.livejournal.com]

bah, Cobb/Arthur is the better ship. :3

[lian-li.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed this Cobb/Arthur story (altho I usually think Cobb is nuts and unlikeable and I want him to go away ;P), so maybe a double rec for you? :)

[starsystems.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the rec! :D