The origins of fanon!Eames (and fanon!Arthur too, come to think of it)

[sibilantly]

So I was watching Inception (again) because I wanted screencaps for a separate piece of meta on Arthur, and also because I wanted to compare my IRB fic's characterisations to canon. And as I was watching the scenes with Eames, I started wondering: where did fanon!Eames come from?I don't mean fanon!Eames v. 1.0 (illiterate, borderline dumb), but

Comments

[sibilantly]

*sings quietly to self* Not everything is about Arthur/Eames~. Thank you for that. I... forget sometimes, even though I happily ship Arthur/Cobb and Eames/Saito on the side. And... Eames/Cobb in that one fic by delires, the one that makes my chest hurt.

However, now I'm curious! In your non-Arthur/Eames fic readings, do you see much of this particular fanon!Eames characterisation? Because I'm now wondering if this fanon!Eames is a phenomenon specific to Arthur/Eames.

His interest in the job seems much more academic--he's curious about doing inception. He's not in out of loyalty or concern for Cobb's future or anything like that.

But I think he comes closest to being genuinely warm when he's interacting with Saito, particularly toward the end.

Agreed. I really enjoyed the mini-evolution of their interaction/relationship. Someone in campfire chat commented that Eames seemed to perform a complete 180 in his attitude toward Saito, which really surprised me. I thought the development of their relationship was mapped out quite nicely, albeit in background scenes.

[citrinesunset]

That's a good question! To be honest, I don't think I've read as many non-A/E fics involving Eames as I have fics involving Arthur. At least, I haven't read as many fics where Eames was the main character or part of the main pairing. But yeah, I would say that I've seen this version of fanon!Eames. I feel like in general, fic does tend to play up his playful side. I've seen it in a few Ariadne/Eames fics, I think. But aside from Eames/Robert, which I haven't read that much of, I don't see a lot of fics with Eames front and center.

I agree with you that Eames' character and his dynamic with Saito are consistent and develop well over the course of the film. I don't really see any inconsistency in Eames, in general. He can be snarky and playful, but I don't feel like it detracts from his focus or seriousness.