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]

A lot of fics (and filled prompts in inception kink) from the beginning, had his snarky and indifference attitude spot on.

I think I saw something slightly different at the start of Inception fandom. At the beginning I saw what I like to call 'fanon!Eames v.1.0'. This Eames was, well... for lack of a better word: dumb. A lot of really really really early fics characterised him as this illiterate, constantly horny fashion disaster. I guess they took the lines about Eames' poor spelling and maths and just ran with it (hahaha, more of that 'fandom boiling down and intensifying certain character traits' XD).

Then there came that fateful prompt and influential bit of meta 'You're a Smart Man, Mr. Eames' by Aja. But, after this happened, I agree with you - there was a new wave of fics featuring an Eames that was sharp, incisive, selfish, witty.

Something else I just thought of, as we speak of waves of fic: it's a bit like art movements, isn't it? Each new movement is informed and influenced by the movement before it. In some cases, it's a direct reaction against the former movement.

Perhaps people got bored of reading/writing sharp-and-guarded!Eames? Because, as was discussed above, fandom not only transforms source material, it transforms other fan works, too. So, alongside the blending of Tom Hardy and Eames, is warm-and-fluffy!Eames also a reaction against guarded-and-closed-off!Eames? Kind of like smart!Eames fics were a reaction against dumb!Eames fics. After all, it's natural for people to want to try something new, or present a fresh take on things.

I also noticed, that every time a new Hardy movie came out, the fandom became a lot more active.

Quite a few people have mentioned this! And I have to agree. There's a lot of (very much deserved) TH love out there, so the wish fulfilment quota might be higher.

I don't think fanon!Eames is strictly specific to A/E, because I've read a handful of Ariadne/Eames fics which has him written as a perfect and sweet boyfriend, so I think you could find him in any pairing.

Ah, thanks! :D Good to know. I had some sort of theory about this, but now I can't - for the live of me - remember what the theory is. Agh, my brainnnnn. Still, it's good to know.

And please don't apologise! Thank you for throwing your thoughts into the pot :D