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Ooh, a meme!
C'mon, guys, I've been pretty good, no memes for a while, and this one can't be much work (I don't think I'll have anything much people would be interested in), so let's goooo for it.
Ganked from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lightgetsin.
Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any fanfic I’ve written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what’s going on in the character’s heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you’d expect to find on a DVD commentary track.
My fic is here or here.
Ganked from
lightgetsin.Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any fanfic I’ve written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what’s going on in the character’s heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you’d expect to find on a DVD commentary track.
My fic is here or here.
Re: THIS WHOLE FIC REALLY (only mostly this bit...)
What can I even say?
The PASIV lent itself so easily to Fantasia, which is a world built on imagination. I don't know why someone didn't do the crossover before me. Actually I do - it was really hard to figure out a way to present it interestingly.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt has a passing resemblance to the kid who played Bastian in the movie, which gave me a really interesting entrance into the story. I always love characters who have a secret identity, and a secret skill. The trope of Arthur having no imagination became something I saw I could use; no one has no imagination, so why would anyone hide the imagination they had?
Because imagination is dangerous. Especially somewhere like Fantasia (and the PASIV) where anything is possible. So Arthur had a dangerous secret of too much imagination. He used to be Bastian Bux, and he used to live permanently in a PASIV. That was my basic idea. The idea of names being a totem came early in the development idea, and that led me to the idea of Arthur and Bastian and Seb - Bastian (the whole mind) would split his mind in two. There would be Seb - the creative mind, and Arthur - the scientific mind. And the two would be able to operate independently.
I always knew I wanted it to be Arthur/Eames. It would have to be an interesting relationship - with Arthur hiding a big secret. But Arthur's responsible - he would never commit himself to a longterm relationship while holding such a big secret. (That didn't mean he didn't want to.) So I came up with the idea of Arthur and Eames being together for a long time. Secretly. Arthur would never fully commit, which would kind of infuriate Eames and actually attract him more - Eames is attracted to the impossible. Mal's quote: "do you know what it is to be a lover? to be two halves of a whole?" - Arthur can't commit to be Eames' lover fulltime. He's made up of two halves, but he's not whole; he can't commit. But he wants to. Eames loves him, so he takes what he can get, even if he doesn't know why (until the fic.) Seb is a full, separate personality - had Seb stayed in Arthur's head (instead of what happens to him), then Seb might have fallen in love with someone else. Maybe even Ariadne. That would have been awkward.
This moment in the woods is Arthur awake for the first time when Eames knows. Now Eames knows his secret, Arthur knows that Eames is aware of why he's been holding back - and Arthur's unable to hide that he loves Eames. But he's also torn apart by it. Arthur's loved Eames for years - and that's what he's admitting to Eames here; he may be answering Cobb, but really he's telling Eames: Years. I've loved you for years and years.
And why did I choose Ariadne's POV? Cobb's POV was too distant - too much story missed out. Arthur's POV meant I couldn't hold onto all the identities. Eames' - there was too much emotion. Ariadne had an empathetic link to Arthur, she felt empathy for Seb and Bastian, and she had an excuse to be in all the places, all the time. It's always interesting being the outside to an epic romance. And, of course, I then had her in place for the ending.
I always wanted, as soon as I saw the film, to write a fic with a BRRRRRRRRRRRRMMM ending. So I did the best as I could to give Arthur and Eames the biggest rollercoaster of a story.
The last trip to Fantasia should be the catharsis. Arthur gaining imagination of his own, and showing he has control of Fantasia - as opposed to Fantasia having control of him. Arthur and Eames getting a beautiful, snuggly ending. It's happy and a satisfying conclusion to their tribulations. Everyone's safe, everything worked out, and that's why it was the MOST GLORIOUS TIME OF MY LIFE TO WRITE THAT CREEPY ENDING.
I feel the same about the ending as I do about the Inception ending. It's something goddamned creepy. It's ambiguous - is Ariadne honouring his memory, or has she been overrun? Ariadne walking toe-to-heel is the spinning top, starting to waver. Does she land?
I guess it's up to you.