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crack_van2011-12-07 09:38 am
laceymcbain.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2011-12-07 09:38 am
Crime and Medicine by eleveninches (NC-17)
The only rule I set for myself this month while doing recs is to limit myself to one story per author ... which is harder than it might seem given how many of these writers are not only good writers, but highly prolific. Be sure to check out their websites and fic lists if you like what they write.
Fandom: INCEPTION
Pairing: Arthur/Eames, Ariadne/Saito
Length: ~ 31,404 words
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eleveninches
Author Website: Master List of Fic on LJ; Fics on A03
Why this must be read: Much like the last rec, this story has the team participating in an experiment that plays out the events of the film. However, in this one, their participation is voluntary; most of them are grad students or profs affiliated with universities and they've joined a team put together by Robert Fischer for an inter-university challenge to learn about inception. Except Fischer's reasons aren't as academically upright as he's led the team to believe, and everything starts to unravel when Fischer goes missing.
Thus begins an adventure of epic proportions. Someone's trying to kill the members of the team and Arthur is forced to run. Now, Arthur knows he's just a grad student and not really a precise and lethal point man, but he doesn't consider how the others might have changed themselves until he finds an Eames that isn't quite how he remembers.
This story's a mostly-fun romp, and it's hilarious to see the characters we know, as real people with quirks and insecurities, who aren't criminals or action heroes or anything other than ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary situation. What this story does is challenge assumptions about who we are and how we want to be seen by others. Are the characters' dream selves really all that different from their real selves deep down? And ultimately, how much do those differences really matter?
It had taken ten hours and six dream levels to get Dominic Cobb to give up how to perform inception. It had taken more layers to make Cobb forget reality, and then a few more, in addition to some carefully-planned suggestions, to lead him to incepting the projection he thought was his wife. Luckily for everyone, Cobb had several neuroses that were easy to manipulate. Unluckily, one of those neuroses included his inability to deal with guilt like a normal human being.
Fischer rearranged Cobb on the couch. Asleep, Cobb looked at peace. He was a little heavier in real life, his hairline thinner. His jacket had tweed patches at the elbows. He was drooling a little. Arthur felt a twinge of affection. In the dream-months they'd been under, Arthur had been beaten up, shot a few times in some vulnerable places, and nearly drowned, but Cobb had never once treated Arthur like he didn't think Arthur could handle it.
Granted, it was easy to be bad ass when you could manipulate the subconscious of the dreamer into believing you were whatever you wanted to be, but Arthur would've preferred to think that the Arthur in the dream had been all him. Also, it helped that Cobb's subconscious was pretty wimpy. Arthur probably would feel guiltier than he did about giving Cobb amnesia, bringing him into a scenario in which Arthur was his sidekick, and then shooting him in the head (twice), if Cobb's projection of Mal hadn't nearly ruined their plan. And if Cobb hadn't yelled at him. As it was, it wasn't like Cobb was going to remember anything -- he might, as some did, retain a few memories, but they would be fuzzy; he'd probably forget all about Arthur -- and, more importantly, he had volunteered himself for this.
"Do you think we won?" Arthur asked.
Fischer blinked at him. "What?"
"Do you think we beat the other team?" Arthur asked.
"Sure," Fischer said. "Yeah, the other team. Right."
Since he was an expert now in getting rid of evidence after pretending to be a point man for dream-month after dream-month, Arthur rid the room of any trace they'd been there. He tucked this fake student papers -- as part of his ruse to get Cobb to talk to him -- and the coffee mug he'd drunk from into his backpack. Fischer handed him five grand in cash: his grant money. Receiving cash was a little shady, but Arthur wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. The experience alone had been worth it, in Arthur's opinion; what he'd learned from this experiment was going in his thesis. He was going to walk away from grad school with the highest grade of anyone in his department.
On AO3: Crime and Medicine
It doesn't matter how old or new a story is, authors love feedback!
Fandom: INCEPTION
Pairing: Arthur/Eames, Ariadne/Saito
Length: ~ 31,404 words
Author on LJ:
eleveninchesAuthor Website: Master List of Fic on LJ; Fics on A03
Why this must be read: Much like the last rec, this story has the team participating in an experiment that plays out the events of the film. However, in this one, their participation is voluntary; most of them are grad students or profs affiliated with universities and they've joined a team put together by Robert Fischer for an inter-university challenge to learn about inception. Except Fischer's reasons aren't as academically upright as he's led the team to believe, and everything starts to unravel when Fischer goes missing.
Thus begins an adventure of epic proportions. Someone's trying to kill the members of the team and Arthur is forced to run. Now, Arthur knows he's just a grad student and not really a precise and lethal point man, but he doesn't consider how the others might have changed themselves until he finds an Eames that isn't quite how he remembers.
This story's a mostly-fun romp, and it's hilarious to see the characters we know, as real people with quirks and insecurities, who aren't criminals or action heroes or anything other than ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary situation. What this story does is challenge assumptions about who we are and how we want to be seen by others. Are the characters' dream selves really all that different from their real selves deep down? And ultimately, how much do those differences really matter?
It had taken ten hours and six dream levels to get Dominic Cobb to give up how to perform inception. It had taken more layers to make Cobb forget reality, and then a few more, in addition to some carefully-planned suggestions, to lead him to incepting the projection he thought was his wife. Luckily for everyone, Cobb had several neuroses that were easy to manipulate. Unluckily, one of those neuroses included his inability to deal with guilt like a normal human being.
Fischer rearranged Cobb on the couch. Asleep, Cobb looked at peace. He was a little heavier in real life, his hairline thinner. His jacket had tweed patches at the elbows. He was drooling a little. Arthur felt a twinge of affection. In the dream-months they'd been under, Arthur had been beaten up, shot a few times in some vulnerable places, and nearly drowned, but Cobb had never once treated Arthur like he didn't think Arthur could handle it.
Granted, it was easy to be bad ass when you could manipulate the subconscious of the dreamer into believing you were whatever you wanted to be, but Arthur would've preferred to think that the Arthur in the dream had been all him. Also, it helped that Cobb's subconscious was pretty wimpy. Arthur probably would feel guiltier than he did about giving Cobb amnesia, bringing him into a scenario in which Arthur was his sidekick, and then shooting him in the head (twice), if Cobb's projection of Mal hadn't nearly ruined their plan. And if Cobb hadn't yelled at him. As it was, it wasn't like Cobb was going to remember anything -- he might, as some did, retain a few memories, but they would be fuzzy; he'd probably forget all about Arthur -- and, more importantly, he had volunteered himself for this.
"Do you think we won?" Arthur asked.
Fischer blinked at him. "What?"
"Do you think we beat the other team?" Arthur asked.
"Sure," Fischer said. "Yeah, the other team. Right."
Since he was an expert now in getting rid of evidence after pretending to be a point man for dream-month after dream-month, Arthur rid the room of any trace they'd been there. He tucked this fake student papers -- as part of his ruse to get Cobb to talk to him -- and the coffee mug he'd drunk from into his backpack. Fischer handed him five grand in cash: his grant money. Receiving cash was a little shady, but Arthur wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. The experience alone had been worth it, in Arthur's opinion; what he'd learned from this experiment was going in his thesis. He was going to walk away from grad school with the highest grade of anyone in his department.
On AO3: Crime and Medicine
It doesn't matter how old or new a story is, authors love feedback!