"I've Already Read Dracula So I Know What Happens To Jonathan. I Don't Have Any Emotional Stake In Wondering

"I've already read Dracula so I know what happens to Jonathan. I don't have any emotional stake in wondering if he'll come back."

Me when I get today's email: *Squealing in delight and kicking my feet like a schoolgirl* "HE MADE IT! HE MADE IT, MINA IS GOING TO BE SO HAPPY!"

@inception30daychallenge

Day 06: A headcanon about the dreamshare team.

If they're all hanging out in the same place for whatever reason, they'll sometimes play a game or two.

Saito is scarily good at Monopoly and Risk because he plays them exactly the same way he runs his business in real life. A game with him never lasts more than 45 minutes.

All of them cheat at card games. Cobb doesn't tend to cheat, and Arthur will play fair for Cobb's sake, but they both have to give up on their morals if they want to stand any chance of not losing all the time. Somehow, Ariadne always wins Uno. No one's quite sure how she does it.

Eames takes Cluedo far too seriously. You can tell exactly how far along they are in the game by how frantically he's pacing and gesturing.

Yusuf insists on playing Scrabble, and it turns out that it's just because he really enjoys humiliating everyone else at Scrabble.

They tried to play Sternhalma/Chinese Checkers once. It ended in a stalemate so bad that they never tried again.

you're cruel for this but imagine

seward: dr. helsing you MUST hear about my new patient he keeps telling me the strangest delusions he's having about men who drink human blood!

van helsing, sweating bullets: i'll be there in 5 minutes

Jonathan Harker and the ‘Brain Fever’

Because I can’t just let it be a nice update, I want to put the situation of Jonathan’s ‘brain fever’ under a magnifying glass. Then turn it into a period-accurate knife and twist it.

Because while I don’t doubt Jonathan might have gotten sick/addled during his nonstop Get the Hell Out of Transylvania Marathon, I think it’s important to mention that Sister Agatha brings up the horrors he was apparently raving about in what we’ll assume was his early time at the hospital. He was absolutely ranting and rambling about what had happened to him, what threat there was in Castle Dracula, the other now en route to England.

A tidbit that ties into the fact that he got off the train and went straight to a hospital and not, say, onto another lap towards the shore, a boat, and Mina, which was undoubtedly the only thing on Jonathan’s mind. Why is he there instead?

At a guess, he was not allowed an option. The same people who sold him the ‘Please Get Far Away from Us, Crazy Englishman’ ticket likely sent word ahead that, hey, there’s a crazy sick dude on this train, you might want to get somebody on that. That or he was clocked the moment he got off the train. Maybe he collapsed. Maybe it was just his behavior. Either way, Jonathan being Jonathan, you know this man would have dragged himself half-dead onto a boat home if he could.

But no. He was ‘helped’ to the hospital’s care—his physical needs and diagnosis of brain fever likely being the only buffer between him and a permanent stay in the sanitorium.

“He’s speaking madness, but it is a temporary symptom! Poor man. We must make him well!”

And Jonathan had to catch onto that quick and play into it. If he hadn’t? Kind as his new keepers are, benevolent as they are, once his physical maladies subsided, there would be a very real threat of them helping him into a padded room.

Assuming he didn’t miraculously overcome his ‘fever’ and shut right up about all that monster talk. Instead, let’s talk about how much better he’s doing. Let’s talk about his boss, who he simply must report back to. Let’s talk about Mina, his fiancée who he means to marry soon. Let’s send letters out to them to get confirmation that he is, in fact, missed, that these people exist and can vouch for him* (*bring him home to England). He will be a good patient. He was terribly sick, but he is on the mend. He is good. All is well.

(Please don’t lock me in my room again, Count.)

(Please let me go home.)

In a grimmer universe, I imagine Jonathan does get sent back to England, if not in the way he’d hoped.

And Mina visits him whenever she can in Seward’s asylum.

@inception30daychallenge

Day 07: What's on Ariadne's dating profile?

Exclusively blurry photos of herself. A really cheesy pickup line she stole from Cobb. She totally brags about her degrees as she gets them.

Day 31 of @inception30daychallenge: A letter to Inception fandom.

Wow. You guys. You are beautiful, beautiful people. Warning: I’m going to get sappy and personal.

So, here’s the thing: my previous fandom was…chaotic, to say the least. It was a big fandom, it moved like a bullet train at times, hard to keep up with and I burned myself out to keep up with the metronome of content creation. I loved the ship I was creating for but I became so tapped dry that I couldn’t even compose a single paragraph towards the end, despite the adulations. I needed to recalibrate. Towards the end of 2020, in lockdown, I rewatched Inception and I fell in love with Arthur/Eames all over again since I’d first seen it in 2010. 

Oh yeah, I remembered, these fuckers. Maybe I’ll read a fic or two, for old times’ sake.

I subsequently devoured Arthur/Eames content for an entire year. Wow. It was like I could sit back, eat, sleep and breathe - not only content without having to contribute, but within myself, without having to be seen. It felt different here, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. It took that whole year before I even dared to try creating again. I slowly dipped my toes back into fandom, into creating. I started joining the discord servers, a couple of fandom events, I started writing and making edits again and nervously dabbled in gifs for the first time – and then I joined the Inception Slack, a game changer. It was like a pair of comfy socks. I could take my time! I felt the love for these characters. And the creators! 

And while Inception is infamous for the quality of its works, what keeps me here is that there is so much heart – what is clear to me is that this fandom attracts people who are deeply compassionate and, at it’s core, is pulsing with generosity and kindness and love. Whether you create or if you give comments or kudos or likes, you’re amazing! I see you! You’re all so fucking nice and funny and smart and sweet! 

You make me feel like I get to live in a beautiful city amongst the most amazing community. There is so much beauty and foundational architecture from those that came before me. There is more to come without knocking anything down. Maybe we don’t all cross paths. Maybe we don’t talk. If you were here for five minutes or five years, or longer - you mean something. You were here. You made and continue to make this place a beautiful place to be, to create, to rest, and to me that is everything. 

I cannot begin to articulate how welcomed and guided I was, how comfortable I feel being here, and how very lucky I consider myself to be amongst such lovely, incredibly kind people. These last few years have been hard and you’ve made it not only bearable, but hopeful. I love you.

Thank you, for what it’s worth.

- Ash.

@inception30daychallenge

Day 15: Your favourite romantic pairing.

I am quite firmly of the opinion that they would all be together. There's more than enough tension there to go around, and after everything that went down, I think they all deserve as much love as they can get. The only issue I can think of with this is I don't know if there are many beds big enough for six people, but two of them are architects and one of them can pay to have things custom-made so I think they'll figure it out.

If I have to choose just one, it'd be Saito and Cobb. The parallels between his relationship with Mal and his relationship with Saito make me swoon every time. 😍