Discussion post: Novel length -- The Domesticverse, part 2

[kate-the-reader.livejournal.com]

This second part of the discussion of gyzym's Domesticverse, Wherever You Will Be (That's Where I'll Call Home) includes parts 5, 7 and 8. We'll discuss part 6 in the rare pair week.
Part 5: pressed against the pending physics of my passed down last name
part 7: life long local foreigner, i
part 8: having let go forever the fallacy of ever being alone

Once again, msbrightsidesh and I really enjoyed discussing these chapters, which are, if possible, even lovelier than the earlier ones.
SO MANY FEELS!

Comments

Families

[kate-the-reader.livejournal.com]

Their families are important in this part. How do the ways they are different from their families illuminate their personalities? Has growing up in these families formed them/helped them become the people that they are today?

Re: Families

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

It's really interesting because Eames grew up in this cool, distant, formal family and grew into a person willing to take risks with love. Or at least willing to *pretend* to be willing to take risks with love. Meanwhile Arthur grew up in this family that almost had too much love (for a particular version of Arthur) and Arthur grew into a person who feels uncertain with love, probably because he didn't really have much experience of it without strings attached.

But I love that in this way they were both incredibly brave and strong and courageous, finding their ways to themselves and then on to each other. So even though their families are quite different, they also made Arthur and Eames into similar humans.

Re: Families

[msbrightsidesh.livejournal.com]

Uuuh, sudden thought I had: Arthur's suits are a metaphor for the whole situation with his family. Maybe metaphor isn't the correct word for it. What I mean is that Arthur's suits, in this verse, are a part of who he is. The 'suits as armour' thing is kind of there in this fic already, in the fact that he takes them off when he comes home to Eames, but still, I feel that Arthur enjoys his suits in this verse, that he likes being well dressed and that usually, he is admired or at least respected for it. The suits, therefore, can be seen as a trait in Arthur's personality, and as a thing that definitely changed from when he was young (see oversized T-shirts and badly cut hair). His family refuses to ccept that part of him, and instead of gushing over him and over how well dressed he is and how serious and important he looks, they mock him for it. His mother brings it up at least two times during the visit, saying how he 'insists on dressing like a film star' or something, clearly shwoing him that she doesn't think he should get to feel this way. Effectively, she strips him of his armour, makes it useless and leaves him vulnurable in a cruel, unnecessary way.

Unhappy families

[kate-the-reader.livejournal.com]

Their families are both dreadful in different ways. How?
How do they each react to finding these things out?
Do you think there are traits in Eames’s family we usually associate with Arthur and vice versa?

Re: Unhappy families

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

One of the things I love about those two fics is that they're told from the outsider POV, and it's great, because I think there *are* traits that outwardly, on a very broad level of abstraction, you'd associate with the other. So Eames's family isn't terribly easy with affection; Arthur's family is boisterous and exuberant. But as you drill down they're nothing like Arthur or Eames, and it's great that the outsiders never seem to place themselves in the same category. Like, Arthur's not like, "OMG, he ended up with me because his family is also terrible at love," and the same with Eames. They recognize that the families are very different from them.

And I love how meeting the families help them each achieve greater insight into the other on the one hand, and yet on the other hand doesn't matter at all because they already knew and understood each other.

Re: Unhappy families

[rereader.livejournal.com]

Certainly, ARTHUR thinks of himself as outwardly bristly and cold, but of course we've seen that he's not at all that way with Eames--well, maybe bristly, but in an anything but never cold or withholding. The scene of him shaking with fear that Eames could have got stuck in limbo when he had the flu--that's a very strong image, and there's nothing distant about it. (If it comes to that, Arthur isn't cold with anyone he cares about--as Cobb notes in the final story, where he tries to thank Arthur for taking care of him after Mal's death.)

And while Eames undoubtedly presents a cheerfully outgoing facade (a very effective way of keeping people at a distance, that can be), that's a far cry from being explosive or angry--and Arthur's family's noisiness seems to far too often be used as an excuse for nastiness. "We're just HONEST," that sort of attitude. Eames is never careless of people's feelings, especially not careless of Arthur's feelings--like when Arthur drunk-texts him from South America and Eames calls back, he specifically doesn't ask if Arthur misses him "because for all his flaws he's not actually a cruel man, and he knows that's the truth." Arthur's family (Rachel excepted) IS cruel to him.

Re: Unhappy families

[flosculatory.livejournal.com]

Eames' family is cold and more concerned about the public than each other, while Arthur's family is too hot and more concerned about themselves than each other? And like, Eames' parents viewed children as a duty and obligation, while it seems that Arthur's mother saw raising her children as a way of trapping them, of making them forever indebted to her, which is true on some level but should never be what you focus on as a parent? I definitely think that Eames' family is less upsetting, because honestly it feels like they raised him how they thought they were supposed to, probably how they were raised as children, and they weren't really cruel to him? But Arthur's family, how they beat him up over every little thing, oh god.

In both of these fics, the boys are reasonably upset at seeing their partner's interactions with their families, because it's just so, so different with how their partner really is/how they should be acting. This also leads to the last question, and like the question of how similar they are to each other's family? On a shallow level, sure, maybe you can see some similarities, but deep down they are so different from the other's families, and you can see that by how they act. Like Arthur, with his family, he just takes all the criticism and makes himself smaller, and stops giving his opinion and expressing himself, but with Eames, he speaks his mind, he pushes back without fear of being belittled. And Eames, as a child at least, he was mischievous and tested his boundaries and tried to anger his parents, eventually just hardening himself to the world from lack of affection, but with Arthur, he doesn't push further than acceptable, he doesn't take anything lightly, and is just so warm.

Sex as emotion

[kate-the-reader.livejournal.com]

Sex is used to move the plot forward emotionally, how it this done? Is it particularly Arthur who uses his body to say things he can’t voice explicitly? This starts in Part I, but becomes much more evident in Part II. When did you notice this pattern? Looking back over Part I, does reading the sex scenes feel different bearing this in mind?

Re: Sex as emotion

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

This is really interesting. You're right that Arthur seems to use sex to express himself when he can't find the words. Eames needs that less--he has words, even when he's not happy with them--but he's also expert at knowing that Arthur uses sex as a language. That sex scene in the car when they're visiting Arthur's parents is really Eames realizing that Arthur needs that, that Arthur uses sex for moments of great emotion.

Re: Sex as emotion

[flosculatory.livejournal.com]

I definitely think that Arthur uses sex to express himself, probably because most of the sex scenes we see are initiated by Arthur? Like he often mauls Eames when he comes back from working, probably because initially he feels more comfortable saying he misses Eames' body than Eames himself? And then at Eames' family home, he just offers himself up to Eames to remind Eames that he's there for him, and it's not even about his own sexual arousal at all, really, it's more of a need to strip the environment from Eames and get back down to who he really is, who he is with Arthur, because he can't hide that during sex, and just agh.

The declaration

[kate-the-reader.livejournal.com]

When Arthur finally says ‘I love you’, how does Eames react? Why do you think he is surprised that Arthur voiced it after all this time? What leads Arthur to say it in the first place? Does the ending of the last story satisfy you?

Re: The declaration

[ladyprydian.livejournal.com]

Oh man, this is one of the best declarations of love because we as the reader already know that Arthur loves Eames (and vice versa). Eames knows it as well and, to be honest, when I first read this I had to go back and make sure that Arthur never said "I love you" to Eames because I was certain he did. (He didn't.)

That's one of the reasons why I love this verse, it's so loving, they are so loving, that they don't need to voice it and label it.

I think Eames reacts the way he does out of stress more than anything. Following the adage of 'bad news comes in three's' Eames had the terrible job in Poland, the tree came through the house and the plumbing stopped (you can also add the car breaking down in there). So when Arthur finally says it, it's just the shock of hearing it, and the relief of the stress of the previous few months.

Arthur's reasons are the same for why he said it in the first place. It's a declaration as much as it was a stress release.

I love the ending, Eames doped up on Vicodin and the two of them snuggled in bed. What a great final scene.

Re: The declaration

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

THE BEST. THE BEST MOMENT. I honestly love it so much. I love it because I feel like those are the moments when you really do feel love for people. It's small things like that, just being happy to see them in your house, just being happy to see them being themselves. I love that that's how it happens. And I love that it's like Arthur says it out loud like a foregone conclusion, the same way they were living together, in a serious relationship, before Arthur's *words* for it caught up with it.

I could read a million more words of these two in this 'verse but I'm so glad it ends the way it does, honestly.

Re: The declaration

[rereader.livejournal.com]

I love the way that the realization of how they are fully part of each other's lives just SLAMS into Arthur, and how it circles back (both in the story and in Arthur's mind) to the earlier story. The first time it was the fact that Eames was living there that was amazing to Arthur; this time it's the fact that there's permanence that knocks him over. Of course he had to say something, it was say something or explode. And I love how the declaration isn't the end, that Eames sort of messes up the moment by slicing his hand open and that there's a whole exhausting trip to the emergency room and all that follows after it, because it's the messy everydayness of their lives together that stunned Arthur, so it needed to be messy everydayness to round out the story.

Re: The declaration

[flosculatory.livejournal.com]

Honestly, one of the amazing things about this 'verse for me is that Arthur doesn't confess his love for so long, but you never really realize that as a reader? Or at least for me, it was never stuck in the back of my mind that oh, Arthur still hasn't said it, isn't that weird??? because he is so expressive in his actions and it's so evident in everything that he does how gone he is.

(And now I'm just thinking of nolaespoir's 'One Hundred Ways to Say...' series that is ENDING TONIGHT, sobs forever.)

And I love the ending because it ends at such a simple point, them alone together in the home they built together (hah), after having been through so much drama and turmoil, this is where they'll be at the end of the day.

Re: The declaration

[gessorosso.livejournal.com]

Oh man this ending gutted me in the best way. Just the sheer love and loyalty between these two characters. It's so palpable throughout the entire story but this scene was like the ending of a wonderful crescendo.

I think Eames was just never expecting to hear it especially when he's in the middle of doing something so... ordinary. But I think that was what made it so beautiful, that Arthur was so struck by him in that ordinary moment that he just HAD to say something.

Influencing fanon

[kate-the-reader.livejournal.com]

This verse was one of the first long stories in the Inception fandom. Do you think it influenced fanon in any way? Does it influence the way you write/ tend to see these characters? Are there parts that don’t fit in with later fanon interpretations of the movie?

Re: Influencing fanon

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

I am not entirely sure how much it influenced fanon or was picking upon fanon that already existed because I'm not sure of the timeline but I feel like it was SO influential for me. The idea that Eames came from a rich, reserved, aristocratic family. The idea that Arthur's family is his opposite, boisterous and exuberant. For me, the idea that Arthur had a really loving sister. I have also stolen Arthur's little "There you are" moment with Eames in his father's death fic, and the way that Eames falls into forgery in that fic, pretending for his family. I have also stolen Eames's fondness for Arthur having Britishisms creep into his speech. I JUST LOVE THIS 'VERSE.

Flail with us, part II

[kate-the-reader.livejournal.com]

What were the parts that best expressed their developing relationship? Favorite moments/lines?

Re: Flail with us, part II

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

I mentioned it above but I *love* the moment when Arthur gets Eames's facade to crack when they're at his family's house and he says, "There you are." *Love* that moment.

I also love everything about Arthur moping without Eames around, missing Eames, those phone calls with him when Eames is in transit, gah.

Arthur's declaration of love, of course.

Eames pickpocketing Arthur's keys and Arthur shouting that he's a thief.

Re: Flail with us, part II

[kedgeree11.livejournal.com]

It occurred to me last night that this series is about *breadth* of love as well as depth. There's so much wonderful fic that gives a picture of how Arthur & Eames (or any pair) fall in love or shows examples of how deep that love goes, but this fic more asks the question "Okay, you're in love...so now what?" (Which, back to last week, is I think one of the reasons that first fic is so necessary. It's the first part of the question.) Now your love has to stand up not only to dream world danger, it has to stand up to sickness and paying the bills and cooking dinner and visiting family and self-doubt and death. How does your relationship adapt to real life and to time? It's about all the...I don't know...arms? love grows to reach out and wrap around each other. Also about the fact that "in love" is an ongoing thing, not an end goal.

Re: Flail with us, part II

[kedgeree11.livejournal.com]

Every time I have read this, I have giggled ridiculously at the "potato bug" / "that's not the endearment I would have chosen to start out with" part. I forget it's there and then right in the middle of this SCENE it's hilarious all over and I can't stop laughing! :D

Re: Flail with us, part II

[flosculatory.livejournal.com]

Okay my favourite fic of the series is the wedding one, because I love the way Arthur's family is written. Because they're not just one-dimensionally awful people, like even Eames admits that he can see love there, but still some of the interactions they have just cut deep.

Another reason it's my favourite is that it has one of the most memorable moments in the whole series (for me at least): when they're shouting at each other in the pouring rain and Arthur is hurting, but Eames proves to us just how deeply he knows Arthur, and knows that Arthur loves him even if Arthur can't yet bring himself to say it, and just. ugh. that scene.

(oh and also that fic has a ridiculously hot sex scene okay)

Re: Flail with us, part II

[msbrightsidesh.livejournal.com]

I just can't with this verse. As I said before, it's my absolute go to thing when feeling down. I'm sory, Pry, but I'll have to bend the rules a tiny bit and say something about Take the long way home, because it's definitely among my favourite parts in this verse, reagrding how Arthur and Eames are seen by others. I think one reason why it's so hard to believe that Arthur has never said 'I love you' to Eames is because it's so obvious not only to Eames, but to everyone. Ariadne knows, Yusuf knows, Cobb knows. The way Ariadne thinks about them, the way she describes them treating each other as totems rings so true to me. It just describes Arthur and Eames so perfectly, I think, that in each other, they have found a way to hold onto reality. There might be other ways to do that, but they have found this one and it's so beautiful and right for them.

I love how they deal with each others families, I love that Arthur has a sister, I love that they still manage to surprise each other.

The scene where Arthur doesn't even think before getting Eames in his broken down car himself instead of calling someone is one of my favourite scenes in the universe. It's such a small gesture and it comes so naturally to Arthur, but it means so much to Eames.

Ehh, I can't really order my thoughts, there are so many things I want to say about this verse and why I love it, but I think most things have already been said by you wonderful people, so I hope you can forgive me for my lack of eloquence.

[rereader.livejournal.com]

Do y'all know there are some drabbles and ficlets that belong to this verse that are not on AO3? In the first several posts here (http://gyzym.livejournal.com/tag/that's%20where%20i'll%20call%20home), there are links....

[kate-the-reader.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that!
How fantastic!