A Freight Train In My Brain

Mark your calendars for AELDWS 2026!

Signups will open on Friday, June 19 at 7AM ET (click the hyperlink for your timezone!). There will be 10 slots available!

Signups will close as soon as all slots are filled, or by Thursday, June 25 at 7PM ET at the latest.

AELDWS will run for six weeks from June 26 to July 31. The weekly schedule is below:

Friday @ 1AM ET - prompt revealed Tuesday @ 1PM ET - drabbles due Tuesday night - drabbles posted, voting opens Thursday @ 7PM ET - voting closes Thursday night - results posted, drabbles revealed Friday @ 1AM ET - new prompt revealed

AELDWS is a weekly, elimination drabble contest. Each Friday, a prompt will be posted which consists of a prompt, genre, and word limit. Author drabbles are compiled, with author names removed, and the fandom is invited to vote for their favorite and least favorite drabbles. The author who comes in last place each week is eliminated until there are only three authors remaining in the final week.

Note: If all ten slots are filled, the first two weeks of AELDWS will be double elimination weeks.

damn near every time I mention im working on a fic or piece of fanart, he gasps in hopeful anticipation and asks "tamatoa and heihei?!" and he always acts bitterly disappointed

have we ever discussed this? we should!

there’s only one thing better than inception canon, and that’s inception fanon! 

whether it’s arthur being a needy bottom or mal being his best friend long before he knew cobb… 

or eames being bisexual and his lady!eames forge being someone he was in love with long ago… 

My second favorite fanon thing is Arthur’s cat-like qualities. 

My third favorite fanon thing is Arthur’s clothes as his armor. 

#2 - eames is incredibly artistic, Like in his spare time forges Monet

#3 -arthur grew up as a con man and probably has ties to the mob

#4 - arthur met mal and cobb before eames but they all interacted in the army experiments somehow

#5 - presque vu (it kind of effects things i write sometimes because it was my first serious au read)

#6 - when people don’t give Arthur a gazillion point iq, yes he’s smart and i love him having an idettic(sp?) memmory but he missed a militarized subconscious, he’s brilliant but not necessarily perfect.

@earlgreytea68 I would argue that Eames hating Cobb is fully *canon* 😂 and I also love it when people lean into that.

#1 Military!Arthur. There is no other explanation for that man. Also Special Forces!Eames, and the idea that the two of them knew each other in the service.

#2 Cobb and Mal were academics and/or recruited by the CIA/Pentagon. We assume the latter because of how Cobb escapes prosecution, but it’s not at all clear.

#3 That people find Eames to be shady. This is also never outright stated, nor does he ever fuck over the team.

#4 That Eames has known and/or been hitting on Arthur for years.

#5 That Saito will inevitably stay connected to dream crime/the team via putting them on retainer, doing jobs as a hobby, or otherwise not learning his lesson about leaving that shit alone.

2. Arthur is Jewish.

3. Arthur loved Mal first, and tolerated Dom when he came along, but after Mal died he keeps Dom alive and mostly out of trouble for her.

4. Eames was born into a wealthy family but for one reason or another he’s not necessarily welcomed back in England.

5. After Inception Ariadne does consulting in the dream business but she does not ever cross the line into illegal activity.

Is everyone ready for Inceptiversary 2026??

To recap quickly for any new friends who've joined us here: Inceptiversary is the Inception fandom's annual extravaganza throughout the month of July (which usually also spreads into August). We have a whole slew of events to enjoy and some prizes to win!

But first things first: the Inception fandom has two chat room servers (invite links are hyperlinked)

Discord: You're Waiting for a Train

Inception Slack: InceptionChat

We also highly recommend following @inceptioncentral to keep up-to-date on all things Inception all year 'round!

Jump on in and say hello! If the links are expired, don't hesitate to reach out to the Inceptiversary mods for assistance.

Below the cut is a list of all the events taking place this year!

Most will run from July 1 to 31, but some start earlier and some run longer.

Be sure to follow all the event blogs directly, and don't hesitate to reach out to us mods if you have any questions at all! You can message, ask, or email us at inceptiversarymods @ gmail . com.

Schedule/Rules/Guidelines/FAQ

Sign-ups May 11-18 Author summaries due May 29 Artist claims start June 1 Pairing announcement June 15 First check-in July 1 Second check-in July 15 Posting date July 31

A Big Bang is a fandom event where authors and artists work together on a two-part project. When signing-up, authors submit a summary of the fic they’ll be working on during the event, as well as the rating and relevant tags. Fics are later claimed by artists during two rounds (if needed) of fic claims. (Details below the break)

Another fun one!!!

First of all, karaoke’s gotta be Ariadne’s idea. I extrapolate a lot about her personality from a two-hour movie, but to me, she’s rambunctious, loud, ferociously intelligent, and helplessly wild. Maybe that’s because I so desperately want her to be the opposite of the archetype of “quiet girl” that so many movies force upon the one female character, but I still think that description matches her movie persona. She is definitely dragging this group to karaoke, and she is singing any embarrassing dad rock song she can. Deep down, she listens to that sort of music because it really does remind her of her father, but also, who doesn’t want to scream American Pie at the top of their lungs?

Yusuf would be having almost as much fun as Ariadne. His personality seems most similar to hers imo, and after a couple drinks, I think he would be belting his heart out a little. I think he’d be pretty susceptible to peer pressure when picking songs. Ariadne wants me to belt out Elton John? Fine. Eames is screaming about The Who? Okay, sure. Just put the lyrics on the screen and buy me a drink, I got you.

Eames would also have a lot of fun, but I think he’d be shyer than anyone would expect. It would definitely take him some alcohol to get on stage, but I think afterward he would form himself into a showman effortlessly. I like to headcanon Eames as a fan of new wave British rock/pop and so I think he’d sing a lot of that. He would also absolutely, 100% force Arthur to sing with him. I think he is the sole person who could convince him to get on that stage. Speaking of Arthur, he’s the in between on the line between characters who would definitely participate and those who definitely would not. There is no shot Arthur is getting on the stage on his own, I don’t care how drunk he gets. He has too much shame, especially in front of a group who sees him as so strait-laced. But Eames could certainly force him into a duet. Arthur would gripe and gripe and gripe on and on about how Eames is forcing him, coercing him, using his tricks on him or something. But really, Arthur’s just fond of Eames, and maybe he likes the way the man smiles while goading Arthur through a verse of Call Me Maybe.

Now, Cobb…there is just no way. I’m sorry, Cobb is not singing fucking karaoke. He’ll show up, he’ll sit in the corner, and he’ll definitely laugh at his friends, but he is not singing. Okay, maybe, just maybe it’s the end of the night, and most of the group is out of it. Ariadne is passed out on the couch, Yusuf and Saito are having a nonsensical conversation about some topic neither of them understand, and Eames and Arthur are giggling in a corner as if no one else is watching. Then, maybe, just maybe, Cobb snakes up to the mic and sings a few lines of Scenes from an Italian Restaurant. Maybe.

As for Saito…yeah that motherfucker actually is not singing. I think he does have a fun side, and he’d definitely be okay with the plan, but he just sits on the couch like a slightly disappointed father as all of the losers who he thought were serious people scream-sing into a microphone.

For his entire life, Arthur has never been able to sleep through the night. Ever since he was a kid, he’d relentlessly toss and turn, back and forth, kept awake by the ramblings in his head and always woken up by the nightmares that followed. After joining up with Cobb and dreamsharing so often that he stopped dreaming, he hoped the problem would be solved, but to no avail. Eventually, he gets used to this aspect of his life. The exhaustion becomes background noise, the slight buzz in his head becomes second nature. He learns to work with the lack of sleep, and, in his very Arthur way, take advantage of it. After all, it’s quiet at three in the morning, and therefore the best time to get ahead on some work. The team’s always impressed with how it seems like somehow, this guy has more hours in the day than everybody else, and that’s because he kind of does. Sure, he’ll probably die a few years earlier, and maybe he’s forgotten what it feels like to be rested, but hell, his job is sleeping. It’s not like he needs any more of it, right?

Then, once they’ve stopped acting like fools, Eames and Arthur shack up. There are obvious perks to this relationship, namely that neither of them are going insane anymore, but there’s an unexpected benefit of Eames’ newfound constant presence in Arthur’s life. See, it doesn’t really make sense. Eames is anything but a pleasant sleeping partner. He’s first of all big, full of muscle, and takes up far more space than anyone reasonably should. He’s not shy about that, either. He will flail out all over the bed, moving pillows wherever he wants, kicking blankets off of the bed, Mr. Eames will do anything to get comfortable. He also snores louder than anyone Arthur has met in his life, so loud he’s certain it seeps through the walls and disturbs the neighbors. All of this, and yet the first time Arthur sleeps next to Eames, he sleeps through the night. At first he thinks it’s a fluke, but then it keeps happening. Somehow, he consistently wakes up…rested? It’s so foreign to him to feel properly groggy from sleep rather than a lack of it, and it quite honestly takes some getting used to. It even bugs him at first. Eames is already a fantastic distraction, and now he’s stolen Arthur’s extra work time, too. But eventually, Arthur realizes that it is much easier to work and function when you’re getting eight hours. He starts performing better at work, getting tasks done more efficiently, and, much to the glee of the team, tends to be in a better mood these days.

i’ve mentioned that i wanted to make a post like this a few times. well, buckle up kids, ‘cause it’s finally here

[note: there may be some things in here that don’t exactly scream ‘omg they’re in love’, but that i wanted to include because they’re important to the characters’ relationship, whether it’s platonic or not.]

[also, this is very messily written and i apologize for that]

Note: This bit of embarrassing late-night Inception foolishness has been in my drafts for a long time. I figured that I might as well post it because the longer it stays in my drafts, the less relevant it becomes… All of the ship manifestos I’ve read for Arthur/Eames so far that feature screen caps of their interactions seem to end at Arthur putting Eames to sleep in the hotel. Here’s what I like to think about that airport scene at the end.

Read More (but i’m pulling it from beneath the cut because it’s beautiful)

When they first entered the plane, I noticed that Eames had a duffel bag as his carry-on bag. Very good, sir. This is the last time our OTP appeared in the same frame, with Eames on the left with his cart, and Arthur on the right claiming his luggage. And here we have Eames standing around with a cart far too large for just his duffel bag.

To Eames, castles are for the dead. He prefers going to town squares, where he can feel the connection to generations of ordinary people who've walked the same roads. He listens to the small talk of shop staff and the drunken laughs of townsfolk at night. He eats and drinks as the locals do, and after a few days he's learned a new drinking song, a local proverb, and a recipe for a local delicacy. Arthur, meanwhile, is reading a book while drinking his third coffee for the day and is blocking out all human activity in a 30 foot radius.