Did I mention that I'm not kicked out of the program?
I totally make myself believe that I'm about to be kicked out of the program every couple of months and then my adviser is surprisingly wonderful (despite having actually kicked a good friend of mine out of the program just last year) and talks me down. It actually goes down with a lot more professionalism than all that sounded like....but it's still a crazy loop that I am stuck in.
ANYWAY. Long story short--I got plastered last night after figuring out that (a) I'M STILL HERE and (b) I HAVE MORE TIME TO DO ACTUAL THINGS AND SO THEY WON'T BE BAD. OR AS BAD. (THEY MIGHT STILL BE BAD.) And I watched alllll of Psych that I missed in the past couple of months. And now I'm watching Inception. Yeah, that's right. I'm watching it right now.
You wish you were watching Inception right now.
(a) Why did Dom tie his climbing-down-the-building wire to Mal's chair when he knows she's a figment of his imagination and so not likely to actually hold the chair down?
(b) Arthur doesn't mention that Mal actually wanted to torture him in the dream. I find it interesting for two reasons. First, that seems to imply that he's looking for atonement in some way, just like Dom is, and that neither of them can see atonement happening without Mal exacting retribution. And secondly, I find it interesting because Dom seems to care so much more than Arthur. I mean, Arthur wakes up and is all honky-dorey but Dom nearly leaped across the table to stop Mal.
(c) Is Saito's "love nest" in Dom's dream? Because the elegant dinner party was Arthur's...so is this one Dom's? Does his dream always come with a pre-packaged revolution?
(d) OK, scratch that. It was Nash's dream. And Nash has revolutionaries in his head.
(e) So when Dom says, "You taught me how to navigate minds but after what happened, there weren't a whole lot of legitimate ways for me to use that skill," the obvious interpretation is the "what happened" is Mal's death. But I've always thought it meant whatever took the dreamsharing technology underground.
(f) Miles responds to Dom's admission that Mal's shade is preventing him from working is to look shocked and say, "come back to reality, Dom." Like--wtf? The reality you want him to return to is precisely the one he can't get to while he's isolated from his children and haunted by his wife, both of which he's trying to fix.
(g) I love that Ariadne's first actions in dreamsharing are to blow up the street beautifully and then that puzzle that she makes of Paris while strolling casually. Ariadne: like a boss.
(h) Eames totally has his own crew. I wish there was a spin-off TV show about Eames and his crew. I vote the Ponds on post haste.
(i) Arthur tots says "paradoxical architecture" like it means "get in my pants." Ariadne is being a Real Adult and Learning Things and Arthur is like, "let me show you my *hint hint* *nudge nudge* paradoxical architecture." Oh, Arthur. And it's totally right after Dom left to get Eames so maybe he's just getting geared up to be all WHAT NO I DIDN'T MISS YOU SHUT UP.
(j) I don't think Dom is having any trouble telling the difference between reality and dreaming at all, actually. I think he keeps checking his totem because he wants to believe he's having trouble telling the difference. The truth is that he's sort of reveling in his own psychological breakdown. I think he'd rather have something romantic and grand wrong with him--like blurring the line of reality and fantasy--than deal with the fact that he's dealing with very real, very normal, and not at all extraordinary grief. He feels like having such a mundane reaction to Mal's death is disrespectful to how extraordinary she was and he just wants it to be more.
(k) Ariadne really has no concept of personal boundaries. Maybe that's why Miles picked her for Cobb, not just because of her architectural skills.
(l) Actually, Dom and Mal both aim for the same goal. Both of them need the other to declare their reality a fantasy and to take a leap of faith. The only difference is that Dom can't believe Mal. She can. It is such an incredible thing about her--the real her, not the Shade--that she would lay her head on the tracks when she "knows" they're in a fantasy.
(m) So Dom keeps trying the Mr. Charles Job. But. I bet Arthur has a series of things he's also hopelessly devoted to. Like paradoxical architecture. And Eames.
(n) so one of my major pet peeves is when heist films or action movies refuse to allow the characters to be basic levels of clever. So often they're like, "THE BOMB...THAT IS ON...THIS BUS. OH WAIT. SHOULD WE MAYBE STAY ON THE BUS?" and we are all rolling our eyes and being like, "UNPLUG THE BOMB. IT'S UNDER THE BUS. YOU JUST SAID THAT." But I love that Inception allows for Robert to be clever enough to suspect the setup with Browning.
And then I stopped keeping track of my thoughts and just shouted at the TV. God, I LOVE this film.
ANYWAY. Long story short--I got plastered last night after figuring out that (a) I'M STILL HERE and (b) I HAVE MORE TIME TO DO ACTUAL THINGS AND SO THEY WON'T BE BAD. OR AS BAD. (THEY MIGHT STILL BE BAD.) And I watched alllll of Psych that I missed in the past couple of months. And now I'm watching Inception. Yeah, that's right. I'm watching it right now.
You wish you were watching Inception right now.
(a) Why did Dom tie his climbing-down-the-building wire to Mal's chair when he knows she's a figment of his imagination and so not likely to actually hold the chair down?
(b) Arthur doesn't mention that Mal actually wanted to torture him in the dream. I find it interesting for two reasons. First, that seems to imply that he's looking for atonement in some way, just like Dom is, and that neither of them can see atonement happening without Mal exacting retribution. And secondly, I find it interesting because Dom seems to care so much more than Arthur. I mean, Arthur wakes up and is all honky-dorey but Dom nearly leaped across the table to stop Mal.
(c) Is Saito's "love nest" in Dom's dream? Because the elegant dinner party was Arthur's...so is this one Dom's? Does his dream always come with a pre-packaged revolution?
(d) OK, scratch that. It was Nash's dream. And Nash has revolutionaries in his head.
(e) So when Dom says, "You taught me how to navigate minds but after what happened, there weren't a whole lot of legitimate ways for me to use that skill," the obvious interpretation is the "what happened" is Mal's death. But I've always thought it meant whatever took the dreamsharing technology underground.
(f) Miles responds to Dom's admission that Mal's shade is preventing him from working is to look shocked and say, "come back to reality, Dom." Like--wtf? The reality you want him to return to is precisely the one he can't get to while he's isolated from his children and haunted by his wife, both of which he's trying to fix.
(g) I love that Ariadne's first actions in dreamsharing are to blow up the street beautifully and then that puzzle that she makes of Paris while strolling casually. Ariadne: like a boss.
(h) Eames totally has his own crew. I wish there was a spin-off TV show about Eames and his crew. I vote the Ponds on post haste.
(i) Arthur tots says "paradoxical architecture" like it means "get in my pants." Ariadne is being a Real Adult and Learning Things and Arthur is like, "let me show you my *hint hint* *nudge nudge* paradoxical architecture." Oh, Arthur. And it's totally right after Dom left to get Eames so maybe he's just getting geared up to be all WHAT NO I DIDN'T MISS YOU SHUT UP.
(j) I don't think Dom is having any trouble telling the difference between reality and dreaming at all, actually. I think he keeps checking his totem because he wants to believe he's having trouble telling the difference. The truth is that he's sort of reveling in his own psychological breakdown. I think he'd rather have something romantic and grand wrong with him--like blurring the line of reality and fantasy--than deal with the fact that he's dealing with very real, very normal, and not at all extraordinary grief. He feels like having such a mundane reaction to Mal's death is disrespectful to how extraordinary she was and he just wants it to be more.
(k) Ariadne really has no concept of personal boundaries. Maybe that's why Miles picked her for Cobb, not just because of her architectural skills.
(l) Actually, Dom and Mal both aim for the same goal. Both of them need the other to declare their reality a fantasy and to take a leap of faith. The only difference is that Dom can't believe Mal. She can. It is such an incredible thing about her--the real her, not the Shade--that she would lay her head on the tracks when she "knows" they're in a fantasy.
(m) So Dom keeps trying the Mr. Charles Job. But. I bet Arthur has a series of things he's also hopelessly devoted to. Like paradoxical architecture. And Eames.
(n) so one of my major pet peeves is when heist films or action movies refuse to allow the characters to be basic levels of clever. So often they're like, "THE BOMB...THAT IS ON...THIS BUS. OH WAIT. SHOULD WE MAYBE STAY ON THE BUS?" and we are all rolling our eyes and being like, "UNPLUG THE BOMB. IT'S UNDER THE BUS. YOU JUST SAID THAT." But I love that Inception allows for Robert to be clever enough to suspect the setup with Browning.
And then I stopped keeping track of my thoughts and just shouted at the TV. God, I LOVE this film.