not me whipping up a random in-world sasin fairytale about their gods just because we’re rewatching game of thrones and i’ve been possessed by northern lore making again
i think because we are such a nice team we should show this to the jets by providing their goalie with proper enrichment and shooting so so so many pucks at his net :))))))))
not to be like that but there is no show like twin peaks. it’s not even about how good the show is but about how there is no character like dale cooper. there is no male lead on a murder mystery as comforting as he is. when the world feels to heavy i turn to dale cooper, who has seen the worst of the world, who has suffered and suffered and still chooses to be kind and chooses to try to do the right thing so much so that it is his downfall in the end.
I know that no one follows me for The Man From UNCLE content, but I happened to see a post the other day about how the dance/slap scene between Illya and Gaby was actually domestic abuse and I just...
Seriously?
Laying aside the definition of domestic abuse (these two people have known each other for approximately 2 days and have zero relationship, there is nothing domestic about any of their interactions), let’s consider the power dynamics of this scene. Because abuse is all about power dynamics, no matter what the context, right? First, the setting: This is 1964 and women are still very much considered property in most of the world. Even in America, a woman cannot open a bank account on her own, and has to have her father or husband sign any legal documents. And for women in the USSR or the German Democratic Republic, things are...not really better. So right there we already have a basic power imbalance between the two players in this scene.
And who are the players?
1. A 6′5′‘, over 200lb KGB agent trained and ranked in at least 2 martial art styles with severe (and at this point, on screen) violent rage issues.
2. A 5′6′‘ barely 113 lb (according to her profile) East German woman who may or may not have had literally any training at spy craft or self defense (her profile says “no combat experience” at the end of the movie, so I’m going with no, Gaby had no or limited training/experience in a fight).
We’re not even going to touch on the sheer terror of an East Berlin woman looking at a Russian soldier in the 1960s. If you don’t know the incredibly fraught and ugly history that stretches between Gaby and Illya’s people, then at least know that it involves a lot of death, rape, and paranoid betrayal.
But let’s stick with what we see on screen. Where are the players in this scene? In a hotel room, undercover, doing a mission that involves Gaby’s family and has high stakes for the world in general. A couple of hours before this scene, Gaby witnesses the giant KGB agent who chased her through her hometown nearly lose his shit and come close to beating up (or even straight up murdering) two armed men. He does this even though he knows those actions will blow his cover and at best endanger their objective, at worse endanger their lives. Now whether Gaby knows anything about Illya’s “psychosis” at this point is unclear (I personally think that Waverly has probably already slipped her at least some information about the men who are dragging her around), but she can see him visibly slipping out of control, has to physically step between him and a loaded gun. She’s aware that he’s not stable, whatever else she knows.
So here she is, alone in a hotel room with him, expected to sleep while he is only a few steps away. And this is where the power dynamics really come into play. Ask yourself: “Who can leave?” We already know Illya could get up and walk out of this room if he wants to. In fact, he does exactly that a few scenes later, leaving Gaby behind while he goes to the factory. You know who cannot leave this situation? Gaby. If she puts on her coat and says “I’m going for a walk,” Illya is either going to A) stop her or B) go with her. He’s not going to let her out of his sight unless it’s *his* choice. Illya can leave this situation. Gaby cannot. So that’s now at least three power points on Illya’s side, none on Gaby’s. She’s outgunned, outclassed, and frankly, trapped.
This is the scene where I started to really like her character, because faced with what must honestly be her worst nightmare (trapped with a giant, violent Russian KGB officer who knows her family history), Gaby decides....to poke at him. She tries to get him drunk. She plays loud music while he’s concentrating. She dances, she grins, she blocks his way, she makes him dance when he doesn’t want to, and yeah, she makes him slap himself. Twice. (Does anyone think it’s coincidence that the thugs slap Illya twice, and Gaby makes him slap himself twice? I don’t.)
I keep seeing people comment “if it were the other way around, the audience would be horrified,” and guys, YES. That’s the point. Illya has all the power in this scene. All of it. He’s powerful, he’s trained, he’s got control issues, and at this point he’s not acting like her partner or even like a man who respects her as a person. He’s her warden, and a terrifying one. When Illya threatens to put her over his knee, we as a modern audience know it’s a funny line, that we will never actually see him raise a hand in violence to her because hitting a defenseless woman on screen would make him Not A Good Guy. But remember, Gaby doesn’t know she’s in a humorous spy hijinks movie. She doesn’t know that Illya loves his mother or cracks jokes with his American counterpart or will gently carry her to bed when she passes out. She doesn’t know that he’s really a sweetheart underneath the scary exterior. When he threatens to strike her, she believes him.
This is why I think Gaby charging him gets Illya’s attention, by the way. And why the next morning, his treatment of her is noticeably different. He’s no longer giving her that dead-eyed flat smile that he delivers in the clothing shop. He’s not steering her around like a doll. When he says “congratulations” about their fake engagement, it’s a joke meant to include her and not a sarcastic sort of verbal backhand like it was the first time he said it. His smile is more genuine, he teases and jokes with her, he opens the car door and waits for her to get in instead of just shoving her around the way he has been up to this point. He’s treating her less like ‘an asset’ and more like a partner.
And Gaby herself is still prickly and standoffish and uncertain about him, but she actually talks to him instead of merely glaring at him silently, and later she even argues with him, possibly even teases him a little (depending on how you read her commentary about playboy Alexander). Because that whole scene in the hotel room shifted the power dynamics for both of them. Gaby learned that she could push and irritate and even attack Illya and still wake up the next morning without broken bones. Illya realized that Gaby was not just some silly girl to be tolerated and ‘handled’ until the mission was complete. The audience learns that Gaby’s response to fear is to pick a fight with it, and Illya’s response to a spirited if ill-advised drunken tackle is...to develop a massive crush? YMMV on that one (I ship it, tho).
Anyway, TLDR, I figure Gaby testing a KGB agent’s threat to her safety a la “stop hitting yourself” tactics is actually pretty justified and not really domestic abuse (or just her being a huge bitch against poor woobie Illya).
i don’t know much about synesthesia but can you taste the colors of food, and if so, is it weird when they don’t match up with the food’s actual flavor?
i cant say for other people but for me?? nope, mine works more like if im looking at a colour or a set of colours then it feels like im smelling or tasting something. mines pretty mild so its not like, strong all the time but when im making colour palettes i usually think of a flavour first and then choose colours to match!
