#sw: megamind

[letshareapapou]

Crosshair helping to save Pabu. He's not used to being on the good side of the reception just yet.

[thesunlikehoney]

funny thing about that megamind post. i wrote that post the exact same way i would have written a star wars meta/fanonization critique. i just forgot that megamind is a smaller fandom with a significantly smaller canon, and the character of megamind is himself the lead and not a random side character everybody feels obligated to write but nobody bothers to do the research to write properly.

like if that post had been same tone/phrasing/layout but was centered around literally any clone character or an annoyance with obi-wan fanon or something? totally different response. i know that because i have made those posts. are sw fans all assholes or do we just approach fandom with more aggression and suspicion due to seeing our favorites dragged through the mud so often? or maybe it's something about larger fandoms being more fractured and smaller fandoms more tight knit?

[captainkirkk]

I posted 4,221 times in 2022

806 posts created (19%)

3,415 posts reblogged (81%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@nonbinary-nicolo

@mooitstimdrake

@a2leep

@starcloud-nova

I tagged 4,174 of my posts in 2022

Only 1% of my posts had no tags

#queue - 3,197 posts

#ask - 672 posts

#anon - 544 posts

#dc - 455 posts

#sw - 343 posts

#avatar - 171 posts

#atla - 171 posts

#my posts - 136 posts

#stranger things - 114 posts

#fic recs - 98 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#also like. megamind as a redeemed hero but still dressing in black spiked leather and laughing maniacally and giving long dramatic speeches

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Ships are fun, but I also love, "Our friendship has always been platonic and you're like a very annoying sibling to me now, but oh man, I had the WEIRDEST, most intense crush on you for like, three weeks" as a dynamic

745 notes - Posted March 12, 2022

#4

So about Blue Spirit and Firelord Zuko, what if future conspiracy theorists found some correlation that the two are often found together but not exactly at the same time and then one account saw the Blue Spirit entering Firelord Zuko's room. Historians either believe secret bodyguard or spirit guardian. Conspiracy theorists believe they're lovers. None believe they're the same person until the new avatar made a fact check with Aang

Aang wouldn't set the record straight, he'd just laugh for 5 minutes straight and then fuck off before giving them an answer

1,511 notes - Posted March 14, 2022

#3

I've seen the Inception fandom floating around for over 10 years now so I thought I knew what the movie was about. I decided to watch it yesterday and,, what the fuck

You're telling me Arthur and Eames aren't even the MAIN CHARACTERS? I had no idea Leonardo DiCaprio was in this movie, let alone the goddamn protagonist. I thought it was a full two hours of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy staring soulfully into each other's eyes as they tried to figure out what was and was not real, but these motherfuckers barely have five minutes of screen-time together in the whole film?? AO3 EXPLAIN?

1,845 notes - Posted September 20, 2022

#2

Everytime Batman and Red Hood see each other they end up shouting across the streets of Gotham emotional shit like JUST COME HOME SON and YOU'RE NOT IN CHARGE OF ME ANYMORE OLD MAN and it's just Not Subtle in the slightest

No one knows that Jason is an ex Robin so everyone comes to the very logical conclusion that the Red Hood is Batman's rebellious blood son that ran away from home to pursue a life of crime and they're not even fucking wrong

2,337 notes - Posted November 11, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I want to see characters being taken care of in an explicit and worshipful way. Home-cooked meals. Hair brushed and braided by gentle hands. Little gifts just because.

I want to read about characters who are not used to kindness being bombarded by acts of service. This trope works romantically and platonically. Give me found family and acts of service - all the ways a character is wrapped up in wordless, explicit care after years of cruelty and having no idea how to handle. I need it.

9,953 notes - Posted December 4, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[nicola-coughlan]

2022: a summary

post your favorite or most popular post from each month this year. (it’s okay to skip months!)

bringing this back for 2022 bc why not

january

fave: s&b

top: encanto

february

fave: rebecca swearing

top: into the spiderverse

march

fave: anidala

top: no way home

april

fave: heartstopper

top: darcy

may

fave: sw postcards

top: kenobi

june

fave: darcy

top: calliette

july

fave: calliette

top: lumax

august

fave: these leia sets

top: aloto

september

fave: hsmtmts

top: megamind

october

fave: abbott

top: abbott

november

fave/top: only made one set :’(

december

fave/top: sapphics in 2022

tagging @jeschastain @aleagueoftheirown @kathrynshahn @maxchapman @shegos @avalance  @djarin @chikoriita @sith-maul @brittas-perry @nataliaaromanovas @disaster-lineage and anyone else who wants to do it!

[voidsaber]

we all know ahsoka is eventually gonna find thrawn and ezra on some desolate rock playing round 390 of their makeshift game of connect four

[wowsomanynames]

Am I too late?

[degenderates]

Are you:

- evil or morally grey

- a charismatic genius with unconventional looks exiled from society

- the brooding fine-featured leader of something (e.g. king/general/prince)

- the type of person who wears tight fitting leggings

- or stylish outlandish outfits in general

- longish curly-haired

- bald but in a sexy way

- misunderstood with a Tragic Backstory™

- associated with the dark aesthetic

- deserving of a redemption arc

If you fit two or more of these characteristics then you should consider being my fictional crush! Applications open now.

[eternal-ahsoka]

Palpatine: “The Galaxy, Vader. It’s all mine. If only my parents could see me now.”

Vader: “Sir, I’m sure they’re smiling down from Evil Heaven.”

[kirbypegasister]

Megamind, but it's grievous defeating kenobi and falling in love with shaak ti

[twilightofthe]

CALLOUT POST FOR ALL SITH LORDS

This just in: wearing all black isn’t a substitute for a personality, Sith are BORING and if the most they can do to “spice up” their wardrobe is just add some small gold or blood red accents with their black then they are WEAK on top of being boring.

[icharchivist]

I find it hilarious that Snoke was built up to be this mysterious big bad but then killed. You'd think if any dead big bad is coming back it's him. But nope. It's Palpatine that gets teased. XD

There’s only One Bad Bitch in this House, Snoke could NEVER. 

Palpatine had survived nearly 3 decades in power where he wrapped the Senate around his finger and fucked up 2 generations of Skywalker while destroying the entiere Jedi Order. What did Snoke even do? He didn’t have the aesthetics. He wasn’t linked to the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise. He wasn’t The Senate. 

And most importantly Snoke never DID THIS

I Rest My Case. Snoke WISHES he had what Palpatine has. 

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

THE BOX IS NABOO

That’s it, I’m doing it, I’m writing that stupid meta I’ve had in the works for two and a half years, I’m sharing it with the world. I promised it for last Thursday, my poll was forever ago, but whatever! I’m writing that freaking thing.

(super duper long post, press j to skip)

Enter my rabbit hole.

First thing to establish: the Box makes no sense whatsoever in-universe.

((EDIT: Something I forgot to mention. IRL, the premise of a giant murder cube and the aesthetic - wall patterns, light designs, etc - of the episode come from the 1997 horror movie Cube, (see the episode’s wookieepedia page). However, while the two are very closely linked visually, the Box does not follow the movie structurally or narratively, as you can verify by simply reading the movie’s summary.))

Recap of the context for the "Box" episode (s4e17): Palpatine is planning his own kidnapping. It was never meant to succeed, and while the plan would obviously benefit him (making the Jedi look bad, pushing Anakin closer to the Dark Side, making Republic citizens more afraid -> more docile, etc...) his actual goal is never explained, and it’s weird that he’d go to such extreme lengths for results so minimal that we’re never told what they are.

So Palpatine asks Dooku to kidnap him at the Festival of Lights on Naboo. Dooku hires Moralo Eval to design a giant box-thingy to test bounty hunters to hire the best of them to kidnap Palpatine. Moralo then gets arrested to alert the Republic that something is afoot, and hires Cad Bane to break him out. Obi-Wan - undercover to learn Moralo’s plan - goes with them. They evade capture and go to Serenno, and Bane and Obi-Wan have to pass the box-thingy test. The level of brainkarked logic here... Truly on par with Megamind, Gru and Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

Setting aside the insane plot holes and utterly nonsensical behavior of the villains, the Box itself is moronic from a plot perspective. It’s insanely complex, obviously incredibly expensive and would have taken months (more like years but it’s a short war) to make when it’s not even needed for the dastardly plot! Just hire some guys who have already proven themselves against Jedi! Throw cash at Bane and Embo and a few others! Maybe attack them with your saber and see how they do! 

And after all that, Dooku still ends up trying to kidnap Palpatine on his own. I can’t even... 

So why does the Box exist? Well, apart from being a nerdy callback to Cube, giving us a good thrill and being generally awesome to look at, it has actual narrative purpose within the SW universe.

The box is Naboo.

What the Box lacks in plot relevance, it makes up for with its heavily symbolic meaning. It very closely follows Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s experiences on Naboo - but only certain parts, which I’ll explain later.

We start with clean, sterile environments, SW’s favored way of showing villainy.

Then we have the protagonists locked in a room as dioxis, a poison gas, pours in.

And then they escape... this way.

(Okay, here the shaft is down, not up. And it’s not a ventilation shaft per say, it’s the designed escape route. Same difference).

We then skip most of TPM (namely, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon discovering the droid army, finding Padmé, leaving Naboo, landing on Tatooine, going to Coruscant, etc, etc) to come back to Naboo and go directly to the lightsabers and catwalks.

(Note: in both scenes, Obi-Wan has to propel himself from a catwalk.)

In TPM and TCW, the catwalks are immediately followed by ray shields

And we finally end with the last scenes. Now, they don’t look the same but they are structurally identical. 

Obi-Wan is faced with a challenge unsuited for his abilities (facing Darth Maul // shooting three moving targets when he’s far more skilled with a blade than a blaster) on a narrow space above a melting pit/pit of fire. 

He first watches someone die failing to complete the task...

 ... and has to do it himself, faring much better than expected (holding his own against Maul // shooting all the targets easily). 

He then almost falls to his death and gets saved unexpectedly.

And then there’s the final showdown.

In both scenes, Obi-Wan is angry. And in TCW Dooku eggs him on, banking on his anger. (More on that later.) In both cases though, he centers himself and is able to overcome both his opponent and his own unbalance. But in TCW, he doesn’t go for the kill, because he doesn’t need to. 

The Box, as a literal character-explorator ex-machina, thus shows us Obi-Wan’s growth.  

In TPM, Obi-Wan follows Qui-Gon’s lead. In TCW, he is the leader. He identifies the gas, makes the plans. He doesn’t fall from catwalks anymore - he runs atop moving ones. He doesn’t stay stuck behind ray-shields, he finds the solution. (Btw, how did Moralo know what blood type Derrown the Exterminator was? There was a 50% chance of him dying - thus killing all of the bounty hunters. Was that an acceptable outcome? TCW I need answers!) He doesn’t slay his foes, because he’s become powerful enough, skilled enough and wise enough to survive (and win) without needing to kill.

He’s grown - and, even more interestingly, he’s also stayed the same. In the previous episodes, we see some of the dark aspects of Obi-Wan. How he - like all Force-wielders, all people - could lose himself if he stopped maintaining absolute control.

But in the Box, surrounded by the worst criminals of the Galaxy, the most ruthless, worthless people, he’s still kind and tries his best to keep them alive.

The Box is a reminder and a reassurance for the audience that Obi-Wan Kenobi is still there under Rako’s face. He hasn’t lost his compassion, his restrain. He’s still a Jedi. And he’s an awesome, badass one. 

And now, for what it tells us about Dooku! 

It’s much shorter, don’t worry. Basically, Dooku considers that the best way to pick “the best of the best” of the deadliest people in the Galaxy is making them go through what killed his Padawan. There, I’ve broken your hearts, you’re welcome. 

More seriously, Dooku is a manipulative ass. It’s pretty clear that he knows Rako is Obi-Wan, or at the very least suspects it. 

He has an interesting reaction upon learning Rako’s identity, he keeps praising him despite his usual distaste for low-lifes, he smirks secretively after Eval says “I’ll show you who’s weak” (not included there because it’s a close-up of Dooku’s lips and no one wants to see that) and he tells Rako he’s very disappointed when he doesn’t finish off Eval.

[Later]

(Look at this smug asshole - I can’t. YOUR GRANDSON IS THE BEST, WE KNOW, STOP ACTIVELY RUINING HIS LIFE ALREADY.)

(Dooku... why...)

Now obviously Dooku couldn’t have made the Box specifically for Obi-Wan, because it would have to have been designed months before the Council ever decided to send Obi-Wan undercover, but he has no qualms trying to use it to push Obi-Wan to the Dark Side. Ffs Dooku, making your spiritual grandson relive one of the most traumatic events of his life on the off chance that he’ll join you (and desecrate his Master’s memory in doing so) is not okay!

Final tidbits of analysis: I mentioned that not all of TPM is mirrored in the Box. What’s omitted is the droids (even though Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon fight B1′s and droidekas between the dioxis and the ventilation shafts) and anything pertaining to Sidious (all the political stuff on Coruscant). You’ll also note that the fake lightsabers are orange.

=> The Box distances itself from anything that connects Dooku to Naboo. Red lightsabers are the trademark of the Sith, so they’re not used. The bounty hunters will be facing Jedi, so logically the fake sabers should be green or blue - and yet they’re orange, the color closest to red without being red. It fits with Dooku’s special brand of dishonesty - he always tells bits of the real story but twists them just enough to absolve himself of any fault and to justify his choices. 

(”We can destroy the Sith” -> could maybe destroy Sidious with Obi-Wan, but fails to mention he’s a Sith Lord himself; “the Viceroy came to me for help, that’s why I’m attacking the Republic” -> political idealism is a small part of it, but fails to mention he’s Sidious’ underling and is playing the Viceroy like a fiddle; “Qui-Gon would have joined me” -> maybe, still fails to mention he’s working for the man who ordered Qui-Gon’s death; “I told you everything you needed to know” -> debatable, never said that Palps was Sidious; “Sifo-Dyas understood, that’s why he helped me” -> partly true, doesn’t admit to killing Sifo-Dyas right after getting his help)

So we have a twisted version of Naboo, droid-free (as droids are now irrevocably associated with Dooku, even if that wasn’t the case in TPM) and with sabers that aren’t quite red. Keep in mind that Dooku had already fallen by TPM. (We know this because he killed Sifo-Dyas and created the Clone Army - part of Sidious’ plan - when Valorum was still Chancellor, as per the episode The Lost One.) That means Dooku was (in)directly complicit in Qui-Gon’s death. And the Box doesn’t (=refuses to?) acknowledge that. 

(Also omitted in the Box are the Gungans and Tatooine. It makes sense, because Dooku probably wouldn’t have the full details regarding those parts of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan’s missio as they weren’t as public, and would see them as irrelevant if he did. He utterly despises Anakin, and Gungans are the type of people he always dismisses out of hand). 

Anyway, that’s my two cents about the Box. To quote Lucas...

“It’s like poetry. It rhymes.”

Thanks to @lethebantroubadour @impossiblybluebox​ @nonbinarywithaknife @ytoz​ and @kaitie85386​ for voting for this one. Next up is a compilation of the Jedi being casually tactile with each other (because they’re a warm and affectionate culture, dammit).

Also thanks to @laciefuyu​ for giving me gifs I ended up not using ^^; you rock anyway!

[laufire]

List 20 favorite tv shows and 20 movies from the 2010-20 decade

I was tagged by the lovely @wonderdoves. ty!

TV SHOWS

Black Sails

El ministerio del tiempo (Ministry of Time)

From Dusk Till Dawn

Galavant

Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life

Gravity Falls

Legacies

Nikita

Person of Interest

Reign

Scandal

Sense8

Suits

The 100

The Good Fight

The Good Place

The Legend of Korra

The Originals

Trollhunters

Veep

MOVIES

Batman: Under the Red Hood

Black Swan

Colombiana

Downton Abbey (cheating but there IS film)

Easy A

Hustlers

Jupiter Ascending

Knives Out

Mad Max: Fury Road

Maleficent

Megamind

Moonlight

Parasite

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women

Ready or Not

Snowpiercer

Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse

Spring Breakers

Star Wars: A Han Solo Story (unexpected but this is my fave new sw film lmao)

The Handmaiden

I’m tagging @austennerdita2533 @queengallaghr @boomheda @olincino @dylanobrienisbatman @nighttimemachinery @eizagonzalezs @medusinestories @findsilver @lukearnold @ghostsinthesheets @kickassfu @hearthouses @juliareed @imperatorreyes and anyone else who may want to do it ^-^

[ooops-i-arted]

Grand Inquisitor was the best.

[gir-posting]

Megamind is better than the Lorax (2012) because Megamind doesn't have T*ylor Sw*ft in it

CORRECT

[voidsaber]

Thrawn: *takes a deep breath* Thrawn: i lo- Ar'alani, who has heard and read too many of Thrawn's impromptu "reports": yes, you love Eli Vanto, I know, you love Eli Vanto so much, he's the light of your life, you love him so much, you just love Eli Vanto, I KNOW, you love Eli Vanto you fucking love Eli Vanto ok the whole Ascendancy knows, we get it, YOU LOVE ELI VANTO. WE GET IT.