Tony Stark lovebot

So both characters fancy Roxanne (sorry, but there’s no way I’m going to use the phrase “in love with” to describe Hal’s obsession), and so they both try and do nice things for her.

The difference is…

Sorry, I just had to.

But seriously, note how most of the things Megamind does for Roxanne are done, kind of, anonymously. Or, at least, not as the identity that he’s using to interact with her.

When he cleans up the city and restores the portrait gallery, he does it as Megamind while dating her as Bernard. So, even though Roxanne technically knows that he’s the one doing these things, because she doesn’t knw that he and Bernard are the same person she has no idea that he’s doing them for her.

Even when he rescues her from Titan, he does it in the form of Metroman. And when Titan flies away and Megamind flies down to the ground, he’s still Metroman— making me wonder if he wouldn’t have tried to keep up the charade if Roxanne hadn’t twigged.

Titan, meanwhile, tells Roxanne his secret identity moments after giving her flowers and ‘saving her’ a few times.

Why? Because Hal’s good deeds all have a hidden agenda behind them. He wants to make Roxanne like him and fall in love with him. When he learns that that’s not a possibility, he drops all pretence at being nice to her and becomes downright horrible.

Megamind, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to care whether Roxanne links his hood deeds back to him. Sure, he seems to want her to think well of him, (as shown by his frequent attempts to big his alter ego up by saying things like “maybe Megamind isn’t as bad as everybody thinks” and “I tried my best, but he’s just too fantastic”) that doesn’t seem to be his motivation for being nice to her.

When she discovers his true identity and confronts him, saying she could never love him because of his actions, he doesn’t respond by pointing out all the good things he’s been doing for her recently. He isn’t doing nice things for her so as to get into her good books, he just genuinely seems to want her to be happy and, as such, doesn’t present his actions as a huge favour to her.

And another thing, he pays attention to her.

When she laments that the park is a dump now, he picks up on it. Same when he’s fighting Titan and she hints to him about the location of the invisible car— he not only listens to what she’s saying but pays attention to how she’s saying it and why. After his 'presentation’ moment (shown above in all its glory), he doesn’t stick around to enjoy the fight. He sees that she’s falling and goes down go rescue her.

Again, compare to Hal, who claims to love Roxanne but ends up not noticing even as she’s kidnapped under his nose because he’s too busy monologuing about how he feels about her. And who is so caught up in himself during the 'Roxanne meets Titan’ sequence that he seems to be completely oblivious to how absolutely terrified Roxanne is of him.

Because Megamind falls in love with the real Roxanne, and so feels the need to pay attention to what she’s doing and feeling, while Hal is in love with a fantasy version of Roxanne that he’s made up in his head, and isn’t at all willing to let the real Roxanne’s feelings interfere with that.

And, last point, their reactions to getting dumped by her.

Hal, as previously mentioned, turns into a complete asshole, because he got the power to be evil at around the same time he lost the only thing that motivated him to be nice.

Megamind, on the other hand, actually reacts reasonably well. Sure, he’s devastated in the moment, and he does ask her if she looked back, but when she makes it clear that she’s not interested in talking about their relationship, he shuts up about it. And he’s still respectful and polite towards her— he recognises that she’s still a fucking human being and so deserving of respect, even though she rejected him (which doesn’t sound like much, until you consider that Hal reacted to rejection by tying her to the top of a tower and then trying to demolish it).

The furthest he goes is when she tries to encourage him to confront Titan with her and he responds: “I’m the bad guy. I don’t save the city, I don’t ride off into the sunset, and I don’t get the girl. I’m going home.” But the way he says it doesn’t seem to imply that he would have given it a go if she’d just agreed to go out with him. It doesn’t sound like he’s trying to pressure her into dating him, just that he’s, once again, sick of trying to be good in a society that doesn’t expect him to be anything but evil.

And in the end, when he does go back to save her, it isn’t because she makes any declaration of love towards him. All she says is that she always respected the way that he’d never back down from a fight— reminding him that he does have admirable qualities.

Real talk though, I have always wanted to talk about Edna’s utter glee during the scene when Helen finds out Bob’s been lying. 

-First of all, Edna is very coy and secretive on the phone with Helen, not telling her anything about Bob’s suit, just grinning as she says, “Come over, dahling, I insist!” Edna KNOWS some drama is about to occur because the tea is going to be SPILLED and EDNA is going to be the one who knocked it over.

-After Edna gleefully shows Helen all the suits she’s made…

(sorry had to show that gif)

…Helen wonders why Bob wanted said suits to be made, as the family is underground from doing hero work. And when Edna says “Well I assumed you knew, dahhhhhhlinggggg, why would he keep secrets from you?” it is the absolute SHADIEST line reading I have EVER heard, and don’t tell me Brad Bird doesn’t know EXACTLY what he’s doing.

-Then, Edna specifically implies that Bob is cheating on Helen, or otherwise lying to her. “Men of Robert’s age are often unstable, prone to weakness. Do you know where he is?” And when Helen replies, “Of course” - which ruins Edna’s plans to start some shit - Edna yells at her, “Do you KNOW where he is?” Edna is not having that “peaceful loving household” shit. Edna wants a FIGHT.

-Then - in, as I have mentioned, my favorite Edna gif of all time - Helen makes some calls while Edna sits in the background, sipping the tea, and grinning slightly to herself. Edna knows what will happen. And Edna is living for it.

-When Helen realizes that Bob actually hasn’t been going on business trips this whole time, Edna literally puts a homing device in Helen’s hands and tells her to track him the fuck down. This is probably my second favorite gif of Edna. She turns around in her damn swivel chair in the slowest, most dramatic fashion known to man, as her eyes slowly move from the homing device to Elastigirl, and she stretches out EVERY single syllable in the words, “So, you don’t know where he is……………… would you like to find out?” And I would also like to point out that EDNA HAD THAT DEVICE IN HER HANDS THE WHOLE TIME. EDNA KNEW EXACTLY WHAT SHE WAS DOING. EDNA WAS THE MASTER OF THE SITUATION. EDNA SPARKED THIS DRAMA. QUEEN OF RUINING MARRIAGES.

(Look at that gif and tell me this is not the face of an evil woman.)

-And in my final piece of evidence that Edna lives for drama. Examine Edna’s reaction when she sees how Helen reacts to this new information. Edna expected fury! She expected fire and brimstone!!! She expected hell hath no fury like a Helen scorned!!!!! And yet, Helen is just sitting there…. crying. 

-This is NOT what Edna wanted. You can see it on her face. Edna has no patience for this buffoonery. Edna wanted a FIGHT. She wanted to witness Helen stretch her god damn elastic arms across the fucking Pacific Ocean, grab Bob by his lapels, yank him to California and whoop his ass before Edna’s eyes. But… this did not happen. Edna is annoyed.

-And what does Edna do? SHE SCREAMS IN HELEN’S FACE. “I DID NOT SPILL ALL THIS INFORMATION JUST SO YOU COULD WASTE MY TOILET PAPER. GO. KICK. HIS. ASS.” 

-I will remind you that at this point, neither Helen nor Edna knows that Bob is involved in a hero/villain situation or that Bob is fighting for his life, and yet Edna STILL says, “Fight! Win!” She doesn’t mean Helen and Bob are going to get together and fight bad guys. She means HELEN is going to fight BOB and win.

-“And call me when you get back, dahling, I enjoy our visits.” The subtext here: “…and tell me all about how you kicked Bob’s ass into the 10th dimension.”

Maleficent, rollerblading up with sunglasses and a smoothie: What up, losers.

King Stefan Fuckface: What the fuck is that on your back?

Diaval, also wearing sunglasses and getting a piggyback from Mal: I’m not a what, I’m Diaval.

Maleficent: Invitation said I could bring a plus one.

King Fuckface: You weren’t invited.

Maleficent: I invited myself.

Diaval, whipping out a homemade invitation: She invited herself.

Maleficent: Invitation said plus one, so fuck you.

This man is now prime minister of the UK.

The public didn’t decide this, his own party did.

I’m genuinely scared for the future of my country right now.

He has compared Muslim women in burkas to letterboxes

He wanted to cut benefits to poor families (like mine). Meanwhile he has recently said that he wants to cut tax for the rich.

His careless words meant that an innocent woman is in prison in Iran.

Wants to bring back fox hunting in full force, even in urban areas.

He’s very good friends with Trump.

Has lied more times than I can count. (Points to the brexit bus)

He has referred to gay men as “tank-topped bum boys.”

Very recently there was substantial evidence to suggest he abused/ abuses his wife.

And is overall considered a joke by most.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, there’s so much more.

BONUS:

it’s gotten lots of criticism but honestly i think it looks so gorgeous and im glad there’s great representation of ACTUAL poc african americans playing the characters rather than white people. it seems disney has become a lot more careful casting wise, which they also did with coco and moana.

and i think the characters are expressive without being exaggerated, because they weren’t going for a cartoony look on this movie. that’s fine if you want to critique it, but with cgi as their focus, i think the cartoony expressions would look strange tbh

I am going to share a story tonight:

When I was 8 and my cousin was 7, we stumbled upon a book in a local gift shop. It was titled ‘In a Dark Place’, written by Lorraine Warren.

This is the year 2000, mind you, and we already know her name. Everyone around here knows who the Warrens are.

At this point in time, Lorraine is a local patron; a mother, a wife. She buys groceries at the Stop and Shop on route 25. She isn’t famous, and more than that, she is primarily feared.

Well known only by locals, and some small parts of New England- my parents called Lorraine and her husband, Ed, kooks. Many thought of them as pot-stirrers, money-grubbers, liars, church-thiefs’… They traveled locally to schools to talk about their experiences, but not many wanted to listen. Not many believed.

Yet, my cousin and I, we were different. We were fascinated by the Warrens. We were terrified, but in the most respectful of ways.

It is 2008 now, and my cousin and I have our licenses. This is the start of our ‘hunt for the occult’. We began traveling around New England, visiting all the locations Ed and Lorraine wrote about in their books, and talked about on their site. This was our pact we made to each other. We wanted to visit these houses, churches, and schools. We wanted to understand what happened to these people, by seeing it up close, first hand.

Unfortunately, my cousin and I are a little behind the times.

Ed was unfortunately deceased. He was buried with the White Lady, and we visited with flowers obsessively often. And during her grieving period, Lorraine had stopped doing her talks. It was devestating too, because we had always been looking forward to the time when we would be old enough to attend one of them.

Then, during my senior year of High School, Lorraine came back to the stage- and in my cousin’s home town, no less.

I was going to have to stay up late and wake up earlier than the sun, to get to class on time the next day, but nothing was going to stop us from attending this event.

And it was brilliant- more than anything I could have imagined.

The stories I had read about, experiences we’d never heard- Lorraine shared hours of videos and tales of her personal encounters with the other side. We talked about Annabelle, the Ragedy Anne Doll my cousin and I had printed articles on. She discussed the Lindley Street Haunting, which took place across from my mother’s childhood home. The Long Island Massacres, The Amityville murders… all my fascinations growing up, and it was my idol, Mrs. Warren, sharing them with us.

At the end of the event, the stage directors allowed Lorraine to leave first. We were explicitly told not to approach, or to touch her. Lorraine’s son in law had said, “If she wants to speak to you, she will.”

And so, here was Lorraine, coming down the aisle right beside my cousin and I. We were both so giddy in our obsession. We wished we could say something. We wanted to tell her how much she meant to us… when, all of a sudden, Lorraine stopped.

She halted right there in the aisle that evening. She turned to me, and she grabbed my hands. I remember blinking a lot; struggling for words because I was so confused.

But she simply smiled.

“Your aura is beautiful.” Lorraine had said, and she dropped my hands before she kept on walking.

I am sharing this story because, tonight I went to see the third Annabelle movie. Annabelle Comes Home.

Annabelle’s enclosure was crafted from the glass, used in the old Trinity Church- located in my home town.

Annabelle came home through Bridgewater, where I spent many of my summer nights, driving across the Lilonona River and blasting my tunes.

Her daughter, Judy, she attended the Catholic school located near the house I purchased, just over one year ago today.

And I wear the bracelets Judy sent me. The ones made from her mother’s old rosary beads. I sent two down to my friends, who she inspired as well.

I am sharing this story because, back in April, Lorraine passed away.

I didn’t expect it to hurt so much, but I found that a part of my childhood ran away with Lorraine’s passing. And I know that she is at peace now, with her husband Ed.

I know that they have done so much for our community, and for the benefit of others.

I am thrilled to have had the opportunities that I did, and I will not take them for granted.

Tonight, I said goodbye for real- to a friend, a mentor, and an idol.

Rest In Peace, Lorraine.

May your stories live on.

Hopper:

Joyce:

Nancy:

Jonathon:

Will:

Billy:

Steve:

Robin:

Erica:

Dustin: