Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
What if instead of using tailoring and reading books as his excuses for everything, Garak made up wild and extremely improbable tragic childhood backstories in the style of Doofenschmirtz.
“Technically, it’s not an exile, Julian. I was disowned by my parents and raised by a pack of wild regnars and so that’s what I’m legally classified as. But they’re an invasive species on Prime so I can’t go back without being culled for ecological reasons.”
Garak’s Clothiers & Evil Incorporated but it’s still just a regular tailor’s shop
you see perry the platypus when I pull this lever it will scan the brains of everyone in the tristate area and automatically give free HRT to every trans person, driving local gender affirming centers out of business, and then I can buy all their medical equipment at a severely discounted price and dismantle it for aa batteries. my wii remotes are dead
So, incidentally, my experience with the movie Megamind is that I ended up watching it backwards in a hotel once when I was younger and nothing else was on. And by “backwards” I mean, the first day I only caught the latter half of it and then it was on again the day after and I saw the first half.
That said, that one dang scene, is kind of an immortal one in my mind, because it’s one that has a lot more depth than it seems to.
The part that people often miss is that right after that pithy one-liner of how the difference between a villain and a supervillain is presentation… that whole conversation gets context.
Because Titan makes an immediate lunge for Megamind.
And immediately gets crunched by the giant head, and stuck in that situation because Megamind just drops out of the bottom, to a waiting vehicle, and maneuvers around him to focus on the actual issue: rescuing the hostage while Titan’s occupied.
That whole setup isn’t just, “watch me out-drama you”, it’s showing off an actual tactical asset.
Because Megamind as a character is someone who was always, always motivated by getting attention. The reason why Roxanne is never afraid of being his hostage isn’t because of her unshakable faith in a rescuing hero as much as it is that she knows, ultimately, what Megamind is doing is overwhelmingly a show. His atrocities are symbolic in nature. When he actually needs to take somebody out he dehydrates them into a cube for a while. And it’s not just Roxanne that calls him on this, either- Metro Man’s entire retirement scheme hinged on the idea that Megamind really didn’t need someone keeping him at bay from innocent civilians, because, as we’ve seen, innocent civilians really don’t have much to fear from him. Ultimately he is still, actually, just a kind of needy person desperately looking for validation and approval, neither of which can be provided by dead people.
But that’s not to say he can’t actually fight. Like any actual proper magician, he knows how to hold attention and an element of danger is how that works. He’s actually brilliant, and plenty capable of raising genuine hell.
However- he’s been doing this stageshow thing for ages. He’s mastered this. Titan may have him outgunned practically in every respect- but the guy has no conceivable head for subtlety.
So the real kicker to that whole setup, is this isn’t just Megamind being Megamind for the sake of drama- this is Megamind knowing exactly how easy Titan is to bait, dangling the largest trap he could possibly conceive in front of the guy, and doing it in an unapologetically glorious manner as any true performer would.
“Presentation” is not a superpower to be overlooked.
Realising Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb is like this really makes me wonder if there’s a name for these kinds of villains who aren’t really villains.
Yeah, I thought of Heinz too. How could I not?
I feel like they’re both in the same boat. Raised to think they were “bad” and “wrong” and “evil” for things they had no control over (Megamind growing up in a prison and being treated like he belonged there, Heinz’s parents being uniformly terrible all around), then once they were adults they decided you know what, I’m gonna be evil!!! Taking the label they’d been given and embracing it.
To quote another post, “People by and large live up to or down to the labels we are given.”
Neither of them felt like they had any option but to become Evil, but hoo boy were they going to put their heart and their natural talent for showmanship into performing evil. Because it’s all about the presentation.
And it worked. People saw them as evil, gave them the attention they so desperately craved, and even though it was all negative at least they’d earned the hatred this time.
I’m not sure there’s a name for this as a character archetype, alas, but it’s something that’s pretty relatable to a lot of peeps (as seen in that first link), and the fact that both Megamind and Heinz were redeemed at the end is important, it’s a sign that you are more than the labels people assign to you, that you can be better than that.
And hey, no reason you can’t put on a good show along the way~ ;)
Heinz Doofenshmirtz vs Second Dimension Heinz Doofenshmirtz
Seriously. Heinz, mainverse Heinz, has so many tragic traumatic backstories, to the point of getting a whole clipshow episode about them. His parents didn’t show up to his birth, he was raised by ocelots, he was forced to work as a lawn gnome, the family pet was called Only Son, he had to wear hand-me-up girls dresses after his younger brother was born… and that’s just the start.
And he’s “Evil”. He is very much Theatre Evil, performing it (with scripted monologues and musical numbers and the expectation that his nemesis will thwart him), rather than acting on innate cruelty.
His daughter, in the season finale, actually told him he wasn’t Evil. She said, and I quote, “No, Dad. You’re basically a nice guy who’s pretending to be evil. And, you know, it seems like it’s all out of obligation to your backstories, not something that truly comes from your heart.”
(This is just headcanon but I see him as someone searching for acceptance and healing, the only way he knows how (ie Evil), who’s more interested in annoying people with petty “revenge” than in genuinely harming anyone. All he wants is the attention he’d been denied his whole life, and if he can’t have positive attention he’ll take whatever he can get.)
Meanwhile, Doof-2, from the Second Dimension… he has a “backstory”: He lost his toy train. That’s it.
To quote mainverse Heinz after that revelation: “That’s your emotionally scarring backstory? That’s your great tragedy?”
All that happened to him was losing his toy train, and now he’s a twisted and cruel man who commits “crimes against humanity” because he thinks it’s fun. He’s destroyed lives because it benefited him, without even an ounce of remorse.
Doof-2 is the epitome of “cruel because he never suffered”, in stark contrast to Heinz’s lashing out in pain because he doesn’t know how else to get the attention he’s so desperate for.
You can see this in how they treat their respective nemeses, too. Doof-2 turned his nemesis into a cyborg who can’t disobey orders, Heinz found a friend who’ll be there for him of his own free will.
All of which leads to Heinz being given the opportunity to learn and grow and heal, while Doof-2, who’ll never regret his actions, is rightfully imprisoned.
I swear, every time i see a new phineas and ferb post it just gets deeper
I did that thing where I take a tumblr post that made me laugh out loud and record it. Thank you @sucymemebabaran and @farfetchling for crackling me up at 4 o’clock in the fucking morning.
BEHOLD MY TERRIBLE FIRST ATTEMPT AT A
DOOFENSCHMIRTZ IMPRESSION
