Problem With Tagging

Superman Movies Problem

I enjoy the classic Superman movies well enough, they’re campy fun, but I really hate how they portray Jor-El and Clark’s relationship with humanity. Why does being Superman have to be some kind of grand mission he’s destined to go on? And the whole thing about him having to stay apart from them is just really weird. I guess it’s part of the Jesus analogy they were going with? But I hate that too.

Superman isn’t a chosen one, his birth parents didn’t send him to Earth with some mission to serve and/or lead humanity. They didn’t care about humanity, Earth was convenient because kryptonians look like humans and it has a yellow sun, so they knew their baby would be safe and could blend in. The only thing Jor-El and Lara cared about was getting their son off of Krypton so he would be able to live, what he did after that was entirely up to him, they just wanted him alive.

This idea’s shown up other places, I remember it clearly from Smallville where the Jor-El AI was almost an antagonist, I didn’t like that either. The AI should just be a database sent with Clark so that he would have information about his species, it didn’t have any purpose beyond giving him a piece of home.

So, yeah. That’s always bugged me, especially when it was used as an obstacle for Clark and Lois being together. Why would his parents ever want him to live alone his whole life? Doesn’t it make more sense for them to want him to find a romantic partner (if he’s interested in that)?

That’s one of the reasons I’ve never understood Superman II. Why does Clark have to give up his powers to be with Lois and why does him being Superman mean they can’t be together? It’s such a weird plot line. Those movies really wanted to make him some kind of god figure didn’t they?

I really do prefer the version of him where he’s just a guy who wants to help but not let I take over his life, so him mom made him a suit.

Crossover Fic Complaint

I find it really annoying in fanfic, usually crossover or oc’s, where the writer has whatever character see right through a secret identity, it happens all the time with Superman and it’s mostly just a way to make their preferred character look smarter than everybody around them. There is nothing wrong with Superman’s secret identity.

My One Change to Star Trek (2009)

There are a good few flaws to this movie but if I were to make one change and leave it mostly alone, it would be the time skip after Kirk gets on the shuttle to Starfleet Academy, right after he meets Bones. Instead of jumping ahead to his final year as a cadet I would have it be more like 7 years, and introduce him as a new transfer to the Enterprise as a Lieutenant or Lieutenant Commander.

You can still have him get off on the wrong foot with Spock because of the Kobayashi Maru, but it can be because Spock doesn’t approve of him getting a commendation for what he considered to have been “cheating” and then they just rub each other the wrong way to start. The rest of the gang are all already posted as lower ranked members. I think you could have a fun scene of Kirk reuniting with Bones and Uhura (with very different reactions going on there).

You can still have Kirk overhearing Uhura about the communication because he’s with her roommate, it’s just that the room is a ship cabin instead of a dorm. Basically, instead of the Academy stuff you just have Kirk getting adjusted to the Enterprise. Maybe have Commander Una be injured or on leave or something so Spock is the Acting First Officer at the time.

Then the distress call from Vulcan comes in and the ship get assigned to check it out. Everything else from the time they’re out of warp could pretty much be the same but it would make more sense for Pike to name Kirk as Spock’s Acting First Officer when he goes over and for the gang to be taking over for their commanding officers when they’re injured during the attack from Nero. It just would make so much more sense for already instated officers to take on the roles they do then not even graduated cadets.

(I know this thing is, like, 15 years old now but I was rewatching Beyond and it made me think)

PJO Headcannon

So the one thing about the Percy Jackson books is that there are way too many demigods and that the likes of Percy and Nico are both way overpowered compared to what you had in the old stories. So I had a thought towards each thing.

The reason there are so many more demigods is because as worship of the greek gods faded amongst mortals, the gods started to have more children to kind of balance it out and make sure they still had plenty of genuine worshipers beyond them just syphoning of power from the symbolism and stuff that came with following the heart of the west.

The reason Percy and Nico are so strong is because of how much Poseidon and Hades loves their respective mothers. The strength of the demigod is linked to the degree of affection their demigod parent had for their mortal parent. The more the god loved the mortal, the more powerful their child is. I think it was made pretty clear that Poseidon and Hades cared for Sally and Maria a lot more than other lovers. So yeah.

OUAT Fic Premise

So I’ve never really liked how OUAT integrated most of the Peter Pan mythos. Killian Jones is my favorite character but he doesn’t really match the Hook from the novel. Stuff like their version of the Pan, Frankenstein and Oz characters bother me because unlike the other fairy tale characters, they come from a single definite source. The Frankenstein stuff is hopeless and there’s already one fanfic author who made Whale actually work for me as Victor and whose characterization I use for my headcannons. So here’s my thought for Killian (which completely ignores all of the stuff about Wendy and her brothers that they added, it doesn’t add much to the plot anyway).

Killian is not the Hook from the Peter Pan book and neither is the Pan that the gang fights in Neverland. The book all happened mostly as written but at some point Wendy returns to Neverland after that adventure and something g happens. Maybe during one of spring cleaning trips? I don’t know, whatever the case Wendy ends up in the world of the Enchanted Forest along with the crew of James Hook. James himself is, of course, dead, in the stomach of the crocodile. Wendy, as Red-Handed Jill, takes over as captain and she leads the crew for a while in their new world. Everyone in the crew is unfamiliar with this world as they all come from the same world as Wendy. Neverland was supposed to be connected to an alternate version of Earth, a slightly more magical one than the Land Without Magic where folk lore and the like are real and stories like Peter Pan and Alice and Wonderland and Mary Poppins can take place. Maybe King Arthur’s Avalon was real in this world and stuff like the Trojan War and the Odyssey actually happened (I’m also ignoring season 5 here). The details of Wendy’s home world are not important, I just think those additions are neat.

Anyway, Wendy sails as captain for some time before disbanding the crew. During this time, she falls in love with one of her crew members, an Irishman named David Jones, Davvy for short. The two end up having two boys together, Killian and Liam. At some point Davvy, who took up as captain with some of the crew members who wanted to keep sailing, ends up cursed with the Flying Dutchman because the name is just too convenient for that to have never come up. Wendy goes ashore and raises her boys, helped by Mr. Smee who managed to have his own son at some point. Killian and Liam are raised on stories of England, and on Peter Pan and Neverland. Which is why when Killian ends up losing his hand to his own crocodiles he takes up the moniker of his childhood stories.

Meanwhile, whatever happened that led to Wendy and the pirates being sent to the Enchanted Forest also led to Neverland being opened up to it and being infected by its foreign magic, weakening Peter. Some timey-wimey stuff happens and children from this new world star dreaming of Neverland. One of these kids is a boy named Malcom who would one day manage to find his way there in person. Malcom takes out Peter and takes over as Pan. He’s who the gang fight in Neverland and Rumpelstiltskin sacrifices himself to kill, permanently because he doesn’t need to come back and cause problems.

OUAT mostly stays the same through to the end of season 3A, after that so what you will. I just like picturing Killian surprising Emma with knowledge of the Land Without Magic that doesn’t make sense based off of what he learned from his mom.

Anyway, that’s mostly my idea for a premise for a canon-divergent fic that I think would be neat.

Fanfic Complaint

Why is Peter Parker infantelized so often in fanfic? When has he ever acted like any of those portrayals in the comics? And I don’t count obvious pandering like certain stories in the post Raimi era.

Peter Parker is a sarcastic asshole who gives ridiculous nicknames to his friends and doesn’t know the meaning of minding your own business. He loves his friends and family deeply and is incredibly overprotective of them. He’s also insanely overpowered with most of the people he’s facing. Spidey isn’t an Avenger who faces galactic wide cosmic threats, though he’ll help out if they need him. Spidey does the every day stuff, street crime and weird criminals with powers who like to dress up and make a show of it all.

And Peter Parker certainly is in no need of Avenger parental figures, he has Aunt May and Robbie Robertson and Curt Connors and even J Jonah Jameson. The entire idea of the gross Dad!Tony and Son!Peter and Superfamily stories make me want to scream.

My Buffy Problem

I like Spuffy as a couple, I intensely dislike Bangel, but I really like Angel as a character. Angel might actually be my favorite character, I just can’t stand him with Buffy, I think they bring out the worst in each other. My problem, why do so many Spuffy stories have to come with Angel bashing? They give plenty of evidence for why they don’t work together that doesn’t take from either character. Why do they have to turn Angel into this huge bully? Why can’t they just have Angel naturally mature away from Buffy? I get he had a lot of problematic behavior around her when he was with her, treating her like one of his former victims minus the killing at the end, but he hadn’t been around humans in decades, he didn’t know how to act around them. Angel’s show is all about him learning to be human, really, Buffy showed him that he could be redeemed, that’s why he’s so attached, but they don’t work. Also, what’s with everyone saying he lost his soul because he had took Buddy’s virginity? It was about her acceptance of him, he felt absolved by her so he could feel truly happy for a brief moment. After Angelus returned, Angel realized he could never be absolved by someone else, he just has to be better on his own and help people. I’m just frustrated by people feeling the need to detract from Angel as a character in order to boost Spuffy, Spuffy doesn’t need it, Spike and Buffy work as a couple on their own because they’re compatible people.

Star Wars Thoughts

I feel like, since Obi-Wan is such a beloved character, he kind of gets put on this pedestal by a lot of the fan base and, as a result, Anakin tends to get shafted. People don’t seem to understand how Anakin’s fall really works, there always seems to be just the most superficial understanding of how his Turn happened. No one seems to want to think about it, but Obi-Wan had a pretty big role in Anakin’s Fall, actually.

Because, here’s the thing, Obi-Wan is a good Jedi, and a good friend, it’s clear he loves Anakin, but he is not a good teacher. And Anakin suffered for it.

Anakin is exceptionally skilled at the physical aspects of using the Force and being a Jedi, but when it comes to understanding their core tenants and philosophies, he’s detached. Obi-Wan failed to make Anakin feel at home with the Jedi, likely imitating his own training and that of others with limited thought to how Anakin’s background as a slave might change his perspective on these teachings.

Of course, part of the problem is that the Jedi Code is terribly flawed but that just exacerbates the problem. Obi-Wan is a negative enforcement type of teacher, he critiques Anakin’s actions and scolds him far more than he gives positive feedback and validation that Anakin desperately needs. So Anakin has to get that validation elsewhere, namely from Palpatine. Who on top of the regular kind of grooming and gaslighting, also has probably been spreading a miasma of Darkness around him, encouraging Anakin’s worse thoughts and feelings.

Then, of course, there’s what happened with Shmi, I’m of the opinion that Anakin’s visions, both with Shmi and then Padme, were planted by Palpatine. He showed no other signs of having any kind of prophetic abilities outside those two situations. Actually Palpatine is probably behind Shmi’s death all together, it’s just a little too convenient.

But those machinations don’t change how Obi-Wan was completely dismissive of Anakin’s fears and that led to drastic consequences. Obi-Wan as Anakin’s teacher was a terrible idea, why the Council though a recently knighted and traumatized young man would be the perfect caretaker for a recently freed slave kid is beyond me. It’s like they were setting him up to fail.

As for the actual Fall itself, another headcannon of mine is that Anakin was probably exhausted, he’d been on nonstop campaigns in the war for who knows how long, had been having constant nightmares that left him unable to sleep through the night, had most of his support base taken away except the corrupt one and another who had her own issues keeping her busy, and on top of that was under a ton of stress from being torn between Palpatine and the Jedi Council, Palpatine timed the whole thing just right to get the results he wanted. Unsurprising seeing as he managed to play both sides of the War. By the end Anakin was probably clinging to the Light by his fingertips.

Naruto Headcannon

Yamato is a Senju, maybe even a direct descendent of Hashirama. That’s why the Mokuton worked with him, he had the right genetics for it from the beginning. It was a combination of the right blood and how young he was when the experimentation happened that allowed Hashirama’s cells to stick.

The Yu-Gi-Oh Problem

I’m going to completely ignore Zexal and on.

I really liked Yugioh 5Ds when I was younger, I don’t really know why considering it was kind of a blatant cash grab, but the English theme was really catchy and I really loved Yusei’s voice actor, I might have had a bit of a crush on Yusei in general. I guess I just totally fell for the cheap “edgy” gimmick, which is funny because it isn’t like DM and GX weren’t dark themselves, but whatever. Yusei is definitely the best protagonist of the three. Anyway, my problem.

DM anime happened in, like, the early 2000s, and GX was supposed to be 10 years later with 5Ds a couple decades after that in some nebulous future point. But all of the shows were produced in the mid to late 2000s, so all of the tech looks pretty much the same across the three shows, though 5Ds has some generic futuristic looking stuff that still manages to look out of date. This really doesn’t work with what we now understand of the progression of our tech, by the time of GX everyone should have migrated to touch screens and, like, holo decks and stuff, not still using the clunky duel disks. And who even know by 5Ds time, the digital age is making things pick up steam, fast. None of it makes sense, as driven home by Dark Side of Dimensions when Kaiba and Yugi has their ridiculous high tech VR duel, makes it look like VRAINS should be the series that comes in 10 years instead of old school GX. Whatever.