#in its own right

[littleeyesofpallas]

huh maybe i just didn't tag it, it was probably before i started collecting my batman headcanons under the #random headcanon tag, but I have always had a very specific noncanon vision for Ra's Al Ghul., one that i do understand a lot of people don't really like, but obviously that I consider pretty defensible, if not an improvement over the existing canon's mishandling of Ra's and the League in general.

See my beef is that the League of Assassins is just a cluster fuck of problems to begin with, both stylistically and internal continuity wise... For one, Ra's as written is just kind of an idiot and it's ridiculous to have to reconcile the idea that he is in fact this unquestioned ruler of this ancient order of assassins that's been operating for over a thousand years. On the one hand we can sort of blame the pit madness for some of it, but it's also clear that for all his scheming and seemingly improbable resources, he has literally never actually accomplished any of his organization's goals.

Secondary to this is that the league itself is just this massive stupid fucking hodgepodge of bad racist cliches. Why the fuck are they ninjas? Why do they use katanas and wear the stupid americanized ninja pajamas? Why do they keep showing up in like Buddhst temples deep in the mountains of Tibet? Also, in a bunch of his earliest appearances, why is he just a guy in a three piece suit and a cape? Also why would the leader of an ancient organization like the league of assassins have such a stupid, blatantly fake, and "i looked at an english to arabic dictionary once" name like Ra's Al-Ghul. (obvious answer is that it should be a title not a name, but then his stupid kids all take it as a surname)

My answer to all this(other than just ignoring a few of the dumber details) is that Ra's is not an ancient leader of the League of Assassins at all, he's a "modern" era usurper. A dark inversion of the white savior narrative and all it's inherent problems, a kind of supervillain Lawrence of Arabia(yeah yeah i know Tom King already did this with Adam Strange, but I've had this kicking around in my head for longer, shush) where he was sent to the Middle East as a British soldier in WWI to fight the Ottomans and much in the style of Lawrence parallel to him, rallied the locals to help in his efforts. While there he'd gain a certain appreciation and indeed a love of the local culture, but never fully forget his role as a foreign power come to exploit those people to his country's own ends. In that way his personal turning point becomes that he is unwittingly allied with the actual League of Assassins, and as the war begins to wind down, and he is forced to reckon with the idea of going home to England a nobody, or staying a war hero in the middle east, he goes full Heart of Darkness, and instead uses his military position and resources to seize control of the League for himself.

In this version of events, Talia would make the most sense as a daughter of the last of the actual blood line of rulers of the original League of Assassins, her mother being the daughter of the man Ra's overthrew. This impels her to her eventual take over, and her loyalty to the League over her father specifically. It also motivates her interest in raising Damian as an heir, as he has a more legitimate claim to the League via her than Ra's ever did or than Bruce would as Ra's' handpicked heir.

It would also give room for the original League to have been a force of relative good, developing their assassination and government destabilization tactics like their real world counterparts, the Order of Assassins, as the defensive measures of a smaller kingdom against the overwhelming forces of the neighboring rivals but more pressingly The Crusades. This creates a kind of golden age of righteous fury, where the League were noble just defenders of the middle east, and their destabilization tactics a safeguard against corruption rather than the comic's preferred route of 1970s era orientalist boogeymen where "OoOoooOo uncivilized brown people want to destroy americka!" Because the megalomaniacal world conquest horseshit is Ra's' doing, and a direct off shoot of Western imperialism, not something inherent to the League's actual founding history or culture.(and more importantly not just a recycled and displaced Fu Man Chu)

It does also conveniently make a slightly more sensible motive to the league's particular brand of generic super villainy: Where as their historical purpose would be to balance out power in their local region, that same balance left them open to destabilization at the hands of men like "Ra's" and Lawrence. So Ra's' plan is just to destabilize countries in places other than the middle east in the same way, to prime them for conquest. This makes his global network of assassins make more sense as they're all the in-progress cells of his would-be warlords gone "native" trying to blend in.

This all just making Ra's basically a giant Islamophilic orientalist weeaboo cosplaying this ridiculous caricature of an illustrious ancient warlord, aligning him and his delusions more with the writers who made him in the 70s, rather than the misguided fantasy they were tapping into. All the while his daughter sitting there in the background plotting revenge for a family she never even got to know, Lady Snowblood style.

Oh it also sort of helps rectify the goofy idea that Ra's otherwise would have had what like EIGHT HUNDRED years from the 70s, or over 900 from the current day as supreme ruler of the League of Assassins and only ever had like 3 kids? Where as if he's only been at it since WWI, then it makes WAY more sense that he's only got a handful of kids. (I have the same issue with the idea that Vandal Savage has been loitering around since the dawn of human history but his only notable kid is Scandal and she's like what in her 20s?)

Also unrelated to the rest of this but goddamnitall give them a bitter centuries long rivalry with the Order of St.Dumas. They're an islamic kingdom of assassins and a secret society of crusader knights ffs

[hinamie]

mentor

[brainrotcharacters]

wade's undiagnosed ADHD (giggling everytime Logan stabs him) is only ever matched by Logan's undiagnosed autism (stabbing Wade with his claws when he's overstimulated)

[pokimoko]

I can't keep being fundamentally changed as a person by animated movies, it's just not sustainable.

[stil-lindigo]

bite of winter.

a comic about a princess who died in the snow.

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creative notes:

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all my other comics

store

[tumatawa]

[anneapocalypse]

So, just curious how many writers and creators will have to be forcibly outed by relentless harassment before we acknowledge that "This queer characters was written by a cishet person and that's why they're bad" is not good criticism.

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

[wolfythewitch]

Do you think Jesus ever felt homesick. Do you think he missed his mom

[goldensunset]

when people refer to canon story-relevant kingdom hearts games as ‘spinoffs’ it makes me sad not only for the obvious reasons i always say but also bc like man i WISH this series had spinoffs. imagine what they could do if they had permission from nomura to truly go off the rails and ignore the greater canon for a second and just do some fun whimsical plotless thing in an alternate universe. imagine a fishing/boating game on destiny islands. kh fighting game. it is an injustice that we have been deprived of kingdom karts. can anyone hear me

[crunchchute]

My Sam & Max cosplay I debuted at a local con during the weekend!

[hinamie]

thank u canon plant nerd megumi for my life

bonus:

[feelo-fick]

i thought the reason was obvious..??

but you dont seem to get the implication so i guess ill just keep talking and you can listen if you want to

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that one meme but its them :] sort of a sequel to this

[popfizzles]

Scientists and professors have begun documenting wild Eevee with little to no human socialization that are becoming reclusive, feral, harder to capture, and eventually growing to undocumented sizes.

It's a well known fact that Eevee's normally unpredictable and Volatile DNA stabilizes after evolving. However that seems untrue for Eeon, as it retains a largely diverse moveset, embracing its constantly changing genetic structure.

This instability and lack of human interaction makes Eeon threatening to stumble across in the wild, and caution is advised.

[bloodcoveredgf]

hey guys me and my partner are in a bad spot and trying to move out as quick as we can right now. we are living with his family and the situation has been terrible for us and is only getting worse. we are both disabled and he is currently the only one working right now and on top of this his car is having a lot of problems and needs expensive repairs. we really need out of our current living situation now and if the apartments we're trying to contact work out we would just need the extra money to cover the deposit and extra fees that come with moving in. $500 would cover everything right now but any sharing or donating would be greatly appreciated.

cashapp / $curtiswldr

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

i have a Scene - a Plot if you will - that backs this as context. y'all are gonna have to trust me on this one <3 or read the tags...