Words To Describe Facial Expressions

bro the new bangalore skin ……………………………..

Paradox: Apex Legends Roleplay

Paradox is a semi-literate to literate roleplay server for canon and oc roleplay (npcs from the universe are also welcome, we currently have characters such as Blisk, and Mila), open to anyone 16-25 years old! We have lore separate from the universe within the server, active and prolonged events that take place to prompt interesting roleplays, and many brilliant roleplayers to interact with! Note: Mobile legends aren’t welcome as we’ve yet to include their lore within the server, and pilot ocs (Titanfall pilots) will be judged harshly.

Canon characters that are currently available or free to claim:

Gibraltar

Wraith

Mirage

Rampart

Horizon

Valkyrie

Ash

More information about our server and its details can be found here <3

If you’re interested drop me a message, I hope to hear from you.

The Psychology of Talia

For throwntotheair, who has a few questions about Talia. :) I’m grouping this under a few broad questions that should bleed into answering some of the others you mentioned.

The preface of this, of course, is that all of my answers are based in the character of Talia al Ghul prior to Grant Morrison writing her. So the 30+ years of content and development we had beforehand. Grant largely ignored the fundamental pieces of her character that were recurring themes over the years, turned her into an infanticidal rapist and, generally speaking, made her as 2-dimensional as possible. His interpretation also gave Talia wildly inconsistent motives, so he is not a good measure for delving into her character.

What are her motives?

Talia has always been motivated by one thing: love. Love for her father, love for Bruce, love for Damian. Even love for the planet (though less so than Ra’s). Each step of her journey has love somewhere in the why. The primary conflict for her, especially early on, was the tug-of-war between acting for good (because of her love for Bruce) or acting for evil (because of her love for her father). 

The animated series still gives one of the best summaries of Talia’s goals, too: she says that she believes in her father’s vision for the world, but not in his means (namely mass genocide). 

Even in dealing with Damian (Morrison, again, notwithstanding), I think she meant everything for love (I’ll explain more in the ‘why did she raise him this way’ section).

When she throws Jason into the Lazarus Pit in Lost Days, her letter to him says that she has done this “for love.”

Despite her badassery, Talia is actually a very loving, empathic person (though sometimes she denies it). Either way, love is at the core of what she does. For her father, that love spills over into loyalty…most of the time.

Why the loyalty to Ra’s (Why has she never stood against him?)

Wellllll this is two parts. The first question: love and indoctrination. The second question: she has.

First we have to understand that Talia is pretty much a psychological trainwreck. In Batman Chronicles #8, we see one of the only stories that’s specifically from Talia’s point-of-view. This and Lost Days are as close as we really get to such direct access to her thoughts.

Yeah. She’s messed up. We should note that Ra’s, despite his being just about Worst Dad Ever, does genuinely love Talia, in his own way.

Realize that Talia has been raised exclusively in Ra’s in environment (like Damian) and that the way she raised Damian was A LOT like she was raised. She’s in a place where he father is viewed as a deity, it’s this massive, powerful cult, and so there’s a level of indoctrination going on.

But that said…Even from the beginning, Talia was defying her father.

She thinks for herself and, growing through the years, she becomes increasingly agitated, worn down and plain ol’ fed up with her father. I would argue that in most cases, she betrays him for Bruce (or Jason, or Damian) because she knows he’s wrong.

(Prior this panel, Batman asks why Talia is betraying Ra’s, and if it’s because she loves him:)

Doesn’t she seem to be lacking independence?

Here’s where I think there was a massive missed opportunity. Talia, after being shot for betraying her father in Tower of Babel, nopes out and goes off on her own. She’s fed up with both Bruce AND Ra’s.

Ra’s shows up and has Talia kidnapped to bring her back. She winds up rescuing Bruce one more time before leaving BOTH of them and heading off to Hong Kong, where she becomes a successful businesswoman in her own right.

At the time, Lex Luthor is about to run for president. He shows up at her door:

Talia becomes CEO of LexCorp. I wish so much that more happened in this era for her. She butts heads with Superman a few times (and even teamed up once and it was awesome), but it was so under-utilized. In the end, though, she runs the long con on Luthor, willfully bankrupts LexCorp and sells off the assets to Wayne Enterprises. Mostly just to spite him.

She hates Lexcorp mostly because she’s an environmentalist. And because Luthor.

So she’s this awesome independent businesswoman who manages to trick one of the smartest men in the DCU.

Unfortunately, her half-sister shows up during this era in Death and the Maidens. She kidnaps and tortures Talia by murdering her over and over and bringing her back with her Lazarus Pit. This goes on until Talia’s psyche shatters.

Nyssa brainwashes Talia, first with intent to kill Ra’s. Ra’s eventually kills Talia.

When Nyssa kills Ra’s, she and Talia both continue with Ra’s mission (with Nyssa as the Demon’s Head until her death). Then Talia, still brainwashed, becomes the Demon’s Head and leads into the modern area (as with Villains United which ran pretty close up to the New 52).

Why did she raise Damian in that environment?

To put it short: because it was how she was raised and because she knows it’s the only way for him to survive. When Talia was 18 (her first appearance) she was kidnapped by an enemy of her father. Her entire life has been violence, danger and bloodshed. Her father is a powerful, dangerous man in a dangerous world.

If Damian had not been trained, in her mind, he would not have survived. I think she believes it was the best way for him to be able to protect himself. Some indoctrination bleeds through (as her raising him would be post-brainwashing, though the timeline is a bit wonky). 

I hope that helps! I’ve got a lot more essays in on my blog, plus one that’s a comprehensive account of Talia’s history.

I saw the comments you left under some of my posts and I love them. Do you have any more Talia and Brutalia headcanons?

I always do!! And I will be posting tons of hcs as I post my writings and art here down the line. I come up with them on a whim usually so I’ll just say the ones I’ve been pondering lately!

Also, I’m so sorry if I was spamming you 😭 I was scrolling Brutalia tag in the middle of the night and didn’t realize that like half the most recent posts were you!!

To start, I’ve been thinking about the Lazarus pits a lot lately. Especially everything between Talia and Nyssa, and the effects and details of her brainwashing. It is a confusing timeline that I’m trying my hardest to piece together, but it seems like DC has sort of just pushed that to the back of their minds? Which is unfortunate, honestly, because if they wanted a true villain Nyssa would have been the clear answer. Instead, we ended up with evil Talia for seemingly no reason… until that black Pearl stuff showed up, and then also disappeared.

The timeline I’ve pieced together, loosely, is made with an effort to stay as true to canon as possible while also keeping away from the extremely ooc writing. I want to find a way to keep in that brief moment of freedom she had when she was running LexCorp, as well as her journey toward becoming a mother. Which I will detail a bit now, because I love to think of Talia’s relationship with motherhood!

Talia has always loved children dearly. However, the idea of being a mother herself was always sort of scary. She’d lost her own mother when she was young, and never really had a clear example of how to mother a child aside from distant memories. (I can detail my hcs about her relationship with her mother soon as well, bc those are some that I hold close to my heart.)

It wasn’t until she’d been with Bruce for a while and spent enough time around Jason that she began to feel that ‘maternal pang’ so to speak. Jason is such a bright eyed child with so much potential, and each moment she’s spent around him she only seems to like him more and more. Bruce tells her not to spoil him so much but she can’t help it! Her relationship with Bruce and Jason give her a small amount of hope for a more normal life away from the league, though she is not yet at the stage where she would be able to fully leave her father.

When Jason died, it hit her like a truck. She’d distanced herself from Bruce at that time, thinking that her presence would only cause more trouble for them if the rest of the league suspected her of defecting. So she hadn’t gotten the chance to say goodbye, or try to make things right. She brings him back for Bruce’s sake, but for her sake as well. She would have ordered the Jokers head if she could have, but she couldn’t directly cross Bruce in such a way. If Jason’s death would ever be avenged, she knew he’d have to do it himself.

Talia doesn’t just raise him from the dead and train him right away. She spends a long time nursing him back to health, taking baby steps with him. She has some of the best doctors in the world taking care of him, and when he shows the signs of being ready, then she starts his training. She doesn’t train him with hopes that he will be a killing machine. She tries to teach him responsibility, and good judgement. She tries to right the wrongs that have been committed against him as much as she can. And then he’s gone.

This is where the timeline is a bit iffy. I’m wondering if Damian would have been born at that time or not? Would he have been incredibly young? In my head, it does make sense for him to be born by then. Talia distances herself from Bruce and Jason not only for their safety, but because of the series of miscarriages she’d had in her effort to have a child with Bruce. All were kept a secret from him, except the first. She was ashamed and depressed for so long because of it. After a few tries, she’d gotten desperate enough to run back to her father for help. The Lazarus helped her birth Damian, a perfectly healthy baby, finally. But with everything that happened, it felt unfair to return to Bruce with a baby out of nowhere.

I could sit here and ramble about this for hours and hours but I’m unfortunately very busy today. Please stay tuned and I’ll continue with more of these ramblings when I can. Thank you for asking! Please give your opinions on what I’ve written, because none of my hcs are set in stone and I would love to hear if I’ve gotten something completely wrong. Although it should absolutely be noted that the version of Talia I’m writing isn’t directly related to canon. :)

CEO Talia

"You're not Talia. Talia smells of Jasmine and Rose of Taif"

talia, meaning: lamb, heaven’s dew, to bloom.

Teuta Matoshi ‘Pastel Castle’ Haute Couture Collection

I'm back on my Brutalia high. Here are some romantic things Bruce has said about and to Talia with sources:

Batman: Son of the Demon (1987)- Bruce described Talia as "The only woman I have ever loved"

Batman: Birth of the Demon (1992)- Bruce referred to Talia as "The love of my life"

Batman: Death and the maidens (2003)- Bruce described Talia as "The only woman I truly loved"

Batman: The dark knight #23.1 (2013)- Bruce was thinking about Talia and thought "The woman who owns my heart"

Batman Incorporated (2010)- "You're the only thing in my life that makes sense"

Batman: Hush (2002-2003)- "My heart belongs to you, Talia, now and forever"

Batman: Birth of the Demon (1992)- "You make me want to be a better man"

Batman: Birth of the Demon (1992)- "In your eyes, I see my future."

Batman: Birth of the Demon (1992)- "With you, I feel like I can be myself, Bruce, not Batman."

Batman: Son of the Demon (1987)- "Talia, you are my light in the darkness."

Batman: Birth of the Demon (1992)- . "With you, Talia, I've found my home."

Batman: Son of the Demon (1987)- "You are my salvation, Talia."

Batman: Birth of the Demon (1992)- "Every moment with you is a treasure, Talia."

Batman: Birth of the Demon (1992)- "Talia, you are the beating of my heart."

Batman Incorporated (2010)- "You are my greatest adventure, Talia."

Batman: Son of the Demon (1987)- "You are my destiny, Talia, and I wouldn't have it any other way."

Batman: Birth of the Demon (1992)- "In your arms, I find peace, Talia."

Batman Incorporated (2010)- "You are the fire in my soul, Talia."

Batman: Hush (2002-2003)- "My love for you knows no bounds, Talia."

Batman: Son of the Demon (1987)- "You are the missing piece of my soul, Talia."

Batman: Birth of the Demon (1992)- "With you, I feel complete, Talia."

Batman: Son of the Demon (1987)- "You are the queen of my heart, Talia."

Batman: Birth of the Demon (1992)- "For you, Talia, I would move heaven and earth."

Talia is Batman's greatest love and you can't tell me otherwise