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. :)
If you enjoy Talia content consider following because this is all I’m thinking abt rn and I am determined to fill this tag
Teensy peek at what I’m working on rn
so i started playing apex
Talia looks up to her father in some ways, and that’s why she goes along with what he’s led her to believe. Part of her truly yearns for family, and boy her family is FUCKED. There’s a lot of interesting points to look at between her connection to family and Bruce/Bruce’s family. I like to think of them as twin flames. Bruce is an only child who watched helplessly as his parents were murdered. He grew up wealthy and comfortable, but missing the love and fondness he craved so desperately. Talia lost her mother, and in some ways lost her father too. She has siblings, but can’t bond with them the way she secretly longs to. Bruce builds his family with the children he takes in, but Talia already has a family. One she’s trying to cling onto in any way she can. But they’re all a lost cause to her. Apart from Damian.
made some more talia al ghul art!
Talia is much more kind and compassionate than people make her out to be. To her people, she is well respected and feared for the right reasons. But she is also a beacon, a helping hand in the darkest times. She does care for innocent lives, at least much more than her father does, and will go out of her way to help HER people. That’s where the issue is. She really only goes out of her way to help people she is in some way even slightly connected to. People in the league, friends of friends, enemies of enemies. She will volunteer among her community, especially when it comes to preserving the land and wildlife.
I feel like every time I see a panel of talia al ghul there’s always a veil of vague scary racism,,,, so I just wanted to show her some love
Selina is a character I’m really fond of. I write her too, but of course not as much as Talia. In my writings, Selina is a morally grey neutral force. She does love Bruce, but she is simply not the type of person to be tied down. She isn’t in any committed relationships, instead she bounces around from person to person. Batman, Harley, and Ivy being the most frequent. She’s a bit of a swinger really. And I do heavily support the Talia x Selina fans. All three of you. There’s a very clear opportunity for some heavy sexual tension here. They’d just never be more than a fun time fling every once in a while TO ME.
When your face can’t show a lot of emotions.