Could You Draw Damian And Talia Bonding? ☺️

weekend warm up of some kind of mother+son secret mission team up but idk how to render it so here's the archived sketch (for now?)

(edit: whoops this was meant to upload on @arkhamochi my bad)

Teuta Matoshi ‘Flourishing Meadow’ Haute Couture Collection

“And you would help me avoid such a fate, Talia?”

“To the death— a better end than quitting”

“But why do you want to help? Because... you love me?”

“Yes, but more than that— Because I would rather die in your world than live in his.”

[Batman #400 “Chapter 6: Barred”]

y'all you know what i realized? bruce and all of his lovers are literally the definition of a situationship.

bruce and Selina: selina was only in love with batman

bruce and harvey: weird friends-with-benefits thing where one wanted the relationship more than the other

bruce and talia: she quite literally slept with him to make the perfect solider

bruce and clark: if they don't know each others identities, then it's bad because they're going behind each others backs. If they know each others identities then it's weird because they'd be dating as co-workers.

Also bruce has many other love interests(fun fact: that includes Lois Lane) and half of them are rouges. Sooo y'know, bit of a weird relationship if your boyfriend has dedicated his whole life to stopping you and your friends shenanigans.

Side note, why are so many of bruces lovers rouges? like I get everyone has a type buttttt.

How can you even say that Talia is a different character now than before, she’s always been an evil villain. She killed someone in her first appearance with no mercy.

???? 🤨 “killed someone with no mercy”

My dude, did we even read the same comic? Lol

She shoots at Dr.Darrk because he’s about to try and kill Bruce himself. And “no mercy”? Lol. She cries right after she does it.

And honestly?? Always evil?

Wow definitely.

She would never try and protect someone

Or stop them from dying.

Or go against her father’s will

Or help anyone who wasn’t Batman.

Nope. I honestly can’t even think of any moment. Can you imagine that?

I just had the scare of my fucking life omg. Discord has fucked me over too much 😭😭😭 during that whole long post I made I opened another window and when I opened tumblr again it was reloading and I was so scared all that work was gone… pls I’d have died

I need to not be using tumblr on my phone for such long posts but also… I ever mean to ramble for THAT long? Maybe it just looks really weirdly long on mobile only and it’s not a problem at all for PC but I’ll scroll to proof read and be like.. holy shit? I didn’t think I was typing this much LMAO

Someday I’m gonna learn how to use CAPCUT

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.

beast friends

made some more talia al ghul art!