#Talia al ghul is such a complicated character

[mrmanbat]

I’m gonna hold your hand while I say this now- Talia is a bad person and parent.

Don’t get me wrong I love her character and she has some powerful storylines. She even does moral things quite often. And she definitely loves Damian.

All that is true. But she’s still part of the league of assassins (to be fair she was indoctrinated).

She still brutally trained Damian to be an heir to this incredibly unethical group.

I understand why she did that and why it was probably one of the best courses of action for her but it still lead to Damian’s suffering.

She did it because she loves Damian but she loves him in the way that ends up hurting him.

[casscainmainly]

POC Batfam Members Reading Guides + Starter Comics

The Batfamily has a lot of excellent POC characters, but I know comics can be hard to navigate. This list compiles the main POC Batfam members, their reading guides, and recommended runs to start out with. Not including Dick, but if you want a reading guide for him check out this one from @fantastic-nonsense (it actually covers all the Batfam members, it's a great one-stop resource!). This is not an exhaustive list by any means, so feel free to comment/add on with any additions!

Damian Wayne / Robin

The biological son of Bruce Wayne and Talia Al Ghul, Damian Wayne's character growth, complex relationships with his family, and general adorableness has endeared him to the hearts of many.

Reading list from @dailydamianwayne

Recommended starter run: Batman and Robin (2009)

Cassandra Cain / Batgirl

Raised to be an assassin, chose to become a hero. Cassandra Cain's unique abilities, stubborn personality, and amazing character journey make her one of the Batfam's most lovable characters.

Reading list from @dailycass-cain Recommended starter run: Batgirl (2000)

Duke Thomas / Signal

After his parents succumb to Joker gas and disappear, Duke Thomas throws himself into the world of vigilantism. He is beloved for his dedication to his family, unique connection to Gotham, and headstrong personality.

Reading list from @duketectivecomics

Recommended starter run: We Are Robin

Helena Bertinelli / Huntress

A child of Gotham's most powerful mafia family, Helena Bertinelli seeks vengeance after an assassin murders them. Her passion for the people she cares about, her Catholic background, and her sometimes volatile personality make her an interesting and unique beloved character.

Note: Helena was originally portrayed as White, but was retconned in Tim Seeley and Tom King's N52 Grayson run to be mixed race and/or Black. She also has an extremely messy publication history, and it's debatable whether N52/Rebirth is even the same character. She is not to be confused with Helena Wayne.

Reading list from @purpleladyofthenight

Recommended starter run: not a comic, but Justice League Unlimited's episodes "Double Date," "Grudge Match," and "Question Authority" are a great introduction. Then Huntress (1989).

Luke Fox / Batwing

The son of Wayne Enterprises CEO Lucius Fox, Luke Fox inherits the mantle of Batwing from David Zavimbe. Inducted into the Batfam during Rebirth, Luke is known and loved for his genius-level intellect, his complicated relationship with his father, and his unwavering dedication to the cause.

Reading list from @lornahs (includes David Zavimbe)

Recommended starter run: Batwing (Luke shows up in #19 onwards, but the rest is worth it too!)

Maps Mizoguchi / Robin

A student at Gotham Academy, Mia "Maps" Mizoguchi is the newest Robin on the scene! Energetic, ever-curious, and a huge Batman and Robin fan, she's a fan-favourite for a very good reason.

Reading list from @emilyarmadillo

Recommended starter run: Gotham Academy

Other characters who are Batfam adjacent include Talia Al Ghul, who I would recommend using fantastic-nonsense's reading list again, and Jace Fox, for whom you should read The Next Batman: Second Son.

POC characters are still few and far between in comics, and it's important to support the characters we already have to show DC that there is a demand for diversity. All of these characters have truly interesting stories, personalities, and character arcs, and deserve our love and support!

[bitterrobin]

you, batman/batfamily fan, can you be normal about parents and their flaws without making them exaggerated abusers?

can you absorb the fact that Jack and Janet Drake were not perfect parents, but they still loved Tim? and that Tim loved them enough that he tried to tear a razor sharp boomerang out of his father's corpse with his bare hands? that the Drakes were not millionaires who forced high society values onto their son for the sake of a public image? (that they weren't even rich for that long of a time?)

can you be normal about how the deep recesses of poverty affect a family unit while allowing a parent nuance? can you write Willis Todd without making him a classist caricature of an abuser? can you write Catherine Todd and Crystal Brown without portraying their drug addictions as fodder for their children's whump? (I added in Crystal bc she canonically suffered from drug addiction, but I haven't seen much of her in fics tbh)

can you accept that as much an abuser David Cain was, he still loved Cassandra enough that he utterly fell apart when she left him? That he was genuinely astonished/proud of her when she spoke to him for the first time even as she threatened him? he still sucks majorly, but you can't deny that he loved her. that's what makes their relationship so painful.

can you be normal about Talia al Ghul? can you write her without making her an ooc rapist or child abuser or cold dragon lady? can you acknowledge that every ounce of her characterization surrounding Damian is vastly different from her original pre-Morrison personality to the extent that og Talia would never even have a child in the League?

can you pick apart when a parents portrayal is out of character, that a writer made them hit or neglect their child because above all else they exist for drama and action? that you can find DC characters who actually had traumatic childhoods instead of grafting them onto a Bat-character? (> this last sentence is mostly about Tim btw)

Exploring a character's parents and how they affected them is always interesting, but I've seen fics that genuinely steer towards character assassination rather than an exploration of events written in the comics. They exaggerate a parent's portrayal not to write about a complicated parent-child dynamic but so they can have Bruce or Jason rushing in to comfort them (yes, this is about the Tim Drake shrimp fic). Idk, I think most of my ire just stems from the fact that content about Mia Dearden or Todd Rice or Grant Emerson aren't widespread, Mia specifically always gets explored in Bat-circles as someone that just adds to Jason's character rather than analyzing her on her own, in addition to the constant hell that Talia goes through in both canon and fanon.

[francisofgotham1]

I think one way to combine them is by making Ra’s force Talia to watch as he turns Damian into a brainwashed soldier. But the moment he got sloppy, she took Damian and ran to Gotham. And just as Bruce as getting used to the situation, he gets sent back in time.

20th-century Talia Al Ghul and 21st-century Talia Al Ghul are basically completely different characters, and I think that’s very stupid. 

She went from “fiercely attached woman who ends up sending her baby to an orphanage out of misguided love for Bruce and their son” to “Heartless Monster Villain who participates in her son’s abuse from infancy onward, treats him as a pawn and tool, and ultimately kills him because he ‘doesn’t measure up,’” and I just…I hate that. I don’t even like Talia and I hate it, because this character assassination was woven into the fabric of the Batfamily story.

70s/80s/90s Talia would not have let the League abuse her baby, let alone played a part! She would have taken Damian and run! But then we wouldn’t have Damian, and so, well… here we are, having to accept that Talia didn’t rescue her baby. Which means, at least on the surface, that Current Canon Talia is not Original Talia. Which is a mess.

[thesulkycroissant]

So there's this saying that the only time you see the middle of the road is when you're going from ditch to ditch, and that most of the time is how I feel about the canon v fanon debate.

Genuinely, I feel like people get so stagnanted in this idea that something isn't canon - which, what is comic canon anyway? I strain to unravel the mystery of which comics get to "count" and which do not - and focus on it so much that they miss any aspect of nuance.

Tim's parents are a great example. Tim's parents exist in the way they do for a simple out-of-universe reason: the writers wanted to avoid the mistakes they made with Jason by both differentiating him from Dick (making him not an orphan) and giving him a "buy-in" with Dick (something to connect them -> the circus). (Their logic was that Dick was the key to getting readers to like Tim, and that neglecting his buy-in was their misstep with Jason.) At the same time, Tim having parents is a problem because what parent is not going to notice their kid being gone all the time playing midnight vigilante? Solution: absentee parents. But now the shift to in-universe happens. Tim's parents are gone all the time, but it's not malicious; they're just kind of clueless. They love Tim. Tim loves them. But they are not around. And this out-of-universe choice, once you enter into the universe, logically can - maybe even should, if you're taking the characters seriously - effect how a character reads.

Tim's parents are gone all the time. There's every probability that would cause trauma. Unintentional, but fun to explore! The comics do a very little. I think fandoms can often make the mistake of believing subtle abuse (like neglect) is not sufficient, so it gets elevated to something physical. But your parents loving you and also causing you trauma is a relatable experience, I think. Even your parents doing their best and still causing you trauma is.

Jason being the angry Robin is another rough one. Because yeah, I agree, Scott Lobdell did some wacky and unkind things to Jason's backstory. But Jason, even going back to his original (not original, but his original non-just-Dick-but-blond) backstory, is a traumatized orphan willing to take the risk and steal tires from the Batmobile as a means of survival (in Gotham! In Crime Alley!). Why can't Jason be angry? In the throes of adolescence, at a time when he feels safe with Bruce, doesn't it make sense for his trauma to find its way out in anger? Can't he both believe Robin is magic and be angry? Can't he be sweet and angry both?

Dickie and anger. Yeah, anger plays a role in certain story arcs of his. In NTT, and in the first 80s Nightwing run, the stories take pains to show that the anger is triggered by something and channeled into brutal focus. And that it does not serve him. Dick's relationship with Kory in NTT nearly falls apart because of his anger. He treats her very poorly. I see a lot of people saying they want Dick to be angry, but not allowing Dick to learn how to control his anger is not giving the character his dues either.

And Damian. Shoot. Reading the One Bad Day comic for Ra's al Ghul kinda ruined me a bit because of how much Ra's obviously loves and respects animals, and how can you not see the echo of that in Damian's love of animals? Damian's League trauma is such a thing worth exploring, and I think the value of exploring it only goes up when you add in the complicated factor of the fact that Talia and Ra's do love him, and he does see them when he looks in the mirror, and every day Damian has to decide which parts of his family - his whole family - are good to keep and which are not.

Anyway. There's probably more, but this post is already pretty long lol. Nuance is cool, that's all.

[cephalog0d]

🎶On the twelfth day of Ficmas, Ceph's Bookmarks gave to me...🎶

The only thing I fear (is fear itself) by @dizaryswrites

48k, Teen and Up Audiences, Bruce Wayne & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Tim Drake & Damian Wayne & Alfred Pennyworth & Talia al Ghul

Dick's life was close to perfect. Then Jason died and it all fell apart. The only reason he even returned to Wayne Manor after 3 years was for the sake of Bruce’s newest squire, Tim Drake. But when a mysterious stranger with no memory and a bloody child comes stumbling out of the woods, Dick realizes he might have another chance at the family he longs for. Or he’ll watch it all go up in flames again.

Saving the longest for last, for anyone who needs some epic Batkid AU over the holidays I've got you covered! I love this AU so much, I love all the character dynamics here, I love Dick's complicated relationship with Bruce and his brotherhood with Tim, I love the developing relationships they both have with Jason and Damian, I love Talia, I love all of it. This is everything I want in an AU, where the characters are recognizable as themselves in core ways but altered by the world they're in and the events that have happened, and exploring what that means for them.

[lesbianlanarcher]

"we need more complicated female characters!"

you guys couldn't even handle talia al ghul or lana kane or selina kyle or katya kazanova...

[damian-al-ghul-wayne]

Hey, I know this might sound a bit unusual, but I was wondering—do you know if your mother is single? I’m just curious, given how complex and mysterious her background is. Talia al Ghul is such an intriguing character with her connections to the criminal associations and her complicated relationship with Bruce Wayne. Their history seems so tangled that I can't help but wonder about her current status. Of course, I realize that this is more of a fun, hypothetical question rather than something to be taken too seriously. But since you have such a unique family dynamic, I thought it might be interesting to consider where Talia stands now in her personal life. Anyway, just thought I'd ask—no pressure if you don't have an answer!

If I get one more question asking me if my mother is single, I am going to close my asks down so quick. I am not my mother, and I do not keep track of her personal life. either way, she does not want yo ass. move along, E. 🤨

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

Summoning of Scion

by Fishhfood With the limited time she had, Talia's plans could only account for so much. She counted on Father and the guards being occupied with the traitor to allow her the time she needed to get the boy into and out of the pit. She had planned a route through the compound with the least chance of encountering either regular staff members or highly trained agents. She had planned for a single man to wait at the base of the cliff, the only blind spot along the escape route. The plan seemed laughable. If someone from her team had suggested something so sudden and reliant on something as intangible as hope, especially when the outcome seemed so dire, she would have dismissed them outright. There are so many variables that haven't been accounted for, so many potential points of failure, and Talia has to fight against thinking about them as she guides Jason to the pit. What she didn't expect was what also came with him. ** Rewritten version of “trash of gotham” with De aged cale! Words: 1247, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: 백작가의 망나니가 되었다 - 유려한 | Lout of Count's Family | Trash of the Count's Family - Yulyeohan, Batman - All Media Types, Robin: Son of Batman (Comics) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: Other Characters: Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown, Tim Drake (DCU), Barbara Gordon, On (Lout of Count's Family), Hong (Lout of Count's Family), Ron Molan, Dick Grayson, Cassandra Cain, Alfred Pennyworth, Batfamily Members (DCU), Talia al Ghul, Ra's al Ghul, White Star | Cale Barrow, Damian Wayne, Duke Thomas, Cullen Row, Harper Row, Kate Kane (DCU), Titus | Damian Wayne's Dog, Damian Wayne's Pets, Helena Wayne, Batman Ensemble, Ancient Powers (Lout of Count's Family), Lout of Count's Family Ensemble, most are mentioned - Character, Luke Fox, Cale Henituse | Kim Rok Soo Relationships: Cale Henituse | Kim Rok Soo & Everyone, Cale Henituse | Kim Rok Soo & Bruce Wayne, Cale Henituse | Kim Rok Soo & Batfamily Members, Everyone & Everyone, Talia al Ghul & Cale Henituse | Kim Rok Soo, Talia al Ghul & Damian Wayne, Cale Henituse | Kim Rok Soo & Damian Wayne Additional Tags: Badass Cale Henituse | Kim Rok Soo, De-aged Cale Henituse | Kim Rok Soo, Kid Cale Henituse | Kim Rok Soo, Protective Batfamily (DCU), Good Sibling Cassandra Cain, Jason Todd and Damian Wayne Meet in the League of Assassins, Jason Todd is a Batfamily Member, kinda they’re relationship is complicated, they all care for eachother, Good Parent Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Communicating, Damian Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Damian Wayne Has a Heart, Im gonna try to include ever batfamily member pls tell me if i missed one, Good Parent Talia al Ghul, She loves her kids, Not beta read we die like Jason via https://ift.tt/AmpWSRg

[aingeal98]

I have like. Two versions of Damian Wayne in my head. I think it's a consequence of getting to know and love him via Morrison's run on him and then wanting to know more, doing research into his mother's side, and being horrified by how racist the retcons made were. It didn't really change how much I enjoy Damian in any significant way, because I liked him for his dynamic with the batfamily and how entertaining he is as Robin. It's just that when it comes to anything deeper than that, about what motivates him, what he internalized growing up, the impact his childhood abuse had on him, anything to do with Ras or Talia really... A lot of writers fail so badly at making it compelling and instead just make me cringe and want them never to touch the al Ghuls again. And so we end up with two Damians:

Damian Wayne aka the Damian I love: Most easily described as an in-character, well written Damian with a solid backstory. Robin Son of Batman and his Robin run both pull this off pretty well. They don't downplay the horror of his childhood but they don't cross over into cartoonish territory either, and they allow Damian to have complicated thoughts and feelings about what he did and what was done to him. You can see how his abuse shaped him without it being shoved hamfistedly down your throat, and I don't come away thinking "I have to ignore all of this no matter how important it is to his character because logically Ras and/or Talia would not fucking do that". Also he's hilarious and makes me root for him whether he's insulting his enemies or electrocuting Jason or dying for the fifth/sixth time. Like that's my son and I can write a million words on his mentality and how it's changed and his opinions on his parental figures and his character development and how he'd interact with x or y character and-

And the second Damian, aka the Woobie Damian. The one you get where hack writers want to give him a sad backstory to justify how Edgy and Badass and Damaged he is and write the most cartoonishly over the top evil Ras and Talia possible. Most recent example I can think of is Tom King saying Ras locked Damian in a box with no water for a week because he didn't tie his shoelaces right. Or Morrison's Talia murdering her own son. Or how SuperSons wrote Talia. And look, it's not that I won't accept horribly, ridiculously evil villains. My favourite character's dad abused her in more extreme ways than even the worst al Ghul writer could come up with. It's that these are characters with already established personalities and traits. Unless they are being mind controlled they would not act like that and do these things. Just like how Bruce Wayne wouldn't lock Dick in a cave and feed him rats. There are ways you can show the impact of growing up in a cult and raised by an evil grandfather and being told repeatedly that you are destined to lead them all into a better world and trained in the art of killing a man. And these writers fail miserably at pulling any of that off. It's as shallow and boring as "You know why I'm mean to you all the time? Because my family taught me love is a weakness. I said mean things to you and stabbed you but my grandfather used to beat me for showing kindness to animals. Don't you feel sorry for me now?"

It sucks. I hate it. Anything with that Damian in it, I automatically filter out of my personal canon. The only way I can think of making it good is if it's like the "Slice the Baby Saturday" meme, where Damian is just bullshitting to see how much he can get away with and deliberately testing his family with stereotypes. But unfortunately those writers are dead serious about Ras making Damian climb up a whole mountain with no safety gear even if he falls and breaks his arm or dies. Because that is definitely something you would do with your one and only heir. They're literally two minutes away from saying Ras gave Damian a puppy and then told Talia to kill it in front of him.

So basically when I say that I love Damian and he's my favourite male Robin, know that woobie Damian is not a part of this conversation. Real Damian I would kill for. A writer puts woobie Damian in front of me and says his mom stabbed him I say let him bleed out so I won't have to endure comics about him anymore.

[thedevilundercover]

Hiii! Drum roll plssss, I finished the first chapter of the LOA au!

Midnight Train to Anywhere (1272 words) by devilundercover Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Batman - All Media Types, Robin (Comics) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Tim Drake & Ra's al Ghul, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Everyone, Tim Drake & Talia al Ghul, Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Duke Thomas & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, whoa - Relationship, that's a lot of people - Relationship Characters: Tim Drake, Damian Wayne, Talia al Ghul, Bruce Wayne, Ra's al Ghul, Jason Todd Additional Tags: Good Sibling Damian Wayne, it's complicated guys, League of Assassins Tim Drake, Tim Drake and Damian Wayne are Siblings, Tim Drake and Damian Wayne meet in the League of Assassins, The League of Assassins (DCU), Creepy Ra's al Ghul, Talia al Ghul is Complicated, Bruce Wayne Tries to Be a Good Parent, Batfamily (DCU), Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Jason Todd dies, somewhere in the middle, But it's okay, He comes back, Tim Drake-centric, AU Fuckery Summary: Tim was sold into the League of Assassins at a young age and for the next twelve years he grew up in the Academy, training to become a League agent. But after a meeting (kidnapping) with Ra’s Al Ghul and a disastrous mission, Tim’s life was turned upside down. After being saved from a life of being Ra’s Al Ghul’s pawn via a well timed death, his life is turned upside down once more after his old life comes knocking again in the form of a very angry ten year old.

[gnomewithalaptop]

A Good Lesson

Relationships: Damian Wayne & Talia al Ghul

Tags: Character Study, League of Assassins Damian, Talia al Ghul is a Complicated Parent

The first time Damian’s mother asks him to kill someone, they are on an overnight passenger train to St. Petersburg, and the target has just stepped out to smoke through their fifteen-minute rest break in the chill of the Vladimir station.

Truth be told, Damian would quite like to join him. The train’s an older Soviet model – all smudged windows and cramped hallways and gray-black carpets that ruck up underfoot – and this late in the season, they’ve got all the heaters cranked to the max. Both he and Mother have stripped down to the lightest of their house clothes, and even still Damian can feel the thin trickle of sweat itching, half-dried and salty, between his shoulder blades.

The only source of relief is the compartment door, half-cracked to let in the relatively fresher air from the passageway beyond. When Mother closes it, Damian can’t help but glance out the window at the line of people, silhouetted haphazardly against the stolid off-white concrete of the station and the cool, heat-sapping darkness beyond.

He wouldn’t go out to smoke of course – even if anyone was fool enough to offer a cigarette to an eight-year-old, Damian doesn’t see much use in cheap, non-decomposable-waste-producing stimulants.

Still. Some fresh air would be nice.

This is Mother though, and she’s never been one to do something for no reason, so instead of whining about it, as he’d do with his teachers, Damian simply sits up straighter in his pulled-out bunk and narrowly avoids hitting his head on the sloped ceiling.

“Careful, Habibi,” Mother says, lips quirking upwards for a half second. From this angle, her eyes seem especially dark, the black wing of her eyeliner cutting and precise. Then, in one deft motion, she reaches out to grip the exposed metal frames of the bunks flanking the door and, ignoring the cheap plastic ladder precariously balanced against the wall entirely, leaps onto the mattress beside him.

Damian blinks up at her expectantly. “I’m always careful,” he says, because it’s true. “I adapted, didn’t I? ‘Just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions.’”

If anything, this just makes his mother look even more amused. “You’ve been sitting up there for the past half hour. I’d say those conditions are pretty constant.”

[Continue on AO3]

[sebeth]

Who's Who In The DC Universe #2: Bat-Mite, Batwoman

Bat-Mite by Marshall Rogers

A pint-sized imp from another dimension

Claims to be the greatest fan of Batman and Robin, comes to Earth to watch his idols in action

Loves to use his powers to complicate matters for the Dynamic Duo

Forever being ordered back to his home dimension by Batman, like a bad boy being sent to stand in a corner

Bat-Mite is a silly character that mainly appeared in the Silver Age. He did have a mini-series in the New 52 era and has made a few appearances in the various Batman animated series. If you don’t mind an occasionally silly Batman, Bat-Mite can be a fun character. If the “Dark Knight Strikes Again” Miller-Batman is your ideal then Bat-Mite is not the character for you.

Batwoman by Dick Giordano

Kathy Kate was a circus stunt-cyclist and trapeze artist. She later became a socialite and owner of a circus.

A longtime admirer of Batman, Kathy decided to become a costumed crimefighter after she received a considerable inheritance.

She had a mansion constructed atop an abandoned mine tunnel and built her own version of the Batcave.

Often partnered up with Batman and Robin

Kathy’s own niece, Betty, developed her own costumed identity as Bat-Girl

Katy had counterparts on Earth-One and Earth-Two – their careers were mainly identical except for the endings

On Earth-Two, Kathy retired and remained a prominent citizen of Earth-One

On Earth-One, Kathy retired and bought a small circus to keep herself occupied

She was later murdered by the Bronze Tiger in a struggle between Ra’s Al Ghul and the League of Assassins

Kathy Kane is one of my all-time favorite characters and my 2nd favorite love interest of Batman (Andrea Beaumont is my number one Batman love interest).  Was she a silly character? Yes, in her late Golden Age/Silver Age appearances but it was a rather overall silly time for DC Comics. She is the first heroic female Bat character as she debuted in the 1950s and Barbara Gordon wouldn’t debut until the late 1960s. Loved her rare Bronze Age appearances. After Kathy’s death, her time as Batwoman was erased in the post-Crisis but Bette kept her role as a costumed adventurer as Flamebird. Kathy -as Batwoman – made an appearance in one of the Kingdom one shots. Batman sees Batwoman and says “Kathy?” so he retained some memories of her costumed identity.

As for Kathy’s death…she was essentially stuffed into the fridge.  In Detective Comics #485, Batman visits Kathy’s circus and helps her fend off attackers. A second wave of attacks separates the duo and Batman later finds a deceased Kathy clutching her Batwoman costume. Ra’s Al Ghul arrives at the circus and informs Batman that Kathy was killed by the order of the Sensei of the League of Assassins and that Ra’s was the one who sent the note warning Batman of Kathy’s upcoming assassination. Batman questions why the Sensei would consider Kathy a threat and Ra’s tells Batman it is because he told the Sensei that Kathy was a threat. The Bronze Tiger is implicated to be Kathy’s murderer.

We don’t receive a reason for why Ra’s went out of his way to have Kathy assassinated. The only reason I can head-cannon relates to Ra’s obsession to have Bruce as an heir. Around this time there were four main love interests of Bruce: Selina, Talia, Kathy, and Silver St Cloud. Was Ra’s eliminating a possible romantic rival of Talia?

The aftermath of Kathy’s murder received some attention in the Ostrander’s Suicide Squad series – mainly in Bronze Tiger’s attempts to break the League’s brainwashing and his attempts to remember if he killed Kathy.

Kathy frequently married Bruce and was the mother of his son in “imaginary stories” (Elseworlds) from the Golden/Silver Age.

I was so excited when Batwoman was rumored to return in the 52 serie and was so disappointed when it wasn’t Kathy. (Not that I don’t like Kate, I simply wanted the return of Kathy).

Grant Morrison brought Kathy/Batwoman back during his run on the Batman titles and she also featured in the Grayson series. I don’t know if she’s made appearances since the Rebirth era but I’m always up for more Kathy.

[bitterrobin]

3, 9 and 12 for the hater ask game <3

3. a screenshot of the worst take you've seen on Tumblr -- ooh I have a screenshot, hold on.

yeah. Granted, its an old post back when the Tim/Damian conflict was more recent (I think 2013/2014-ish) but it's still very emblematic of those kinds of Tim fans. The kind of fans who treat Damian (a child) as an abomination who will never change while still excusing Jason (a young adult/current adult). I still laugh at this, its so egregious. "Jason never tried to kill me" sure man. sure. "--in no way suggests he's changed his goals at all" uh huh. "im not coming back to the manor" okay. goodbye. I swear some people treat this era like Damian was trying to alien assimilate into the family and destroy only Tim's life on purpose. Because of course everything's about Tim, nothing can be nuanced enough to include the 10 year old's trauma and everyone's else's grief into account, and if you excuse the child's actions then you're advocating for bullying/bad parenting/sibling abuse /s.

9. worst part of canon -- simple answer, how writers will always rehash arcs and the same "explorations of a character." More complicated answer, I'm not a fan of the way supporting characters have been erased in current/modern comics. I don't like when those characters explicitly created to support the main character's plot lines and expand their world are either completely gone or so sanded down they're practically splinters of wood. Some examples, I see mentions of Tim's wider supporting cast that are gone (idk Ives sounds interesting), theres the fact Maya Ducard hasn't shown up until very very recently, Harold Allnut and Leslie Thompkins vanished into the aether, Waller got super-butchered etc.

12. the unpopular character you actually like/why you should like them -- hmm. Kind of hard to answer since I can't gauge the unpopular ones in wider fandom. Technically, every character has their haters- ah wait. hold on i'm receiving a vision. ITS THE PARENTS. No matter which side of the fandom its always the parents (TM) that get disparaged and raked through the coals. Willis and Catherine Todd, Janet and Jack Drake, Crystal Brown, Talia al Ghul, I could go on probably. Yes, I do actually like all of them. Willis's abusive nature was a retcon and even if it wasn't, its still rooted in classist ideas of "Poor man will inevitably abuse wife/child because he is poor and unsatisfied, something something he didn't work hard enough for capitalism." Willis can be a subpar father, but hitting his child shouldn't be the only aspect to explore. Jason tried getting revenge for his dad's death, he loved him, what you do with that is more interesting to me than "Willis sucked and Jason hates him and Bruce is better/Bruce is equally as bad and Jason also hates him." Catherine and Crystals addictions are often portrayed as "absent and not nearly there enough to provide their child protection." Catherine's sickness/addiction was super up to interpretation until it was retconned to "full blown drug addict". Crystal was being abused and trying. Children can resent their parents over this, but sometimes you need to look past the character and at the actual writer who wrote this into canon. Did they or did they not hold their own bigoted views and insert them into the comics because that's what they wanted and no one stopped them? Janet was dead before she could meaningfully warp Tim and by all accounts she was loving to Tim even when she wasn't always there. All of Jack's flaws are so utterly banal and human and a clear signifier of the 90's/2000's ideas of parenting that making him more than a slightly pathetic and macho-oriented man just...doesn't make sense to me. And I won't get into Talia because we'll be here for hours. I will say that Talia is truly in a lose/lose situation because people will hate her whether she actually has a hand in Damian's childhood or not. To me all of these parents can be nuanced and interesting to explore, especially in situations without their children. I like writing about Willis and Catherine's childhoods. I like exploring Talia's relationship with her father. I like thinking about Jack being hopeless and still having redeeming qualities and Janet being so loved by him it destroys him when she dies. I just think the idea of "parents before they were parents" is neat! I love thinking about the people they used to be before a child, because having children is so changing. Was Willis affected by his own parents? Did Willis actually know Lady Shiva as friends or was there some crazy backstory we'll never get? Did Catherine have her own hobbies and dreams, did she always want a child and accepted Jason as her own so readily because it haunted her for years? Did Janet go into archaeology for a specific reason, was it a family passion? Did Jack meet Janet and covet her intelligence and independence? Did Talia dream of becoming a world-renowned surgeon and having that be accepted by her father wholeheartedly, having her successes be her own successes?

Disclaimer: If you vent using DC characters then thats entirely valid! I'm just weirdly neurotic about accurate portrayals and in no way am I an authority on any of the above.

[littletealights]

Ra's met Talia's mother at woodstock. She was killed by a someone who was lurking near the lazarus pits (something others not allowed to do) and pushed her into the lazarus pit in panic and the pit's acids melted her or smth. Talia was extremely young back then and saw her mother get killed.

It's not that hard to do a google search before talking about stuff you have no clue about with a sense of entitlement and talking about punching someone for saying something YOU weren't aware of..

Talia and Ras are characters to be handles very delicately or you might enter the racist side of the fandom despite not knowing. I think it's not very safe to make assumptions about these complex characters, because they are evil but people blend them into 2D racist stereotypes. Which isn't good because. well. it's racist.

Contrary to popular belief Ra's al ghul isn't osama bin laden!

He has cried and killed over his PETS. Damian's love for animals was started by the al ghuls who want to save the planet and it's endangered species. They're like poison ivy but for animals idk 😭😭 Ra's literally thinks of Bruce as a son too. The al ghuls relationship with the family is extremely complicated and it's valid to not understand that!! BUT it's not valid to demonize them and feed into assumptions that could be cleared with a GOOGLE SEARCH.

I think it's a bit hypocritical to be so defensive of Damian's skin color but not his culture and heritage, along with demonizing the said heritage. The white savior trope isn't cute sis.

great. i didn’t know about talia’s mother.

in what world is sending your sister to rape a child so she can have his child not fucking creepy.

i did not demonise damian’s culture. i said that it makes sense that ra’s al ghul would clone himself as he is obsessed with having a powerful heir. i said nothing about the rest of the family. at all. point blank period.

me calling ra’s al ghul a creep based on knowledge i have from a comic book i read myself isn’t fucking racist. you infantilising him and saying anyone saying anything bad about a poc is prejudiced? that is racist.

obviously theyre complicated characters. i didn’t say they weren’t. i also never said he was fucking osama bin laden so who’s ass did you pull that from.

yall must be high outta you fuckin minds, good grief.

also fuck you. i’m not white and i never fucking have been. it’s actually something i talk a lot about on here.

the internet troll trope isn’t cute, bitch.

[themyscirah]

Ooh... what's going on with "fragments?"

Ooh okay so ever since I read Anne Carson's translation of Sappho earlier this year I've had this idea for a character study fic as a series of vignettes, each one drawing from a fragment of Sappho (hence the title lol!) I liked the idea of trying to tell the complicated story of a life (or some of one) through a series of short, mainly introspective and internal moments. While I was reading If Not, Winter, one character really kept standing out to me as being in many of the poems while I read them, that being Talia al Ghul (Maybe because there were a lot of uses of the word 'Beloved' lol!).

So anyways this fic would follow an interpretation of her life and journey chronologically, starting with fragment 153 (girl sweetvoiced), and ending roughly at or around no. 169 (I would lead).

This is an idea I really love, but it's one that comes with a rlly long reading list for me because while I've read some Talia I don't think I have a good enough grasp yet to do this concept right, so while I know where it's going and how it's getting there, it's currently in limbo while I catch up on my Batman and Denny O'Neil. : )

I won't post the main order bc I'll likely move things around but here's a few fragments for example that I want to include but haven't decided exactly where in the timeline to put them for certain (though for some i have a good feeling)