#pro brutalia

[punkeropercyjackson]

Very embarrasing this needs to be said but if you're going to write characters of color,you're going to have to learn how to not be racist first or at least along the way.This is about many bases but the main one is headcanons for canon white characters while excluding/demonizing/etc the canon poc or even just nonblack poc and canonically black characters(Yeah,this be so called afrolatino Jason truthers who take Duke out of the Batboys,Robins and Batkids when he's all three and him and JASON are eachother's Robin LMAOOOOO Jason dosen't care about yt blue eyed boys or sex,he's too busy loving Duke as his favorite brother <3)

[spooky-donut-ghost-house]

Just saying Selina and Talia deserve better than Br*ce

[mrdogface]

so like, there's a specific bubble of fanon usually devoted to rehabilitating the character of Talia al Ghul, that tends to reimagine Ras al Ghul as some kind of enlightened socialist leader who'd never think a bigoted thought or anything. i think it's because he's usually presented as a master manipulator who promises a lot of glossy shit like saving the environment or destroying capitalism, and that is based, but the underlying meme has always been that he wants to do it via mass genocide lol. like sister my sister, you, the audience, are falling for the character's ruse.

so, there's a Superman/Batman comic where, after Batman went back in time and shot his parents' killer in the braindome (lol), we see a world where Batman wasn't around to fuck Ras' daughter and foil his evil James Bondian schemes

and wow, he does a LOT of Hitler shit?

like a LOT of Hitler shit

he's not just toxic, girl, he's holocaustic

and while i fully support everybody's fanfiction, no matter how cracked or scuffed, because comics are a giant sandbox and i hate the attitude of there being a correct or incorrect way to play in that sandbox, i would like to propose an alternative narrative:

Talia al Ghul and Damian Wayne actually did grow up in this, believing it fully. that probably included a lot of Bad Notions about whether disabled people belong in the new world post-'cide, what the role of religion and therefore religious and ethno-religious communities might be, blah blah blah dark morbid shit.

and that they, through exposure to the world and their own personal intellect, ability to empathise with others, and the relationships that they built, both reject these horrifying, bigoted cult beliefs.

there is an obvious heroism in someone who is raised to believe horrible shit and who, through innate human compassion, learns to ultimately reject it. i would even go so far as to suggest this is probably core to the story of an angry little boy raised by a world domination assassination cult that wants to do mass genocide learning to be a hero, and that by smoothing off every rough edge to preserve this notion of a little boy who has never ever thought a slur or whatever, we lose that. but i think people do it because --

okay, this is my hottest of takes.

i think in fandom and the realm of post-twitter media literacy, there is a false equivalence of a character's morality with the beliefs of their fans.

you see it all the time with the brain trust insisting that people who like, i don't know, zack snyder's shitty boring superhero movies must be fascists or whatever. i see it a lot in the crazy arguments people make pro- and anti- brutalia and the nature of sexual violence in that canon relationship. it's all extremely dumb.

and it leads us to this weird place where takes like "damian wayne, a 10 year old raised in a genocidal cult where conversations about who does and doesn't get to be in the new world order happened, has never had a thought like 'well gay people are non-reproducers' or 'disabled people are useless'" take weird precedence over, "damian believes a lot of stupid, probably evil shit, but he's ten and he's learning," y'know what I mean?

[dyslexicandakeyboard]

I kinda wanna give some thoughts into Talia stans and their apologism and some trends and ideas that are common. (Yes, I'm treating this with more seriousness than it needs. Oh well.) Don't read if you like Talia.

I can split it into like three distinct categories: Anti-Bruce/Pro-Talia, New Earth Revision, Ghul Supremacy.

Anti-Bruce and Pro Talia split

This is a very common type of Talia apologism. It states that Talia actually is good while Bruce, even if he does love her, pushes her to do the things she does/doesn't understand her and demonises her. These people may still ship Brutalia.

Example:

These people will, even if they deny it, dislike Bruce as a character and will subtly mischaracterise him to prop up Talia. Some common mischaracterisations are that Bruce didn't love Jason as much as Talia did and that Talia has a deeper and closer bond/understanding of Damian.

The point of the miss characterisation is to discredit Bruce as a character as to make Talia seem better in comparison. It also leads to Talia being blamless as it's not "really her fault".

When they usually defend Talia from the rape accusations, they go down two paths: Bruce lied or Talia wouldn't do that.

The first idea posits that Bruce either didn't love Talia enough (the he lied argument). The latter posits that Talia has such a deep love of Bruce that she would never think of hurting him (false).

New Earth Revision

A second type of Talia aplogism asserts that only New Earth stories (between the 70's and 80's) showcase the true Talia. While these people may talk about later publications, they will fall back to New Earth stories to defend her from criticism whether or not it was in good-faith.

Example:

While they do refer back to New Earth, they also forget that during these publications she was still portrayed as mortally gray/dubious. While it is true Talia wasn't as villainous as post Death of the Maidens, she still wasn't a good guy.

Many of these people run into the problem of disregarding Talia's full characterisation during this time period. While it's ok to prefer portraying a character a certain way, when it comes at the expense of showing a character's complexities that's when theres a problem.

Many of these people also don't understand that character assassinations/changes are normal and they treat Talia's character progression as unique. Batman, Deathstroke, Deadshot have all changed since their first introduction. The change can be malicious or a natural progression. By constantly harkening back to the "good ol'days" people ignore that DC hasn't been static towards any character.

Ghul Supremacy

This type of apologia doesn't just include Talia, it can all the Al Ghul family. These people believe that DC is holding back on the Al Ghul family, mainly Talia and Damian, and that if given proper direction, they can "return" to the days when the Al Ghul's were written well.

Example:

These people disregard the agency of Talia and at times Damian in any situation where they are portrayed as bad. They will lessen the impact that the LoA have in order to minmise Talia's actions and her culpability within the LoA.

This is a less common type of Talia apologism.

[mistergreatbones]

So I’ve been reading some Bronze Age comics because yeah and it’s really funny because there was this one arc where jason just fucking hated Selina for stealing his dad’s attention yet he didn’t mind talia and obviously really liked Natalia. On the other hand, as far as I’m aware, dick seems pretty chill with Selina but literally threatened to move out of the manor over talia. Therefore, i like to imagine that every robin has one love interest they ship and one they fucking hate. Steph fake gags over Vicki but is always digging for information on Silver. Maps is a dedicated superbat shipper but Damian would rather die than be related to the alien and is obviously pro brutalia. Tim keeps pushing for Bruce to get back in touch with Julie. Carrie drops a batjokes meme into the group chat ONCE because she thought it was funny and has now been banned from the main timeline.

[gretahayes]

I got some for you: B, C, K, O and T <333

B - A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind

To be honest, timbart. I never considered them romantically then I saw some people posting about them (plus I started reading yj98) and was like oh. OH.

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will (be nice)

Batjokes. I joke about it sometimes and find it hilarious (also in Lego Batman it's all but canon) but I just...don't like it.

K -Say something nice about someone in any of your fandoms

Cas! You're amazingly sweet and have amazing takes and reblog the best stuff. You're also a pro at pushing your blorbo agendas and though it may not always work I appreciate the dedication <3

O - Choose a song at random, which ship or character does it remind you of

Bejeweled is such a Stephanie Brown song!!!

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending, about anything at all (gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, extended family, sexual preferences like top/bottom/switch, relationship with poetry, seriously anything)

There's a small list;

Dick is an ABBA fan, and he never got into the alt/rock scene, but a lot of his friends did, so he knows a lot about that kind of music.

Cassie's Percy Jackson phase. It makes perfect sense and I won't hear otherwise.

Cassie cursing out the gods regularly. She's got that gen z teenager audacity, she doesn't care they're her extended family and could kill her. That's none of her business, actually. What she cares about is that they're actually fucking losers.

I've said this so many times, but brutalia? Could be peak drama couple. Literally just saying. If writers didn't hate her, they could literally be ideal. Addams coded.

Tim's really tactile, just. Very awkward. He likes hugs and all that kind of stuff, he just respects peoples space (and he's got his own boundaries) and is sort of shit at initiating them causually.

Every single core four and fab five member is nd in some way.

Oh, Damian being aroace. He's so aroace.

Jenni sometimes shows up in the past just to give her family grief for rarely visiting her without wanting something. She hangs out with them too, but that's the main reason.

STEPH AND KON BEING BI. I SWEAR BY IT

(ask game)

[taliaalghhul]

Brutalia is superior to Batcat because if Talia and Bruce get married then that makes Ra Bruce's father in law and nothing is funnier than that

[baticorngirl]

Hot take but if you’re a Brutalia shipper and you’re hating on Selina/Helena, then you’re not allowed to get upset when BatCat shippers hate on Talia/Damian.

Seriously, why does everyone act like Brutalia shippers are totally innocent and can do no wrong? Everyone already talks about how toxic some BatCat shippers are, but I’m sick of people completely ignoring it when Brutalia shippers do the exact same thing!

BOTH Brutalia and Batcat are awesome ships, and Talia, Selina, Damian, and Helena are ALL good characters, period.

[thedarkknightswife]

When you agree with how badly a ship is written:

When said analysis involves increasingly ridiculous takes:

[katefatale]

I have learned not to look at Talia-related stuff on less curated platforms off of Tumblr because it devolves into pitting her and Selina against each other as mother figures as if stepparents don't exist. Since I'm not currently caught up, I can't tell if this is something the writers are encouraging or it's it's just Fandom Bullshit (TM). This isn't a comment on Brutalia or BatCat, just a comment on the fact that, if we have a narrative in which a man loves or has loved two women and remains at least somewhat close to them and there is a child involved, then there will likely be a complex (and potentially rich) relationship between the child and these women. Talia is not a bad mother. She loves her son. Even when she can't presently be with him, it has been clear in the narratives that have resonated most with her fans that she loves him. And Selina has every right to care about Damian, who, in BatCat settings, is the child of her partner. These things can exist simultaneously. They are both figures in his life. It's not the goddamn Thunderdome, nor should it be.

Showing my old age here but when you're at an age where you or many of the people you know are step-parenting, this debate looks very... inexperienced? naive? Or, if it's the writers doing it, just shitty. These familial relationships that have caused such a blow-up in the fandom and have resulted in a lot of racist and misogynistic discourse are, once you hit a certain age, often the norm. I shudder to think of what some of the debaters I've seen elsewhere would say about one side of my family, which has never drawn a line between biological, adoptive, or step- familial relationships. (I couldn't even tell you which parent of the household is a biological parent and which is a stepparent, who lives here and who's just visiting, half the time.)

This isn't the big rant sitting in my drafts, and I think I'm only actually posting it to weigh in because I can easily imagine folks who are or who have stepparents being really hurt by this discourse.

(Of course, I tell myself this is why I keep to this more curated platform, but I know I'm going to go lurk on the other ones for my wtf fix. This is the problem of being both a fan and a fandom scholar: I just have to see what everyone's talking about.)

EDIT: for clarification, this is NOT a dig at anyone here or the pro-mom!Talia folks whose tweets are making rounds currently. It's a dig at loud people in the fandom spread across the internet who are incapable of seeing Talia or Selina as dynamic, evolving characters faced with a complex situation involving a child.

[hollyharper]

Brutalia Highschool AU Master Post