#disney princess of dc

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au where damian is still killed by league offshoots but talia isn't responsible for it bc her character is being respected and anyway she comes to the funeral and screams at bruce bc she sent her son to him so he would be safe from this life! bruce was meant to keep their son safe! he was meant to get to grow up and live a life! and bruce has no answer for her, bc there's no answer he could give that she would accept

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Currently obsessed with the idea of Talia requesting sanctuary on Themyscira under Amazonian law. The WonderTalia of it all

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character: talia al ghul

Taliaaaaaa my girl Talia

favorite thing about them: the specific way she acts from the heart while consistently getting shit done is infinitely compelling to me, because in my mind she’s not ever a hero or a villain she’s just always herself.

least favorite thing about them: most of my least favorite Talia things I don't acknowledge whether that's Morrison, whatever's going on with death and the maidens, but also. I think the fact that DC keeps regressing her back to the league/Bruce/her father (with bonus Damian) conflict that defined her early appearances when she's grown beyond that. Let my girl do spycraft and wear pants

Favorite line: lost days is hit or miss with Talia and should be read alongside or after all of "the prison" (Batman chronicles 8) however I do like "more than any other reason - I have done this for love" as a summation of Talia’s character as well as explanation for her actions. Talia is a character who is defined by her capacity for love and DC forgets that all too often but it's critical to my understanding of her.

BROTP: Talia should meet baby Cass in the league of assassins and take care of her. If there can be one million Talia and Jason and Damian league fics there should be one million Talia and Cass in the league fics; that said I do very much appreciate her dynamics with Damian and Jason when they're well handled; wait I have just had a brilliant idea - Talia and Mae Kent should get coffee and shittalk Lex Luthor together and become friends in the process; + her complex dynamic with her father where they both genuinely care about each other but they're diametrically opposed;

OTP: Talia x every woman please and thank you free my girl from comphet and let her kiss girls she'd be so much happier

incomplete list of women i have shipped her with:

Lady Shiva - Talia calls her a friend in canon and entrusts her with secret errands (tec 1084 you will always be famous to me), Shiva is the one who comes to rescue Talia during hush (on ra's al ghul's behalf and talia knocks her out after but still) those are afaik their only two canon interactions so it's literal crumbs but lbr that's more canon basis than a lot of my Talia ships have. Also this fanart is my favorite of favorites

Diana of Themyscira - wondertalia the ship you could be. Ambassador Diana x Lexcorp CEO Talia. Talia requesting asylum/Hiketaia but with Talia. Establishing diplomatic relations between Nanda Parbat and Themyscira. Diana with her deep understanding of love and compassion x Talia who is foundationally about love? power couple material fanart evidence

Helena Bertinelli - these two with their complex family legacies and their having to grow up too fast and the way they care. They could be so good together. I explained my heltalia plotbunny to my non-DC bestie over dms and it thought I had something and I just found this art

Jade Nguyen - they're narrative foils okay trust me it would never work long-term and they both would know that but it's really fun to explore

*sigh* Selina Kyle - shipping talina but shaking my head the whole time so you know I disapprove of the shallow "the women in the love triangle should stop fighting over the man and just date each other" level of ship analysis that happens with every love triangle (korybabs my most beloathed) bc Ram V’s tec run gave me genuine feelings about their dynamic and I do find their interactions interesting is just. Complicated but compelling: pretty art

NOTP: Slade Wilson (I tend to handwave their relationship as entirely political on Talia’s end) any iteration of Minkhoa/Talia/Bruce - like it's pretty but at what cost to Talia’s character.

random headcanon: I am partial to the version of canon where Ra’s met Melisandre at Woodstock, sliding timescale being what it is, it can't have been the first Woodstock anymore, so I researched later Woodstocks to see if they work. Woodstocks 1989 and 1994 do technically work with the timeline and fits the vibe, but honestly I lean towards warped tour (started 1995) (and I also considered both burning man which started in 1986 and coachella which started in 1999) as a replacement. Because that allows me to have early college/med student Talia go to the same event with her college friends. She only went the once and didn't feel a need to repeat it - she finds the actual festival experience isn't for her - but she's glad she went. It made her feel close to her mother. Her father only pretended to mind. Afterwards he went back to his study, found the pictures Melisandre took of them at the original festival with her terrible disposable camera, and mailed them to Talia. Talia put them next to her own concert pics and even allowing for differences in hair style/makeup/clothing, it was like looking in a mirror. Talia still listens to live music recordings whenever she wants to feel close to her mother.

unpopular opinion: I reblog a lot of brutalia bc pretty and I do think Talia’s love for Bruce is important to her character but I also think she's at her best when she's allowed to grow past it and explore her own wants/needs/desires, like. Brutalia as comphet with Talia trying to live up to her father's desires and/or Talia idealizing Bruce as a means of escape is more interesting to me than actual endgame shipping it, the doomed chivalric romance of it all is ultimately another prison for her and I’d like to see her break out of it.

song I associate with them: the first one that comes to mind is 20 Years Of Snow by Regina Spektor. There’s something so Talia about “his daughter is 20 years of snow falling, she’s 20 years of strangers looking into each others eyes, she’s 20 years of clean and she never truly hated anyone or anything” with the refrain of “she says I’ve got to get me out of here” to me. But also All That I’m Living For by Evanescence, All We Do by Oh Wonder, Sellers of Flowers by Regina Spektor, Mirage by Mothica

favorite picture of them: there’s a lot of pretty fanart in my disney princess of dc tag but I’m going to go with this one - look at her chilling in her sweatpants on her couch oh and also this Talia and Cass art my moot made

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Have a lot of Talia headcanons

• Talia sneaking into her father's library and pouring over his medical texts trying to understand. Her father finds her asleep there most nights, sometimes he just quietly carries her to bed; other times he wakes her up and answers her questions in serious scholarly fashion, telling her complex medical details until she falls asleep in his arms.

• Talia begins assisting with healing and field medicine at 12. By the time she's 17, she's sat in on multiple surgeries. She has the steadiest hand in the League.

• For my League worldbuilding, I rewrote the Year of Blood from being a year of mindless atrocities to the Year of Blood and Honey, a quest meant to teach the value of both life and death replicating the journeys of Ra's Al Ghul before he founded the League. One of the parts of the quest is taking a dragon bat like Damian's Goliath, which means in my AU Talia has a dragon bat named Akila.

• Talia makes her first serious escape attempt at 14. She packs a bag and saddles Akila. It takes her father's men three weeks to track her down. After that, her father talks to her about duty and responsibility, and tells her that when she's a little older she will be allowed to leave to pursue her studies. Talia throws herself into preparing for medical school.

• At age 6, Talia sneaks into the classes for the League's incoming cohorts along with the other children of League members and watches them train. She learns a lot just by watching. This is how she actually meets Bruce Wayne, although he doesn't remember her well enough to distinguish her from the other children and has completely forgotten their earlier meeting when they meet as adults. He gives her little bits of chocolate, and she tells her friends that when she grows up she's going to marry him. Talia does remember this, but she's a little embarrassed by it and she's relieved that he doesn't seem to connect the dots.

• When Talia is about 11, there's a harassment situation involving her and one of the trainees. The League has a no tolerance policy for harassment and assault - you have to be able to trust your brothers and sisters in arms absolutely - and usually mandates that the offender fight a duel with either the offended or a champion of their choosing. If the offender wins, they are merely dismissed from the League's ranks. If the offender wins, they can choose the offended's fate. Talia chooses to fight the duel herself - she wins, and spares the man's life out of compassion, to her father's faint disapproval.

• Talia's most prized possession, next to only her gifts from Melisande, is her med school diploma. She has it on her wall where it's the first thing she sees every morning. She brings it with her when she travels. It's something she earned, something the League didn't give her.

• Talia regularly submits to medical journals. Her father cuts her articles out of them and keeps them in a scrapbook with family photos and other sentimental items.

• The year after Damian is born, there is an attempt at an alliance between Slade Wilson and the League that results in Slade courting Talia. Talia is deeply depressed due to Bruce's absence and her own post-partum depression, so she goes along with it rather mechanically. After the alliance fails, she hides the pregnancy from Slade. The child is abducted by a rogue fanatical sect of the League that is largely unaffiliated with the Al Ghul family and raised as a weapon. This is Respawn's origin in my AU because I find the "Ra's Al Ghul cloned him for spare parts" origin unappealing.

• It's critical to my understanding of the Al Ghuls and the League that both Damian and Talia did have a childhood. They weren't raised as weapons, but as royalty, the heirs presumptive to Nanda Parbat. They had responsibilities and they trained, but it was not a strictly abusive experience for either of them. Ra's Al Ghul is a complicated man, but he loves his daughter and grandson.

• Much of Damian's early upbringing was handled by servants, as Talia suffered from post-partum depression. She visited him often, usually bringing food she'd made herself, but she doesn't feel that she was always able to be the mother he deserved.

• Talia always felt a little set apart from the other children of the League due to her status. She is glad Damian has Mara and the Fist (who in my AU are either children of League members or children who were abandoned by their parents due to metahuman status) because she wants him to feel that distance less acutely than she did.

• Talia and Diana find a lot of common grounds in their upbringing, it's one of the things that draws them together when they meet as Lexcorp CEO and Themysciran ambassador.

• Talia loves Bruce in an idealized way, and she had a largely political affair with Slade, but the bulk of her romantic connections have been with women: Shiva, Jade, Angel Breaker, Diana, arguably Selina

• Talia handpicked Angel Breaker to serve as her bodyguard due to a crush she wasn't ready to acknowledge. She considers Shiva her best friend.

• Talia and Ben Turner have a standing weekly tea time during his tenure with the League. It's one of the few things about that time in his life the Bronze Tiger misses. Talia is one of only two people who know of his son with Carolyn Wu San, the other being Carolyn's sister Shiva.

• Talia sent Damian to Gotham during a League Succession Crisis because she was afraid he'd be used as a pawn if he stayed. She wishes she could've gotten Mara out as well.

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That last post is giving me HelTalia brainworms again send help

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Talia and Dick are approx. the same age, which means she's in the Titans age range, which opens up a bunch of shipping possibilities for those with eyes to see. I'm going back and forth between Talia/Donna and Talia/Raven and Talia/Helena at the speed of light join me it's fun

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Since Talia and Dick are about the same age, I have a deep and abiding need for an AU where Talia ends up joining the NTT. I just think it would be neat