lovebatfam: “do i have to choose?” “i would much rather we were all TOGETHER.”

lovebatfam:

“do i have to choose?”

“i would much rather we were all TOGETHER.”

That time Bruce used Talia as a human shield. 

That time Bruce used Talia as a human shield. 

onlytalia: katefatale: darknightlover: No matter what happens,he will always love her,even though they both will get screwed in the end! Despite what Ra’s did to Bruce earlier in this story, it’s this scene that seems like the cruelest thing the al Ghuls do to him. He genuinely panics when Talia is dying, and let’s remember that he’s throws Nyssa across the room when she pretends not to recognize Talia’s name.  [ Why Death and the Maidens WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO MY HEART MY HEARTTTT How many times did Talia die in this arc? TOO MANY TIMES TO COUNT, FRIENDS. IT WAS HORRIBLE.  I still get irritated that the only time it ever gets acknowledged in official character bios, but actually IN comics, it’s ignored. It could explain so much. Talia you tragic figure you ] Given that Rucka has said (to me! Ohmydearlord he actually spoke to me! well, wrote to me, but same thing) that Nyssa was killed by editorial mandate rather than to actually serve a narrative purpose, I’m thinking that maybe the events of DatM no longer happened, according to DC.  And seriously, Bruce’s panicked anguish there is terrible. I like to believe he took her and her love (and his feelings for her) for granted until he saw her so grievously hurt — and there wasn’t a thing he could to do save her. Just like with his parents, Ra’s and Nyssa forced him to watch the woman he loves die, and then Nyssa gloated over it to him later.  And how horrible is it (and I say this as someone who loves Nyssa), that Nyssa puts Talia through all that suffering then comforts her and manipulates her into having a childlike trust in her, only to place her at the end of Ra’s’ blade like this?  The al Ghuls are some cold people. 

onlytalia:

katefatale:

darknightlover:

No matter what happens,he will always love her,even though they both will get screwed in the end!

Despite what Ra’s did to Bruce earlier in this story, it’s this scene that seems like the cruelest thing the al Ghuls do to him. He genuinely panics when Talia is dying, and let’s remember that he’s throws Nyssa across the room when she pretends not to recognize Talia’s name. 

[ Why Death and the Maidens WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO MY HEART

MY HEARTTTT

How many times did Talia die in this arc? TOO MANY TIMES TO COUNT, FRIENDS. IT WAS HORRIBLE. 

I still get irritated that the only time it ever gets acknowledged in official character bios, but actually IN comics, it’s ignored. It could explain so much. Talia you tragic figure you ]

Given that Rucka has said (to me! Ohmydearlord he actually spoke to me! well, wrote to me, but same thing) that Nyssa was killed by editorial mandate rather than to actually serve a narrative purpose, I’m thinking that maybe the events of DatM no longer happened, according to DC. 

And seriously, Bruce’s panicked anguish there is terrible. I like to believe he took her and her love (and his feelings for her) for granted until he saw her so grievously hurt — and there wasn’t a thing he could to do save her. Just like with his parents, Ra’s and Nyssa forced him to watch the woman he loves die, and then Nyssa gloated over it to him later. 

And how horrible is it (and I say this as someone who loves Nyssa), that Nyssa puts Talia through all that suffering then comforts her and manipulates her into having a childlike trust in her, only to place her at the end of Ra’s’ blade like this? 

The al Ghuls are some cold people. 

darknightlover: No matter what happens,he will always love her,even though they both will get screwed in the end! Despite what Ra’s did to Bruce earlier in this story, it’s this scene that seems like the cruelest thing the al Ghuls do to him. He genuinely panics when Talia is dying, and let’s remember that he’s throws Nyssa across the room when she pretends not to recognize Talia’s name. 

darknightlover:

No matter what happens,he will always love her,even though they both will get screwed in the end!

Despite what Ra’s did to Bruce earlier in this story, it’s this scene that seems like the cruelest thing the al Ghuls do to him. He genuinely panics when Talia is dying, and let’s remember that he’s throws Nyssa across the room when she pretends not to recognize Talia’s name. 

Miranda: “You see, it’s the slow knife. The knife that takes its time. The knife that waits years without forgetting, then slips quietly between the bones. That’s the knife that cuts deepest.”

Batman: “Maybe the knife was too slow”

That fourth gif is my single favorite Talia expression in the entire movie. 

Just gonna stick this in the tag for Juli and katkillerqueen. And with that I’m going back to bed, because I have to teach tomorrow whyyyyy. 

Talia’s past lovers, + why Talia is more than an “ex” (pics included!)

imheliababe said: Um, I don’t know if you’ve written about this before, but whenever I mention Talia my friends always say she’s “Bruce’s ex”, which I hate ‘cause she’s so. much. more. So in retaliation, may be you could comprise a list of *her* lovers?

Sure! I agree that it’s annoying that people tend to see her that way. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bruce, but we never hear of Bruce being referred to as “Selina’s ex” or anything, and Dick Grayson is never “that guy who dated Babs and Starfire.” 

I’m obliged to point out that onlytalia has also recently done a post regarding Talia’s past romances, with commentary on other aspects of Talia’s life that people should read because it is, as always, good. 

[Personal note: Actually, this topic is important to me because I used to be one of the people who just thought of Talia as Bruce’s ex. Though I’ve been a comics fan since I was about six, it wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I realized what a great character Talia is. When my best friend was watching BTAS for the first time because she wanted to get into it, when Talia first appeared in “Off Balance,” my friend asked me who that was, and I even said: “Oh, that’s just Talia. She’s not important,” then explained that she chases Bruce around is Ra’s al Ghul’s kid. Embarrassing confession there. Yikes. But I can see where your friends are coming from because I used to be of their opinion.] 

In terms of past lovers: 

Talia’s greatest love has always been Bruce. Obviously. 

It’s easy to write her off as just his ex (I certainly did once), but I think it’s important to consider that not only does she love him, but he also was (or is, depending on the writer) in love with her as well. Talia was specifically designed to be the one woman Bruce could actually successfully love, per her creators (sorry, haters, it’s canon). 

While her love for him has resulted in the occasional emotional breakdown, even people who don’t like her must concede that it has also resulted in a number of Bat-victories, the defeat of Ra’s al Ghul just when he was about to destroy the entire Justice League (and the world), Bruce gaining access to resources he might have otherwise had to work for, the corporate downfall of Lex Luthor, a biological Bat-son who has become a fan favorite and who creates a dynamic within the Bat-family that is truly a joy to read, and, in the controversial Morrisonverse, a war of such a grand scale that Batman couldn’t even conceive of it until it was too late. 

The best result of her love for him, in my opinion, was this: 

(Forgive the page curvature, damn my clumsy scanning abilities)

For those who aren’t familiar with that image, it’s from Batman: No Man’s Land #0, when Gotham has been destroyed by an earthquake (after it was already partially destroyed by a plague Ra’s unleashed on it)… and Bruce has given up on the city. Yep. Retired the cape and cowl and gave up. Talia arrives in Washington to slap the shit out of him and remind him that he’s Batman. In fact, while I can’t find the next page on my computer right now (though I could have sworn I scanned it once), she cites her love for him as one of the reasons he must go back to Gotham: not only does he dishonor himself by running and hiding, he dishonors her. Bruce sees reason after their evening together.

In other words, her love isn’t something to be written off. 

Talia had eyes for no one but Bruce from 1971 until the 90s, at which point she met (on two separate occasions and in two separate stories) the original Azrael (Jean-Paul Valley) and Bane. 

I can’t say much about her fling with Azrael, as I only have a couple of issues of that storyline, and, unfortunately, not the issues in which Talia expresses a romantic interest in him. Instead, I have the issues in which Talia tries to counsel people on their fashion choices. Onlytalia knows more about this one than I do. 

Now onto Bane. If it’s not obvious from some of my past posts, I love me some Bane. He has been one of my favorite comics characters for years, so therefore A) his meeting with Talia in Bane of the Demon was of great interest to me when I became a Talia fan, and B) I approve of what Nolan did. 

While Talia’s relationship with Bane went in a horrifying direction, it started out well enough. He admits to her that he has no idea how women work and proves that when he kisses her while talking about being her mate: 

But Talia warms to him for some reason (probably a combination of her vulnerability following Bruce’s rejection and an admiration for Bane’s abilities), and she does sleep with him consensually following that awkward kiss: 

I’m not sure, ultimately, what Talia actually felt about him there. She certainly isn’t falling in love with him. But she did like him enough, albeit briefly, to present him to Ra’s as something of a gift and enough to sleep with him once. (Discussion of where that went can be found here, since it’s not relevant, by that point, to this topic.)

Then, in the 2000s, she engaged in a sexual relationship with two unexpected men, Jason Todd and a member of the League of Assassins who was never named (I just always refer to him as Unnamed Minion and I think a few others do too.)

We never learned anything about Unnamed Minion or the details of their relationship, but two things were pretty obvious:

1) The guy actually saw Talia in her private moments of uncertainty, and Talia actually discussed her plans and her uncertainties with him:

and 

2) He took the opportunity afforded him by his position to try to give her useful advice, even though that advice wasn’t something she wanted to hear. 

In the above scene, Unnamed Minion acknowledges Talia’s love for Bruce. He definitely doesn’t think he’s The One for her, and he seems genuinely concerned that she’s playing with a fire that will burn her rather than redeem her. I loved his fearlessness with her in that moment, and the fact that he doesn’t try to stake any claim on her. 

Then, a couple of issues later, Talia slept with Jason Todd. 

Some readers hated this moment with a fiery passion, but I loved it (that post used to be on my Tumblr but I can’t find it now, so I’m using someone else’s reposting of it, which used to link to an old blog…complicated). 

For all his batdickery, Bruce is still the angelic good boy who requires inspires Talia to work for a more humanitarian definition of the greater good, but Jason is the archetypal bad boy in the leather jacket with the motorcycle. He provides a kind of moral freedom for her, safe from judgment from either her father or Bruce, that she has never experienced before. 

So she hasn’t had as many exes as, say, Bruce or Dick have had, but she certainly hasn’t limited her romantic/sexual interests just to Bruce. And while those other affairs have been very brief, I think they’ve all served a distinct purpose in her characterization. 

To sum up: She made Batman be Batman again when he chickened out. Hardly “just an ex.” 

(Sorry for the length of this one. I rambled.)

And even more Talia x Bruce. 

I forgot one of the pics of Talia and Bruce in bed together. Oops. Here you go. 

I forgot one of the pics of Talia and Bruce in bed together. Oops. Here you go. 

More pics of Talia and Bruce. 

Not really requested, but I want to do it anyway. 

Requested: Pictures of Talia and Bruce doing adult things together, for scientific purposes. 

I love her face right there. To Bruce, she looks firm and reassuring, the unyielding, capable leader of the Wayne legacy. In actuality, she hates him so much and has been plotting such a glorious downfall for him and his entire city that she’s able to contain her hatred beneath the facade of a business partner. Right at that moment, she knows she’s won. 

I will always prefer comics!Talia, but I do love Miranda-Talia. I feel that she’s a wonderful alternative take on the character, and just as I wish futilely that Nolan would have included Bane’s story on the DVD, I also wish we were going to get more Miranda.