Tortall, Alex/Thom/Delia (and all permutations), E, 45k

“You’re not Gifted,” Thom blurted, because she wasn’t. Thom wasn’t quite good enough to detect magic on someone, not without closing his eyes and trying rather obviously, but he would have seen the girl in classes if she had the Gift. “Which is why this makes all the more sense,” the girl leaned forward again, eyes twinkling conspiratorially as she gestured between them. “Why what makes sense,” Thom didn’t understand. The back of his neck, likely flushed an unflattering shade of red, itched. “An alliance,” the girl said, like it was obvious. “We can’t sit back and play stupid forever, not if we really want to be respected around here.”

Thom meets Delia in the City of the Gods. They encourage each other's worst impulses, yet somehow, everything changes for the better.

"and although ra's al ghul is something like 400 years old, i'm pretty sure that talia is still a young woman--young by our standards, not just her father's." from "the talia al ghul I know… and the sister I don’t" by dennis o'neil

in talia's introduction story, she tells bruce studies medicine at the "university of cairo"--it's unclear if she actually is or if this is just a cover but this issue was published just one year after dick grayson leaves gotham for new york's hudson university (putting them in a similar age range) also i don't know how true this is but apparently in the usa, most med students tend to be ~24-26 and for egypt it is apparently ~18-24 (? -- i'm not a med student so please correct me if i'm wrong) detective comics (1937) #411

bruce refers to talia as "the girl" and "[ra's] girl-child" and to her and dick as "the kids"--dick would be in his freshman year of college (a large conflict that comes up is his dislike of bruce addressing him as/like a kid, so i'm inferring its more symbolic) batman (1940) #232

bruce is referred to being at a "perpetual 33" and in his "early 30s" by dennis o'neil this interview with dennis o'neil // dennis o'neil's batbible (1989)

before knowing her identity, bruce refers to talia as "lady", but when learning it was talia, to gordon he calls her "girl", and when he's yelling at her in he calls her "lady" (this irritated me so badly that it inspired me to track all these numbers down to make a post i think i have like 3 drafts about it also). to add on, most everyone also calls her "girl" as well, including jack ryder in #445 and jim gordon in #444--this is not at all uncommon detective comics (1937) #444, 444, 448

bruce is surprised by her age when she says she is "not yet thirty", since he assumed she was older ("a hundred years? two? more?"), which directly rejects wolfman's retelling of talia of over "150 years" old in batman #334--also keep note that birth of the demon is written by talia's creator, dennis o'neil birth of the demon (1992) // batman (1940) #334

in birth of the demon, it is said she was conceived at woodstock (which happened in august of 1969), meaning her birthday would be around may of 1970--birth of the demon was released in 1992, meaning she would be ~22 at that point; if you want to compare it to the new 52, batman inc establishes the concert ra's and melisande met as the 1985 live aid benefit concert (or at least i'm inferring that the fake continent guitar thing is a reference to live aid's design's version with africa), making talia ~24 in the new 52, and bruce is explicitly stated to the 32 (if you're wondering how that works out with damian, new 52 damian was grown in a test tube & was "artificially aged") birth of the demon (1992) // batman inc (2010) #2 // batman (2011) #37

sorry if none of this makes sense its like 4 am i will revisit this and probably delete it tmrw anyway so yayyy also more of my thoughts below:

also more nuance is that o'neil apparently dissuaded everyone from considering son of the demon canon (i'm assuming due to his beliefs about not wanting to age batman (and talia) or provide bruce with a taste of that domesticity for real? which i feel like he discusses a lotttt & also his preference for them as a tragedy (like detective comics annual #1 & such)) ALSO which makes me wonder what his view of later stories like silencer & death and the maidens (stories where talia uses the pit (willingly or not)) vs stories like the chalice where she refuses to and what his thoughts on that would be.... hmmmmmm

also currently i am trying to compile more stuff that references her new52 age & post-rebirth age but i am less interested in that (and those eras . nor do i exactly want to reread new52 stuff) so i don't know how long that will take (i also want to chart out all relevant batman family ages but we'll see . i have most everything plotted out separately but i need to put it together & ofc double check citations)...

also i see the rhetoric "talia was closer to dick's age than bruce's" quite frequently which i just want to say appears to be true if we consider dick to be 18 in 1969 (by batman (1940) #217)) & 20 in 1987 (in secret origins (1986) #13) & he ages slowly up to 25/6 in 2009 (and 21 in the new52) even without specific dates that would put them in a much closer range than bruce at least . much to think about here… (also unrelated but i really want to do a parallel chart of silver/bronze age dick-to-talia babs-to-bruce teamups i feel like that has a LOT of potential and i have so many connections in my head already + i need to add more to my already existing ra's-to-bruce & talia-to-dick parallel charts)

and maybe this is a hot take but as much as i care for batman: the knight (2022) as a story and important part of batman mythos (and that it will become very central and be built off of more in the future) i do really think that that talia being somewhat substantially younger than bruce is important to her character (and also her growth later as she becomes more independent and also all of her more obsessive actions fit the archetype of young woman in love more imo) & also from a barr interview i believe he says something about how bruce&talia are a very compelling romance in part to how new she is (at the time of the interview) to the mythos and how that adds to the intensity of their relationship and imo that ties to a o'neil&barr joint interview where they discuss this and how it contrasts against bruce&selina's relationship--like overall that them knowing each other before bruce was batman/or any variation of training together is kind of is damaging if that makes sense . idk my hot take #myhottake

Tortall, Alex/Thom/Delia (and all permutations), E, 45k

“You’re not Gifted,” Thom blurted, because she wasn’t. Thom wasn’t quite good enough to detect magic on someone, not without closing his eyes and trying rather obviously, but he would have seen the girl in classes if she had the Gift. “Which is why this makes all the more sense,” the girl leaned forward again, eyes twinkling conspiratorially as she gestured between them. “Why what makes sense,” Thom didn’t understand. The back of his neck, likely flushed an unflattering shade of red, itched. “An alliance,” the girl said, like it was obvious. “We can’t sit back and play stupid forever, not if we really want to be respected around here.”

Thom meets Delia in the City of the Gods. They encourage each other's worst impulses, yet somehow, everything changes for the better.

Now they're interesting, but the REAL star of the show is one of his villains, John Doe the Generic Man, who's this guy in a stark white suit with flat pink unshaded, untextured skin with no features or anything who talks like chatGPT and has black text over his face that explains what he's feeling at the moment. That guy is fucking fascinating.