I understand that the Red Robin run has us all in a chokehold, but I think we sometimes miss the forest for the trees. What makes it truly tragic isn't the fact that Tim is a really depressed and anxious person, but the opposite. Tim is a nerd who loves friendship and justice. He has tons of friends and contrasts a post-Jason Bruce who is withdrawn and depressed by being very outgoing and personable. That's his whole thing as a character, he exists to act as a liaison between Batman and the world.
When Red Robin starts, his father has just died, his best friend has just died, his girlfriend has just died, his mentor and some other friends have disappeared from the map, his older brother is juggling the Batman mantle and a poor ten yo Damian that has just lost his father. This is Tim at his worst mentally. He's a character built on interaction and he has no one to interact with. Add to it his canonical mental health issues, well the guy is going through it.
He pours his entire soul into the search for Bruce because he needs a fucking win. The man is spiraling the entire run. The true angst of Red Robin is not that he's a sad little mew mew, but that he isn't. We come to know him as this little guy who loves making friends and forcing Bruce to open up to others, and now we have to see him alone and desperate. He's very similar to Dick in that aspect, the drama hits you harder because you know how he is normally. And the parallels to Bruce at the start of his run as Robin are just brutal: someone wrecked by grief, alone, pouring all their energy and focus into work as an escape... And even in the middle of his crash out arc, he still ends up making friends. That's who Tim Drake is, and that's why he acts like that after losing so many people he holds dear.
All our times have come, here but now they're gone
So happy to be done with another ye olde af WIP.
Meme reference under cut
I bet the JL has a “how fucked are we” metric that’s literally just how many of Bruce’s kids are there.
Like if he pulls up to the alien invasion or whatever with just Robin, then everything’s fine. More than fine, actually, because Bruce feels comfortable enough to bring his eight year old along for the ride. This battle will take approximately fifteen minutes and they’ll all get shawarma after. Not fucked in the slightest.
But if Red Robin shows up too… hmm, okay, this is getting somewhat serious. Tim is one of Bruce’s most trusted partners; he’s the smart Robin, the tactician, the loyal one, and so if Batman brought him along then it means he’s at least a little bit worried about shit hitting the fan and wants one his advisors around. But the combined brain power of Bruce and Tim is pretty much unmatched (DC plot armor for the win), so everything will be fine, basically. Superman might take a hit, but everything’s going to be fine. Just keep calm and you’ll all make it home in time to Door Dash some Panda Express before it closes. So not that fucked.
It starts to get serious after that. When Signal and Spoiler roll up the scene, shit has definitely hit the fan. Batman’s worried enough to call in reinforcements and he’s probably doubting the League’s ability to listen/obey his orders, so he needs a backup plan in case things go really south. But with Signal’s abilities and Steph’s superpower of turning anything into a joke, chances are you’ll be okay. Maybe impaled or something, but okay. But still, fucked.
When Nightwing shows, the JL knows it’s starting to get dicey out on the field. See, Nightwing’s got his own team, his own issues—the fact that he set that all aside to help out his dad is cause for concern. On a scale from 1-10, they are at a 7. Above moderately fucked.
And… oh God. Black Bat? Most of the time the JL doesn’t even see her, but once she makes herself known and starts fighting alongside her siblings, they all start to silently freak out. Black Bat is a fucking machine and if she’s breaking a sweat trying to fight the Big Bad, things are definitely not going to go well. They start praying that Batman figures something out. They freak out. They are intrinsically fucked.
But God Forbid you catch sight of the Red Hood. The prodigal son is a legitimate killer, and if Batman’s letting him blow out brains then the JL knows he’s desperate. And a desperate Batman is not good. At all. They are definitely fucked.
People keep wanting to do horny shit re: vigilantes and their gloves. Lick a sewer pipe.
they're meant for each other or something
Whenever someone asks me why I like that much Dick and Clark's uncle-nephew relationship, or why I think Clark is also another father to Dick just like Bruce, I just have to show these pictures:
Jason Todd coded
obsessed with the concept of the anti-saint. you will suffer cruelties and humiliations that should be unthinkable and die pointlessly, and if you must be remembered at all, it will only be with revulsion, as if you were a festering scar on reality itself. neither resistance nor submission will redeem you. god will not save you. god has abandoned you. everyone has abandoned you. you are alone in an uncaring universe.
Okay, We are all used to it and many love the current Bruce, secretive and emotionally constipated... And I know poor communication is a trope in their life at this point...
But, man, sometimes I miss the old Bruce, when it was just Dick and him, and Bruce didn't mind telling people he loved that kid like his own son, who tells Dick that he would rather lose his arms than him, that he couldn't even think of replacing him, who played with him and that was more important than anything.
I miss them.
The Jason Todd fic I’m working on right now. Did he kill a lot of people? Yes. Is he going to stop? Probably not. Am I going to give him the softest happy ending I can? Yup.
characters have to be a little bit awful in ways that you cant defend. its good for the ecosystem. your honor he did do that. He did in fact do that