Forget “this Meeting Could’ve Been An Email” This Four-way Stop Could’ve Been A Traffic Light

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 He has tons of friends and contrasts a post-Jason Bruce who is withdrawn and depressed by being very outgoing and personable.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.

dc writing modern jaybin be like “this homeless child is ontologically evil but worry not billionaire saint Batman will deign to attempt to train the criminality and devilishness out of him”

Say what you want about the Drake's, but they knew they had one of the last pictures of Dick's family all together and they sent him a copy.

he was also the first Robin to realize the wonders of pants. Fucking brilliant

I used to think it was kinda weird that so many people interpreted Tim Drake as being sooo smart or whatever for figuring out Batman’s secret identity. And then I remembered that this is, in fact, the universe in which Lois Lane had no idea Clark Kent was Superman because he took off his glasses. Like yeah. Yeah okay I guess he really is a boy genius

dripped out .!!!!!

I used to think it was kinda weird that so many people interpreted Tim Drake as being sooo smart or whatever for figuring out Batman’s secret identity. And then I remembered that this is, in fact, the universe in which Lois Lane had no idea Clark Kent was Superman because he took off his glasses. Like yeah. Yeah okay I guess he really is a boy genius

never forget the time Bruce forced Dick to paint an entire building (and himself!) yellow to fuck with the Green Lantern

he even drank lemonade for good measure <3

found out tim is a trekkie

forever thinking about Dick’s reaction to Jason’s death

Bonus: Jason’s Batcomputer profile <3