darkestelemental616:

infectedscrew:

Every once in awhile I like to remind the world that DC royally destroyed this particular character’s life. In a span of three years (from the age 13 to 17), this is a bulleted list of all that happened to Timothy Jackson Drake:

• Experienced the death of his mother, role model/idol (Jason Todd).
• Witnessed the death of his father, mentor/guardian (Bruce Wayne), best friend (Irving), best friend/team mate (Conner Kent), best friend/team mate (Bart Allen), role model/leader (Donna Troy), role model/leader (Clark Kent) and former girl friend (Stephanie Brown).
• Witnessed the return of Jason Todd, Conner Kent, Donna Troy, Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Stephanie Brown and Bart Allen.
• Witnessed the nuclear destruction of a city (Bludhaven).
• Witnessed the destruction of home city (Gotham), twice.
• Attempted to fight for and protect another heroes city (Bludhaven & Central City).
• Was almost murdered by a former role model/idol (Jason Todd), twice.
• Ran a Fortune 500 company.
• Attempted to search for a mentor/guardian (Bruce Wayne).
• Successfully battled three Gotham Villains (Bane, Joker & Scarecrow).
• Protected Gotham for a full year without Batman.
• Trained under the world’s greatest female assassin for four months (Lady Shiva).

Despite all of that Tim Drake managed to remain dorky, cheerful and sarcastically optimistic. Even taking time out of his day to help Dick Grayson (after being left at the altar, getting raped and losing Bludhaven to a nuclear bomb), Bruce Wayne (searching for him after his death), Jason Todd (trying to convince the vigilante community that the man in question wasn’t that bad) and Damian Wayne (who proceeded to break his arm and put him into a coma for two weeks).

I understand that this is comic book time. But… Three years to experience all of that? And yet, for some reason, he is widely considered weak, pathetic and over-emotional?

I apologize but Timothy Jackson Drake is my favorite DC character of all time. And is, in my opinion, one of the strongest.

No wonder he gets so damn paranoid and assholish in Red Robin. That’s a hell of a lot for a guy to go through.

Don’t forget also dealing with Azrael on top of all that.

Jesus Christ.

I think this is why, in many of my fanfiction stories set in the DCU/Batman verse, I prefer to give Tim happy endings where life actually gives him something back.  Sure he may go through another level of hell before he gets there, but I can’t, in good conscience, write him through that kind of trauma/grief/damage without giving him something back that he so desperately needs.

In “To Watch the Sun Rise,” his happy ending was a steady, stable relationship with the woman he loved.

In “Confidence Lost,” his happy ending was finding his family and getting his sense of self back.

I’m not sure what I have planned for him in the stories I’m writing right now, but I suppose the only thing I can be certain of is that the more he suffers in my tale, the greater the reward he’ll have waiting for him at the end.