Pick A Direction: Tim Drake

[Arctic Cyclist]

Send Tim to college.

Absolutely everything that made his Robin run work because it seemed abnormal and special in high school is not only normal in college, but ramps up to 11.

Some things from my college experience that would work, and I'm sure other people have similar crazy stuff happen:

-The student senate leaders, president, and other officials have started a counterfeiting and money laundering scheme using the funds that the various student clubs pitch into through their fundraising. It's when they pay off all their debts before graduating that they get caught.

-The head of the economics department is running a drug and alcohol smuggling operation into dry regions of the state.

-Cults. Various kinds.

-Serial rapists.

-Serial killers.

-Homeless people building camps in various places around campus...including the library.

-People getting pregnant for financial aid.

-Alcohol problems galore!

-Ravens deciding they don't like certain people and making their life hell.

-Research animals being stolen/released. Including deer during hunting season.

-Being late to class and finding out that they randomly decided to move ten minutes in because it's a gorgeous day and having to find them for partial attendance credit.

-It's a gorgeous day and multiple classes are getting ready to fight over the best outdoor classroom areas.

-Car thefts.

-People breaking into dorm rooms.

-Various drug operations that are being used to make tuition and you don't have the heart to turn them in because they're really nice people.

-Fruit fly infestations because the freshman at the end of the semester release their into bio projects instead of killing them. (I too was guilty of this, they had good personalities, those flies.)

-Sledding accidents.

-A new safety supervisor is hired, learns that the sledding hill is called death hill due to multiple deaths and students are regularly treated for concussions, fractures, and internal injuries. Being reasonable, he fences the hill in half. Then experiences protests that border on riots, death threats, and finds an IED under his car. The fence comes down.

-Christian groups protest the condoms in the welcome new student packages and the almost daily sexual Sunday events during September. The next year there's no safer sex education or supplies offered. One in two freshmen is diagnosed with an STI, one in 3 high school students in the surrounding area, and one in four middle schoolers, and the epidemic wave is easily traced back to the freshman dorms because it's not affecting upper class students.

-Someone met a girl online, thought she was 17/18 and needed a place to stay because her parents kicked her out and smuggles her in to live in his dorm room. Then she seduces him and his roommate. Afterwards, they find out she's thirteen, and has been reported missing with a reward offered for her return and their arrest.

-Someone thought they were going to get an apartment. A student loan fell through and their roommate decided to move to Hawaii. Now they are couch surfing the dorms and hunting free food events....and they find a large community of people who have been doing this successfully for thirty years.

-Faculty stealing student research.

-Faculty having mutual restraining orders, concealed carry permits, and pulling guns on each other.

-Drunk ruminates wreaking havoc. Geico doesn't cover your car being destroyed by a drunk moose jumping on it while you're in class.

-Foxes steal your lunch, your money, your pot, and your phone.

-Missing classes gets you failed regardless of how smart you are.

-A scrappy group of student reporters bring down a group of city officials starting with drunk driving and ending with a sex trafficking ring.

-Unsolved murders.

-Was this a murder, a suicide, or an accidental shooting?

-Protests. Pick a reason. My favorite was when the coffee shop was closed.

-Big ass bonfires.

-Infectionous disease scares.

-Online homework is evil incarnate.

-The Internet slows from high speed to a crawl because everyone is doing their chemistry and calculus homework at the same time.

-A virus infects the homework system. Half the completed assignments claim they went the through. The instructors don't receive them.

-Bears. There's nothing like finding fresh bear sign when out doing an ecology lab and realizing everyone has been slowly backing away, leaving certain people as offerings.

-I could go on, but I realize that I have made my beloved university sound like some bizarre apocalyptic hellscape. Some of these things occurred before and after my time, but most of them where while I was there and keep repeating themselves. Because student loans lead to crime.

Throw Tim into this, and unlike Brentwood, have people act as if this is completely normal. Have him start questioning if he actually needs the uniform when other people are just as effective at ferreting out the problem without it. Give him the usual finals meltdown where he starts reeking of coffee and hallucinating because he hasn't slept, and people think that's socially acceptable. Let's see him be utterly confused because all of Batman's super villains are suddenly put in context and seem sane and reasonable. Have fun with it, just like real life college.

[Godlike13]

I agree. For all the examples of Tim's parents being crappy as their marriage dissolved, there were flashbacks to his childhood of him regularly being around them, going on trips with them, and being held. Jack's someone who's not neurotypical. If you start looking at him as a person who struggles with depression (which, holy cow, that man spends weeks hanging out in the dark listening to music and crying in canon), within the context of that and the 90s, he's about average as a parent.

It's just that people aren't free range anymore, and people born after 2000 don't realize how relatively normal the Drakes were.

And i think its important to remember Jack did try to mend their relationship, was he the best father, maybe not, but did he love Tim, supported him, and at least wanted to be a better father to him. Poor dude didn't exactly have an easy go it either. Quite frankly Tim's was a really shitty son. Jack did try, he was there, Tim constantly had to juggle his life as Robin and Jack. And what did Jack get for his effort, murdered and Tim almost immediately calling himself Tim Wayne after. Quite frankly i was always grossed out by that. Jack was not that bad, he wasn't Gordan when it comes to top dad but he did try. But that never seemed to matter because Bruce was cooler, and Tim wanted Bruce to be his daddy after 16 year of Jack raising and supporting him. Ya, good kid right there.

[josai21]

I think it's important to look at the reasons for the name change.

It wasn't simply "I hate my dad gonna change my name." Nothing like that in fact.

There were legal/political reasons to change his last name to wayne. It gave him more legitimacy to run waynetech etc.

[Godlike13]

Is that that why he was screaming at Damian how he was Tim Wayne before the Wayne Tech bull crap was even introduced. Dick was the one who was left with the Wayne legacy really, and in every other book was seen as the legitimate heir who inherited everything, and you didn't see him ever call himself Dick Wayne.

[Ascended]

You also don't usually see Dick wanting anything to do with Wayne Enterprises or Bruce's money. Tim often seemed like the one who would follow in Bruce's footsteps and (also) get involved in the business side of things. Until Damain came along and laid claim to every aspect of Bruce's legacy anyway.

[WonderNight]

[IMG]

So what? Just because tim didn't like his father doesn't mean he didn't know him and raised by him. Then tim meets a man he doesn't now and sends 3/4 years working for him, now he's his dad? Sounds more like fan headconon to me sorry.

Like tim fans dont what tim left out of the Batman my dad club.

[josai21]

So what? Just because tim didn't like his father doesn't mean he didn't know him and raised by him. Then tim meets a man he doesn't now and sends 3/4 years working for him, now he's his dad? Sounds more like fan headconon to me sorry.

Like tim fans dont what tim left out of the Batman my dad club.

I mean life and death situations have a serious effect on the psyche.

[WonderNight]

I mean life and death situations have a serious effect on the psyche.

yeah I know. I'm not saying Tim and Bruce are not close but looking at him AS your father is not the same as him being LIKE a father.

That's why I said a close uncle.

[phantom1592]

I would like to see Tim... if he can't be Robin, NOT take over any other known identity. I'm tired of Tim getting the hand-me-downs.

What I think would work for him really well... is to go out on his own, as a civilian, and become a private investigator. I remember when they tried to reform the riddler to do something like that. Putting his big brain and problem solving to good use. that seems a role designed for Tim if the cave doesn't have any more room for more capes. Some kind of cross between Oracle and the Question or something. Someone on ground level doing what Batman taught him with a few of the tools, but not really the tricks of the cave.

[Fergus]

That all Robins are Bruce's kids.

How did he come off as hating Jack?

Hating Jack might be too far. It just felt like a betrayal from someone who had a good father. Imo it made Tim seem disloyal and uncaring.

Tim changing his name didn't say all the Robins are Bruce's kids because only one Robin uses the Wayne surname. It wasn't something they all had in common.

[Fergus]

I think it's important to look at the reasons for the name change.

It wasn't simply "I hate my dad gonna change my name." Nothing like that in fact.

There were legal/political reasons to change his last name to wayne. It gave him more legitimacy to run waynetech etc.

No that started before the POA story came about in RR. He seemed to take offence when Damian called him Drake.

The whole thing was a story line that should never have happened and I'm glad the main Bat titles ignored and straight up contradicted it.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

He could always be the Protector

[scary harpy]

He could always be the Protector

Actually a good idea since the Protector had a good costume and, apparently, died in Sanctuary.

[oasis1313]

It just felt like a betrayal from someone who had a good father. Imo it made Tim seem disloyal and uncaring.

I noticed that, too. Reminds me of my rottenkrotch mother-in-law: She didn't even bother going to her husband's funeral because she was busy on an elderly singles website looking for the next victim. Tim's like that: Out with the old and in with the new!

[Mataza]

I think he should go back to being Robin, so we get a Robin that can actually carry a book again.