Kit

I think vital aspects of Tim include the following:-

He’s a Good Kid (TM). Tim generally wants to live up to expectations and do the right thing and look out for others. He’s polite and sends thank you notes and feels guilty when he has to lie to people. He expects and accepts dealing with the consequences of his choices and actions. That’s not to say he doesn’t act out on occasion or think about doing the wrong thing, but he’s the sort of person that gets held up as a good role model for others.

He’s earnest and works incredibly hard. Tim is the 99% perspiration of achievement. He’s certainly brilliant in some areas but what he is more than anything else is incredibly hard working, and somewhat cautious over his skills until he knows he has them down. He’s one of the best bo fighters in the world not from natural talent but from so much practice and training with the best.

“Someone should do it. I’m someone, so I guess I will do it.” This is rhetorical nuance from ALPOD some people overlook. Tim’s involvement with the Mission has a core of ‘someone needs to step up and do this. And nobody else is volunteering. And I tried to find an alternative, but there’s just me.’ It’s not that he puts himself forward; it’s that he’s willing to volunteer for what he sees as a duty and responsibility that everyone else is trying to sidestep. It’s why he flirts with the idea of no longer being needed, and why every time he does end up in that situation where he has to choose whether to be a civilian or step back up because he can help, he is pulling the costume back on and returning.

He’s extremely socially adept and a compulsive networker. Tim is a gregarious social person. He makes friends easily, he can work with people even when he doesn’t like them, and most importantly he can hold a group together even when there are otherwise tensions in it. Two characters might not want to work with each other, but they’re both willing to work with Tim, and that’s what makes the team or teamup function. Tim isn’t necessarily the team leader, but he’s the reason the team functions together.

The only way you could possibly say Tim got more attention as RR is if you compare NOW to 2009-10 instead of comparing anything that's remotely fair, like when he was Robin BEFORE to then, or when he was RR more recently (2016-2019) to now.

In both cases Red Robin had him get LESS attention and be in LESS titles in comparison to Robin.

His attention has DRAMATICALLY INCREASED since RR stopped being used.

The reason he is less popular now than he was in the 2000's is because New52 (and in some cases like mine what immediately lead up to it before that even hit) lost just about *his entire fanbase*, and DC hasn't recovered, because not all of us have come back, and new fans are slimmer than they could be because of being ignored and butchered into, frankly, not just a different character, but a BAD character (except when written by a select few authors that actually cared, but they were hampered by the overall canon at the time [which sucked] and being shoved aside into a box), for so long, and not helped by being skipped or slimmed down by alternate media, which is another way a character gains fans. (Related tangent: I'm so excited for Knightfall animation.)

Tim is better now, but convincing people of that has been a PROCESS.

This is aside from any of my usual in-character in-universe arguments about why Tim should be Robin. Which are still very much a thing. But in addition to that, I need you to know that Robin GETS him attention, not the other way around.

Furthermore, in regard to giving him a different name, besides my personal analysis that it would be out of character if not temporary,

Tim's fanbase combined could probably support a solo (the reason the one that was tried failed had a multitude of reasons outside of character popularity I'm not going to outline at the moment), although they don't necessarily need to try (I love him, but there are a lot of bat books and I sympathize with dc fans outside of bat ones), but if you removed a HIGHLY RECOGNIZABLE TITLE from him, you have zero chance. "Robin" holds a lot of marketing weight that any new name would not have and it's far more likely he'd disappear into oblivion.

Which, the Tim haters would certainly like, but that's not who the character is written for.

Relatedly, reminder that Tim Drake actually had a solo comic before Dick Grayson did. And, arguably Dick's first solo was the Prodigal run of Batman, in which he was Batman. Dick's first solo as Nightwing was TWELVE YEARS after he debuted as Nightwing. Dick's character is more popular than Tim's. So why is this? Because people who don't know everything about these comics recognize the name "Robin", that's why.

And like I get that if you’re someone who really enjoys reading everything through very heavy angst goggles, you could get that impression maybe???

But it’s extremely frustrating to me because like. That’s not what’s happening. He isn’t losing anything. He’s gaining another family. He’s so fucking likable and social that he can have multiple friend groups that feel like family (and actual family) and it not take away from the others.

Just because a group of people isn’t being focused on anymore in a comic doesn’t mean they aren’t in his life. I mean I guess it does, on like the level that he does not exist outside of the comics we read, but on a story level.

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

please rb for larger sample size!

Question 1/3

Thank you for helping with this data collection. Please rb for as big a sample as possible!