Ruby City Application

[birdstalker]

PLAYER
Name: Eric
Age: 24
Personal Journal: nevolition
E-mail: nevolition @ gmail.com
AIM/MSN/etc: AIM: nevolition@gmail.com , nevolition

CHARACTER
Name: Tim Drake
Canon: DC Comics
Age: 16
Timeline: Robin #121, after his 16th birthday.
If playing another character from the same canon, how will you deal with this?: Was previously playing Damian Wayne, but dropping him and tagging in Tim!

Personality:

"There are two things you need to realize about Tim. First, he's got an astonishing sense of duty. It drives everything he does. That's why he first became Robin. And even when he quit, he only did it out of a greater obligation to his father's authority. So when he returned to the job for the second time, he made sure he wasn't going behind his father's back to do it. He'll never squander his responsibilities by overreaching. He knows how much he can handle on his own, whether here, or in Blüdhaven, or anywhere else. I have every confidence he'll know when to call for help."

"And the second thing?"

"Hmmm?"

"You mentioned two things one needs to realize about Master Tim."

"Oh, yes. Tim's smart -- smarter than me, and maybe even smarter than you. Take my word, Alfred, we'll end up working for him someday, once he does a bit more growing up."

- - - - - - -

Sense of Duty

"We know we're right. But, what's the point of being right if you aren't willing to fight for it?"

Tim takes his commitment to being a hero seriously. He's amazingly stubborn, and is one of the few heroes that manages to stick to his morals all on his own. Several times during his run as Robin, Tim's been tested in life-or-death situations, and refused, every single time, to kill in order to save his own life, even when the temptation and opportunity were there.

Tim, out of all the Robins, is the only one that Bruce can trust to do what is necessary and to follow the evidence where it leads. When it seemed like Bruce might have gone insane, or been a murderer, it was Tim who was willing to accept that as a possibility, where Dick vehemently refused, and even got angry at Tim for entertaining the idea for even a moment. Or, when Tim was thrust into the future and encountered a Justice Lord version of himself, he was willing to end his own life in order to prevent that future from happening altogether.

This sense of duty goes beyond his own pride. Where Bruce often struggles with reaching out for help, Tim is willing to use every resource he has at his disposal (friends, contacts, even enemy tools) in order to win smart.

The downside, of course, is that other parts of his life can fall to the wayside. Although Tim was popular in school, and had girlfriends, he had difficulty balancing his duties with his social obligations, and several of his relationships fell through; he broke commitments that were lower priority than his job as Robin, and caused his father and step-mother plenty of grief by up and disappearing repeatedly, to the point where his father felt he had to send him away to a boarding school in order to prevent him from getting into any further trouble.

Tim, however, is not a robot; he deeply values his relationships and the people around him, and he is often troubled by how often he ends up lying to others and disappointing them, even if it's for the greater good. Although lying gets a little easier as he settles more into his double life, he still faces the challenge of maintaining his relationships.

Intelligence

Tim is smart, but not in the traditional sense. He struggled in school to keep his A's, didn't really have any interest in hitting the books, but he's perceptive and he's driven. Tim is a problem-solver, a thinker, a detective after Bruce's own heart who was clever enough to connect the dots between Dick Grayson and Robin from careful observation. He learns fast, and voraciously, because he is a survivor. He's cautious and careful, and he's the Robin that thinks things through. He knows he's outgunned and outmuscled in 80% of his fights, so he has to be resourceful.

He does his research. He's the one who learns how to use a one-handed keyboard so he can Google information on the fly when he's out in the field. He's the kid who rapidly picked up computer programming, so that he could design a simulator that could track crime real-time and predict the next major crime waves. Given a five minute window with access to the League of Assassins' databases, he not only memorized the location of all the League holdings in Gotham, but also orchestrated the destruction of their entire database network, while simultaneously planning out an escape that he would later put into play. When Tim has a goal, there is very little that can get in his way.

Empathy

Aside from his sense of duty and his intelligence, Tim is also surprisingly empathetic for a boy who was raised without a lot of social interaction, having been handed off to boarding school after boarding school while his parents were away on their explorations and business ventures.

Tim often offers a shoulder of support to the people around him. He cares and listens when both Ariana and Stephanie tell him about their experiences with sexual assault, assures Conner that he has a soul despite being a clone, and he ends up talking Dick through a lot of his personal conflicts. It was Tim who gave the famous speech about Batman needing a Robin, because he noticed how broken up Bruce was after Jason's death; and when Dick wouldn't go back to being Robin, when no one else stepped in to help Bruce through the darkest time of his life, it was Tim Drake, next-door neighbor and mostly stranger, who volunteered for the job so that Bruce had someone at his side.

However, as much as he's willing to listen and to be there for his friends and family, Tim is reluctant to speak too much about his own troubles, and tends to hold his cards close to his chest, only really confiding in Dick and Alfred -- and even then, not often fully, especially where those troubles coincided with his identity as Robin. Despite that, he's self-aware enough to know when he needs to speak with someone (as much as pulling the facts from him can be like pulling teeth), and after counseling a suicidal citizen about reaching out to others, opted to call Dick for some support in the wake of his own depressive episode.

Background:
Wiki
Tim's background goes up until just after Graduation Day (when the Teen Titans series begins, and the Young Justice series ends), to just past his sixteenth birthday, when he's gone to investigate the case that will eventually lead to him running into the man who would become Johnny Warlock.

Abilities:
Wiki
At this point in time, Tim just started the next level of his training as Robin, and so isn't as much of a master of all his abilities as he will one day be. However, he's more than competent, and is considered a master of the bo staff thanks to his training with Lady Shiva.

Network/Actionspam Sample:
Musebox Sample
Warning: The sample linked references torture/murder of another character. It's mostly implied, no real detail, but just a heads up!

Prose Log Sample:
"This... isn't my stop."

Public transportation sucked. He could swear he'd only nodded off for a few minutes at most, but a quick catnap on the subway train must've turned into an hour into the dark and foggy New Jersey countryside. Straight through the hub, the line gone all the way south out of the city. Not a clue which station this was, either. Of course he got off, didn't think twice about it, and, standing in the middle of the empty, worn-down station, he frowned.

The first sign said 'You have now entered Ruby City.'

The next sign said 'You are not here alone.'

Not exactly your standard city tagline.

Watch? Watch. There it was, tucked away in the pocket of his hoodie, innocuous and sinister. Something like suspicion was creeping up his spine the more he read, and he hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder, holding the strap tight. Inside, his equipment was stashed away, and the temptation to slide the collapsible bo staff out itched at him. Everything about these posters screamed that Tim had something of a problem on his hands. Just didn't know what, yet.

"Um, hey? Wow, this is kind of a weird GUI--" Tim wasn't sure what he was expecting out of a pocket-watch, to be honest. Cingular? "Anybody there? I'm at the train station, aaaaand I'm not seeing the sign on where to get a return ticket to Gotham. So to speak."

He had a case to investigate, a bolt-hole to break into, but it looked like his little talk with Ollie was gonna have to wait.

Something else just came up.