Fandom Enjoyment
I kept seeing posts lately about how comic enjoyers are annoyed at the amount of AO3 fics where Tim is unhinged or straight up snaps, saying "he has one of the strongest moral cores" and "he wouldn't do that!!" Then asking why people keep writing him like that. So here's a few answers I've picked up to help explain it from someone who enjoys those AO3 fics! This isn't a hate thread btw, this is sharing thoughts and why I personally think these tropes may exist!
*Tim Drake has a possible future where he turned into Gun Batman. It was because of his strict moral code and need for controlling the uncontrollable that he kinda went crazy with power. AO3 Writers said "Bet" and so write more about Tim having morals but he can also snap and his morals become something that makes him do unspeakable things. Similarly we can talk about alternative universes such as the Justice Lords in which Superman also snaps and does unspeakable things in the mindset of "i'm making the world better" Therefore, having a character snap is something that can happen!
*My dudes, he most likely HAS killed people when he blew up the LoA bases, he's done some morally questionable things to do "the right thing" Tim Drake is not a perfect person, and though he has morals, that doesn't mean those morals can't change over time, or do 1 bad thing to do 10 good things. He's imperfect and I like that about him >:3
*Depending on what you call cannon, there was a time he was Joker Junior, where is morality was heavily fucked with. And so authors took it and ran with it, giving him PTSD or DID/MPD to show the after effects of that situation. A common trend I've found with AO3 Fics is they'll point out medical issues, mental or physical, that can come from the situations that they're put through. It's never a "How DAAAAAARE cannon not include these issues!" it's more of a "hey here is a bit of spice to show a more human experience from the media you enjoy" which a lot of people find interesting!
*Tim Drake as many fans have pointed out, is the most "self-insert" Robin we have. He continuously almost dies, has been through many traumas, and his issues get ignored a lot. We also know his parents weren't around as much as they should be, while he does and can make friends, he has witnessed them die, leave or hurt him multiple times over and over. He's also worked with killers multiple times. So with those facts in mind, and knowing that some of AO3's fav tags is "Fix it Fic" "Cannon divergence" and "Alternative universe" it kinda makes sense that the audience, wants justice/to relate to one of their fav characters and stop having to uphold a lot of people's issues, and just go feral, like a lot of the audience would have done. Because frankly if you, off the top of my head, dealt with; [Absent parents, witnessing your fav people break themselves over a death in the family, try and get help from who you consider an amazing hero only to be told to "Go Home" and ignore the issue, proceed to not do that and start taking the time to fix Batman even when he's passively suicidal, try and reconnect Batman and Nightwing who end up arguing a lot, be told to go to France to learn to fight only to be taught by an assassin, come back and continue to do good, end up leading/working with Teen Titans, doing your own detective work while managing a social life and dating, 100% believe your gf died, have one parent die after the other, almost die via someone you considered one of your heroes, be trained harder and harsher than any other robin, lose almost all your friends, get emancipated, run the biggest company in the world while thinking your new dad's dead, find out your new dad isn't dead and try and tell your family with your eldest brother saying to stop because you're delusional, have multiple murder attempts by the newest robin, have that robin title taken without discussion, go work with assassins for a while to prove your dad is actually alive, lose a spleen, deal with Ra's... that's a whole thing on it's own man, come back, almost die from being kicked out of a building, continue to run WE as CEO and deal with all the fall outs and re-connections, know you've killed 100s of LoA members, and continue to have relationships throughout it all, all while most people never thank you, acknowledge your time, effort and work you put into trying to keep everything together] THEN yeah no I wouldn't be surprised if that person snapped. I'd think, "good on them for standing up for themselves." I'm not saying he canonically should snap, but I am saying it is cathartic to read a AU where he can, and see how people will take the time to fix the relationships or watch it burn.
*look if your dad's notorious line is "I am vengeance" and you don't get any vengeance yourself after all the times someone tried to kill you, let our boy inflict some justice on those who have harmed not only his family but also himself. He can forgive and forget sure, but he shouldn't always have to be the bigger person. let our ladd be spiteful sometimes :3c
Overall I think the appeal is the fact that it's human desire to see the person we've seen be hurt a lot, be either able to heal with support, or get justice for it. So AO3 wrote a lot of both, with different spins and turns. It's never about "we think this is cannon" or "it SHOULD be cannon" it's more "it would be nice to see a universe where this happened" or "it would be interesting to see if" which is what AO3 is all about! If you want only cannon media, then enjoy the comics, enjoy the TV series, enjoy the movies. But don't sit and complain that AO3 is writing fanfiction about a take you don't enjoy. It's called fanfiction for a reason :3