Title: Robin's Gotham
Author: Silirt
Rating: M
Genre: Crime/Horror
Category: Anime, Comics, and Cartoons
Status: Complete
Library Category:
Pairings: None
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12584911/1/Robins-Gotham

Summary: Batman has a plan for everything. This story is essentially about Robin learning to be his own man, on a tour de force of the injustice of Gotham.

A few points on what to expect:
>These are not characters from internet memes. They act rationally. There are plenty of other stories about Batman being an insane kidnapper/predator and Robin being his equally mad admirer. I can't count them. Have fun.
>Whether a resource is canon was not considered when I did research for this story. I have no idea whether All-Star Batman and Robin is canon or not. I know that it's awful and I didn't use it. I have read No Man's Land, The Complete Hush, Europa, Ego, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, Robin: Year One, The Long Halloween, Gotham by Gaslight, Batman(New 52), Detective Comics(New 52), Robin War(New 52), and Batman Eternal. I enjoyed the Arkham series, so place names and geography are taken from there.
>Doing my best to keep a consistent pacing with action, plot advancement, and character development.

 

The world would be so much nicer if people wrote the fandom name in the thread title (even if in this case it is easily guessable).

What baffles me is that you go into "Batman is insane kidnapper" and yet reject the only comic that truly went with it. Also criticising ASBAR and not amuch worse Hush.

Still it's a comic based capefic so I'm interested by default and should review "soon".

 

I don't like the main characters being insane, it makes it impossible to relate with them, it makes their philosophy not compelling ---> the main reference comic for Batman being a mentally incoherent kidnapper is All-Star Batman and Robin. ---> I don't like All-Star Batman and Robin.

Perhaps I wasn't clear that in this story, the characters aren't insane; there are plenty of other stories out there that are like that.

 

Ah well, seems like I can't read.

 

That's unfortunate.

To correct any further misconceptions, I went ahead and clarified it.

 

I have tried to read that, but I couldn't get through the problems with the writing. I wanted to elaborate about them seeing that Silirt is the author, but I forgot about the fic.

 

I find the writers themselves tend to be better-read than the community. I admit I've only read a few stories, and these the ones that have been well regarded, but it's more or less the canon in memery that these characters are insane, sort of like you'll never stop hearing about how Dumbledore is evil, even though it's a decreasing trend in the stories.

Thanks for reading.

 

Not a bad start, though Robin's internal monologue didn't have quite the right voice. It was a bit excessively formal and perhaps a bit eloquent for a boy Dick's age, temperament, and lifestyle. Only finished chapter one, but it doesn't seem that Dick was adopted by Bruce in this continuity? Otherwise, his decision to desert the mansion and the batcave is somewhat hard to parse. It was good enough to make me click on chapter two, so we'll see how it goes.

Edit: Never mind. Dropped it in Chapter 3, when Robin, handling a crime-wave in Gotham alone without most of Batman's resources or Batman himself, completely rebuffs Superman's polite request to help, and offer of League help completing his training. That's so stupid I couldn't keep reading. This isn't late-teens-almost-Nightwing Robin. This is so early in the timeline that Batgirl hasn't even been officially debuted. Robin's like twelve or something.

 

I don't really like it. I read through most of the first chapter, just to be clear.

You've certainly got a strong premise: "Batman dies. Now what?" But the writing disappoints. The second paragraph is a mix of random thoughts about the world and descriptions of what's happening, with no relation between the two. It's dizzying and it lost my attention basically immediately. I'd usually have just stopped reading, to be frank.

Reading onwards, the writing doesn't clear up. Robin has to call Superman to say Batman's dead, but there's no real emotional reaction from Superman, and there doesn't seem to be from Robin, earlier. Voice doesn't even crack. There's so much potential to be milked from that, but it's over in four lines of bare dialogue.

Furthermore, I don't really get why Dick just deserted the Wayne Mansion immediately. If cops or something more sinister were at the door, sure, that'd be one thing. But he's just giving up all of his advantages for almost nothing in return.

So I don't really like the writing, and the plot's not impressing me either. It might get better later, but I don't have much of an interest in reading on until it does.