Tott Writes Fanfic

(I'm really sorry that I don't have Alt text for this, but it's literally a screenshot of hundreds of words! If it's a real issue I'm happy to DM a transcript)

I kinda love how my initial concept for this AU is an absolute shitshow of typos and incoherent rambling, you know? Especially considering the actual fic is so serious and sobre. (mind you, this level of absolute tonal whiplash happens with basically everything I write!)

For this AU, I was inspired by a few crack batfam AUs where Batman and co are isolated from everyone else, and tried imagining what kind of global situation would have to be going on for that to be something I could personally consider plausible enough to stick my teeth into.

I quickly decided that the only way Bruce Wayne would actually keep his nose out of everyone's business (and the only way he'd stay off of the JL's radar) is if there was an actual, literal barrier keeping them all apart, at least to some degree.

From there, it was really only a short hop to bubble cities, and I quickly latched onto the concept that each one would have a different aesthetic/historical inspiration.

Screenshot? Screenshot.

This file also comes from pretty early on in my planning process, but I've edited it a fair bit since, so while I wouldn't say it's an entirely accurate reflection of my current plans, it's pretty close.

I also default a LOT to tables for this kind of planning nowadays. Anything where I want to be able to see info easily/at a glance gets a table.

When I first started the AU, I didn't really have a solid idea for how many cities I was going to include, or what I wanted them all to look like, but I eventually decided to reign in a LOT on this aspect of the worldbuilding, especially since I wanted to emphasise that not everyone is just casually travelling around. So all of this is canon to the AU! But it's not really something I plan to focus on.

And speaking of focus - here's an exerpt from my initial (typo-heavy from speed of writing lol) overview of the setting/story:

It's kinda fun to look back and see how it started. I mean, I'd actually forgotten the extent to which I originally wanted to gloss over even the existence of Nightwing during a failure, a fall...etc (in my notes I just call the fic 3f+1!). Also that reference to a table in the last visible line is what we call foreshadowing.

Not to mention, it was only meant to be a little fic! A silly little fun thing, playing with a fun, crack-y concept.

As such, at the start of my planning, I very much had in mind that the bulk of this story would happen during Batman's Absence/Presumed Death, with this triggering a belated intervention from the JL due to Gotham suddenly taking a level up in WTFery.

However, fairly early on I realised that although I'd initially written most of the timeline off as just a fairly dull canon retelling... it was quickly becoming Not That. Enough changes were necessary that I had to throw together another document to track them...

As you can see, even just counting the alterations before Jason comes along, while the general shape of events remains mostly As Per Canon, I'd be glossing over a LOT of stuff which would need explaining later if I just skipped ahead entirely.

There's really only so many flashbacks or "do you remember when we Expositioned" moments you can get away with before things start to get tedious. And while I initially thought that a couple of oneshots would cover the differences, the more I plotted and planned, the more I found TO plot and plan.

Around this time I made the fatal mistake of deciding to write up a "quick timeline". Please note the size of the scrollbar in the following screenshot, as well as the wordcount.

If you think I'm focusing too much on Tim in this AU...uh...no. No I'm really not, that's just a coincidence of how the early part is written out, since I was tackling each kid's backstory chronologically, and the bloat sort of happened in real time.

Currently, the two entries for Year 13 come to a total of almost 1,400 words. By this point I had more or less conceeded defeat. My handy dandy table just wasn't really cutting it.

This is the point at which I gave in and started writing separate backstories for each of the batfam. I also created an Aeon Timeline document for the AU, and spent too long faffing about with the calendar settings so that I could make it a "floating timeline" but still have multiple years. (Ahh, software limitations.)

I could drop a screenshot from this, but... I actually don't think there's a way I can do so that's actually helpful or interesting? If I knew how to make gifs, I think scrolling through it would really be the only good way. Alas. But it exists, and it covers not only the titular 13 years of the AU, but also a few years beforehand, which I have dubbed "Pre-Narrative".

Basically all of To Foster and Foment takes place Pre-Narrative, but I made the executive decision that I was only going to count time from when Dick actually becomes Robin. I was already stretching the 13 years part, so IMO the handwave is justified.

Also, while we're on the subject, you'd better believe that I spent literal *hours* trying to wrangle the fuckass canon "timeline" into an actual, locked-down chronology. And - considering that I'd had to condense everything by about a year or so in order to fit my catchy, "13 years" title limitation - I'm actually pretty satisfied with how it all came together.

I've tried to keep as faithful as makes sense, but I've also freely handwaved a lot of stuff. Basically my reasoning is thus:

"If it's crucial to the wider plot, or has significant consequences for a character's arc/personality, I'll try and keep it. If not, eh. Ah well."

This is the main reason that a couple of canonically Dead At That Point JL characters are, in fact, still very much on the scene by the time Bludhaven falls. There was an element of just wanting to have them around for funsies, but also... some of those canonical deaths happened due to events which don't make sense in the context of this AU

And...well, this has already gotten beyond long and excessive, and it's also past midnight as I'm writing this, so I'm gonna call time on this for now. If anyone reached this far and is interested in hearing me ramble more about this AU - or if you want me to do a similar behind the scenes deep dive for any of my other WIPs - just let me know!