#dc worldbuilding

[athenanfaymont]

The world of DC 🦸‍♂️🦸

One of the things I’ve always admired about DC’s storytelling is its choice to carve its own geography. Gotham, Metropolis, Central City, Star City... none of them exist on our maps, and yet they feel more tangible than many “real” places in fiction.

There’s a strange brilliance in that decision. By refusing to anchor their heroes in New York or Chicago, DC freed itself to build landscapes that reflect the characters who inhabit them. Gotham is not just a city—it’s Bruce’s mind, all sharp corners and shadows. Metropolis shines because Clark sees the world through hope. Central City hums with Barry’s restless energy. They are archetypes, emotional cartographies, as real in tone as any street we’ve walked.

And yet, these invented cities are always just close enough to reality that we can believe in them. That’s part of why these stories resonate. Because the battles don’t happen in a galaxy far away—they unfold in a world that mirrors ours, recognizable and lived-in, yet transformed by myth.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot as I shape my own fic. I like everything to make sense, for things to be in place, and I'm always afraid that the reader won't get a clear picture (I don't need it to be exactly mine, but at least it should evoke for them the same thing I feel when I talk about it). So here are some references I'm using.

Gotham Map

Wayne Manor Photo

Mansion Map: Ground Floor , First Floor (the base -not distribution- is not mine, it's been on my computer for a long time. If anyone knows where it came from and it turns out to be a fan work, please let me know so I can credit it).

[thenixkat]

The supervillain minion benefits is an interesting thing. Cause like, yeah yer boss might kill you if you fuck up or piss them off. There are funds to support a minion's family if they get locked up and have to do time which... plenty of jobs would not fucking do that.

[id: Two comic panels showing a white man (Buckley) having a conversation with the supervillain, the Calculator, in a high tech lair underground. In the second panel the Calculator uses his powers to make a skull and cross bones to illustrate his point.

Calculator: Oh--that! It's the standard deal, Buckley! You get caught while on the job-- and we handle your bail! You do time for the crime---and there's a special fund set aside to support your family if you have one! That's all based, of course, on your keeping your mouth shut about who hired you--!

Calculator: You cross me that way--or any way-- and you'll wake up in your cell one morning dead! /end id]

(Blue Beetle 1986 issue 8)

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[sims-and-pixels]

Dr. and Mrs. Elway with their children. Brindleton Bay, 1907.

From left to right: Elizabeth, Clemence, Clarence, Maxmilian, Frederick.

Lo and behold... the coloured version!

Lately I’ve been working on some townies (and their unfurnished houses) for the sake of some worldbuilding and this family is part of the result! Their two youngest children, Elizabeth and Frederick, are around the same ages as Ellis and Elsie. Clarence is a few years older and just about to trade in boarding school for the university of Britechester, where he’ll study to become a doctor just like his father.

Elizabeth and Fredrick are posed awkwardly because after at least 3 hours of posing and extracting sims with SimRipper, I decided to throw smoothness out of the window. Oh well, it’s only meant to be a little bit of worldbuilding anyway.

[chaoticoconut]

for like a year now I have been sorting out the logistics over and over again as to how my fanon universe would work and the dc meta tag really opened my eyes...I have so much more to consider now and I’ve been trying to do this since 2014...gd help me I didn’t mean to sell my soul to dc comics

[thenixkat]

Wild that in the DC universe that Dayton Industries discovered/created a constantly renewing energy source in promethium but everyone still fucking uses fossil fuels for energy and use promethium for fucking weapons and armor plating.

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