Does anyone know if trashy superhero romance novels are canonically popular in the DC or Marvel universes? Like, does anyone have canonical proof that superhero romance is a Big Genre in a comics universe?
Because, right now, all I can imagine is, idk, one of the Robins walking past a bookstore. Like, say, Dick Grayson (a grown man who is about to have the last of his innocence destroyed). Then, slowly, Dick walks backwards to get a better look at a book display of “Superhero Romance Novels”. Because… it’s just.. the classic bodice-ripper covers, except the heroines are clinging to love interests who are clearly thinly-veiled knockoffs of actual superheroes.
And at least half of these books read like someone went back and changed the names of the featured superheroes and/or supervillains so they wouldn’t be sued (can you imagine a career supervillain getting mad because they got written into a romance novel and trying to “get revenge” for it, the superhero just being like “are you serious is this my life now”). Also, at least half of these male protagonists are clearly based on Batman specifically, except Batman still maintains a cryptic quality so none of these authors know anything about him. Also also, none of these authors know anything about superheroes in general, especially not about crime-fighting or detective work or… y’know… anything, but that’s not important because that stuff is basically all plot device for a smoldering, passionate, steamy, and (insert rom buzzword here) romance.
So, there’s a romance novel where Batman is literally a bat man (or cat man or something), kind of like a werewolf supernatural romance. Complete with a whole lot of mating bullshit with an ordinary, perpetually swooning young woman. Then the obligatory ones where Batman is a vampire, ranging from the “bitten by a radioactive bat sci-fi vampire” to a straight-up “3000-year old immortal vampire”. Lots of “true mate” bullshit there too, but also blood-sucking scenes that devolve into porn. There’s a few alien Batman books that seem to be Superman fusions. Most of the books have their Batman stand-ins having superpowers of some kind, but sometimes he’s also an ordinary guy living a lonely and extremely unrealistic vigilante life with some incredible internalized misogyny issues. (There’s, surprisingly, sometimes a Bruce Wayne type character too, alongside other knock-offs of famous Gotham faces, but usually Brucie is there as a best friend, antagonist, or rival love interest.)
The heroines of these books are usually “ordinary women (with beauty and the beast fantasies)” or “intrepid reporters (with similar fantasies)” who do very little journalism over the course of the novel (Lois Lane is enormous inspiration and, somewhere in Metropolis, is dying a little inside whenever she’s reminded of these novels), but sometimes they’re knock-offs of female criminals from Batman’s Rogues Gallery, and sometimes they’re fellow superheroes who need to teach the male protagonist (who repeats “I work alone” and “I can’t let anyone get hurt because of me” like a broken record) to work with a partner and look on the bright side of life. (The inspiration for these superhero female protagonists is clearly Wonder Woman by the skimpy costumes on the book covers, except all the models have noodle arms instead of being jacked and Diana has never swooned into a man’s arms in her life, and Diana also would never put up with any of this nonsense in order to “fix a man”.)
And there is… an entire bookstore display of these books. The sort of bookstore display that suggests these are by far not the only ones out there. This display is clearly dedicated to Batman knock-offs, but there are a few Superman and Green-Lantern and Flash inspired ones on the other side of the display. The one that is an obvious Aquaman knock-off is lauded to be part of a series.
“Sir,” says one of the bookstore employees. “Sir, can I help you?”
Dick looks up at them and then back down, and realizes that he’s been flipping through these trashy superhero romance novels like a madman. (There are good superhero romance books out there somewhere, books that are compelling and well-researched and genuinely romantic and possibly even written by an actual superhero, present or ex, but these are not those books.)
“Sir, you’ve been at this display for an hour,” the employee says flatly.
Dick looks up at the employee again, who raises their eyebrows tiredly, then he looks back down and notices that he has his phone in his hand and has been live-texting this discovery (by taking pictures of covers and some of the most ludicrous and objectively terrible passages) to people the entire time. As though he was exorcising himself at the same time he was being possessed. (Everyone knows the only way to get through this sort of terrible thing is to send it to other people and share the pain.)
Dick has no memory of starting a new group-chat consisting of Barb and Jason, beginning with “look at this” and containing enough terrible Batman-inspired romance content to burn a person’s eyes out. He’s very grateful that, despite apparently losing his mind, he managed to keep the horror both in-family and to the appropriate members of the family. (Appropriate meaning: a) fellow adults who can stand being scarred for life like this and appreciate it properly, and b) not Bruce, and c) NOT ALFRED.)
Jason had actually replied, multiple times (which is not surprising, but kind of surprising because Jason doesn’t respond to at least half of the mountain of other nonsense Dick regularly sends him). Jason’s response began, “DICK, WHAT THE FUCK” and continued, as Dick just kept mindlessly sending pictures, with threats, blackmail attempts, and straight-up begging for Dick to stop.
The last text from Jason says, “dick why”
Dick had apparently responded, “if I have to see it so do you”
“Sir,” the bookstore employee says, exhausted in the way of a retail employee who now has to reorganize something for the nth time that day and has possibly faced down supervillains on their daily commute and can no longer feel fear or horror or fucks to give. “Look, are you going to buy something or not?”
There is only one reply from Barb, which says, “lol you didn’t know? oh dick”
This amazing and instacanon except for the part where Tim is too young to see them. I can see Dick trying to protect what’s left of Tim’s innocence because he keeps overestimating his siblings’ need for protection. But Tim is already so scarred that he’s just a boy-shaped callus by now and dead inside. So when Dick finally, tremulously explains his discovery Tim just goes, “oh right that” and shrugs.
“Wait…you knew too?” exclaims Dick in horror and angst. It’s just one more way he’s let down the people he loves.
“Who d’you think built a firewall in the Bat network to screen the furry porn blogs?” Tim scoffs. “Wasn’t Babs. She’d pay good money to see Bruce’s face. I just didn’t want him to flip out and try to buy the internet.”, he pauses and amends, “Again.”
Dick wouid see that display and immediately buy all of them and call all his friends demanding to know why no one told him this treasure exists.
And he would totally count the number of Nightwing “inspired” stories and get a little hurt that they were COMPLETELY overshadowed by the number of Batman stories.
This reminds me of a Batman/Superman story I read a long time ago. It was on AO3, and it was a story set in a universe where Superman Returns!Superman and I think it was TDK!Batman existed, but written from the POV of an in-universe fan who had no idea of their true identities. So she had created these made up character for who they REALLY were (I think Batman was an ex-Seal or something?) It was clever and well-done and I can’t for the life of me find it. @iesika or @mithen, do you know what I’m talking about?
How many of them did Deadpool write? (You know he’d hop universes in a flat second to mess with people that way.)
I fucking hate it when you’re in such a fantastically giddy mood and then you see one simple little thing that makes you think, “oh” and then you just get this empty feeling in your chest and you get nauseous and the world just crumbles and you want to just lay under a blanket and close your eyes and fall asleep and never wake up.
From what my therapist told me, this happens because our emotions aren’t really on the ‘opposite’ ends like we tend to think of it. Happiness is not ‘up’ and sadness is not ‘down’-. In a way they’re actually right ‘next’ to each other.
If you’re super happy, it can turn into super sad very easily, because your emotions are already highly elevated and it’s only a very minor shift as far as your brain is concerned.
Knowing this can help you fight it, and it can help you be more aware of what’s going on while you’re happy and help avoid shifting towards misery.
I used to always wonder why it seemed like my happy days ‘couldn’t last’ or that bad things would ‘always’ happen when I was happy. It’s not that happiness is doomed to fail, it’s that emotions are volatile. I hope that helps people who experience this too- when you understand what’s going on more it’s easier to manage.
remember that time that spock said “this is about sex” but he couldn’t say sex so instead he said “biology” and kirk clearly knew what he meant but was awkwardly like “what kind of biology” and spock got this look on his face like ‘oh lordy i’m not dealing with this today’ and said “vulcan biology” and kirk can’t say the word sex either so he goes “u mean the biology of vulcans” and then they stood there in silence for ten seconds like a pair of fucking idiots
“We invite the children of same-sex couples to listen,” said the radio announcer. “We invite the children of different-sex couples to listen. We do NOT invite the Children of the Corn to listen.”
“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” a different voice cut in. “Some of our best friends are…” *realized what he was saying was ridiculous* “… corn.”
“Slavin’s circular panoramic digital technique is a way of seeing only made possible through digital methods and is an orientation he masterfully devised after much experimentation. The time required to capture the images and then create the photographs, which can consist of hundreds of photos “stitched” together to create a single 360-degree image.” (Amy Frearson, Dezeen.com. 2 July 2012)
setepenre-set 