Hello, friends! So I'm dusting off my nano from a 2008 because I want to start working on it again. Basically, it's a young adult urban fantasy with super heroes (although urban fantasy is a loose term here, it's not very dark and gritty, more in the lighthearted vein of, say, The Incredibles) where the heroine find both her new neighbor and her best friend are superheroes. The neighbor (who ends up as her love interest) was originally going to be a superhero, and her best friend a supervillain, but I'm wondering if it wouldn't be more interesting if it was the other way around. What do you guys think? Is it too overdone?
Lend me your thoughts!
Well, it depends on a lot of things, really. Like how long the neighbour and the MC have known each other and the depth of their relationship, as well as where the whole story ends up.
Dating Catwoman is a trope for a reason (although obviously this is a slightly different slant, given the MC is not the superhero involved in the relationship) so if you are sticking to comic-esque conventions then yeah, I'd say at least try it out and see if it works.
It could result in a lot of conflict on several angles, and have thoughts of redemption and stuff like that. Is he a supervillain save when it comes to her? Like if his plan suddenly goes awry and puts her in harms way, does he break his own plan to save her, even though that job is normally the superheroes? And for her, if she's known his non-villain alter-ego for some time, it might not be easy for her to simply write him off, you know?
And remember, a trait of supervillains is often not seeking the destruction of the good guy, but the turning of the good guy. And attempting to bring her over might be an attempt at that.
Supervillains (and I am thinking here of comicverse ones since this is sort of the genre you'd be looking at) are allowed to date and have favourite music and places and all those sorts of things. Xanatos loving Fox and their son didn't (most of the time) mean that he stopped being a villain, right? Joker has his thing with Harley, and Harley also has the thing with Ivy.
But overall, a triangle between superhero, supervillain and normal person is more common in superhero fiction than you might think. It adds a more personal level to the rivalry between the two warring sides.
Overall I'd say keep thinking about it, and if it works, it works... and if it doesn't, well, it doesn't.