Dating Catwoman/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A hero and a villain have romantic overtones to their relationship.

  • Straight: Super Stan and Calamity Caitlin flirt with each other in their encounters.
  • Exaggerated: Super Stan and Calamity Caitlin are married, have three kids, and still are on opposite sides of good and evil.
  • Downplayed: Foe Yay - there's UST between Stan and Caitlin, but no more than that.
  • Justified:
  • Inverted: Stan and Caitlin are both good, and always team up to fight evil together. Personally, though, they despise each other.
  • Subverted: Calamity Caitlin is just pretending to like Super Stan to betray him.
  • Double Subverted: But she cannot go through with it. As soon as things get a bit intimate, she switches sides.
  • Parodied: Super Stan becomes a hero to look for a wife.
  • Deconstructed: Their conflicting moralities lead to a very unsuccessful relationship, and they end up fighting again but this time all the more vicious. Stan finds that his relationship with Caitlin makes him question the Knight Templar morality his crimefighting is based on. He tries to get her locked away, but she escapes, feeling horribly betrayed and vowing revenge.
  • Reconstructed: Stan rationalises that really, Caitlin is Just Like Robin Hood, and anyway it'd be useful to have a friend in the criminal community, and he can't catch all the theives in the city, and goddammit why shouldn't he have some fun for once? Caitlin worries that he may change his mind someday, but decides not to let it bother her.
  • Zig Zagged: Will They or Won't They?? The couple's relationship hopscotches between Foe Yay, Dating Catwoman, Arch Enemies, Foe Yay, Worthy Opponents, Defeat Means Friendship, Friendly Enemies, Foe Yay...
  • Averted: Super Stan and Calamity Caitlin are just adversaries and have no romantic attraction.
  • Enforced: Super Stan has no romantic relationships and the network wants him to have one, and rather than writing in a new character they write in new subtext.
  • Lampshaded: Super Stan's sidekick Daring Derek asks if Stan is going to ask out Calamity Caitlin in her first appearance.
  • Invoked: The Big Bad hires sexy women in Spy Catsuits to do all his dirty work, knowing the hero's Casanova tendencies.
  • Exploited: Caitlin, cornered by the hero, acts on their subliminal attraction to worm her way out of trouble.
  • Defied: Super Stan refuses to listen to his heart and will not forgive Calamity Caitlin of her crimes.
  • Discussed: "If I know my hero/villain relationships, Caitlin, all that rage is just pent-up lust for me."
  • Conversed: "Caitlin tried to boil Stan alive in acid again this week? She's so hot for that guy."
  • Played for Laughs: In the middle of their fight they realize they need to pick the kids up from soccer. Both leave in the middle of the fight.

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