My story is titled "How the Supervillain Stole Christmas" and is set in my world of adorable and ridiculous queer superheroes that also appeared in "Defying Gravity" (part of the Dreamspinner Starstruck anthology). Where DG focused on a crowd-funded superhero dealing with a series of setbacks, HtSSC flips the script and takes things from a villainous point of view with Rex Devious (aka Dr. Devious). He's just got into a new relationship and really doesn't want to fuck it up. Trouble is, he's awful at picking out Christmas presents. Like, truly awful. Every year he has a boyfriend or girlfriend at Christmas he's single again by New Year's Day. And with Sanjay he wants more than anything to avoid a repeat.
So what's a supervillain to do? Well, obviously he could try to talk to Sanjay about it, maybe ask that they don't exchange gifts. Or he could maybe talk to one of Sanjay's friends and find out what might be appropriate? Or, even better, he could just destroy Christmas entirely using some sort of nanobot or many a time machine and—
Well, guess which one he opts for? I had so much fun writing this story. Seriously, at a time when I was feeling really down it helped me feel a little better. I put all the cute and ridiculousness that I could. Want all the queer superheroes (and villains?). They are in this story. Not only is there Rex himself, but most of the do-gooders that thwart his anti-Christmas schemes are totally not straight. It's wonderful. I really like writing in this world (and just might be getting something else ready to send out…so stay tuned and it's possible there will be more queer superpowered news on the horizon) and it was actually super refreshing to write a character like Rex, whose first reaction to any problem is to build a weird-as-fuck machine to take care of it. Plus I got to have him interact with Sanjay, who is super cute.
I will admit: I had the title for this story before I had the story itself. I was looking to return to the setting from DG and when I saw the prompt for this Advent Calendar I knew what I wanted to do. And Ginch + supervillain just seemed perfect. Part of what I love about the superhero stories, too, is that the villainous plots are always the most circuitous things possible. It's like a lesson in overreacting. But for their personalities it makes sense. These are people who are extremely sensitive to failure but somehow are okay with failing all the time. They are persistent, creative, and larger-than-life. Plus they get robot assistants and volcano bases. And their labs are constantly exploding.
Anyway, if you're looking for a cute Christmas-themed superhero erotic romance (yes, there is some sexy fun in this story), be sure to check out "How the Supervillain Stole Christmas." Cheers and Happy Holidays!
All the best,
Charles Payseur
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