#(1 isn't as much; it's fine but it's not specifically-tuned-to-my-tastes to nearly the same extent)

[moonlit-tulip]

Three character archetypes which pop up in my writing with very disproportionately high frequency relative to their base rate in literature:

The semi-retired immortal evil empress who, while she doesn't particularly regret her past evil empire-building, has mostly mellowed out and is no longer all that invested in continuing with evil empire-building at this point. Typically started out with the empire-building more as a proof-of-concept / look-what-I-can-do maneuver than out of any genuine expectation she'd enjoy running it, ran it anyway for a while, but eventually realized there were other activities she liked better, and thus increasingly sidelined herself from the empire-running, leaving herself as more of a figurehead while mostly spending her time pursuing newer less-antisocial hobbies and interacting on friendly terms even with those who very much disapprove of her empire.

The talky character who, in the context of a setting where violence and/or threats of violence are a common approach to problem-solving, instead solves her problems primarily through social maneuvering—persuasion and manipulation and so forth, particularly as targeted at individually-important characters (as opposed to e.g. persuasion-of-crowds, which is much less central to the archetype)—while mostly lacking the skills necessary to withstand direct combat.

The antagonist who, in defiance of the "everyone is the hero of their own story" cliche, is absolutely the villain of her own story, and is unhappy about this, but isn't going to let it stop her from pursuing whatever her goal is. Often is introduced in a not-overtly-antagonistic role, biding her time until the perfect moment to betray the protagonists and achieve her goal, while internally regarding herself as a terrible person for the things she's doing, with her actions being determined by consequentialist reasoning but her feelings about those actions being determined by non-consequentialist reasoning of some sort. Tends to be visibly psychological-issue-heavy in a moral-injury-tinged direction, albeit in a fashion which, if she hasn't yet revealed her status as an antagonist, observers are likely to attribute to a Tragic Backstory (which is a common thing for members-of-this-archetype to have) rather than any plans she might be pursuing in the present.

#Archive #Writing #spoilers for my future fiction maybe? although hopefully in a fashion abstract enough to not be too enjoyment-undermining #2 and 3 in particular are archetypes i intensely enjoy and wish i got to see more in other people's fiction too #(1 isn't as much; it's fine but it's not specifically-tuned-to-my-tastes to nearly the same extent) #(i'm not entirely sure why it keeps popping up in my work despite that) #(to be clear there's nothing inherently feminine about these archetypes that i've noticed; i just happen to mostly write female characters) #(even if i were to reject trans-girl-sy theories about twig i'd still find sy from twig to be very solidly an instance of 2 :p) #Twig