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Dragon Prints are exactly “8888”, I think that’s supposed to be chinese lucky! I’ll take it.

Taking a break doesn’t need to mean not writing. It can simply mean switching styles and trying something new. As said. There’s a reason many authors employ pen names when they wish to do something different. My preferred tactic is to basically keep some dribs and drabbles. Nonsense pieces that aren’t meant to be serious, or even read by anyone. It’s a great way to stretch your imagination. Stopping also simply means ending a story and actually starting a new one with new characters, new themes. Identify tropes you commonly use in your works and then challenge yourself to not use those tropes.

I love my pets, but I think it's creepy when people start acting like their pets are their children. On my commute this morning, I saw a car with a sticker that read, “My child has four paws.” I found myself wondering, if this person were in a burning building and had to choose between rescuing their dachshund or a neighbor's child, which one would they save?

I find antagonists with similar goals can cause the biggest problems. They may be heroes with their own flaws and hurdles. Or just plain careless and dumb. But those aren’t the villains, the ones involved in selfish and cruel agendas. I know their major goals, but I still work on intermediate steps and remembering to show those results subtly. I want to show how the big bad is hacking city infrastructure, enough to make problems and get his jollies after earlier losses, but not enough to draw the heroes’ attention fromthe antagonist who’s a pain but not the real big bad. I’m rather pleased about this villain compared to my usual. I have had some flat villains, but thinking back on the first, I did give him some background and a wife killed earlier by the heroes. He wasn’t that clever on the fly but he was a pain...

Antagonist are best conceptualized as the protagonists of a different story. As in the need to have a goal and a reason or desire driving them towards it The worst thing you can do with an antagonist is to use them as plot-spackkle.

Yep. Some people just jump right off that slippery slope rather than slide off.

Each form of antagonist has it’s time and place in stories, depends on what the author is going for. Sometimes, a Mr. Joker or Lex Luthor is exactly what the story calls for. Othertimes, it’s less, even down to just “society” being “normal” in the story’s era/setting.

One needs look nor further than real life to find every type of “villain” you could desire. From the sociopath, to the eternally greedy, to the hypocrite, to the fanatic, to the horrifically misguided, they’re all there. Even honest and honorable people can find themselves on opposite sides of a “front” in a “conflict,” where absent that conflict they would share meals and be friends with each other. In writing, just like in real life, every villain has their place.