You know what type of villain I love? The villain who’s introduced very clearly and unambiguously as the bad guy. Probably fights with the protagonist from time to time, talks about their evil plans, makes all their intentions known. Then something occurs that forces them to team up with the protagonist (mutual enemy? Protagonist is the key to world domination? Attempting to earn a favor?) and they team up making it clear that they are only helping the protagonist so they can further their own ends and that two of them are gonna be arch enemies again just as soon as the villain gets what they want!
Except the villain just kinda
Forgets about it
And continues to pal around with the protag’s team with no clearly defined motive other than they seem to like it here.
And any time team protag asks about it they just get defensive and dodgy answers from the villain who’s “still working on the ultimate evil plan just not right now shut up okay I’m allowed to have other interests too.”
Until team protag just stops questioning it and lets their villain stay, who seems to have somehow converted to good at sometime during their stay with team protag and no one is entirely sure when how or why it happened.
