I found I'm enjoying series with dark / jaded protagonists such as Untouchable Lady and The Way to Protect, Female Lead's Older Brother and I'm Sorry For Being Born. Especially when the author takes care to show they're screwed up but doesn't default to making them insane. Any recommendations for similar series? I read both novels and manga/manhua/manhwa. Just please don't recommend me revenge porn like Nidome no Yuusha. I enjoy dark characters, but I don't enjoy series where the author just writes about them torturing others. This also goes to how I don't care for insane protagonists.
If you don't mind mtl, then these two are for you https://forum.novelupdates.com/threads/quickly-through-after-the-mission-is-completed.119582/ Here mc has the task of winning over absolute unconditional love of protagonists (sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes in a female body, sometimes in male) but it's never the main focus. The mc gets pretty jaded over time. https://forum.novelupdates.com/threads/wen-yao-of-apocalypse.64715/ OP mage in apocalypse in body of little girl. Mc is pretty uncaring, though she is more light-grey than dark. If you don't want mtl then Cannon fodder's record of counterattack QT, mc matures very fast from someone without any real life experience into an old fox that knows how to navigate the shadows of morality. Sinister Ex-Girlfriend - mc is very likeable, but she's a sadistic manipulative old monster on the inside. One of my favourite characters in all fiction, a bona fide femme fatale, who plays characters like fiddles. None of the recommended novels have "romance" (as in the protagonist engaging in a genuine romantic relationship but they can fool people and pretend to be in love for entire arcs)
for the third one r u talking about Ex-Girlfriend Blackens Every Day instead? it seems more like this one
Just female mc? https://www.novelupdates.com/viewlist/20556/ The damned rr Desolada Meat royal road Undeath lord royap road