On Feeling Like a Villain in Your Own Story

Velvet Villainy Playlist on Spotify

Sometimes, I like to imagine I’ve stepped out of the pages of someone else’s tragedy.

Not the heroine—no. I’m the woman they whisper about in the third act, the one in silk gloves and sharp heels who walks away from the burning house without looking back. I take my tea black (or coffee if you prefer), my decisions colder, and my joy with a bite of theatrical cruelty.

Villains, after all, are rarely rushed. And they always get the best lighting.

The Silk-Lined Pleasure of Not Being “Good”

There’s a strange, velvety freedom in no longer trying to be palatable. To stop softening my voice, dulling my edge, making myself digestible to people who were never going to savor me properly in the first place. I’ve grown fond of being a little too much.

Too bold. Too clever. Too still.

I don’t flutter. I loom.

Let Them Call It Arrogance

Let them. I call it a return to myth.

There’s something divine about inhabiting your power like it’s a throne you carved yourself—alone, in the dark, with only your ambition for company and a flickering candle to keep time. Not lonely. Just deliberate.

The villain doesn’t wait for permission.

The villain doesn’t beg for understanding.

The villain writes her own monologue and delivers it under moonlight in crimson lipstick.

Little Rituals of the Deliciously Damned

• Deleting a message and pouring wine instead

• Lighting incense with a match struck on an old book of spells

• Buying a gown for no one’s eyes but your own

• Listening to Maria Callas as you put on eyeliner thick enough to cut glass

These aren’t petty indulgences—they’re spells. They remind me I don’t need a plot twist to be interesting.

I am the plot.

There’s Beauty in the Solitude of Shadows

When I feel like the villain, I feel most composed.

Not angry—aligned.

Not cruel—clarified.

I imagine myself as Persephone with her skirts gathered in one hand, walking the halls of the underworld with bare feet and unshakable grace. Or perhaps I’m Lilith reclining on a throne of secrets, unbothered by exile.

What they call wickedness, I call self-respect with fangs.

Let Me Be the Story They Survive

Let the good ones cry about how they almost understood me. Let the narrators fumble to explain me. Let the credits roll while I’m painting my nails, unrepentant.

Because here’s the secret, stitched into the hem of my black velvet robe:

I was never the villain.

I just stopped apologizing for taking up the whole damn page.

For the Reading List:

• She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

• Villainesses Required: Why the Dark Side Needs More Women by Elise Ringo