Immortal characters are most interesting when their characteristics and traits (both positive and negative) intensify the longer they live. Especially when their positive traits eventually evolve into negative traits.
Character is a great fighter? Great! Now they have literally all the time in the world to train and they wouldn’t grow old. Oh- but that arrogance (no matter how little it was when they were mortal) is now amplified, because they are provably better than everyone else. It could also be something much smaller. An immortal character becoming so invested in perfecting something that they become obsessed and centuries pass without their notice. Or vice versa, where they keep procrastinating it for centuries, i mean they do have literally all the time in the world.
Doing this also helps with coming up with the conflict in the story you write for them. Maybe they overcome their obsession, or finally get to that thing they’ve procrastinated for so long, or overcome their arrogance and share their knowledge with others.
You can stop reading now- but if you’d like to hear about how I’m implementing this into my own stories for a more in-depth example, please stay :D
My OC is a huge people pleaser and he always has been. He spent a lot of his time and energy doing everything he could to please the adults around him, and when he gained immortality that didn’t change. He picked up the slack of others at work, he volunteered for the dangerous jobs. Because of this, he was assigned more work. There was no threat of death in his actions. He couldn’t work himself to death and no dangerous foe could kill him, so for the sake and lives of others he does it instead.
This (as stated at the beginning of the post) only intensifies with time.
The people around him grow worried for him. He gets barred from taking on dangerous missions, and every time someone dies on one of those missions he blames himself.
This is obviously not good for his mental health, so it increasingly worsens. The people who aren’t close to him appreciate him for taking on all the difficult and dangerous jobs, but he and all the people he is close to know that he’s about to completely spiral.
Oh- and did I mention that he’s a soldier who has open access to deadly weapons?
See? Someone who’s just an average people pleaser and helps others finish their work on time evolves into a workaholic going down a complete spiral of anxiety and depression.
Trapped between requesting less work and focusing on the work assigned to him. In fear of being seen as useless.
his own crumbling mental state and his relationship with his loved ones.
This was originally posted to Twitter, but I decided to post it here as well to be more articulate because i will never pay for Twitter blue just to have that extra character limit.
Anyway If you liked this post and reached this point in it, please DO NOT go on my page and read my fanfic on Ao3 unless you really want to because I am in the process in rewriting like half of it lol.
Edit: ignore previous paragraph the new and improved version of my Fic is now up on Ao3 :]