We kinda ignore Alignment damage as a whole, allowing Divine Lance to damage to anything. I'm not a fan of Alignment as a whole so it was ripped out as soon as possible from my games.

I sort of go with both at the same time, I let the mechanics drive the flavor and flavor drive the mechanics. I usually come up with a concept first, then figure out the mechanics for it, and then further develop the flavor based on mechanics.

For example, my 5e pugilist character that focused on grappling and had a snake theme to her (snake tattoos and moves inspired by snakes like constrictors) was developed in PF2e as an Animal Instinct Barbarian (Snake) with Wrestler archetype for exactly the same flavor but more mechanics better suited for what I was looking for. I didn't want to go monk since the only snake-themed monk stance is more focused on Poison (Cobra Stance) which isn't what I wanted, plus she's more of a rough brawler type than mystical monk type.

[https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=456368](Here's the Pathbuilder of her). Note that due to overlapping Titan Wrestler from background and Wrestler archetype, my DM let me take Cat Fall in place of the Wrestler's Titan Wrestler, the one thing that I don't think can show up on Pathbuilder.

Basically focusing on grappling and wanting to use Suplex as much as possible.

I'm a player in an Extinction Curse AP campaign, where we are just shy of level 7, having cleared out the first level of a dungeon. So far I'm enjoying it, playing an Animal Instinct (Snake) Barbarian with Wrestler archetype (the strong-girl of the circus, even came up with my own trick where I use Athletics and the barbarian feat Bashing Charge to burst through large walls set up in the circus for entertainment).