address some more type errors

[danieleades]

based on findings in sphinx-doc/sphinx#13634

should be retested after that PR is merged

[github-actions]

Diff from mypy_primer, showing the effect of this PR on open source code:

sphinx (https://github.com/sphinx-doc/sphinx)
- sphinx/transforms/__init__.py: note: In member "apply" of class "SphinxSmartQuotes":
- sphinx/transforms/__init__.py:373:9: error: Cannot assign to class variable "smartquotes_action" via instance  [misc]
+ sphinx/util/rst.py:69: error: Unused "type: ignore" comment  [unused-ignore]
- sphinx/util/docutils.py:469:16: error: Call to untyped function "write" in typed context  [no-untyped-call]
+ sphinx/util/docutils.py:455:5: error: Signature of "write" incompatible with supertype "docutils.io.FileOutput"  [override]
+ sphinx/util/docutils.py:455:5: note:      Superclass:
+ sphinx/util/docutils.py:455:5: note:          @overload
+ sphinx/util/docutils.py:455:5: note:          def write(self, data: str) -> str | bytes
+ sphinx/util/docutils.py:455:5: note:          @overload
+ sphinx/util/docutils.py:455:5: note:          def write(self, data: bytes) -> bytes
+ sphinx/util/docutils.py:455:5: note:      Subclass:
+ sphinx/util/docutils.py:455:5: note:          def write(self, data: str) -> str
+ sphinx/util/docutils.py:469:16: error: Incompatible return value type (got "str | bytes", expected "str")  [return-value]
- sphinx/directives/__init__.py: note: In member "run" of class "DefaultRole":
- sphinx/directives/__init__.py:329:24: error: Argument 2 to "role" has incompatible type "_RstLanguageModule"; expected "_LanguageModule"  [arg-type]