troublesome description

[kengr]

I'm trying to figure out a good way to describe some characters.

They trigger a reaction sort of like the "uncanny valley" effect, except instead of weird/creepy it's more scray/terrifying.

Sort of like something about them makes your lizard brain want to scurry away and hide, except it's afraid to move because it might attract their attention. :-)

There's nothing you can point to that causes the reaction. It's not any one detail or details. It's an "overall" thing.

They look "normal" or maybe better than normal. But the first reaction is as described above.

Basically, I'm trying for "idealized humans" except for the "scares the hell out of you" initial reaction.

It's something you can get used to, but that first "jolt" ...

And yes, they frequently start out by saying something like "fear not". :-)

Comments

[stickmaker]

This sounds a lot like my take on vampires. In my stories, they are living creatures, but the process of becoming a vampire burns out the human social instincts.

A human sitting in a chair will twitch, sigh, shift, look around... A vampire just sits there, unmoving unless there's a need to act, barely breathing, occasionally blinking... No wonder people think they're undead. They don't really act _alive_.

[we_are_spc]

They kind of remind me of the harpy fron The Last Unicorn. For some odd reason, she and the unicorn were my favorite characters out of that.

-Fallon~

[siliconshaman]

Sounds like the older tales of the Fae... the Shining Ones, Fair Folk etc..

i.e cat-like, from a mouses perspective.

[kengr]

Per-zactly.

After the post, it hit me that one way to describe it is unconsciously realizing that they are a *very* apex predator.

And then after the "fear not" or a shift of attention, realizing that *you* aren't the prey.

Maybe sort of like a sheep realizing that this "wolf" is actually protecting them.

And no, it's nopt the Fae. Consider just which mythical humanoid creatures are always telling mortals "fear not" :-)

[siliconshaman]

Oh I got that, just the comparison seemed about right. Beautiful, perfect in every way... and pants wettingly terrifying.

[kengr]

Well, I'm thinking that to "blend in" (hah!) they will not necessarily be "beautiful/handsome". But they will be unblemished.

so no scars, zits, moles,etc. and not "ugly". But not "artisticly perfect".

Silly way to describe it just struck me.

"Perfectly ordinary". Ordinary appearing but perfect at the same time. :-)

I gotta remember to use that bit....


"They were *perfectly* ordinary."

"so?"

"Um... how can I say it... They looked ordinary but *perfect*. Like the guy, he had on jeans and a t-shirt. But they were clean, no stains, no wrinkles. Like they'd come right off a shelf, except there weren't any creases or anything."

"and their bodies were that way too...."

[stickmaker]

I'm remembering, now, that there was a certain, brilliant college professor whose students joked was actually a demigod sent to Earth to teach mere mortals, only he was so good at emulating human behavior most people didn't realize his status.

[kengr]

I'm betting he was a real "fine man"?

[stickmaker]

No, this was someone from the Thirties or earlier, IIRC.

[kengr]

Now you have me curious...

[stickmaker]

I read this in high school in an article on eccentric college professors. Another one was a botanist infamous for his diet of tea and dry toast for breakfast and generally nothing else. His students joked that he had learned how to fix (that is, chemically process for nutrition in botanical terminology) atmospheric nitrogen. :-)