: Re: How to creep the reader out with what seems like a normal person? The person in question, though this is yet unknown, is not actually a person. Instead, they are some form of eldritch being

@Sue2132873

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Instinct warns your other characters that there is something other about this one. He has never been observed to lose his temper in situations where that would be expected nor has he exhibited fear when that was appropriate.

You say everyone knows it, so the occasional Jesse is weird comment or thought would not be unusual. You wish to avoid this, so the tone with which you write this character can be the clue.

He can show no strong emotion since as an eldritch being angry or fearful would render him lethal to the world. He charts a middle course and seems to feel little, certainly no strong emotions. He says little and what he does say is slightly inappropriate to the situation. Eldritch beings don’t need to do research and study human behaviour, so his will be ever so slightly askew.

Perhaps one thing that he has done is make it so others are unable to discuss him. He cannot be a subject of conversation as that is one way he has chosen to protect himself from discovery.

I would try the occasional scene where Jesse is present and even pivotal, but in later conversations about it he is not mentioned as having been present and his role was performed by someone or some guy who they just can’t remember - or by the speaker, but the other party knows this is not how it happened but can’t correct him as he cannot think about Jesse either.

Perhaps some have known him for years and Jesse does not change, forgetting to age his appearance. Perpetual thirty-five year old, but no one ever notices it unless in his presence and upon leaving, forgets.

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