: 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

@Yeniel532

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All body movements are like would seem to just fulfill the purpose, and like a human would describe them, but they don't actually follow the physical laws of mechanics.

Essentially, the character moves like a human in a 2000s video game, but without the obvious graphics imperfections.

Most of the movements we do in everyday life are actually more complicated than it would seem. In particular, there's always a bit of counter-balancing involved against the inevitable inertial and gravitational forces. Complete absence of such movements would seem “robotically” stiff†, that's not the case here: the eldritch does move its body in an “organic” manner, but the body is not actually made of matter that would need to observe the Newtonian laws and therefore the counterbalancing does not in fact counterbalance the initial action. Like, when they stretch out a hand, the body moves backwards a little too late to actually buffer the momentum. When they start to walk, the arms move in a way that should cause the body to twist sideways, but it doesn't.

All of the individual movements are very good imitations of real human motions, but only the “conscious goal” movements actually serve the purpose, while all the unconscious extra movements are merely recordings.

The result will be that the full-body behaviour will seem inexplicably strange to others, but whenever they try to figure out what's strange, focusing in on a detail, a single limb, they won't get behind what it is that's weird.

†Actually, robots of course also obey the laws of physics. They can only get away with total stiffness when they're bolted to the floor. Newer free-moving robots actually use counterbalancing movements that look somewhat organic in a strangely uncanny way too:

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