Uncanny vs. Fanservice

This is actually something someone else wrote that I was looking at; he's trying to evoke "uncanny" and instead evoked "fanservice." I realized I wasn't sure how to transmute this to something less...titillating. Suggestions?

...well, the fact that perky breasts are mentioned might be the problem.

Yeah, as soon as you mention boobs, things start going out the window.

The "uncanny" part escapes me. Maybe if she had 6-inch fangs or claws instead of hands.

Well, for starters, "soft and playful" could be replaced with "eerie and enchanting". It would probably also help to describe her as being somewhat... otherworldly.

That, and not mentioning the fact that her hair covers her arse.

Perhaps simply "cascaded down and over her back"?

I'd also try to evoke some sort of doll-like imagery, if Uncanny Valley is what the writer is looking for.

& This would also help.

edited 7th Dec '11 11:26:33 AM by KSPAM

Yes, the perky breasts and buttocks are definitely the first things to go; I'd also get rid of the tittering, since that evokes "obnoxious airhead" more than "uncanny creature."

Silence or slow, eerie song are the way to go for uncanny.

The word choice sounds like the writer is describing someone he's fond of, not anything disturbing. Some of the adverbs are quite purple in that regard.

And yeah, I can't fathom perky breasts being used to describe something with no fanservice intent. I've just heard it that way too often, so much that it hardly means anything anymore.

Any shapeliness of the woman could probably be summed up as "nubile" or something, let the reader do the picturing on their own. If less time is taken to describe those attributes, more of it can be spent describing the uncanniness.

This is pretty much my feelings on the passage. Quite apart from the mention of breasts and butt, the image provided by the words just seems so... benign. It starts out OK with "tall, thin and wispy" (maybe her pallor, too, though "alabaster" doesn't give me a particularly uncanny image; it's kind of a generic code for a beautiful kind of pallor), and the bit at the end about the protagonist not understanding her language can be promising for creepiness, but apart from that, there's nothing uncanny about the description.

edited 7th Dec '11 2:46:18 PM by DoktorvonEurotrash

I read that and lol'd. I seriously did.

Ah well, yay for immaturity.

When I read that, what comes to mine is 'Brainless Beauty' not 'Uncanny Valley'. Also, naked lady.

That is all.

I can't take anything seriously that uses the word "buttocks."

edited 8th Dec '11 8:31:20 PM by loganlocksley

Perky boobs? Buttocks? Girlish tittering?

This is anything but uncanny. In fact, I see her as Ms. Fanservice.

edited 8th Dec '11 9:20:52 PM by YuriStrike

How the bleep was this not meant as fanservice, anyway? I'm baffled.

It was practically mind's eye candy.

@9: And it has the word "tit" in it. :D

Perhaps you can show us an edited version, so we may go from there, ma'am?

Lessee, how about (just as a first try):

edited 9th Dec '11 11:23:40 AM by jewelleddragon

I tend to think that making your audience directly react to something as uncanny in literature is doomed. They can only do so through the vehicle of other characters reacting the same way.

Then again, I read Along Came A Spider once.

Absent context (what sort of a story am I reading? Is silver hair normal for the genre?) I'm just left sitting here with a blurb. I really don't know if this uncanny.

edited 9th Dec '11 7:08:29 PM by Night

I dunno... the description in the OP just sounds like a very pretty girl. I don't get any "weird" vibe at all...

Edit: Still doesn't seem weird in any kind of disturbing way. Also still sounds largely attractive.

~shrug~

Subtle uncanny valley is rather difficult to do in prose without lengthier descriptions and some kind of action, I've found...

edited 9th Dec '11 7:26:54 PM by USAF713

Think of The Fair Folk as in eldritch (in the original sense of the word), not nubile nymphs.

Some uncanniness can be suggested by a phrase like "something doesn't seem right." I mean, unless you're going for a screenplay-style of writing where everything must be visually and definitively described to the reader.

Does she move in a way that seems jerky, unnatural, maybe like a wacky inflatable arm-waving tube man? Are her proportions slightly wrong? Is there a disturbing tint to her skin? Does she sport a thousand yard stare? Does one half of her face suggest a different emotion from the other, or via body language? Does she seem familiar? Does she defy the laws of physics somehow?

But the narrative as given doesn't imply that.

I'm giving my impression as if the author or people who know what he's going for couldn't tell me that directly.