Semi-benevolent Eldritch Abomination

Okay, I've got a story idea that involves a boy living in a B&B who strikes up a friendship with the quiet and very odd person living in the room next door. Said individual is actually a Humanoid Abomination whose very presence has a negative impact on the B&B and its inhabitants but for some reason it develops an attachment to the boy. Thing is, I'm not sure how something very inhuman with a soft spot for a human would act. I mean, I've worked out the ending but I'm having trouble figuring out how to show the attachment developing.

I imagine that the kid would likely spend a lot of time preventing the abomination from dishing out Disproportionate Retribution to his enemies, dealing with potentially dangerous forms of well-intentioned Disproportionate Reward, and working around other forms of assistance that would earn a cry of "Stop Helping Me"

Curiosity, I think, would be a necessary part of the relationship. An attempt to understand why the boy behaves as he does, with a certain fondness that may or may not be more akin to that of a favored pet than anything humans feel for each other.

edited 14th Jun '12 7:01:37 PM by KillerClowns

Any "Choosen" of a God from almost any Pantheon could count.

I think the big thing you have to consider is why this kid, and why now.

This could be a good opportunity for using the Morality Chain trope.

Chthulhul reading "The Care And Feeding Of Fragile Mortals."

To address a few points, the reason the HA starts developing a soft spot for the kid is basically because the normal human reaction to its presence is to avoid it due to knowing on some sub-concious level that there is something wrong about him. The boy however, due to a combination of his young age, loneliness and a few other issues does the opposite which gets its attention in a 'hmm, that's different' sort of way which then develops into a sort of attachment. Think of something somewhere between a meat animal who gets 'promoted' to pet status due to standing out in some way and the stories how how every so often you get a predator that for some reason decides not to eat a particular member of a species that's usually its dinner and 'adopts' it instead and you've got a good idea as to the situation from the HA's perspective.

I think the curiosity and unusualness as definitely good starting points there. Perhaps you could also detail the HA's past history with humankind: How has it seen humans before this time? What sort of interactions have they had? In general, how does HA feel about humanity? When you have that ironed out, I think you can begin to build up how that boy is different from the HA's past experiences.

Okay, should probably mention that the story is from the boy's perspective since I tend to take the 'less is more' approach when dealing with Things That Should Not Be. Among other things it helps to keep them mysterious and/or creepy. It's hard to get inside somethings head and keep them alien.

How "from his view" are we talking here? First-person, or limited omniscient? Either way, that's probably setting yourself up for a much harder task because you won't be able to get the HA's viewpoint without having it directly expound upon it.

You could sort of diminish the importance of the "why," however.

It's third person so I suppose that it's limited omniscient. And to be honest, the 'why' isn't that important.

What if, along with the being developing a more humanly attune side, the boy would also, through association with the being, develop a more inhumanly attuned side, which would help the two fall into mutual understanding more quickly? What about bizarre consequences on both resulting from that?

That's more like how things are going to be in the follow-up story I'm planning. The interaction doesn't really go on long enough in this one for any influences to really take hold,especially given that the kid is somewhat oblivious about the situation.

To clarify, what I'm really asking about is how would something that isn't remotely human express the fact that it, in it's own really weird way, is fond of someone.

If it's not remotely human, then it must be expanding the limits of its consciousness to absorb new data it finds alien. Among this new data are the concept of love, caring and affection. Of course, the thing, from what I gather, hasn't used to expressing it in a way humans can relate to, so how does it understand the data it gathers? More intellectually or more instinctively or sensately? More by thought or more by innate way of feeling? Perhaps its mental functions couldn't be seen as quite like those from our point of view, so perhaps it understand concepts like blurry hunches, with fuzzy understanding yet acknowledging they exist, in objective or subjective, concrete or abstract form. It still does have a consciousness by which it experiences things.

edited 1st Jul '12 5:00:54 PM by NathanielTheSeeker