How Do Authors Portray Emotions Of A Shapeshifting Demon Character?

I just read a fic where a centuries-old demon genuinely flounders when the human protagonist cries from grief, not pain or fear. It wasn’t written as mockery or confusion; the demon’s internal monologue kept circling back to the ‘illogical saltwater’ and the ‘waste of vital energy.’ The narrative framed it as encountering a phenomenon so fundamentally alien to its survival-based worldview that it had to pause its grand evil scheme to run diagnostic spells on the air, checking for magical influence. That stuck with me—portraying emotion not as a weakness the demon exploits, but as a baffling glitch in reality it needs to troubleshoot. Another common take I see is demons perceiving strong emotions as a tangible, almost edible resource. Lust or rage might taste ‘spicy’ or ‘smoke-tinged,’ while sorrow has a ‘metallic aftertaste.’ It shifts the dynamic from psychological to sensory. The demon isn’t empathizing; it’s a gourmet sampling a dish, which can be creepy and dehumanizing in a really effective way. Sometimes they’re collectors, too, bottling up a particularly potent burst of joy like a rare vintage.

A surprising number of them seem to be motivated by boredom, honestly. They've been around for centuries, seen empires rise and fall, and the predictable nature of mortals just gets so dull. Shape-shifting becomes a game, a way to poke at the rigid structures of human society for their own amusement. Look at the demon in 'The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue'—a lot of that being's actions read as a centuries-long performance to stave off existential ennui. Sometimes it's less about malice and more about a craving for authenticity they can't achieve themselves. They can wear any face, mimic any emotion, but it's all a facade. So they seek out humans with intense, 'real' feelings—love, rage, despair—to experience it vicariously, or sometimes to corrupt it just to see if it was ever genuine to begin with. Their goal isn't always destruction; it's often just to feel something, anything, that isn't their own eternal emptiness. That hunger for a genuine connection, even a toxic one, makes them far more interesting than a demon who just wants to eat souls or rule a hell dimension.

Okay, the skinwalker deer concept is weirdly specific but I’ve seen it a few times. Usually it’s less about the classic Navajo skinwalker lore and more about taking that terrifying shape-shifting predator idea and grafting it onto something that’s supposed to be gentle, like a deer. It creates this unsettling cognitive dissonance that authors love to exploit. The deer is this symbol of innocence in urban spaces—parks, suburban backyards, those ‘deer crossing’ signs—so when it’s actually a malicious entity wearing a deer-skin, the horror feels closer, more intimate. They’re not hiding in a dark forest; they’re blending into the manicured greenery outside your condo. I remember a book, I think it was 'The Bone Orchard' or something like that, where the creature wasn’t even a true deer. It was described as moving with a horrible, jerky grace, like a puppet made of twigs and hide, and its eyes were all wrong—too dark, too knowing. The protagonist would see it at the edge of a construction site, just standing there, and then it would be gone. The urban setting amps up the isolation; you can’t scream ‘monster!’ when everyone else just sees a harmless animal. It plays on that modern anxiety of not being believed, of threats being invisible within the system. The portrayal often ties into themes of nature fighting back against urbanization, but in a corrupted, vengeful way. It’s not a noble spirit of the forest; it’s a twisted thing made from the pain of displaced wildness. The shapeshifting is rarely clean or magical. It’s portrayed as a gruesome, painful process—bones cracking, skin stretching—which emphasizes the violation of the natural form. They’re often solitary hunters, not pack creatures, which makes them even creepier. They don’t run with a herd; they stalk their human prey with a single-minded, alien patience. It’ s a great vehicle for a very particular kind of quiet, psychological dread that fits right into a city’s shadowy corners.