Edgy main characters

Read things like The Stranger or Notes From Underground.

Both contain characters that are distanced from society in one way or another.

Also if you're having an existential crisis, both of these books should be wonderful for you, as both are quintessential existential literature.

Hermits aren't edgy.

Also, why can't he just eat other stuff? He could go live in the woods, hunt animals, and raise lots of crops and livestock.

>>9394024
He can eat other things but they're not as pleasurable as humans.

This is going to sound lame but here's the explanation: he's an alien yes, or rather more like a parasite, but these things take over a host body and when they do they sometimes become overly intoxicated by the humanness of their host. They, by their design, are not made with emotions or feelings or really anything you could attribute to humans rather instead their only drive is that of a parasite: to eat and sustain itself. When paired with a human however they become intoxicated, drunk on the human's emotions and even more so should that host be more charismatic or emotional than others. In some cases, like with the MC until about halfway through, they forget who they are and take on the human identity until they wake up and realize themselves again.

I don't know how much I want to reveal, but to answer your question, basically the parasites take on the host form and continually eat humans so as to overindulge in the drunkenness they get from it. Kinda vampiric but not really.

I suppose they COULD eat other things, but it'd be unnatural for them to do so. Something akin to telling a crack addict to stop.

>>9394203
Kind of a rip off of the anime Parasyte but I'm putting my own spin on it

have him realize his dilemma isn't fundamentally special compared to potential baseline-human despair

if the monster thing is new to him, have him actually think solutions through properly and not make snap decisions or conclusions

include mundanity but not like just in a way that's vapid and obviously just there to make the monster stuff edgy. make the mundane stuff be meaningful or have emotional stakes

if the whole monster thing isn't new to him, he probably shouldnt be obsessing over it unless something new came up to make him feel differently about it

perhaps

>>9394299
He's just woken up in the body of the one he stole, but he knows his purpose in being. He knows full well what he is and what he's been designed to do.

The main delimea that i want him to face is his urge in liking the human emotions he's absorbed, especially the ones that interact between people who know one another. For example, let's say he's eaten Bob. He has, by all accounts, taken over the identity of Bob and can make full use of Bob's knowledge and abilities, yet he is still himself the parasite with a duty he feels he must fulfill firstly. However, he becomes drunk on either his usage of Bob's knowledge or his need to just get drunk on him. He thus begins to like the feelings of being human, though he'd rather not admit it. He'll still eat, kill, and assimilate those who cross his path yet he may harbor more hesitation with the more humans he eats as the more he eats the more emotions and personas he absorbs.

To put it simply, he's eaten Bob, but he's also eaten Sally as well as Tom. While he is most comfortable with Bob as he is the original host, he can also call on Sally and Tom's abilities as well however sometimes they dangerously mix, causing it to be too overwhelming for him. The biggest threat to him is to lose himself again to human emotion and by extension becoming dormant and subservient to an oblivious human. Hopefully that makes some sense?

The biggest conflict that I'm facing now is that he's absorbed Bob, and fully taken him over, yet he's also absorbed Sally, Bob's lover, and suddenly through his overuse of Bob, Sally has woken up inside him. He can manipulate her in any way he sees fit, but he feels an inkling to not as he finds himself just as in love with her as Bob was. That's my biggest thing rn.

>>9394480
He can, if he wants, talk to those he's absorbed, but he can also control what they say and are capable of inside of him. Basically he's absorbed their consciousness and can do with them as he pleases.

So when I say Sally has woken up, I mean he's absorbed her consciousness previously and has awoken herself against his will and knowing and now he has to face that. Ordinarily as a parasite he would shut her off, but he feels like talking to her. It's completely against his design to do so, but he does anyway, and does so with the voice and personality of Bob so as to act like her lover.

Okay, I have to stop you there.

This is literally the plot of Shadow the Hedgehog 2.

>>9392724
This sounds very similar to Under The Skin, which is a pretty interesting movie. You might get some good ideas as to how he would hold himself.

A personal recommendation for you, esepcially if you don't want to have an EDGE OVERLOAD is to just try and make his crisis not too severe on his brain, if that makes sense. Don't make it a mantra for him.

My second recommendation is completely bias, but I'm not a fan of
>done and done
gore. Give him something to clash with, like how you mentioned his human urges. Like I said, that's just my opinion.

>>9392724
Unironically, read naruto.

>>9392724
possibly have the character take his isolation lightly or just not fully realize the despair of his situation. he's not special for feeling depressed and make sure they know that. Another route would be making a character similar to holden caulfield where they are blatantly edgy, but its rooted in some serious emotional scars that they will have to recognize/confront

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>>9392724
look at pic related as an example and where you find him most compelling as a character and stop there.