I've read far too much science fiction, I guess. The Other tends to be couched in the ordinary. The ones who win are the ones who does the old themes best, not necessarily breaking out into new archetypes.

It's fun to dissect things and try to figure out why he is insane.

But true insanity needs no reason, has no reason. Usually it's grades of obsession and delusion, not the Real Thing.

here I think I define more as a being or person so lacking in some as-yet-undefined thing that I cannot empathize with them? At all?

But... I emphatize with all of them. I may be repulsed by them, but I just... get inside. I don't tend to base my perception on Humanity, though. I mean... they don't have to be 100% like me to understand the hows and whys. *Then* I judge them on my own standards. But by then, well. Your enemy is your teacher. I've already sniffed around their skin.

...You know, if I had read these stories when I was younger it could concievably have permentaly screwed with my brain?

After a certain age I looked for those kinds of stories on purpose. But yeah. Not when I was younger.

Fear the unknown, for it shall Eat You!

But if you Know it, it's not unknown anymore. Then you can just deal with the Eating part. I like the next-door-neighbor part, though. It's not that I don't like those stories so much as... I don't poke 'em as much as the other kind. ^^