The vampires in the James Asher books are exactly what I was thinking of — and Con from McKinley's Sunshine as well. (She's so good at using subtle hints to indicate his inhumanity — the way he moves, his facial expressions, the fact that he never uses a single contraction when speaking, etc.)
'People with over the top emotions' is probably a good description of most vampire characters, though — you're so right!
A lot of my other answers here are from medieval literature, which doesn't have characters so much as tropes and archetypes (it's very fanfiction-y in that way, actually, although of course fic does very much dig into the characters' psychology).
One such character I love is Suibne from Buile Shuibne ('The Frenzy/Madness of Suibne'), who starts out as human, but then gets cursed by a Christian saint, experiences what I can only describe as PTSD from battlefield trauma, and becomes what the text describes as a birdlike person — he grows feathers, he flees in terror from human beings and human habitation, he leaps from treetop to treetop, all the while spouting the most beautiful, heartbreaking poetry about the wild beauty of the natural world, simultaneously lamenting the loss of his human life and celebrating the strange, painful freedom of his new existence.
Another text of this nature that I love is Immacaldam Choluim Chille ocus ind Óclaig oc Carraic Eolairg ('The Colloquy of Colum Cille and the Youth at Carraic Eorlag'), which is really, really weird, even by medieval Irish standards. It involves a saint (Colum Cille) encountering a supernatural youth, and separating from his travelling companions to converse with the youth. When he returns, his companions ask him what they discussed, and Colum Cille refrains from answering, saying instead that 'it is better for mortals not to know it.' So the implication is either that his saintliness makes him somehow not mortal, or, the act of moving apart from his companions and discussing whatever he discussed with the otherworldly youth rendered him inhuman. I'm not sure if this was the original medieval authorial intention, but the effect on a modern reader (or on me at least) is haunting, unnerving, and uncanny.
Other nonhuman characters that I love (that don't require paragraphs of contextualisation re: medieval Irish literature) include the titular golem and djinni from Helene Wecker's novel, the dragons in Rachel Hartman's books, and a lot of the characters in various Victor Kelleher novels that aren't technically human, but to explain why would constitute a spoiler (since most of his novels are science fiction books grappling with the question 'what does it mean to be human?' in very concrete, literal ways).
I think you would like de Bodard's Xuya universe — and a lot of it is available for free as short stories online, so you would be able to get a sense for it before committing to paying any money. Most works in the universe are standalone.
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'People with over the top emotions' is probably a good description of most vampire characters, though — you're so right!
A lot of my other answers here are from medieval literature, which doesn't have characters so much as tropes and archetypes (it's very fanfiction-y in that way, actually, although of course fic does very much dig into the characters' psychology).
One such character I love is Suibne from Buile Shuibne ('The Frenzy/Madness of Suibne'), who starts out as human, but then gets cursed by a Christian saint, experiences what I can only describe as PTSD from battlefield trauma, and becomes what the text describes as a birdlike person — he grows feathers, he flees in terror from human beings and human habitation, he leaps from treetop to treetop, all the while spouting the most beautiful, heartbreaking poetry about the wild beauty of the natural world, simultaneously lamenting the loss of his human life and celebrating the strange, painful freedom of his new existence.
Another text of this nature that I love is Immacaldam Choluim Chille ocus ind Óclaig oc Carraic Eolairg ('The Colloquy of Colum Cille and the Youth at Carraic Eorlag'), which is really, really weird, even by medieval Irish standards. It involves a saint (Colum Cille) encountering a supernatural youth, and separating from his travelling companions to converse with the youth. When he returns, his companions ask him what they discussed, and Colum Cille refrains from answering, saying instead that 'it is better for mortals not to know it.' So the implication is either that his saintliness makes him somehow not mortal, or, the act of moving apart from his companions and discussing whatever he discussed with the otherworldly youth rendered him inhuman. I'm not sure if this was the original medieval authorial intention, but the effect on a modern reader (or on me at least) is haunting, unnerving, and uncanny.
Other nonhuman characters that I love (that don't require paragraphs of contextualisation re: medieval Irish literature) include the titular golem and djinni from Helene Wecker's novel, the dragons in Rachel Hartman's books, and a lot of the characters in various Victor Kelleher novels that aren't technically human, but to explain why would constitute a spoiler (since most of his novels are science fiction books grappling with the question 'what does it mean to be human?' in very concrete, literal ways).
I think you would like de Bodard's Xuya universe — and a lot of it is available for free as short stories online, so you would be able to get a sense for it before committing to paying any money. Most works in the universe are standalone.