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A plea to the author

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A plea to the author
Post by cthia   » Sun Sep 17, 2017 8:14 am

cthia
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Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

Snipped from the Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young thread.


Plea...

I'd like to make a plea to the author. RFC, it should be ironed out which image you are going to settle on for Nimitz because...

  • It is very important and not just some minor detail.
  • It matters to the reader how we identify with Nimitz.
  • It also interacts with storyline in a psychological way.
  • It also affects my attitude of the colleagues and friends about Honor that distanced themselves from her. After all, Honor didn't have that many friends, if any at all except for Michelle. But she wasn't that ugly, if ugly at all.

So what was the problem? I can't imagine it being Honor's personality. I won't accept that it was her looks. So again, what was it?

IF the true image of Nimitz that the author endorses is that Cat from Hades...

Then I can suddenly understand why Honor had no friends. RFC makes it clear whether or not Honor is ugly. Time to straighten out the 411 on Nimitz' vanity, and the cats as a whole. Honestly, I can't accept that any adult, let alone child—like little Honor and Rachel Mayhew—being affected by the bonding mechanism, which would have had to override complete and paralyzing fear! If I came into contact with the earlier images of Nimitz, I'd shit my pants and somebody else's too. There simply cannot exist these two distinctly different and polar opposite images of the cats. It taints the storyline in unimaginable ways for this reader. And it is significantly important to this Trinity. Pavel Young might even need some forgiveness for not liking an officer with a demon on her shoulders.

I can't imagine the demon version to be approachable at all, much less likeable to the point of the officers about Honor being endeared enough to him they'd want to sneak him celery. Who'd want to get close enough to a demon to give him celery? I'd be more afraid he'd eat me instead.

If it already has been made clear elsewhere, do forgive me, I didn't get the memo.

By the way, Honor was an ugly duckling.


A connection I'm just now making. Gees! :oops:

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: A plea to the author
Post by TangoLima   » Sun Sep 17, 2017 1:30 pm

TangoLima
Captain (Junior Grade)

Posts: 286
Joined: Wed Sep 13, 2017 2:54 pm

I visualize 'cats using the text more than the covers.
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Re: A plea to the author
Post by cthia   » Sun Sep 17, 2017 2:05 pm

cthia
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Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

TangoLima wrote:I visualize 'cats using the text more than the covers.

But what about the characters? I can't see the bonding mechanism working if the human is pissing in their pants. Especially young Honor. Or the crew wanting to sneak celery to a demon.

And I wouldn't be able to fault Pavel Young for loathing an officer who walked around with a demon on her shoulder.

I would assume that RFC endorses the latter images of Nimitz but I'd be guessing, because OBS is his first in the series.

And first impressions...

Also a picture is worth a thousand words ~ a tenth of a chapter.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: A plea to the author
Post by Gun Boat Diplomacy   » Sun Sep 17, 2017 2:34 pm

Gun Boat Diplomacy
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Posts: 76
Joined: Sat Apr 13, 2013 1:49 pm
Location: Sanger, Ca.

Having been socially awkward when i was a child and into my late 20's, I don't think it has anything to do with Nimitz's appearance. I found that to have social relationships, YOU usually have to make the first move. This is hard to do when you are shy socially. People tend to think that you are standoffish and respond back in kind. Also, I can't name chapter and verse but, I believe in several books, treecats have been described as "cute" and "lovable".
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Re: A plea to the author
Post by Dilandu   » Sun Sep 17, 2017 2:42 pm

Dilandu
Admiral

Posts: 2536
Joined: Sat May 07, 2011 1:44 pm
Location: Russia

Oh please! The beauty and cuteness are SO relative! I'm perfectly fine with "demon"-Nimitz (albeit I always imagine treecats with manul-like fur, but it is Russian thing :) ); moreover, any more cat-like Nimitz would look just ridiculous. The mere probability of parallel evolution that could create anything vague resembling the Earth cat is pretty low.

And, frankly, if childrens aren't taught that they should be afraid of something, they wouldn't be afraid of that. Quite a lot of creatures looks pretty horribly - hairless cats, for example, or beagle dogs (brrrr, they looks like they were mummified alive!) but childrens loved them.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: A plea to the author
Post by cthia   » Sun Sep 17, 2017 10:19 pm

cthia
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

It would also be nice if a Religion sub forum is created. Religious discussions are not accepted in the Free Range sub forum.

And. Religion DOES NOT belong in Politics.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: A plea to the author
Post by runsforcelery   » Sun Sep 17, 2017 11:25 pm

runsforcelery
First Space Lord

Posts: 2425
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2009 11:39 am
Location: South Carolina

cthia wrote:Snipped from the Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young thread.


Plea...

I'd like to make a plea to the author. RFC, it should be ironed out which image you are going to settle on for Nimitz because...

  • It is very important and not just some minor detail.
  • It matters to the reader how we identify with Nimitz.
  • It also interacts with storyline in a psychological way.
  • It also affects my attitude of the colleagues and friends about Honor that distanced themselves from her. After all, Honor didn't have that many friends, if any at all except for Michelle. But she wasn't that ugly, if ugly at all.

So what was the problem? I can't imagine it being Honor's personality. I won't accept that it was her looks. So again, what was it?

IF the true image of Nimitz that the author endorses is that Cat from Hades...

Then I can suddenly understand why Honor had no friends. RFC makes it clear whether or not Honor is ugly. Time to straighten out the 411 on Nimitz' vanity, and the cats as a whole. Honestly, I can't accept that any adult, let alone child—like little Honor and Rachel Mayhew—being affected by the bonding mechanism, which would have had to override complete and paralyzing fear! If I came into contact with the earlier images of Nimitz, I'd shit my pants and somebody else's too. There simply cannot exist these two distinctly different and polar opposite images of the cats. It taints the storyline in unimaginable ways for this reader. And it is significantly important to this Trinity. Pavel Young might even need some forgiveness for not liking an officer with a demon on her shoulders.

I can't imagine the demon version to be approachable at all, much less likeable to the point of the officers about Honor being endeared enough to him they'd want to sneak him celery. Who'd want to get close enough to a demon to give him celery? I'd be more afraid he'd eat me instead.

If it already has been made clear elsewhere, do forgive me, I didn't get the memo.

By the way, Honor was an ugly duckling.


A connection I'm just now making. Gees! :oops:


Frankly, I think you may be . . . overly sensitive on this issue, shall we say? :P :

For what it's worth, the original treecat on Basilisk Station was not how I visualized Nimitz, including the "red eyes from hell." When I pointed out to Toni Weisskopff that it was clearly specified in the text that Nimitz had green eyes, it took her less than three seconds to explain to me why he had red eyes on the cover: "flash bounce!" :lol:

If you look at the treecats on the cover of the Changer of Worlds anthology, you will see treecats who look much the way I visualized them looking, except for the length of the limbs. The artist worked very hard to accurately represent my descriptions, and what she came up with wasn't perfect but it was very close. I had, however, in my descriptions to her said that treecats resembled a fusion of a bobcat, a weasel, and a lemur monkey. I was thinking in terms of the body length and apparent (and deceptive) fragility. She sent me sketches of shoulder joints, sketches of elbow joints, sketches of true-feet and hand-feet, but it never occurred to her to send me — and I never asked her to send me — a sketch of the entire limb until the cover had already been completed and sent to production. At which point I discovered that she had applied my "lemur monkey" DNA to the length of the 'cats limbs.

Aside from that, I was really quite satisfied with what she'd produced. I have to say, however, that I find the treecats on the covers of the Stephanie Harrington books quite satisfactory. Do they look like my mental image? No. Aside from the fact that their coats don't seem long enough and fluffy enough, however, they will work from the verbal descriptions in the books. I don't think that they have a "devil cat" frightening aspect to them, either. I think they simply look alien. 8-)

The version of Nimitz which the people at Evergreen came up with was less satisfactory to me, but people need to remember that what they were seeing was Nimitz without his coat. they were working on skeleton, musculature, and movement; the coat would have been laid in later. So the Nimitz that everyone saw in the sketches was "hairless" Nimitz whereas the final Nimitz would have been more appealingly coiffured.


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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Re: A plea to the author
Post by lyonheart   » Mon Sep 18, 2017 2:02 am

lyonheart
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 4853
Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2009 11:27 pm

Hello RunsForCelery!

Always great to hear from the master storyteller.

Given how the early books portrayed Nimitz as cute and adorable which is how he seduced so many into his willing subjects bringing him celery whenever they could [one wonders about SNL type subliminal broadcasting :lol: ], NTM HH nicknamed him 'Stinker' because he smelled so good [I always imagined Sandalwood] which contrasted so greatly with his deadly mode [kinda like Yoda] so the comic series portrayal was quite a disappointment and another reason I didn't buy them like I have just about everything else associated with RFC, even SITS when I thought he'd done the background and ship class histories etc, during the 4 year drought after AAC.

Treecats are simply cute, which was one reason RFC had so many references to them appearing to non-pardners as appealingly cute as kittens, which some might need to reread, the implication at the bar when this or something similar would come up emphasized their more ferret like features, including a new ferret like species found on Borneo or the Philippines, humorously suggesting Nimitz had traveled back in time, IIRC.

How many cats, dogs and other pets RFC currently has is unknown, but you don't want him to catch you mistreating them or any animal, as old members know.

Thanks again RFC for so many responses,

Should this and other background explanations in the FAQ?

L


runsforcelery wrote:
cthia wrote:Snipped from the Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young thread.


Plea...

I'd like to make a plea to the author. RFC, it should be ironed out which image you are going to settle on for Nimitz because...

  • It is very important and not just some minor detail.
  • It matters to the reader how we identify with Nimitz.
  • It also interacts with storyline in a psychological way.
  • It also affects my attitude of the colleagues and friends about Honor that distanced themselves from her. After all, Honor didn't have that many friends, if any at all except for Michelle. But she wasn't that ugly, if ugly at all.

So what was the problem? I can't imagine it being Honor's personality. I won't accept that it was her looks. So again, what was it?

IF the true image of Nimitz that the author endorses is that Cat from Hades...

Then I can suddenly understand why Honor had no friends. RFC makes it clear whether or not Honor is ugly. Time to straighten out the 411 on Nimitz' vanity, and the cats as a whole. Honestly, I can't accept that any adult, let alone child—like little Honor and Rachel Mayhew—being affected by the bonding mechanism, which would have had to override complete and paralyzing fear! If I came into contact with the earlier images of Nimitz, I'd shit my pants and somebody else's too. There simply cannot exist these two distinctly different and polar opposite images of the cats. It taints the storyline in unimaginable ways for this reader. And it is significantly important to this Trinity. Pavel Young might even need some forgiveness for not liking an officer with a demon on her shoulders.

I can't imagine the demon version to be approachable at all, much less likeable to the point of the officers about Honor being endeared enough to him they'd want to sneak him celery. Who'd want to get close enough to a demon to give him celery? I'd be more afraid he'd eat me instead.

If it already has been made clear elsewhere, do forgive me, I didn't get the memo.

quote

By the way, Honor was an ugly duckling.quote

A connection I'm just now making. Gees! :oops:quote

Frankly, I think you may be . . . overly sensitive on this issue, shall we say? :P :

For what it's worth, the original treecat on Basilisk Station was not how I visualized Nimitz, including the "red eyes from hell." When I pointed out to Toni Weisskopff that it was clearly specified in the text that Nimitz had green eyes, it took her less than three seconds to explain to me why he had red eyes on the cover: "flash bounce!" :lol:

If you look at the treecats on the cover of the Changer of Worlds anthology, you will see treecats who look much the way I visualized them looking, except for the length of the limbs. The artist worked very hard to accurately represent my descriptions, and what she came up with wasn't perfect but it was very close. I had, however, in my descriptions to her said that treecats resembled a fusion of a bobcat, a weasel, and a lemur monkey. I was thinking in terms of the body length and apparent (and deceptive) fragility. She sent me sketches of shoulder joints, sketches of elbow joints, sketches of true-feet and hand-feet, but it never occurred to her to send me — and I never asked her to send me — a sketch of the entire limb until the cover had already been completed and sent to production. At which point I discovered that she had applied my "lemur monkey" DNA to the length of the 'cats limbs.

Aside from that, I was really quite satisfied with what she'd produced. I have to say, however, that I find the treecats on the covers of the Stephanie Harrington books quite satisfactory. Do they look like my mental image? No. Aside from the fact that their coats don't seem long enough and fluffy enough, however, they will work from the verbal descriptions in the books. I don't think that they have a "devil cat" frightening aspect to them, either. I think they simply look alien. 8-)

The version of Nimitz which the people at Evergreen came up with was less satisfactory to me, but people need to remember that what they were seeing was Nimitz without his coat. they were working on skeleton, musculature, and movement; the coat would have been laid in later. So the Nimitz that everyone saw in the sketches was "hairless" Nimitz whereas the final Nimitz would have been more appealingly coiffured.
quote
Any snippet or post from RFC is good if not great!
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Re: A plea to the author
Post by filbert   » Mon Sep 18, 2017 1:17 pm

filbert
Lieutenant Commander

Posts: 143
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:32 pm

I always interpreted "Stinker" to be in reference to Nimitz's Puckish sense of humor.
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Re: A plea to the author
Post by Kufat   » Mon Sep 18, 2017 2:29 pm

Kufat
Lieutenant (Senior Grade)

Posts: 67
Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2011 9:55 pm
Location: NYC

runsforcelery wrote:When I pointed out to Toni Weisskopff that it was clearly specified in the text that Nimitz had green eyes, it took her less than three seconds to explain to me why he had red eyes on the cover: "flash bounce!" :lol:


Or as the kids today say, Nimitz can haz lasers.
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