Bonus points if the author first mentions a specific trait, physical build, or whatever else halfway through the novel and totally fucks up my mental image.
I don’t expect a biology model description for each character, but write me something brief and evocative of how they should look, you fucking dork author. I don’t even know how tall she should be, her hair colour, anything. Why are you like this, author?
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Vintage example, fuck
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The thing I like in her book is HILFs (Humanoid intelligent life forms) are generally all referred to as men/women/humans etc (especially given everyone shares a common Hainish ancestor). Like in the Word for World is forest the people of the colonized planets are basically green furred monkey hobbits, but they’re written about with the same dignity and respect as Terran humans.
HILFILF
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Very similar to the Culture series by Iain Banks: had the same reaction to almost the same description of a character having a layer of fur a good way into the book.
To be fair, I didn’t know that in the Culture most “humanoid” beings are just referred to as pan-human with a few aliens as exceptions like the 11ft tall, 3 legged, armored Idirans.
i deleted my comment above because i just said the same thing basically lol
i forgot it was “pan-human”. and as soon as that character was described with fur my brain broke and i just saw her as a catgirl for the rest of the book