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Description Force!

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Hello~ I just added a description (after editing it a few times) to my first dragon (A Ridgewing that hatched on the last day of it's lifespan, name: LUCKY07, code: AKhto) was wondering if I did the grammar correctly?

 

"This dragon had been found at the bottom of a ridge, clearly having fallen out of it's nest. Alone and forgotten, it was on the brink of death, when a kind traveler came across it. Nursing the egg the best they could, the egg finally hatched! The hatchling loved to play, and would not leave the traveler alone. 2 years went by, and the hatchling grew into a handsome Ridgewing. The traveler decided to name this dragon Lucky, to reflect his near death experience, and bring him along on their travels to befriend more dragons for them to play with"

Well, technically Sock is right. I don't know where you're going with "added info"; a compound predicate is a compound predicate. The comma does not function well here. I would suggest parentheses if it really is unnecessary information to the sentence, or simply start a new sentence.

 

However, the sentence still doesn't entirely make sense.

 

"The traveler decided to name this dragon Lucky, to reflect his near death experience, and bring him along on their travels to befriend more dragons for them to play with".

 

--->

 

"The traveler decided to name this dragon Lucky to commemorate his near death experience, and he brings Lucky along on his travels to befriend other dragons with whom to play."

 

It sounds a bit awkward, but a sentence cannot end with a dangling preposition. The way you have the sentence worded also sounds as though he brings the dragon along with him because his name is Lucky. I would just rework the last sentence entirely if you don't want it to read awkwardly. Also, I would use singular pronouns for your dragon unless you specify that your dragon prefers the pronouns they/them. I used he as default for the traveler, but you can also change that if you wish.

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"The traveler decided to name this dragon Lucky to commemorate his near death experience, and he brings Lucky along on his travels to befriend other dragons with whom to play."

 

It sounds a bit awkward, but a sentence cannot end with a dangling preposition. The way you have the sentence worded also sounds as though he brings the dragon along with him because his name is Lucky. I would just rework the last sentence entirely if you don't want it to read awkwardly. Also, I would use singular pronouns for your dragon unless you specify that your dragon prefers the pronouns they/them. I used he as default for the traveler, but you can also change that if you wish.

Ok. Thank you for explaining that. I didn't know if parentheses were allowed or not. I remembered from my English class doing some sentences like this, but maybe the sentence was to simple for this rule. Or maybe I'm confusing myself.

 

The traveler is basically me, & I'm a girl, but I'd prefer to keep they/them pronouns when doing stories where the main focus is the dragon. All the male pronouns refer to the dragon since he's a male, while the others refer to the traveler.

 

Would it be better if I added 'so he'll never be lonely again' to the end? To explain that since Ridgewings are friendly & playful, & all the dragon eggs/hatchlings need views/clicks to hatch/grow, the traveler is bringing them to meet other dragons?

 

& to SockPuppet Strangler, the description itself ends with a period. I just didn't on here since I was putting it in quotation marks.

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I would use singular pronouns for your dragon unless you specify that your dragon prefers the pronouns they/them.

I typically accept they/them without explanation. However, if somebody uses typically gendered pronouns that don't match the dragon, then I do prefer an explanation. o3o

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I prefer pronouns that match the dragon's given gender, but if you're using they/them and you're consistent with it, I'll usually let it go.

 

Kitsune, even within the quotation, you still need the period at the end.

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To Lagie & SPS, I did give the dragon a gender. It's the TRAVELER that's genderless, because the traveler is ME. If it wasn't for the rule about no first person pronouns like 'I, me, my, etc', I would've added it. Since I can't, the traveler will remain genderless, unless otherwise told not to.

 

To Lagie, I did add the period. It's on the description for my dragon, which I'm waiting for it to be approved/rejected. I just didn't put it in the quotation on HERE since the sentence it was in wasn't finished.

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Hey, This is Emerald, I don't know much about her... I'm kinda new at this. Last time I was here, she was still an egg. To be honest, she looks more like a wyvern then a dragon. I've tried the naming action but it won't work.

 

Reviewing this here, due to lack of space in the box.

 

First person descriptions aren't allowed. You'll need to rephrase it to be third person.

 

Is Emerald your name or the dragon's name? That's unclear. If it's the latter, then that's why the naming function doesn't work; each name has to be unique, and common/popular names like Emerald will have been claimed long ago. If you want Emerald as a name, you'll need to add something to it. A unique marker for your scroll, for instance.

 

You say you're new. Do you have a mentor? They can help you figure things out.

 

And finally; good eye. She's a Fever Wyvern, not one of the Western Dragon breeds.

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Having multiple parties in a description can be messy sometimes. If the dragon, their mate, another dragon involved for story or multiple dragons, then maybe the clan or another clan or group interacting, pronouns can get tricky and you really have to make sure it is clear. If you cant make it clear, I just change the wording I refer the various subject Im speaking about.

 

If I have a mint dragon named Lucy, I can refer to Lucy as the mint dragon, the dragon, the small dragon, the green dragon, the little one, Lucy, etc. If I have a dragon with a really long name, I will proably drop to their nickname after the first use of Wheres the Fudge Pink to WTF Pink.

 

I mean, there are many ways to refer yourself, the scroll owner. People use all sorts of titles for themselves. I like Keeper. Some use owner, trainer, mother/father, leader, Human, Scroll Keeper, whatever.

 

I mean, Im not saying you should regularly do this. But if your dragon description has 3 males, 5 females, two warrring factions in the clans and their two different leaders, mates of those dragons, their children, their friends, Two -Headed dragons with Split Gender Identity or multiple personality issues, or whatever, pronouns can get really tricky. Normally, if you really want to spin that yarn (aka tale), it might be to tell a small portion from each dragons individual perspective and if you still need a larger place, write a piece of fiction to be the story of your dragons and post and update it somewhere. You can also refer to other dragons on your scroll. People who really like descriptions will follow them across a scroll many times if they are involved. But in that case, Id make a google doc, post the overall story, and link up various dragons for people to follow more easily.

 

sorry for horrible grammar, on tablet. Finally, I wouldnt recommend normally using variations on nouns and names in place of proper pronouns, but if your pronouns are hard to follow, its sometimes easier to swap them back and forth.

 

Or you can use just normal names/nouns and come here for the pronoun help.

Edited by natayah

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Regarding hatchling descriptions (something I've seen a little in the queue): I don't know if freezing is an in-universe thing, but if the writer says they're frozen, I accept that that they're frozen, and if the writer says they're still growing, I accept that. The only way we can describe hatchlings is to freeze them, and we're pretending here that everything on our scrolls are how they are in this moment of time - you know it's hard to explain but it's not like dragons really hatch and grow in a week and "new releases" are not just creatures that suddenly came into existence in this world on this very date, so we assume they've "always" been around. What I'm saying here is that a baby critter may or may not still be growing in-universe and it should be okay either way, and it would depend on what the writer says.

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Not totally finalized yet, but it looks like many of us mods will be seeing you all Sunday, Sept 4th!

 

I don't know who else might join, but I will be in #descripdoom if you wanna chat/hear about our progress.

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Not totally finalized yet, but it looks like many of us mods will be seeing you all Sunday, Sept 4th!

 

I don't know who else might join, but I will be in #descripdoom if you wanna chat/hear about our progress.

That would be great! I'll try and find a place I can be online that day!

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...So I found a description that's using the second person, and I rejected it because I thought it was like the "no first person" rule. I explained the point of view shift to them, though, but is the second person okay?

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"Garal is not a dragon you'd want to anger." - I'd accept this as part of a longer description.

 

"You are walking down a path when you see a dragon. You feel unnerved by it. You think that you should go back the way you came." - I'd probably abstain.

 

There's a difference between using "you" as a substitute for "one" and using the second person POV to dictate a reader's actions/responses. Not sure if that makes sense.

 

Edit: This is more of a personal preference than an absolute rule, of course.

 

(Sunday the 4th? I'll see if I can wander in for a while.)

Edited by Mathcat

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...So I found a description that's using the second person, and I rejected it because I thought it was like the "no first person" rule. I explained the point of view shift to them, though, but is the second person okay?

It depends on how much. You cannot make the reader do anything ("You fear this dragon"), and I would say that instructing them too much is also a no-no. If I find a description that uses too many "you should"s, I'd suggest in the comment box that they use "one should", "it's recommended that", "people might want to", etc. or just tell them to write in third person. If it is brief, though, I believe it's fine. I've described dragons with instructions before (url=http://dragcave.net/view/FfPZ4 and http://dragcave.net/view/sglba), and if they were rejected for not being in third person all the way, I totally would've pleaded with the mods to make an exception.

Edited by dirtytabs

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"Garal is not a dragon you'd want to anger." - I'd accept this as part of a longer description.

 

"You are walking down a path when you see a dragon. You feel unnerved by it. You think that you should go back the way you came." - I'd probably abstain.

That second example is a reject, I thought. It's not a 'Choose Your Own Adventure'!

(Though TJ does use it in the biomes, so I can see why people think it's okay.)

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Are there still plans for the description mods to be hanging out in chat tomorrow? If so, I'll definitely stop by.

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What time will you be on? (EST zone aka DC time.)

No set time, just a set date. If you wanna join in, just meet us whatever time is good for you, as we'll be doing the same. I think there's enough of us participating the chances are good of running into at least one of us. :3

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I am super excited about this event. Plan to be there and added it to the most recent postings in the Player Event Thread, just remember need to add that to the calendar post. There will be a lot of fun going on this weekend that is player run, and I hope people pop in to take advantage of as much as possible. There will be so many events, and this will be super fun. Not often we get to interact with the mods and other fellow people from this forum in a real time chat basis. So even if you are a little shy, consider hopping over to the chat to check it out.

 

And you can post here too. The people are great and you will probably find you have a lot of great nerdy geeky fun and love in common if nothing else!

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Having a lot of fun in descripdoom with everyone. I plan on being around for a few more hours if you're still interested in joining. =)

 

Breeds that have been finished (that I know of):

frills

waterwalkers

whiptails

antareans

brimstones

 

And I'm almost done with pinks.

 

Good news is, some reviewing got done today. Bad news, it's a lot less than I expected. We still have over 14k pending descriptions. Sorry, all. D:

Edited by SockPuppet Strangler

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Update: we have have 13k pending descriptions and we're getting the queue down! I'm working on Guardians (which was a much more massive list than I thought) and then will move to Red-Finned Tidals.

 

Today in descripdoom was fun! We must do this again!

Edited by purpledragonclaw

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Update: pinks, blue-banded, and anagallis are finished.

 

We're almost down to 13.5k pending. Make sure you thank pdc and Rain, as I know both of them helped out today!

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I hope that we do this again in the future. And, when the holidays are over, when we aren't so close to the end of a larger new release, maybe we can have some free giveaways and raffles to encourage other people to join and as thank yous for those who participate. Obviously, something like that isn't likely to kick off until March/April, but it is something to think about if we want to do a "larger scale event" around then.

 

Doesn't mean we can't do some smaller scale ones like today, which was a ton of fun and great community in between the down times in Holidays (maybe Jan or other weekend or days people have free).

 

For those who weren't able to attend, please know there are a good dedicated group of mods who are going thru to get that final approval on your descriptions. Please also know there is also a dedicated group of players reviewing and commenting and helping to approve or help advise for better description improvements to get descriptions needing work approved. You can always review descriptions any time you want.

 

If this is something that might interest you now or in the future, even in small increments, or even if you just want to show support for it, consider making a post here. Or visit the chatroom. It's always open. Come say Hello! The people from this thread are some of the coolest and bestest and most awesome people ever (and super friendly and nice)!

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