Description Force!

[Ashes The Second]

A description I did recently, it's for this dragon: http://dragcave.net/lineage/rWriP -mod note: due to TJ's clearing up in the news section, the view link for non-growing dragons should be fine-

A Big Deal was brought into this world with a great deal of patience, effort and irritation on the part of the scroll recorder, but because of the "special" status A Big Deal received once he was born, the other dragons absolutely despise him. Which is understandable--many dragons are revolted by the fact that A Big Deal is now interested in starting a family, of all things, and are concerned that A Big Deal dragon will spread it's strange, creepy hybrids all over their cozy cave. A petition was in the woodworks, to abandon A Big Deal intro the wasteland they call "The Wild", but once the scroll owner caught whiff of what occurred, the petition was shut down immediately, to many complaints. But A Big Deal feels that he is too pretty to care about their petty concerns, and so he remains stationed near the hatchlings that will remain eternally youthful, guiding them, despite the evidence that they are older than him by at least a hundred years, and exasperated by him.

 

i just noticed a few awkward tenses, whoops.

Edited July 7, 2014 by SockPuppet Strangler

[Lagie]

its, not it's (it's = it is)

Otherwise it looks okay.

Did you have a specific question about it?

[Ashes The Second]

its, not it's (it's = it is)

Otherwise it looks okay.

Did you have a specific question about it?

I've mostly been wondering if this thread would be where I would get a mod to approve it, and thank you -- I'll fix that asap.

[Lagie]

You're welcome!

You can PM rubyshoes about approvals.

[Ansela Jonla]

Ran across a description I'm really not certain about. I don't really think it's appropriate, and neither does Herk (who I quoted it to on irc), but extra opinions would be nice.

 

This gruff dragon is not one to be messed with. As a young fledgling he witnessed his mother kill a human who was in the middle of drinking some ale. Curious to see what it tasted like, he pried the cup from the man's cold, dead, hand and sipped from it. He was immediately hooked. He loved the taste.

  As he got older he became known to go into drunken rages where he would raze towns and steal from other dragon's hoards. He would wake up the next morning in his cave, not knowing why his hoard was suddenly a bit larger. Soon the other dragons took notice and forced him to stop drinking.

  Since he is suffering from withdrawal, he has become even more furious and the littlest thing will tick him off and will drive him over the edge. The other dragons around him don't know what to do, for although they could barely make him stay sober, they knew they weren't powerful enough to kill or capture him. They hope that the Council of Dragons will step in and help them deal with him.

[Syiren]

I wrote the description for this guy Don Carnage around the weekend and while he already had the name I wanted to wait until a good description actually came. When it did I posted it while trying to get into character.

 

Don Carnage is perhaps the most self-absorbed Golden Wyvern in the land, yes no If one wanted to see his glorious form and live, one would have to agree. This dragon loves treasure. Gold, riches, pretty shinys, anything that he can get his golden claws on. He defends his treasure trove fiercely, but won't attack unless someone is foolish enough to try and take something from his cave. Anyone who approaches the cave will be greeted with ferocious growls and hisses that would put a crocodile to shame.

 

So far it has received two reviews and I fully understand Dimar's points, but I feel it's a misunderstanding.

 

Reject: I have no idea what "yes no" is supposed to be in the first sentence, so delete that. Also, you spelled it like "Carnage" but on the actual name you have "Karnage". *shinies, ~D

 

I see where I misspelled and made a typo or two, but the "yes no" part is actually fitting for the Dragon's name. Don Carnage (I misspelled his name with a K, not C. That's been fixed) was the name of a villain from an old Disney Cartoon "TaleSpin" and he had a weird way of talking. He had a strange accent. ex: "Well my young friend, it seems you have gotten yourself into a tiny pickalo, yes no?"

 

I do realize that the '?' I wrote was missing from the description because I forgot that ? doesn't register in that little box. Oops. I've been working with stories on fanfiction lately and I guess my muse was still in a FF-writing mindset. I do plan to fix the typos, but I feel the "Yes no" should stay because The dragon's description is based off of the character who is a leader of Air Pirates who constantly plunder treasure.

 

Is there a better way to convey that part across to others? Perhaps adding quotation marks maybe?

Edited July 8, 2014 by Syiren

[Herk]

I remember that villain. But if you want that *yes no* part to stay you need to make it clear that it's the dragon talking. In the normal text flow it just comes across as wrong/weird.

[Syiren]

I remember that villain. But if you want that *yes no* part to stay you need to make it clear that it's the dragon talking. In the normal text flow it just comes across as wrong/weird.

Yeah~ You're right. I just read it after looking at it again and it clearly doesn't belong there. I'll have to give it some more thought before rearranging things around a bit to suite a quoted line from the dragon. ;

[Drinking_Water]

Would this be a good description for my evil dragon? I made it myself.

 

This is The Muted Dragon!

one day, she found out about the taco kingdom, and created an evil army to steal all the tacos!

Once Master Taco (The ruler of Taco Kingdom) found out about this, Master Taco asked his friend, The Burrito King to join forces with him to take down The Muted Dragon's evil army of evil dragons!

The Muted Dragon was eventually taken down, along with her evil army of evil dragons. Once she was defeated by Master Taco and The Burrito King, they casted a spell of Muting on her.

Now, because of the Muting Spell, she cannot talk. Whenever she tries to, she farts.

Note: Since she cannot talk, dragons can't really tell her personality. Unless they know what "*FART FART FART*! *FART*! *FART*? *FART*…" means.

Edited July 9, 2014 by Drinking_Water

[Dimar]

In its current state, it would be rejected. It could use a bit of rewriting, as there's some grammar and punctuation mistakes. It would also be better in one paragraph, instead of each sentence being on its own line, because it flows a lot better in one paragraph and doesn't look as chaotic on the page. The last sentence is the only one that really makes sense as a separate paragraph.

 

I find it hard to take a Taco Kingdom seriously, but there's nothing technically against it. People in an alternate medieval age could certainly roll up meat and call it a "taco". The farting bit just sounds immature so it's not really funny if that's what you're going for, but you don't have to delete it. I may not like those parts, but there's no specific rule against it so that's acceptable.

 

Here's how I would rewrite it. It's still not great but at least it's better.

This is the Muted Dragon! One day, she found out about the Taco Kingdom and created an evil army to steal all the tacos. Once Master Taco (the ruler of Taco Kingdom) found out about this, he asked his friend, the Burrito King, to join forces with him to take down the Muted Dragon's army. The Muted Dragon was eventually defeated, along with her army. Once the pair had achieved this, they cast a Spell of Muting on her.

Now, because of the muting spell, she cannot talk. Whenever she tries to, she farts.

Personally I lowercase "the" in titles, like "the Muted Dragon" and "the Burrito King", because I'm pretty sure that in general you shouldn't capitalize it when it comes before proper nouns. If I'm mistaken, someone else should clarify. I lowercased "muting spell" in the last sentence since you already said the name was "Spell of Muting", and therefore "muting spell" is just a general noun.

 

Notes: You should avoid overusing the exclamation point and avoid redundancy (hence why I switched "evil army of evil dragons" with "army" and "taken down" with "defeated" and reworded one sentence). Be consistent: first you lowercased "taco kingdom" and then capitalized it in the next sentence. If you remember these things, it'll make approving your descriptions a lot easier.

 

Note: Since she cannot talk, dragons can't really tell her personality. Unless they know what "*FART FART FART*! *FART*! *FART*? *FART*…" means.

That's like saying mute people don't have personality, which is definitely not true. The ability to speak doesn't mean someone can't show personality in how they behave: aggressive, playful, funny, nervous, artistic, musical... Also, dragons are canonically telepathic. So you might need to specify that she was muted from speaking telepathically as well, or else the "muting" is pointless.

[Lagie]

Well put, Dimar! And you're correct about the the.

[Drinking_Water]

That's like saying mute people don't have personality, which is definitely not true. The ability to speak doesn't mean someone can't show personality in how they behave: aggressive, playful, funny, nervous, artistic, musical...  Also, dragons are canonically telepathic. So you might need to specify that she was muted from speaking telepathically as well, or else the "muting" is pointless.

I didn't mean it that way, I just meant it as other dragons would try to avoid the smell of the farts. So no one would really be around with her. And can't record her personality.

Sorry for any offense.

[Dimar]

I didn't mean it that way, I just meant it as other dragons would try to avoid the smell of the farts. So no one would really be around with her. And can't record her personality.

Sorry for any offense.

Ah, I see! That does make more sense, no problem.

 

However, the telepathic part still holds since telepathy can cover a distance (even if a short distance, it's likely more than fart range).

[love_HP]

/staring at my desc waiting for approval

It's been years since TJ was first asked to code for desc mods.../sigh

[Pippypip20]

Cannot wait for my female hatchling to grow up so I can see descreptions

DISCRIPTION FORCE!

[love_HP]

Cannot wait for my female hatchling to grow up so I can see descreptions

DISCRIPTION FORCE!

The spelling is "descriptions".

[Pippypip20]

I'm a bad speller..

 

Off-topic/chatty stuff is better PM'd. ~Moved to this post; you can edit posts by clicking "edit" in the upper right hand side of your post~

 

Livehp, where did you get the banner that says,

"We saw DC before the cave" ?

Edited July 15, 2014 by SockPuppet Strangler

[C88]

I wrote a description for my frozen bronze shimmer hatchling recently, and I need a little help with something:

 

Coin Hoarder, or just Coin, loves to collect petty cash. When he was hatched, he learned that he was of low value due to his less-than-appealing lineage and bronze colouring. Coin didn't really care about this, until one day when his master took him into her house, where she conducted a strange ritual on him. After this, Coin was taken back to the other dragons. He was confused at first, until a large gold dragon told him that he had been frozen, and would never grow into an adult. Coin began to brood over this, and discovered that he had been frozen due to his low value. He began learning about metals and their values. His favourites were copper and bronze, as they were low value just like him. He began to swipe as much petty cash as he could find, leaving people wondering why all their change had gone. He soon had amassed a large pile of these coins, and guarded it fiercely. People are warned not to go too close to him, as they may suddenly find all their loose change missing...

 

Accept: petty cash sounds a little awkward

 

I can't think of another term to describe low-value coins, and I have no more space left in the description to write longer stuff. I just heard the term "petty cash" once, and learned that it described coins of low value. Does "petty cash" sound wrong?

[Dimar]

If you had more character space I would suggest saying "small change" since it's a more common phrase, but I don't think it's a big problem at all. The term does sound odd to one who hasn't heard it before, but it's clear what you mean anyway since you go on to explain it.

[Herk]

The completely kid friendly Weird Al version of "Blurred Lines" is actually amazingly appropriate for this thread.

[Obscure_Trash]

The completely kid friendly Weird Al version of "Blurred Lines" is actually amazingly appropriate for this thread.

Kind of along these lines, I have something for you guys, too: http://pileofmonkeys.tumblr.com/post/91909...types-of-commas ;3

[Lagie]

I wrote a description for my frozen bronze shimmer hatchling recently, and I need a little help with something:

 

 

 

Accept: petty cash sounds a little awkward

 

I can't think of another term to describe low-value coins, and I have no more space left in the description to write longer stuff. I just heard the term "petty cash" once, and learned that it described coins of low value. Does "petty cash" sound wrong?

Petty cash is just fine! (But not everyone's familiar with the term. My mom was an accountant so I heard it all the time and use it myself frequently!)

[OMGitsKairi]

Has another gigantic day of description-reviewing been planned? I've got quite a bit of

time on my hands in the near future and I'd love to help out again.

[Dimar]

A couple of us were discussing possible dates yesterday, so we'll keep talking about it and work something out. Personally I have no reliable free time until early September, but I don't want my schedule to prevent everyone else from getting together and knocking out some reviews. I know lots of people have been asking about a reviewathon weekend. :3

 

(I really need to catch back up on the queue, but realistically that's not going to happen until September due to a busy summer schedule...)

[azazelbunny]

1: Heck yeah, I'll do a description day Preferably on a weekend, because I take classes now that would interfere with that, but I'll do what I can when I can. I've been neglecting my reviewing duties lately because of that class, but when I do sit down to review, I try to do so for as long as I can.

 

2: If you've ever reviewed any of my descriptions, you're probably aware that I have a set of guilds that determine the surname, history, and role of each of my dragons. I'm in the process of making yet another guild and I've run into a snag.

 

"Due to a rapid spike in pirate activity, the Freani-eplith called forth a selection of its finest to patrol the troubled seas. The Cyred-eplith, or Warriors from the Forest, operate as a separate guild."

 

Now, I'm working on dividing this guild up into 3 separate "divisions", like I did with their parent guild, the Freani-eplith. I've got the Tidal Guard, the Sea Guard, and a yet-to-be-named division. That's where you guys come in, because I originally wanted to name that division the Vikings, but I'm not sure if that counts as lore-breaking.

 

If it doesn't, yay problem solved before it started. If it does count as lore-breaking, I'm going to need help naming it. This division is one dedicated to sending out dragons trained for battle on vulnerable ships, especially merchant ships. Dragons chosen for this division are often seen as cold and are entirely focused on efficiency. They are trained to fight effectively both in the air and in the water. Their job mostly consists of wrecking pirate ships that attack the ships they're guarding. Though they are encouraged to bring back the pirate captains alive, most are content to simply let the poor fellow drown.

 

Ideas?

Edited July 17, 2014 by azazelbunny