Dragon and Quill

Writer of Fantasy and Fanfiction. "My ship is more of a canoe, really. Sometimes it's like I'm the only one in it, paddling around in a circle." The blog is mostly Dragon Age, Tales series, Tolkien, Fantasy art, and writing-related posts. Also my lovely Corgi, Pippin, and a generous handful of chickens. ^_^

[grimrevolution]

x

[karcatgirl-vantas]

the default way for things to taste is good. we know this because "tasty" means something tastes good. conversely, from the words "smelly" and "noisy" we can conclude that the default way for things to smell and sound is bad. interestingly there are no corresponding adjectives for the senses of sight and touch. the inescapable conclusion is that the most ordinary object possible is invisible and intangible, produces a hideous cacophony, smells terrible, but tastes delicious. and yet this description matches no object or phenomenon known to science or human experience. so what the fuck

[skluug]

this is what ancient greek philosophy is like

[ace-disgrace-on-the-case]

False! “Sightly” is a positive word, so the default way for things to work is good as well.

The true most ordinary object is beautiful, horrible sounding, very smelly, intangible, and delicious.

I still don’t think it matches anything in existence but to truly understand a thing one must know its true nature.

[professionalchaoticdumbass]

"touchy" is also a word! however it's mostly used for things that aren't objects, like subjects of conversation. it either means "oversensitive and irritable" or "requires careful handling/wording, delicate"

i think the second one works well for our hypothetical object. so we can use that.

therefore, the Default Object is:

beautiful

makes a horrendous sound

smells absolutely awful

is very fragile

tastes delicious

and i still cannot think of anything that matches this

[and-a-pidgey-in-a-wepear-tree]

behold, the default object!

[windborn]

Okay, but it’s just their droppings that smell. Chickens themselves smell slightly spicy and earthy and very nice.

[nozomi-mats]

Cassandra Pentaghast, one of my faves. I did this between commish work ^ - ^

[animentality]

[meteor-sword]

i might elaborate later but fanfic replies literally develop writer’s metacognition and make them better writers

[meteor-sword]

so, Metacognition is the practice of thinking about thinking or identifying one’s cognitive process . in essence, metacognition is understanding how you prepare for academic challenges, exams, or tasks, and then being able to reflect on whether you did well, you prepared adequately, and what was most effective. in a writing setting, this type of self-awareness helps you transfer skills in writing, say, fanfiction into writing academically, competitively and professionally. 

here’s an article from brown university on the subject i’ll discuss further. there are 3 parts of practicing metacognition identified in this article: planning, monitoring, and evaluation. how might this look like for a fanfic writer? 

planning: asking oneself ‘what is my goal?’ ‘what strategies should i use to meet that goal?’ ‘how much time/length do i need to meet my goal?’. so maybe my goal is to write a meet cute where two characters kiss. i’ll need to use a perspective, an upbeat tone, and forward characterization to do this. it’ll probably take 5000 words and two days to write. 

monitoring: asking oneself: is my story making sense? am i reaching my goal, or do i need to summarize more succinctly to keep it to 5k? maybe you started with a lot of exposition and now you’re 6k in and the characters haven’t met yet. what went wrong/changed? is it ok that it changed or did you not realize it got away from you? what now? 

evaluation: asking oneself: did i reach my goal? was it effective? what would i change next time? 

this is where comments come in

it is incredibly difficult to evaluate yourself. comments like “i love this!” actually do begin to touch on the evaluation step of metacognition. it means, in general, the writer is on the right track. comments like “i loved the dialogue between x and y” or “the emotions of this section really hit me” begin to answer the questions of was it effective, did i reach my goal and conversely answer what would i change next time (by adding more of whatever was specified as working well). HYPER SPECIFIC comments, like analyzing the story between the lines or pasting in a line that you really liked and explaining why, is like jet fuel for the metacognition process and i’m not exaggerating. specifically pointing out what was effective and why is incredibly useful 

i can straight up credit my writing style to all of my friends and readers who have given incredibly detailed comments. when i found a community who gave feedback like that, my writing improved a thousand times faster than before. so! i guess what i’m saying is give feedback! it goes so much further than you realize!

[mikkeneko]

This is exactly the post I was thinking about when I wrote that recent post about how fanfic authors develop as authors by adapting to what they perceive as successful with their audience -- based on positive feedback.

Feedback absolutely does not need to be "critical" to help an author improve, and anyone who insists that fanfic authors need negative feedback or they'll never grow is. Well. To start with, incorrect.

[secondlina]

There she is. The Duchess.

Please consider subscribing to Crow Time!

Check out my Patreon, it's rad.

[gorkie-bagno]

[windborn]

Cute!

[windborn]

Made my first St. Brigid's cross for Imbolc. I'm not sure how one is supposed to set intentions while making one of these, beyond, "Stay the heck together, you stupid pieces of grass!"

But it turned out nicely.

[amorevolous-lune]

Reblog to hug the person you reblogged this from and tell them that everything's going to be okay

[feyspeaker]

lazy day with Zevran~ prints | high res on patreon

[teafoxillustrations]

Selected prints through my shop are 20% off, and will be discontinued in June 2024. For the full list of direct links, please see my public Patreon post.

[shuuzaar]

Small painting i picked at slowly after work! My druid lost something important to him last session to help fulfill his duty...

[windborn]

prompt if you're interested: post awakening, fergus reacting to cousland being involved with nathaniel howe

WHEN DID THIS PROMPT HAPPEN!? I will do this. This is exactly the sort of thing I need to get the creative juices going again.

[orangeismylemon]

"I don't think we should dally here."

[knuttydraws]

There he is, our broody boy Nate 😌🥰

[biscuitkazoo]

Hey do you ever want to keel over thinking about how Nathaniel Howe's nephew will be old enough to be a companion by the time DA4 comes out, or are you normal?

[windborn]

YES PLEASE THANK YOU

[mmorvvn]

nate