*Old post imported from LiveJournal.*
Okay, you do have to be logged into LJ to vote in the poll, but it’s very easy to create an account if you don’t have one, and you don’t even have to “do” anything with your account, if you don’t want to. A lot of people just have an account so that they can participate in LJ, but they don’t keep up a journal, themselves. You can also “friend” people and their most recent entries appear on your “Friends” page, which is an easy way to keep up with your favourite LJs.
You don’t have to be logged in to leave comments or to play the RaM-based games in the other posts, though, so have fun with those!
When the poll is over, I will reveal the results and I will write a one-shot featuring the top choice. If the votes are really close, I may do a “run-off” poll. I hope a lot of folks will participate! Thanks very much!
Choose your favourite character, then your second favourite character, then click on the “submit” button!
If you want to change your vote later, you have to click on the poll number, then click on the link to “fill out poll” again, and you can change your selection.
MMADfan's Blog & Fanfic Site 
This is tough to choose! Should I be able to see “results”?
Di
Unfortunately, LJ’s notion of not being able to view the results apparently means you can’t see who cast the other votes. *rolls eyes* Oh, well — since people can only vote once, it shouldn’t be a problem. I’m glad that I have put in both favorite & second favorite choices, though! It may help the indecisive! I hope people will still vote for their faves even if they haven’t gotten many votes — it could skew things if people see that the top two are X and Y, and they’d prefer to vote for Z, but choose either X or Y because they prefer one of those over the other!
Ay yi yi, how annoying to have settings like that. But it’ll be fun so who cares? I think I have about 5 or 6 favorite OC’s and each for different reasons to be honest.
RE: banners for ficcies.
How does one get started on this? I think it might be fun and decorative to try for some of my ADMM, et al. stories, but am quite at a lost. I did find the free download for Paintshop.
So, when you’re off of your fan-fic diet, maybe you’ll enjoy other stuff!
Hmmm, I’m giving a short quiz in chemistry today so maybe I’ll go paintshop exploring…
About making banners, I generally start with a much larger image than the one I want to end up with, but with the same proportions — like 900 x 300 pixels — and begin with a transparent background. Flood-fill is handy for filling the banner, and you can flood it with a gradient, rather than a solid color. I save at intervals with different names so I can go back and start at a spot earlier if I don’t like what I’ve done. There are a lot of effects available. I used the “mirror” effect when I did the background for the Lemon Drabbles banner — and a few other effects, as well. When you have something you like, resize it, choosing smart resize and maintain proportions and bring it down by percentages till it’s the size you want. Have fun playing with it!
I’m very glad you gave a second-choice option.
I decided to vote for whom I’d most like to have tea with, figuring that’s who I probably liked the most . So that would have to be Quin. I mean, what’s not to like? Wit, good looks, good manners, charm, chocolates, money, compassion, chocolates, caring and good father to his kids, and chocolates?
Second, again looking at my tea leaves, had to be Merwyn. He’s raised such a great daughter, after all! And he sees right into her heart. His comments after their first side-along apparition were so beautiful. Then the way he entertained Albus that afternoon, loosening him up w/ chess and whisky and giving him that letter. Plus he’s a book-addicted scholar–major points there!!!(oops–what was that thing that just fell off the shelf there–another excess book?)–w/ minimal ‘practical’ skills in the eyes of folks like the Gamp/Flint/Yaxley crowd–all the more to commend him.
Now, if I were voting on who I thought the most *intriguing* OC is, or which one will turn out to be most essential to getting our clueless faculty colleagues to see the light, I’d have had to vote differently. Gertrude is certainly the most intriguing, and will surely play a key role in whatever crisis finally propels Minerva and Albus together.
All the rest are well-done too, and I could spend a moment thinking about voting for any of them, except maybe Franky and Valerianna. Wilspy is especially adorable, and Egeria and Melina can’t be easily dismissed. It was a very hard choice.
And if Dilys Derwent were an OC she’d be picking up quite a few votes too–the way you’ve brought her to life is great.