Do you believe me?

I'mma jumpstart this CDJ with a meme!

Comment here and I'll tell you three things I particularly like about your specific interpretation of a character you play now or have played in the past. Be sure to post this in your journal as well and spread the love!

"I wish I could join the Ministry of Magic at dtw_mods," you say. "It just seems so huge and overwhelming that I don't know where to start!"

"That's what she said!" a voice snickers from on high.

"Your juvenile jokes are not helping me narrow down where to pick up a Ministry character!" you complain.

"Oh, fine," the voice sighs. "Let me just compile some places where you would have instant interactions and cool plot involvement via your department and coworkers."


* * *

In the IMPROPER USE OF MAGIC OFFICE (IMO), you acquire not only a humorless boss, but also equally humorless colleagues: relentlessly officious martinet Mafalda Hopkirk and cynical secret-Order-Member Gideon Prewett.

Start your political career by representing your geographical area in the WIZENGAMOT, serving the wizarding world as judge, jury, and lawmaker alongside Nathan Ketteridge and Lucius Malfoy! Or if you'd rather, argue cases before them as either a Ministry Prosecutor or a Defense Barrister! Present prosecutors include Chief Prosecutor Jack Jones, Amelia Bones, and the aforementioned Nathan Ketteridge, with Jocelyn Yaxley serving on the other side of the aisle. For another kind of law, join secret Death Eater Edward Yaxley in INTERNATIONAL LAW.

Help wizarding children and families in need by joining Phillipa Longbottom in the DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES (DCF)! You'll be overworked and underpaid, but you'll be helping the people who need it most.

Hate vampires? Love vampires? Want to recruit Dark Army members for Voldemort? Want to recruit Dark Army spies for the DMLE? The DEPARTMENT OF VAMPIRIC SERVICES may be for you! Bonus? You get constantly-snacking Irishman Al Max for your boss! Prefer to touch on those issues with werewolves? Join Minister's Kid Sebastian Bagnold in the DEPARTMENT OF WEREWOLF SERVICES.

Want to work for a real live lunatic? The cowboy hat-wearing, pontificating, EXTERMINATING Dalton Hill awaits you in the OFFICE OF PESTS, along with your future coworker and sneaky sneaky traitor Peter Pettigrew.

Or perhaps your pest-eradication interests swing more toward the non-corporeal? Help Gideon Prewett out in the OFFICE OF EXORCISM, or bicker with him as a staffer for the ADMINISTRATION OF NON-CORPOREAL HUMAN RIGHTS.

Feel the need to keep the Statute of Secrecy firmly intact, and the wizarding world safe from Muggles - or the need to keep Muggles safe from the present dangers of the wizarding world? Help Max Wilkes out at the OFFICE OF OBLIVIATION, or join Elizabeth Ketteridge at the ACCIDENTAL MAGIC REVERSAL SQUAD.

Or maybe you really want to help Muggleborn children integrate with wizard society? Sassy Saoirse Finnigan and progressive Charity Burbage would love your company!

Everyone in government dreams of the glamor, the exciting travel opportunities, and the awesome embassy parties that come along with working in the DEPARTMENT OF STATE! As a plus, you get multiple-language translator Lydia MacDougal as one of your colleagues.

But there's another kind of fun out there in the LUDICROUS PATENTS OFFICE - the kind of fun that brings brownies to work on occasion and doesn't care what you wear to the office. Not only do you get Noah Burbage as a coworker, but you get a boss who periodically bursts into song! You can even BE the boss who bursts into song if you like the name Jessica Dubcek.

High on passion but low on talent for the arts? You can always join Tamsin Nott in her work at the FOUNDATION FOR WIZARDING ART. If you've got the talent, you can always consider one of the organizations that yearly apply for funding from the FWA - the Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts (WADA), the Dashiell Musical Conservatory, The Edinburgh Opera, or the Association of Community Theaters (ACT).

Have a thing for James Bond, Mission Impossible, Burn Notice, Alias, or Covert Affairs? You just might dig a character in the OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL INTELLIGENGE (I2), working alongside junior intel analyst Fletcher Avery and forensic accountant Chloe Doge.

And of course, there's always the allure of the mysterious Unspeakables in the DEPARTMENT OF MYSTERIES. Immerse yourself in top secret work analyzing the greatest mysteries of magic, whether you join Augustus Rookwood and Caleb Croaker in the Time and Space Division, or Kenton Abercrombie in the Division of Love and Hate.

Top Ten Reasons to Pick Up a Daily Prophet writer at dtw_mods:

10. You could be the swing vote on whether the Daily Prophet goes hard news or outrageous sensationalism today!

9. You can be a celebrity without all the hassle of people recognizing you in Diagon Alley!

8. Your Daily Prophet colleagues could include the young and edgy Doris Crockford, and the dashing Ashley Ketteridge - and of course the up-and-coming Rita Skeeter.

7. At the Prophet, the ever-perky Hope Burbage could take your photos on occasion, and the ambitious young Greta Catchlove will make sure you have the facts straight!

6. Secret graffiti artist Nic Mason and ever-careful Doris Purkiss will be laying out your work and making sure every page is perfect.

5. Sections you could potentially write for include: "Good News", "Bad News", "Forecast", "Potions","International", "Politics", "Ministry of Magic Affairs", "Games", "Magic News", "Comment & Advice", "Kids Corner," and more!

4. Someone's got to create the Fiendishly Difficult Crossword every day.

3. The Society beat would be a great place to put your pureblood character.

2. People have to be nice to you, because they never know what you'll be writing down to print later.

1. Working for the Daily Prophet puts you in the center of every major event that happens in the game. If you're looking for automatic plot involvement, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE!

Danger! Excitement! Paperwork! BUILT-IN CHARACTER INTERACTION!

The Department of Magical of Law Enforcement wants YOU to join up and fight evil...or fight for evil from behind the scenes!

Great opportunities are endless, but I do feel it important to point out that no one yet has taken on a character who has been Imperiused.

AURORS

Cerys Jones needs her other two final-year-of-training cohorts! Josephine Proudfoot and Dominic Yaxley just need one more to fill out their set of first year trainees (personally, I'd love to see someone who will roll his or her eyes mightily at their squabbling).

Ever wanted to be adversary/colleague to the legendary Alastor Moody? Nicholas Mulciber, occupant of the other Chief Investigator spot, is up for grabs!

Do you love to complain about how your hours and schedule suck way worse than anybody else's? Join the imported Swedish awesomeness Gunvor Dahlgren's swing-shift team!

Looking to work for The Man, The Myth, The Legend, The BEARD? (JK, he doesn't have the beard anymore.) Join Frank Longbottom and Dorcas Meadowes on Auror Team A!

How about a team that never loses its sense of humor, even in the face of death? Join Charlotte Hart, Edgar Bones, and Alice Longbottom on Auror Team B!

Looking for more traditional Aurors, the hardcore badasses who always jump into the fray but do it by the book? Join Clayton Wood, Alex Williamson, and John Dawlish on Auror Team C.

Or perhaps you're more interested in a leadership role? Auror Team D is wide open!


HITWIZARDS

Want to bust prostitution rings, human trafficking operations, and drug lords? Just want to get on everybody's case about werewolf registration and the Statute of Secrecy? Join the mild-mannered Alastor Gumboil and the hard-nosed Graham Proudfoot on the Vice squad.

Are theft, breaking and entering, and trespassing more your purview? Join Mary MacDonald in Property Crime!

Want to put away the perpetrators of physical assault, battery, rape, domestic disputes, and magical assault? Join Rabastan Lestrange, Sturgis Podmore, and Arthur Weasley in the Violent Crime division.

Or there's always murder - not all of it involves Dark Magic. Join Micah Selwyn in the investigation of all those murders that don't have "Death Eaters" written all over them. Wizards haven't stopped killing each other just because terrorists are taking the lead on it.



CRIME LAB

More the analytical type? The world of magical forensics has great opportunities in the form of trace analysis, autopsy, wand analysis, and more! Join A.J. Esposito in the Crime Lab and be part of things on both the Hitwizard AND Auror sides of the building.


PUBLIC AWARENESS TEAM
And let's not forget the newest office of the DMLE, where you can either be adored or reviled depending on people's feelings about "free speech": The Public Awareness Team. Join Henry Hart, Oscar Ketteridge, and Ann Jones as either a WWN or Daily Prophet Monitor!

Love MWPP?

Love intense, plotty games?

Love war games?

LOVE ME?!

Come visit the Player Want Ads at Days That Were! WE WANT YOU!

Days That Were | A Canon-Compliant MWPP Game
Premise | FAQs & Rules | Character List | Application

JK. I do not need your thoughts on yaoi.

I have a question for my women friends:

What are your thoughts/opinions on the use of gendered insults? Never okay to use? Okay for women to use on women but not for men to use on women? Okay for women to use in jest but not in earnest? No different from any other insult?

I am in a playing/singing mood. Make a request, and I will attempt to play it/sing it for you.

Note: while I have a pretty good voice, I am only a semi-adequate rhythm guitarist. So whatever I play for you, it might suck. Or you might request "Stairway to Heaven" or some shit and I'll just laugh.

Oooh, I'll do this!

List fifteen of your favourite TV shows/Movies/Books/etc and post them here for everyone to guess your favorite character from each. Strike the show out when someone guesses correctly, and put the answer and who guessed it.

1. Law and Order (one cop, one lawyer) JACK MCCOY - shewhohears
2. CSI (Las Vegas)
3. The Collected Works of Jane Austen
4. The Lord of the Rings trilogy FARAMIR - shewhohears
5. Lost
6. Discworld - SIR SAMUEL VIMES - mightydrea
7. X-Men - NIGHTCRAWLER - mightydrea
8. Sandman
9. Star Trek (Next Generation)
10. Star Wars
11. Rent
12. The Wizard of Oz
13. Disney Princesses - AURORA/SLEEPING BEAUTY - expectance
14. The Collected Works of William Shakespeare
15. Angel

For anyone who didn't hear last night, my roller derby team's Zombie Prom promo photos came out yesterday.

( Zombie Kate gnawing on the Prom Queen's Head )

I am rejoining the CDJ world, now that I've gotten myself moving at NS again. So to celebrate...a meme!

Without turning me emo and/or making me want to take a bath with all my clothes on, point out the obvious or not so obvious trends or fetishes you see in my tastes. Maybe I'm nuts for all vampire stories, or have a thing for men who smoke, or I'm fond of the tsundere archetype, or I'm into rival slash. Consider this an online workshop of sorts: my writing's on the slab. Have at it.

I'm fine, no damage. Natasha? You and yours okay?

HEY YOU GUYS. I was at a bar in D.C. last night and heard a really good band. They are called Graffiti6, and the Brit-pop fans among you should go check them out.

Okay, so all my stuff is now in the new place - which is sooooo nice! So much more room, and no dog-hating furniture-nazis in charge of the joint. We're still working on the great unpacking process, and I am dead tired, but so far all is well.

Unfortunately, I'm still without internet (except at work) until August 2. I've still got my phone, though, so if there's something I need to reply to at New Salem, send me an email and I'll get to it.

<3

Take a picture of yourself right now. Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair, just take a picture. Post that picture with NO editing. Post these instructions with your picture.

( in the car on the way to NC this afternoon )

Just FYI for anyone accustomed to talking to me on AIM at work - gchat is no longer letting me run AIM through it. :( As I cannot download things to the work laptop, this means if you're looking for me, you'll need to find me on plain old standard gchat.

And now you know!

Panic cancelled! Just add my gmail address to your AIM buddy list and we're good to go. :)

Okay, so Khushi and I have decided we want to have an informal Hipstamatic Photo Contest among ourselves. Our idea is that we'll pick a theme each week for our picture (like fruit, or other people's boyfriends, or bookshelves, or light vs. dark, Berry Pop flash, or something) and then display our photos for voting on whose is the best that week.

Anyone else who wants to participate is welcome! We'll be doing entries/voting on Saturday evenings, with winner declared on Sunday. There's no prizes except for glory and an excuse to play around with the Hipstamatic app.

Whether you want to join or not, though, we would like suggestions for themes we can play with! So if you have any neat photo theme or challenge ideas, throw in comments here. :)

Who was it on my flist that was really into Mumford & Sons? Carrie?

Anyway, whoever it is, I came across a band today that I think you'd like: The Head and the Heart. More kinda folky-little-bit-rockish business, solid songwriting, overall quality stuff. The AV Club complains about their lyrics, but I hate pretty all indie music critics, so I say go for it anyway and download their first album (self-titled, and it's only 7.99 on iTunes).

Okay, so - as many of you know, wah_mods is about to have it's final battle go down. What many of you may NOT know is that we have a lot of players who have previously played primarily in social games, and don't really have a lot of battle-logging experience.

So, in an effort to help all those people...what tips, best practices, etc. can you share with all of us? What have you done before that worked well? What have you tried that didn't work well? Do you have battle/fight log pet peeves you can share? Basically, I/we want to hear anything you can offer that could potentially help make battle logging fun and satisfying for everyone involved.

My own notions:
- Bouncing spells back and forth is booooooooring. Physical/emotional reactions and what's going on in your character's head are much more interesting.

- Picked up from corporatecake: be creative. You don't have to stick with the spells you see in canon, as long as you don't make up completely ridiculous things.

- Pet Peeve: Don't make up completely ridiculous things.

- Establish expectations and comfort zones BEFORE you start the log. That way, if somebody DESPERATELY wants to cast a fancy freezing spell or get her character's leg broken, or if she's squicked out by eye injuries and would like to keep those OUT of the log, you know ahead of time and make sure things happen accordingly. Establishing expectations of how graphic you want to get is a good idea, too - just like with sexy logs, different people are comfortable with different levels of description.

- Godmoding is REALLY easy to do in a battle log, without even realizing it. Watch yourself. And if you feel your character is being godmoded, bring it up gently with the other player. A smallish confrontation now is better than sitting on resentment about it for god knows how long.

- Something that has worked REALLY WELL for me in the past on fight logs that involve more than two people: a quickie outline of what's supposed to happen. I know it's probably not up everybody's alley, but I don't think our Gideon/Fabian/Dorcas/Lestranges log in FTH would ever have gotten done if we hadn't basically planned it out beforehand. Not every single step, but we had the major events in the battle marked out going in, and then it was easy to just make sure it all happened and wrapped up like it was supposed to.

- A battle is not the same as a fight. Bits and pieces will cross over, some things will be very short, and I always find it really cool when one segment of the battle intersects with another.

- So...what's everybody else got to offer?

A few interesting things we decided last night:

Dunmoody now has a theater!
- The Pleiades is basically an Off Broadway theater. Or maybe a little further off Broadway than that. But basically, sometimes shows come here to die, and sometimes shows are born here. Basically, with the influx of theater-people applications, we thought it would be nice to have one in town so we didn't have to say "Sorry, it makes no sense to have a giant actors enclave here" to anybody.

The Daily Prophet is dead! Long live The Daily News!
- Bad management led to the Prophet's demise immediately post-war. The brand was in shambles, both in terms of reputation and finances. The Prophet's building and equipment were bought out by some mysterious wealthy person (i.e. person whom we have not made up), and a new paper, The Daily News, arrived. Stephen Stewart is its Managing Editor. They have a local office in Dunmoody.

A random quirk of the journal system
- The name displayed next to your entries and comments is whatever you write in the front of your journal. This allows you to not be yourself there if you so choose. However, if you put anything obscene or otherwise violating the Journal TOS as your name, you will be reported and fined by the Ministry Office of Communications.