Things that will make me happy:

1. Not killing your parents. This drives me insane... if I have one more orphaned, or partly orphaned student with an alcoholic parent, or half a dead family, I'm going to close Hogwarts doors, call myself Miss Hannigan, and reopen the RPG as an institute for unfortunate orphans! When that happens, anyone who wants to play Annie, is most welcome! But for now... please! Could we have ONE traditional family??

3. Make your character different. This is so terribly important, you can't understand. In order for this to work, people need different names. On that note, don't be afraid to be wild in your character creation. I'm certainly not going to bite your head off if you submit a midget dark-skinned african girl with a passion for the saxophone... I may even try to hug you! (Unless of course you DO make her a Sax player, where as I'll hunt you down with a chainsaw... j/k)

4. Still on creating your character, here's the motto: Nobody is perfect. You aren't, Harry isn't, and I'm certainly not! Everyone has flaws, just like we all have good points. Your character cant be popular, pretty, a perfect academic, have the ideal boyfriend... I want the nitty gritty here! I want to know what their failures are! If they're perfect... they obviously don't belong in school. Also please note, this is not a school for the ridiculously good looking. Make your character normal... ugly even! Hideous! Just not Derek Zoolander!

5. Detail, detail, detail! I love it. Give me more. I want to know absolutely everything there is to know about your character... if I've asked for a hundred words, I'm not going to kill you for writing three hundred. Quite the opposite. I'll probably love you forever.

6. Know your species. It's all very well making a character which is one of the accepted unusual breeds of Hogwarts... but with the different definitions of vampires and werewolves floating about, we decided it was time we put down in concrete what they are and what they aren't.

So there you have it. Steps to making characters I'll love. If you've learnt anything, you should have no problem making me happy and being accepted!

~ Crystal