May Activity #1: How to Choose an Animal Discussion

[trivalent.livejournal.com]

Activity: How to Choose an Animal
Points: Participation 10pts/5kts, Additional comment: 2pts/1kt. 10 point bonus for animagi.
Deadline: Monday, 17 May EDT (7pm UTC)

Everyone has their own way of reading an application, picking up what to look for in a form and narrowing it down to one creature. But, lets open it up - share your secrets, your tips, everything. New voters can learn from the masters, and perhaps even the experienced voters can pick up a thing or two.

Comments

[willfully.livejournal.com]

I'm not particularly talented at this, but, well. I will share my process! Which is easier since I'm actually in the process of voting RIGHT NOW. Haha.

First, I look at things like social habits, climate, choice between water/air/earth, and nocturnal/diurnal. Sometimes I just google those traits (like "social land animal nocturnal", for example), or if anything in particular comes to mind just looking at those, I'll google it and see if it fits with the vibe I'm getting from the applicant. Then I'll look at preferences and make sure it's not something that they're scared of/don't want, for whatever reason.

Sometimes it's hard to get a vibe, though, in which case I just pick an animal that I like (that isn't taken) that fits as many of the details that the applicant has given. I try to keep in mind that some details are more essential than others; for instance, when I wrote up my app, I put some things in there that didn't end up being traits in my chosen form at all. So, I think where I'm going with that is, I don't stress too terribly much over finding the ABSOLUTE PERFECT animal that suits all of the applicant's desires, especially because a lot of the time those animals don't even exist (or are really strange looking). Maybe this is only helpful for perfectionists like me, but not sweating the really small stuff can be key when it's a difficult application.

Annalisa|Slytherin|Fennec Fox

[supremacy-born.livejournal.com]

I think it's a really clever idea to google specific traits like the ones you mentioned! I will certainly keep that in mind next time I vote. I tend to get into the habit of just looking up animals in Wikipedia, but perhaps through googling I would come across some animagus choices that I wouldn't have otherwise considered, or didn't even know of!

Eve//Slytherin//Melanistic Leopard