HELLO DUCKLINGS, THIS IS ATTY. WELCOME TO YOUR FIRST NEW PRAETOR UPDATE!

(This and that eye-bleeding awful graphic edit is your world now, accept it.)

I've got a couple items to talk about with you all today concerning Voice staff and Fiction business, so let's get right down to it (because I'm gonna keep this short...for me).

New Magistrate!

Last week, we went ahead and opened up applications for a new Magistrate in order to replace Justinios. We thank him again for his service and, I'm pleased to announce, got a lot of nice apps to choose from! Seriously, I was happy to see all the interest, and you all should know I've got my eye (it's cybernetic, just for such occasions, his name is Tilluame, very observant.) on you! Keep that interest stoked and look out for Voice projects and openings in the future. That goes for all of you. This is a reminder that project work is a great way to get involved in things, for you and for our community.

But enough waxing. Without further ado, I'd like to welcome Marcus to our team. Magistrate Minnow is being trained diligently already, and will soon be a friendly face to talk to about any fiction questions you may have. Just talk to him! Talk to us! Fish are friends, not food.

A Note From the Staff

Speaking of talking to friendly fish and the occasional scare when sharks smile, we've got to level with you all for a moment. We've heard a lot of comments lately about our changing guidelines and policies for the Character Sheet system — gripes about remands, about tightening rules, so on. That's okay. We're here to listen. We're here to help. But just remember that everything we're doing, we're doing to better YOU and to better the club and our fiction as a whole. Nothing is done just because. We know getting remands can be stressful, and we know frustration can be high when you had a sheet you loved before that feels impossible now under evolving standards...but hey, we're all here to help you. I can't say that enough. Your summits, your friends, us on the staff, just ask: email our Voice staff email ([Log in to view e-mail addresses]), PM us, ask questions and share concerns. We'll all get through this, promise.

And now, a word from our esteemed Voice. Pay attention, guys and girls.

---

Hey, Fiction peeps. Quick note on CS Approvals/Remands, since I've overheard a few complaints here and there and know some people have said things that I probably haven't seen (welcome to the DB, right?).

To be as blunt and transparent as possible: we've been more strict recently with what's coming through and what's not coming through. You might be thinking, "well, it was approved last time!" or "I don't get why I can't put this or that, I used to do it that way."

For one thing, as per the guidelines, a previous approval doesn't mean you get a pass for a new one. Standards are updated and evolve all the time, so any sheet submitted is treated like any other.

The reason for this is simple: Possessions. In the past, we did not have Possessions. Now we do. Between the customization offered in Possessions (thanks to Item Aspects) and the Loadouts and Loadout Details field, we are finally able to clean up and standardized the Physical Description field.

This means that when I look at a character's Physical Description field, I want to know what the hell they look like. I don't need to know their history, backstory, or where on the doll they were touched to have the scars they currently have. You can mention and detail scars, and surface level history like "has a right criss-cross scar on his cheek from a vibroblade wound back on Endor". That's about as deep as it should go, though.

You can touch on their clothing style, but not what they wear between covert ops and formal occasions (you can build these with Loadouts).

You cannot have "eyes that intimidate everyone they look at". What if someone is not afraid of your character at all based on status, rank, etc.? Instead, you would say something like "has piercing, intense eyes". These are descriptive attributes, and not "effects" that they have on other people.

In the end, this creates and encourages members to put more thought into what their characters look like. This in turn leads to better development and a stronger sense of character, in my experience/opinion.

If you have any issues or complaints, feel free to throw them at me; but my staff tends to run everything by our group chat, and I check in all the time/review things. Sometimes we might miss something, but we're human and if so we'll figure it out.

If you're struggling, just hit us up. Almost every major remand I've seen so far is ended with "if you have questions, hit us up" to some extent.

We also are working on a CS exam that should help with the process, recapping the Guidelines and showing examples of good/bad CS's to help with new people coming into the system. Ironically, I've seen more remands with veterans than new members, so I don't think that are any glaring issues right now.

Thanks for your patience, I appreciate it. Any issues, questions? Let me know. Thanks again. ^_^

-W

---

So that's the thing, our writers and big dreamers. Just remember that things change, that we mean them to change for the better as our club changes too, and that we're doing the best we can to make that process smoother. Don't take remands personally; remember that they're here to help you, even if they feel harsh. Write, practice, write, get help, write, take critiques, write, improve, write, get better.

And always remember that we're all in that together.

Word of the Day Update Something!

So, we're here now and that's as good a reason as any for me to kick this off today! It came up in fiction chat the other day that doing a "word of the day" sort of kick might be fun for folks who want to expand their vocabulary some, and thanks to Julie and Reiden's idea, I'm happy to try helping!

Rather than pick a new one, I'm just going to go into a bit of detail about the word that was the case then: disdain. A grand word, in all its forms. We ended up discussing a bit how disdain was different, exactly, from annoyance.

Like most words, that comes down mainly to connotation over denotation. Denotation is the literal definition of a word, its primary meaning. Connotation is, essentially, how it "feels." For instance, "pain" and "agony" (#edgelord) mean about the same thing, when you look at their denotation. Pain is "physical suffering or distress, as due to injury, illness, etc." while agony is "extreme and generally prolonged pain; intense physical or mental suffering." Not...you know, significantly different. But they sound different. Agony sounds way worse, yeah? Sure, a headache is painful, it throbs in your skull and behind your eyes, but it's not agonizing, it's not feeling parts of you ripped out and burning and it is all you can do is clench your eyes through the tears and pray it stops! That's connotation — the extra layer of meaning we give words, usually because of associations we make with them or how we see them used.

There's your definitions. If you look at one or the other they have pretty different meanings, and especially different connotations — you won't find them side by side in a thesaurus. You looking at someone with annoyance is not you looking at someone with disdain. If a character looks at someone with annoyance...maybe the other person is irritating them, yeah, but if it's with disdain? That other person disgusts them. The character may consider themselves far above the other. It's like looking at a particularly vile bug that's invading the air you breathe. It's staring at something that doesn't just offend you, doesn't just irritate you, but that manages to do so while not even being good enough for you to acknowledge — and oh, if they're forcing you to acknowledge them? What an impudent little pest. The hatred only grows.

To help further illustrate disdain, and any other Words of the Day, I thought I'd go ahead and use them in an example. I'm being a bit lazy today and using an excerpt from something I've already written instead of penning something new (ACC posts to get to an all...everyone, go participate for your Clans!) See below for a little introspection from my Alternative Character, Satsi, during her time on Kiast:

"The nearest bazaar was busy, busy as she liked for the noise and energy but busier than her exhausted temper cared for. The fact that she couldn't move as easily or quickly through miniscule gaps in the crowd as she once could just made her grumpier — as did seeing the cantinas and smoke parlors across the way that she'd been banned from.

Still, the air was clear, not stale, as it tended to perpetually be around here, a curiosity amongst most airship life that she blamed on their open designs, high altitude, and the fastidiousness of the Sephi folk. They were a little too proper for her tastes, and all smiled in the way that highborn brats did: indulgently and dagger-sharp in a manner that would be mean were in not for the rigors of polite society. The little smiles were an art she had herself mastered. You don't matter, they said, not at all. You're a blip, a dot, a silly dream. You'll be gone by morning and I will be here, living as always, completely unaffected by your passing existence.

Nobles and richies did it, the sparkfingers did it, and apparently naturally long-lived species like the Sephi did it too.

Two of three, Shadows help me, Satsi often thought, resisting the urge to break their straight, pretty teeth or otherwise give them her most disdainful look right back. They were, for better or worse, her hosts; and she, for better or worse, was discouraged from picking fights by the bulge of her tummy…"

And that, hopefully, is a bit of an example of the word's feeling in use!

Did you like this section? If so, I'll continue them in some form, in an update or along with daily questions or otherwise. If not, no worries, though I'd encourage you all to go find a free "Word of the Day" subscription from a site you liked, like dictionary.com or merriam-webster.com to help expand your vocabulary anyway. Keep learning, reading, and writing, folks!

Helpful Links for the ACC

• Character Sheet FAQ
• Species Wiki
• Disciplines Wiki
• Aspects Wiki
• Skills Wiki
• Force Powers Wiki
• Feats Database -- CDawg

Wrap Up

So, that's it, darlings. Thank you to everyone who applied and who is participating in the ACC event thus far, congratulations again to our swimming new staffer, and remember, guys: we're here to help you, and things change.

Let both happen.

-Signed,

Atty

Praetor to the Voice