Original poster: snarrymod

Hi there! Hope everyone is enjoying the Art Games! We certainly are. I come bearing a frequently asked question that has been touched on at this comm, but never added to the FAQs.

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1. What, exactly, is ANGST? How can I vote for it?

Angst is a German word which means "anxiety" or "anguish." Technically, this is a term used in Existentialism which expresses the dread reality that the future is an unknown chasm; therefore, the choices that a person ( the existent ) makes are the determining factor in the outcome of one's future - thus, the cause for "angst." German Angst was borrowed into English with the same meanings as it has in German: 'fear, dread, anxiety, anguish'. It's related to English anger, anxiety, and anguish through Latin angor 'anguish, strangling' and angustia 'tightness, distress'. No wonder we feel a shortness of breath when we have these feelings, and they say that anxiety is just repressed anger.

In *literature*, it primarily means putting the characters (and by extension the readers) through deep emotional and possibly physical pain (characters only for the physical pain, hopefully).

There are different levels of angst, and it can be subtle as well as extreme. When you vote for 'How Angsty' a particular submission is, you should take into consideration your particular preferences, and know if they are subtle or extreme, and then vote as fairly as possible. Your voting on 'like overall' will determine whether or not the angst was to your tastes and levels.

2. What, exactly, is ROMANCE? How can I tell if an entry is romantic?

There are endless definitions of Romance:

- a soulful or amorous ideal
- expressive of, or exciting, sexual love or romance;
- A fictional mode in which the chief characters live in a world of marvels (naive romance), or in which the mood is elegiac or idyllic and hence less subject to social criticism than in the mimetic modes. The general tendency to present myth and metaphor in an idealized human form, midway between undisplaced myth and "realism."
- marked by the imaginative or emotional appeal of what is heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious, or idealized
- having an inclination for romance : responsive to the appeal of what is idealized, heroic, or adventurous b : marked by expressions of love or affection c : conducive to or suitable for lovemaking

There are also different levels of romance, and it too can be subtle as well as extreme. So again, when you vote for 'How romantic' a particular submission is, you should take into consideration your particular preferences, and know if they are subtle or extreme, and then vote as fairly as possible. Your judging on 'like overall' will determine whether or not the romance was to your tastes and levels.

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You can also go back and change your vote right up until the polls close, by clicking on the Poll #, then on "Fill Out Poll" and your old answers will come up.

I hope that answers the emails we have been receiving, and I'd like to take this opportunity to remind current ART competitors that they CANNOT VOTE in the Winter Art Games. The mods will have to null them, and that takes time that we don't have a lot of.
Thank you!