#mod sarah

[dragonagecompanionsreact]

As payment for my April Fool's Day pranks.

Bonus:

[linked-universe-discord]

Come and join the fun!

[the-blorbo-project]

Blorbos at Conference!

Long time, no update, but this project is moving forward! This weekend, we're at a conference hosted by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, or SCMS, presenting as part of a panel devoted to fan studies.

Why do panels matter?

First and foremost, it's a way to get research before a bunch of other researchers while it's still in progress. This helps catch poorly formed ideas, surface new good ideas, and share what's coming up with the fan studies research communities. It's also good for our humble PhD student CVs!

The Findings

Of course, the most interesting part is what, actually, we're presenting, AKA the findings! They're a work in progress, and the hardest part is the coding (talked about here). Therefore, I'm focusing on what I could do deep analysis on relatively quickly. (note: these images don't have image IDs because I summarize them below, but they're graphic representations of what I talk about in the text).

The majority of survey respondents were young: about 39% were 18-22 and 32% were 23-27. A further 17% were 28-32, about 8% were 33-37, and then it got progressively smaller from there. Shoutout to all 3 respondents who were 63 and over! So glad you're here.

In terms of social media usage, most people used tumblr - unsurprising, since that's where we got our most traction for the survey. Discord was the second most likely. Part of a later analysis will be seeing if these terms are more likely to be used by different age groups or on different platforms, which is cool.

Almost everyone surveyed had heard of these terms. Blorbo was the most-used and meow meow was least used, but very, very few respondents had not heard of these terms at all. This may be in part due to how we used them in our survey recruitment, since we did want to find people who knew what these terms were so that they could define them for us.

These numbers slope slightly down because something broke when we imported them into NVivo (a coding software) and frankly I don't understand it well even when it actually works, let alone when it breaks.

Here's a little visual of the terms you suggested for characters. Unfortunately, NVivo crashes every time I try to exclude words from this word bubble (like "term"), so it's not as clear as I'd like it to be, but there are some interesting ones. Particularly interesting are the cluster of gendered terms; husbando and waifu, malewife, sexyman, boy, girl, etc. I want to do some analysis of this because it parallels some preliminary coding results. Y'all also really find your blorbos scrunkly/skrunkly/scrungly, huh?

I also want to figure out how to tell the visualizer that "glup" and "shitto" go together, because "shitto" all by its lonesome over there is cracking me up.

Qualitative Findings

Like I said, the coding is...so far from done. That's mostly due to some Ao3-author levels of life disruption from both of us. BUT! I can tentatively say a couple of things:

There are notably clear definitions about these terms. We weren't sure if there even really was a definition of "blorbo", but it clearly refers to a very specific kind of one-true-character. By contrast, comfort characters are associated with experiencing positive emotions, and meow meows are more likely to be evil or morally grey (but you love them though).

Unsurprisingly, your characters make you happy. We're distinguishing between general positive emotions, attachment, relatability, and one-true-character belovedness. Also sexiness, but that (surprisingly) hasn't come up that much.

There are a couple of ways in which darker themes come up. Villains remain beloved, but a recurring theme is also using tragedy or trauma in fiction as catharsis.

Finally, there's a lot of playful and tactile language. "Rotating him in my mind" really is that common.

Additionally, I'm really interested in the role of gender. Many of you referred to your blorbos/meow meows as your guys, with some of you clarifying that it was "my little guy (gender neutral)". Others noted that most characters you'd seen people describe as blorbos or meow meows were men/masc. This did not come up for comfort characters. Analysis of the characters you consider exemplars of each definition will help flesh out this analysis.

Still to Come

SO much. Who are these characters? Is a specific character exclusively a meow meow, or are they also a common comfort character? What types of positive emotion are associated with each type? Are these character types or do they speak to a fan's individual (or a fandom's communal) relationship with a character?

Additionally - we didn't ask about neurodivergence, but many of y'all referenced it. I'm looking forward to exploring that as well.

That's all for now! I present this live in about two hours. If you're somehow following this account AND at SCMS, please come by!

[sims4t2bb]

Good morning, I noticed that all the links to the creator "enjatoki" in the package growing togheter are down. I don't know if the creator removed the links or if it's a problem with the site. Could you check??? Thanks

Hello and good morning! Yes, enjatoki's Tumblr appears to have been deleted (we answered a previous ask about this back in October).

Mortire at GOS collected a number of files over at the @sims2packrat; find that post here. It includes the Well Traveled Shelves from Growing Together but not any of the other objects.

If anyone happens to have the rest of the Growing Together pieces by @enjatoki, please share them! ♥

[classicslesbianopinions]

one of the funniest things about the ninjago antigone poll is the amount of people saying that everyone knows mr lego but no one knows antigone. like this might be a generation gap or something because im 26 but i had no idea lego had made a tv show to advertise their ninjago kits until this poll and i have been autistic about greek myth since i was a child 💀

[thenaluarchive]

Title: Nalu Week 2024 Update from the @thenaluarchive Archive: A Note from Mod Sarah/ @millennial-star-gazer

👀 Don't miss out! More information awaits below the cut/read more/ keep reading button. Keep scrolling to stay informed! 📖

Hello, Fellow Fairy Tail Fans, Nalu Shippers and creators! 🌟 This is Mod Sarah, also known as Mod @millennial-star-gazer , here to provide you with an update on this year's ongoing Nalu Week event organized by a collaboration of multiple blogs, including @allaboutnalu and this one , @thenaluarchive . 💖

I had hoped to participate in this year's Nalu Week by submitting one of my own works in progress or a new project. 📚 However, due to the busyness of life, I didn't manage to get it done in time. ⏳ I am also preparing to start a new job soon, which is exciting but also means that my schedule can be quite full. 🚀 Despite these challenges, I hope to find a way to get back to an active writing schedule that I can fit around my current lifestyle and post more frequently at some point soon. ✍️

As one of the moderators helping to run this year's Nalu Week festivities, I wanted to share some insights into our process and a few personal updates. 🎉 We are currently in the midst of reblogging the daily entries for this year's Nalu Week, and we are doing our best to keep up with the submissions. 📅

Recently, I had a busy long weekend and then had to replace my phone after misplacing my old phone last night at Toronto Pride. 🌈 Like me, the other mods are also juggling various commitments, but we are determined to catch up as best as we can. 💪 To streamline our reblogging process, sometimes we repost entries after @allaboutnalu has already reblogged them, making it easier for us to keep track of everything. 📲

We kindly ask for your patience if you don't see your entry right away as it may have been added to the queue or is in the process of being added. ⏳ If you haven't seen your entry added after 1 or 2 days, please reach out to us and send a link to your post so we can directly reblog it. **Don't forget to add appropriate tags to your posts and mention our blog to ensure we can find and reblog your amazing contributions!** 🏷️

Thank you for your understanding and continued support as we navigate through this busy time. We are thrilled to celebrate Nalu Week with all of you and look forward to showcasing the amazing work of this community. 🌟

Stay tuned for more updates, and don't forget to spread the Nalu love! 💖✨

Cheers🥂,

Mod Sarah ( @millennial-star-gazer ) and the other mods at @thenaluarchive 🩷🩷

[queerpride]

gentle reminder that u do not need to come out or tell anyone abt ur sexuality or gender identity if u do not want to. u don't owe anyone anything. 🎉

[penumbrabang]

2021-22 Penumbra Mini Bang Sign-Up Date and Announcements

Hello, Travelers! We have exciting news about this year’s Penumbra Mini Bang. 

Coinciding with the release of the season 4 premiere, sign-ups for the event will open on September 28th! Writers will have until November 1st to sign up. Artists and betas will have until January 1st.

The full schedule will be posted one week before sign-ups open.

Due to some communication hurdles in last year’s event, we are asking all participants to join our Discord. You will automatically receive an invite link after sign-ups, but feel free to join as soon as you like if you want to hang out prior to the official start of the event! Message this blog or a Mod directly for a link.

Finally, we are seeking an addition to our Mod team! The application closes in one week, on September 10th. If you are currently active in the fandom and want to help us make this event as exciting and fun as it can be, check out the link in our previous post to apply!

That’s all for now. We’ll see you all soon!

-Mod Sarah