My first actual blog post.
Trying out long form writing for a change. All the other social media sites require 300 characters or less, but this time I wanna save my yapping for more than just my stream of consciousness texting on Twitter, Bluesky and Tumblr.
I used to journal when I was in high school. I can go back to my thoughts at that time. God I was such a depressed teenager back then. Worried about career goals. My very unhealthy crush/obsession. My school/life balance. I can track my interests shifting across fandoms and school subjects. It's compelling to have that written out for me to reminisce and understand my psyche.
And now I'd like to have that again.
So, here is my introduction in the long form of this wonderful service called Bear.
My name is Arbër. I am 22 years old. I am Kosovo-Albanian. That means that I am an Albanian person from Kosovo. Why it's like that is a whole political thing with a war and a slew of history books behind it that I'm not interested in explaining, but it basically means I identify with two flags - those of Kosovo and Albania. They're neat.
It's 2am and I'm thinking about my role in the Gravity Falls fandom right now. If it's Saturday, September 14, 2024 and you're reading this, chances are that you've heard of The Book of Bill and know about its title character. It wasn't always this way. The way that the fandom built up its corpus of knowledge, its paratextual material - stuff outside the show that was still related to it, especially during the hiatus - that was really special. Now with more fans than ever, people with PHDs helping decode clues at insane rates and super sophisticated methods, I've become far more impressed and proud.
So weird how there are people who remember me from back when I was "GumballFallsFan". The name still makes me cringe every once in a while, but it's special to me. It represents a part of me that I still maintain — a love for animation. A love for fandom. A love for the special bond it represents. Especially that of Gravity Falls, which was truly my first fandom. I've already detailed a lot of my experience in a video here:
Anyway, I hope to keep updating this place with more blog posts. It's really user-friendly and focused from what little I've used of it, and nicely customizable :)
Stay weird, y'all. Over and out.