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So. A blog. Scary. Formal-ish-er writing in a space longer than a tweet. I do this all the time for school and work and just for fun but having a page just for a blog- it’s scary and weird. I’ll figure it out. The idea really appealed to me, and I figured if I was gonna post a link to my blog somewhere it might as well have a lil thing on it to start. I’ve got some ideas on things I wanna write about but they’ll take time and maybe some slight research (I kinda can’t help myself).

My friends blog about their lives, the games they play, and the stories they make. All of these are a bit difficult for me: I’m unbelievably opposed to sharing basically anything real about myself outside of contextless snippets in a post or pictures. It’s also why I stopped posting selfies lol. My name’s Kim or KB and I think stories about dames are neato, and that’s all you need to know. The only video games I play nowadays are visual novels and things that are goof-off-with-friends games, which can be written about but I feel a bit silly writing about VN’s. The text is already there, for you to read, and you can just read it yourself. I guess “writing” is different than “posting” in a material way to me because I do love posting screenshots with comments alongside ‘em.

And finally, the stories they make. This is the scary one. I can turn something around a lot in my own head and like it a lot but the thought of sharing anything with another human being- horrifying. Vomit-provoking, literally. It’s why for the most part the writing I’ve put out in my recent time has been fanfiction- it’s a crutch but it’s one that feels safer to me. More comfortable to lean on existing apparatus’s of thought and interaction, even if I’m adding my own interpretations atop it. Beyond this- the medium of the written word has its appeal but I’m a visual dame. I need to learn how to draw better and program better and etcetera before I want to put anything out there, in any format. So that’s on the backburner.

So for this blog; keeping it simple at the moment. Initially it’ll be just stuff I’ve posted about in twitter but given more time to cook into what I feel expresses myself more earnestly. So yuri, art, books, you get the gist. I’ll try really hard to blog only about things I like and care about but no promises on me getting really mad about TLT or something and just going off for a bit. But for the most part- you’ve probably read my tweets, and this blog will almost certainly just be more comprehensive versions of those, for a bit at least.

kimfluence

okay so for one I didn’t expect anyone who didn’t get a link from my twitter would be able to read these or even be able to find them which is really scary but I’m being relaxed and normal about it. Anyway.

So I like talking about things I enjoy. It’s maybe a core tenant of Me, in a way. I like expressing, and coming upon new ways to express, my feelings about shows and movies I watch, books I read, onwards. I tend to come to better terms with how I’m understanding something by expressing it to others- the true form of this is telling someone in a VC about a thing. However that requires me to be selling it really hard, while I can look at a post I’m typing up and go a few words back, rearrange something, adjust a meaning or intent, so on. Gives me more wiggle room to be silly. So writing is perfect.

A bunch of my friends tend to joke about ‘kimfluence’. I don’t know which one came up with the term but I like it a whole lot. Basically a lot of people dear to me are in agreement I’m good at making people read/check out things I’m talking about. I don’t even have to like it or try to push it, which is the bit that still surprises me sometimes. I’m actively always a shooter for Unjust Depths, but when I offhandedly mention TADC (something I didn’t especially care for) I don’t expect an immediate “oh I watched all of that after you brough it up.”. Frightening.

A big part of this is I’m basically always doing or trying something new that caught my interest month-to-month. I feel like I jump around or have pretty eclectic taste against most people I know. Unjust Depths- big exception to this. By far the longest I’ve ever stuck with and been deeply invested in anything, let alone something still currently updating. It’s still a bit surprising how important it is as a story to me sometimes. Anyway. A topic for another blog post.

I really really like this. I like being complimented, less about my taste and how cool the things I think are cool are, for my ability to connect with people in a way that draws them in. Probably the best way I have at consistently communicating with people, honestly- I will send images of anime girls and bloodied final girls before a couple of sentences over and over every day. So being able to use this as a common language with people who can seem so far off and so different in tastes and ways of thinking about things is electric.

There’s something so special to me about just posting out into the world and having someone message me to talk about a thing I posted or someone I want to be closer to asking for the title or source of something. It’s so good. Maybe it is, in some way, a crutch. By not making direct recommendations to people often, I’m shying away from making concrete images of them and the things they enjoy in my head- less risk of me being Wrong or Off about my perspective on someone. But the really simple thing is that it makes me happy, to be kimfluential.

My actual job is kinda just an extension of this- art galleries are basically just a pitch to someone who might not have any information about what they’re looking at. Whether I’m directly giving an explanation or history about a work or the overall theme of a gallery or have to rely upon walltext I’ve written and the layout decided upon I am above all trying to get someone to care about something that I also care about. I think art’s all about provoking emotions and reactions- and having people tear up or cry because something we’re going over provokes memories of their sibling or families is just another dimension and expression of that.

My thesis here is that my friends rule and are really funny and have good taste. I like talking about things, so this blog will be another facet for that. Have you seen Liz and the Blue Bird? It’s a movie spun-off from an anime series based on a series of novels. I’ve never read or seen any other thing in its related media, but the movie almost brought me to tears tonight. My usual trick would be uploading a clip along with trying to get across my feelings about a scene in a limited number of characters- but I’m out of my element. I watched it on someone else’s laptop, and don’t have the film myself. So I’m here, with words, and I’m going to hammer them into your head.

I think at its core the movies incredible at sweeping the rug out from under you in a beautiful way. Of showing you a girl full of internal struggle and agony and woe and making you empathize with her struggles only to ask you: what about the girl across the hall? What of the one who you don’t get a narrative focus on? What of the girls that aren’t beautiful, sensitive souls that draw the interest of all who look upon their shy and restrained exterior? They aren’t worth less, or more; but they have worth. It can feel like the worst thing in the entire world just to know someone else was asked how they were- when you were feeling the exact same things and it wasn’t worthy of that attention and care.

It's a movie about love, and yuri, and how girls can be a bit bad at communicating their feelings sometimes (often [all the times]). It’s a pretty good flick to start a year with. I recommend it. S’all I got.

Two of my favorite writers tend to end their introspective writings with small, detached segments with an off-handed and careless energy that nevertheless are full of meaning and provoke strong reactions. I don’t got that in me. Blog’s over, thanks for reading.