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blackbat05 · 3 years

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Day by Day

Shangqi x Reader

A/N: My love for this man has hit an all time high so let me capitalize on it while I still can! If you read everything, I sincerely thank you for doing so!!! And holy cow 2 fics in 2 days have I gone back into my prime days?

Genre: PG-13

Notes: As the title mentioned, I’ll probably set it some time after endgame. You could see it as a prequel to my first post! Reader is a social worker and she’s just dealing with all the mess that the snap bought back. The reader’s name as Jen Lee. I also apologize in advance for the potentially long fic.

***

‘Excuse me, I’m looking for my child? Her name’s Wang Yiman and she’s seven.’ Another frazzled-looking parent fought her way to the front of the receptionist, approaching the helpless intern who looked like she was going to be on the verge of tears if another request came in.

‘I got this,’ a hand calmly reassured the young intern as she beckoned the relief parent. ‘Mrs Wang? My name is Jen Lee and I’m the social worker here.’ I offered my hand for the anxious mother. ‘Oh thank god! Is Yiman ok? She must have been so scared!’ I slowed to a stop outside the room at the end of the corridor, gently sitting her down.

‘Yiman has been a very brave girl Mrs Wang, but I will not lie to you. The sudden disappearance of their parents has traumatized a lot of kids. We’ve managed to explain to them what was going on but they will need a lot of support.’ I gave a glance over Mrs Wang’s shoulder, nodding to my colleague, Tammy who was holding the hand of a little girl in pigtails and a floral dress.

妈妈! mā ma (mommy!)

The young girl ran into her mother’s open arms, allowing the floodgates to open from both ends. I turn to Tammy as we shared a silent agreement to leave the area. ‘That’s the last one for the day,’ Tammy unceremoniously plops herself onto the chair, letting out a groan. ‘Thanks for your hard work Jen.’

‘Right back at you.’ I entered the last bit of paperwork before uploading Yiman’s case file onto the portal. Yiman’s reunion with her parents meant the Children and Youth Centre were halfway in getting every displaced child back to their parents. Looking at the dingy television that was hung on the walls at the waiting room, despite not being able to hear anything, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on. S.W.O.R.D was apparently in a stand-off against Wanda Maximoff? Reported rumors that Sam Wilson didn’t want anything to do with the shield? It’s been a crazy few weeks but that was utter-

‘Bullshit! If anything it’s the government. They must have psyched him into giving up the shield.’ My chair swiveled to face Tammy who returned a nonchalant shrug. ‘What? You know I’m right. Doesn’t matter if half the world’s gone or our universe gets split into two - they’re the true evil here. I’m still struggling to find a place after I found a couple making out in my apartment! And you know what the global repatriation council told me? We’re only dealing with urgent cases right now. Well I say f-’

The incessant ringing of the bell interrupted our conversation, replacing Tammy’s tirade into a cheeky grin. ‘Look who’s here!’

Shangqi stands behind the counter, dressed in his usual red varsity jacket and jeans, holding bags of what I could only make out as takeout from the Chinese restaurant that was run by a friendly Singaporean couple. ‘Did I interrupt something?’ He scratches his head nervously. ‘Nope, in fact you just saved me from Tammy’s monologue, any further and she’ll explicitly tell me what she saw in her apartment when she got dusted back that day,’ I shivered in mock fear. ‘Still haunts me up till today.’ Tammy meets us by the door, bag in her hand.

‘I thought you were staying? We got fried dumplings and 泡饭 pào fàn (poached rice).’

‘Last minute duty - A parent called, gotta run! Enjoy your dinner date.’ She waggles her eyebrows suggestively, much to our embarrassment. ‘What? It’s not...’ Shangqi stutters, trying to form intelligible sentences. ‘Get out before I throw a fried dumpling at your face Tammy!’ She winks at me, before darting out of the door. Once my nosy colleague was out, I turn towards a red-faced Shangqi. ‘I’m so sorry... just don’t mind her.’

‘Huh?’ The man was knocked out of his stupor. ‘Oh yeah... sure,’ in an attempt to forget everything that had just happened, he opened the packets of fried dumplings. ‘Ready for war?’

‘I was born ready.’

Thirty-five minutes later, all that was left were the remnants of fried dumplings and three empty containers.

‘This should be illegal,’ I patted my stomach in satisfaction to his amusement. ‘Laugh at yourself! You lost track of how many dumplings you had and ended up taking my share!’

Raising his hands in defeat, Shangqi starts to clear the table up. ‘So how’s the center? Everything alright?’ I nodded numbly.

The past five years had been a blur. Hazy, even. All I remembered was a kid running into the office telling me that half of the staff disappeared during a school holiday program that we were running with a dozen other kids. Parents who survived the snap rushed to our center, demanding to see their children. We couldn’t give them any answer as we too, were equally perplexed. Maybe the only thing that made sense was Shangqi and Katy bursting into the center to help us with the chaos.

Coming back from what could be the 1000th phone call, I got a glimpse in the children’s playroom where the five years old kids were at, treating myself to an amusing sight. They all had red cloths draped around their neck, each holding a stick that was from the abandoned prop box. Katy wasn’t spared to as she was wearing her own red cloth that seemed a few sizes to small for her. Not that she didn’t seem to mind.

‘Alright my warriors! Chargeeeeee!!!!!!’

In unison, little pairs of feet pattered across the room towards their ‘enemy’, a cardboard cutout of a monstrous creature who was really just Shangqi in disguise.

‘RAWR! I’ll eat anyone who stands in my way!’ He stands up, mimicking a dinosaur that was about to trample an entire city. I decided that the paperwork could wait, standing near the door to watch an Oscar-worthy performance. With great effort and bravery from the kids, they finally managed to take down 5 foot 10 worth of muscle.

‘Again! Again!’

I chuckled upon seeing Shangqi on the floor, about to drift off into wonderland. It was time for me to step in. ‘Alright kids that’s enough for today! Dinner’s here.’ As the kids dispersed with the help of Katy, it was just the two of us left to clear up the mess. ‘Thank you so much, both of you. I honestly can’t think of what would happen if you guys didn’t come to help.’

Perhaps my body language was screaming ‘I’m dead tired, please just knock me out’ as Shangqi takes a cloth from me, folding it back into the box. ‘It’s what we would have done, this place, it means a lot to us - to me.’

A small knock on the door diverts our attention away from the trash. Little Yiman stands at the door, as she stares at the both of us with big round eyes.

‘Yiman, it’s late, what are you doing here?’ I squat down to her eye level. The little girl beams, ‘ 妈妈 said that I could give this to you!’ She passes me a juice box together with a handmade card with colorful scribbles. Maybe I was carrying too much on my shoulders, as I suddenly felt a boulder lifted off me. ‘Thank you,’ I smile at her sweetly, ‘I love apple juice.’ Happy with the response, she runs to Shangqi. ‘Shangqi 哥哥 gē ge (brother)!’

He breaks out into a smile, opening his arms wide. Yiman nuzzles her head into his shoulder before breaking out into uncontrollable giggles from his sudden attack of tickles. ‘Are you hear to help Miss Jen?’ I took the trash from his hands, giving him some time with the girl.

‘Yes I am. Miss Jen needs some help so I’m here today!’

‘Are you her boyfriend?’

Shangqi freezes on the spot. He had undergone what could be the toughest training by his father, fought the greatest assassins in the world and here he was - stumped by a question from a seven year old. ‘Well... I’m her close friend since when we were very young,’ Yiman looks at him expectantly. ‘She helped me when I was in trouble so I had to be a good friend when she was in trouble too.’

‘Like how Ningning helped me when I injured my knee?’

‘Yeah... something like that.’ He breathes a sigh of relief, thankful to escape his first crisis. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure if he was telling himself the truth.

‘Yiman! Your mother’s here!’ The little girl gives him one last hug before running to the waiting room. Shangqi takes a moment to recollect himself. ‘Here I am thinking that you finally managed to have some stamina while interacting with young children, maybe I was wrong.’ I teased as I sat beside him.

‘Har har, hilarious.’ He tosses me a straw for our peach teas, as we were greeted by the amazing night view of San Francisco. ‘Enough about me, you good though?’ Looks like he didn’t forget the conversation that was cut off earlier. My mind goes back to a few minutes earlier, eavesdropping on the conversation.

‘I had to be a good friend when she was in trouble too.’

Life has been so unpredictable, I don’t even want to think too far into the future. With appearances from more superpowered beings, I don’t know what’s real anymore.

‘Yeah. To be honest, it’s been so crazy and overwhelming but I’ll get through it. I have you don’t I?’ Giving him a wink, I slowly sipped on the sweetness of the tea, savoring the pearls. He pauses for a moment, nodding thoughtfully.

Life isn’t the same as it was before. But maybe, just maybe... if I had Shangqi, I’ll take each day on one at a time. Day by day.

[END]

A/N: Hoho! I literally spent the whole afternoon writing because I just had to get this idea out and also because work was pretty slow today. I have no idea what is up with my first two fics hinting at unrequited love? I guess I got inspired by Shangqi’s and Katy’s platonic relationship because I thought it was so well written but I also love Shangqi so I guess is a compromise kinda thing. Again, do like and comment if you wish! Really thankful that y’all have been so kind to me so far!

Perhaps I’ll try my hand at shorter ones like headcannons before this girl exhausts herself out and I don’t want to do that because I believe I have more to show!

#xu shangqi #shangqi imagine #shangqi x reader #katy shang chi #shang chi #shang chi x reader

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rainbowwing251 · 3 years

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Oh, curious for the headcanons for the Mario Bros!

I haven’t played too many of the games in the Super Mario Franchise, but I think I can do this!

But first, I would like to make this statement: I am very sorry for all of the Mario fans out there. Fire Emblem fans may have lost a localized Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, but Mario fans lost Super Mario 3D All-Stars (I have a digital copy of that game, by the way. I want to get back to playing it at some point), Super Mario Bros. 35 (which was a very fun game, in my opinion), the Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch, and the ability to upload your courses in Super Mario Maker on the Wii U (though I guess that was going to happen at some point).

Needless to say, you guys have lost a lot. I hope that these headcanons will make you feel a bit better!

Starting off with Mario, I think he would be a ler-leaning switch who is incredibly ticklish. He isn’t as sensitive as his brother is, but he’ll still break down in laughter if someone were to put their hands on one of his worst spots.

Before I begin the lee!Mario headcanons, I would like to make an announcement: Mario is canonically ticklish! This is shown in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. There might be more, but for now, these are the games that Mario can get tickled in!

If you want to know how Mario can be tickled in these games, feel free to ask! I got this information from the Mario Wiki, and I would be more than happy to provide the links to the pages that I found all of this information on!

Now that I have gotten that out of the way, I’m going to list off Mario’s worst spots. Those spots are his sides, his knees, and his neck.

His often gets targeted by Luigi, Princess Peach, and Princess Daisy. All three of them love to sneak up on him and launch a surprise tickle attack. He’ll react as if he had just jumped into a pool of lava, and it’s one of the funniest things that you’ll ever see in your entire life.

He doesn’t squirm around or fight back all that much while he’s being tickled. He may prefer to be the ler, but he won’t get mad at his ler for making him laugh, especially if it’s Luigi. Mario seems like the kind of guy who would enjoy a good laugh every now and then, and tickling would definitely help out with that.

If his ler is Luigi, and if he gets in the mood to fight back against him, he will do so, but not out of anger. He’s not going to discourage his brother from tickling him. If anything, he’ll try to initiate a tickle fight so he can encourage his brother to fight back and turn the tables.

He is weak to teasing, but only if the teasing is coming from someone he knows. Don’t try to tease him if you are a stranger to him, he will hate it. A lot. Don’t tease him if you are anything like Bowser or Bowser Jr., either. He’ll hate it even more.

If he knows who you are, then you are more than welcome to tease him while you tickle him. He is especially weak to Peach and Luigi’s teasing. Something about Peach’s tone and the way that Luigi teases him just kills him on the spot.

Teasing is one of the few things that can make him blush. His blush will be a light pink color when you start tickling him, and it will gradually darken as you keep going. Teasing will speed up the darkening of his blush.

Mario’s lers are Luigi, Peach, and Daisy, as I mentioned earlier. The Toads will occasionally join in on the fun if they think he needs a good laugh. In Smash, the first three people in the previous list will continue to target him, but now, they are joined by Link, Ness, the Villagers, and the Inklings.

Let’s move on to ler!Mario headcanons. To me, Mario seems like the kind of ler that will tickle those who want or need to be cheered up. He will not tickle someone into hysterics (unless he is explicitly told to do so), and he will not overstep any boundaries.

His favorite way to tickle someone who’s has a particularly bad day is to lightly tickle their sides and the bottom of their ribcage to get quiet giggles out of them. He’ll keep it up until one of the following occurs:

His lee tells him to stop. He will always comply with this the request, even if he hasn’t been tickling that person for long.

His lee tells him to increase the intensity of the tickling. He’ll do his best to comply with this request without making it harder for his lee to breathe (unless he is explicitly told to tickle them until they are nearly breathless. He’ll hesitate to go through with this request, but he will eventually fulfill it).

His lee has been cheered up successfully. He’ll retract his hands as soon as his lee tells him that they are in a better mood, but if they tell him to keep going, he will comply.

Unless he is tickling Luigi, Mario will not initiate a tickle fight with anyone. He doesn’t know why, but the idea of getting into a tickle fight with anyone that isn’t his brother sounds unappealing to him (though he will occasionally make an exception).

The idea of teasing anyone who isn’t Luigi also sounds unappealing to him (but once again, he can make an exception), so unless you ask him, he won’t incorporate teasing into his tickling. If Luigi is the lee, then he will let loose a flurry of teases that are meant to make him laugh a little bit more than he already is.

Obviously, Luigi is his main lee, though he will go after Peach and Daisy from time to time. In Smash, Luigi is still his main lee, but he will also target the younger fighters. Out of all of them, Ness and the Inklings are the ones that will be targeted the most.

It’s Luigi time, now! He is definitely a lee in my mind.

I recently made a post about the most ticklish fighter for each Smash game, and how they would get into a tickle fight with one another. In that post, I said that couldn’t come up with an idea as to who the most ticklish fighter of Smash 64 would be. After thinking about it, I decided to give that title to Luigi. I hope the upcoming headcanons will make my reasoning clear.

Luigi is FAR more ticklish than his brother is. He’ll jump at the slightest of touches, regardless of whether or not the touch was intentional. He will squeak if you catch him off guard. He might fall over if you tickle his worst spots. And he secretly loves it all.

He doesn’t like to admit to it, but he enjoys being the lee due to the fact that he is getting attention. It’s not like anyone is intentionally ignoring him, but he definitely lives in his brother’s shadow for the most part. To him, tickling gives him the attention that he secretly craves, and it also gives him the satisfaction of making someone else smile, even if he’s the lee.

His worst spots are his underarms, his stomach, and his ears, but you could tickle him anywhere and he would laugh.

He is VERY squirmy! Seriously, he’s worse than both Pit and Shulk, and those two are even more ticklish than he is! If you pin his arms down to his sides, be careful while you are tickle him, because he could knock you down on accident due to his squirming.

Despite all of this, he won’t try to fight back, unless he’s in a tickle fight. If that’s the case, then he will try to get payback on his ler, even if it ends with him getting tickled to death.

Luigi can easily become overwhelmed by tickling, and he might become scared of you if you go too far with it, even if you didn’t mean to do so. This is another thing that you should take into consideration if you want to tickle him.

I probably should have said this earlier, but I can totally see Mario sending the Polterpup after Luigi if he sees him in a bad mood. I can also see him destroying his brother with tickles as payback for laughing at him at the end of Luigi’s Mansion.

Before I list off the names of his lers, I want to make one final lee!Luigi headcanon. Be warned, this headcanon will contain a spoiler for the plot of Luigi’s Mansion (and a possible spoiler for the plot of Luigi’s Mansion 3).

After the events of Luigi’s Mansion (and possibly Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon and Luigi’s Mansion 3), Luigi would therefore suffer from frequent panic attacks due to trauma. He became afraid of people sneaking up on him, and he fears that something will jump out at him at any given moment. He’s especially afraid of paintings after seeing Mario in one during the first Luigi’s Mansion and Luigi’s Mansion 3.

To help him recover from his trauma, Simon and Richter will tickle him after he makes a full recovery from a panic attack. Overtime, his anxiety will decrease as he begins to replace the terrifying thought of someone coming to harm him with a more positive image of being tickled by Simon and Richter. He hasn’t made a complete recovery just yet, but he is on the right path.

In his homeworld, Luigi’s main lers are Mario, Peach, and Daisy. In Smash, Simon and Richter will join those three, and they will all work together to help Luigi recover from his trauma.

As a ler, he is rather nervous. His nervousness can be compared to Pyra’s nervousness when she was getting used to the idea of tickling other people.

He’s always afraid of something going wrong while he tickles someone. He’s worried about his lee passing out, worried about digging his fingers a little too deeply into someone’s skin, and worried about his lee getting angry at him. Needless to say, he has a hard time with tickling other people, and he might leave his lee lying and waiting on the ground.

If this happens to you, you have two choices. You can either wait it out, or try to help him with calming down. You can even encourage him to tickle you. That way, he’ll know that you are comfortable with him, and he will regain the courage to tickle you.

He doesn’t like to tease his lees (even if his lee is Mario), but unlike his brother, it’s not caused by a lack of interest in teasing people who are not related to him. Instead, it’s due to the fact that he will make himself blush if he tries to tease his lee. He knows that people will take advantage of this weakness, so he won’t tease his lees.

Just like his brother, he won’t engage in tickle fights, unless they involve his brother. However, unlike Mario, he’ll stay away from tickle fights because he knows for a fact that he will likely lose the fight.

In his world, Mario and Daisy are his main lees. This is carried over into Smash, where Simon and Richter will join them (though Luigi tends to tickle them far less often).

And that’s that, I suppose. I’m a little nervous about posting this, but I’ll be brave and post it anyway.

P.S Is Luigi canonically ticklish? I have a feeling that he is, but I’m not entirely sure about that.

#tickling #the colorful words of the color gray #tickle tour #I can’t think of a tag for the Mario franchise #I don’t why but I got really nervous during the making of this list #why was I afraid of posting this? I have no idea #I wish that didn’t happen #but it did #by the way this is my 100th post #which doesn’t mean anything to me #but I guess it’s pretty cool

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adriexnette · 7 years

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PSA; miraculous fandom.

Hello fandom. I am adriexnette, and also a former admin at miraculousdaily. Even though i was one of the first people to start to blog, I finally decided to leave the blog for my own mental health. This past Thursday afternoon, I left the blog, clocked the main admin as well as the blog itself, and looked towards a new start.

However, I’ve been bottling these feelings out for so long, that to create a true new start, I had to get it out. So here I am, letting it out.

The reason i left is the main admin, captainpoe. Without further a do, here is a list of some of the things he made me go through as an admin of that blog:

Deleted I post that i reblogged onto miraculousdaily from my own blog, and made another post with the exact same information.

Deleted a post that i reblogged onto miraculousdaily from zagtoondaily and made another post with the exact same information.

Yelled at me for asking him to delete a repost

Yelled at me for deleting a piece of fake information that was starting to circulate

Refused to use the zagspoilers tag and insulting me for wanting it

Not giving me credit when he was told that he had to use the zagspoilers tag when he was blogging

Yelling at me for not posting on the blog during my college apps

Insulted the fandom and pretended that he didn’t want to take part in it

Yell at me every time i forgot to tag something

Insult zagtoondaily behind their backs

Repeatedly told me that he wanted us to be the number one blog for everything.

Repeatedly telling me he wants to be the only blog posting news

Making me shake every time my chat box rings

Yelled at me when I was trying to get him to listen to something i had to say but he disagreed with

Insulted my friends and called them “whiny babies”

Insulted gifmakers in the fandom and calling them “whiny bitches”

Made the same gifset as me right after I explicitly messaged him and told him that I already had done it

Posted the exact same thing as me after he saw it on my blog

Refused to reblog any of my original stuff on miraculousdaily unless I “payed” for it later with gifs and news on miraculousdaily

Prohibited me from coming up to him if I disagreed with something he was doing.

“banned” me from deleting any of his posts that were spreading false news about miraculous

deleted a post i made on miraculousdaily trying to shed light on fake information he was trying to spread

Has legitimately made me cry more than a few times

(and while it is true I hadn’t been posting at all, this past year has been the busiest of my life and i’ve been barely keeping my own blogs active)

I had to leave miraculousdaily to get away from this toxic atmosphere. My heart beat always picked up when my chat box rang because i thought it was him yelling at me. I was even afraid to do stuff on the blog because i would get blamed for something.

So if you also do not condone behavior like this, I would advise to unfollow or even maybe block the blog. I hate seeing abusive people like this getting all of this love and attention, justifying their behavior. Miraculousdaily was a beautiful idea, but its toxicity ruined it for me.

HOWEVER, do NOT send the blog hate. do NOT send captainpoe hate. and PLEASE PLEASE do NOT hack into the blog and ruin it. I am very sorry that happened yesterday, especially on the anniversary of Miraculous. No one deserves that. Even after all that he put me through.

Anyways, here it is. It is out now and after this, I don’t want to talk about it ever again. I want this part of my “fandom life” to be forgotten, and I don’t want to dwell on it any longer.

I have given you my point of view, you decide what to do with it. You can believe me, or you can call me a brat who just acts like a victim. But whatever it is, please leave me out of it.

PS: I know people like proof, so i have a couple excerpts of things he has said to me that i saved or screenshotted during my time there. again i’m putting this on here so i can be free of it, because even reading it again makes my stomach turn and my breath unsteady. i’m done.

captainpoe

go fucking fix this right fucking now

do you fucking hear me

or leave the fucking blog

wtfr u fucking kidding me

that is not your fucking original post

that is fucking thomas astrucs post

theres nothing fucking new about yoru post

like you better fucking fix this i’m damn serioushere

DO NOT FUCKING IGNORE ME

whoever the fuckall you did was upload the pics without the tweets and then copy and pasted the message

there’s nothing remotely special about your post and to call ours a repost

is uncalled for

flamed the blog and you know what

they said you deserve the recognition

you’re a member of the blognot just that you’re an admin

and i’ve told you many timesthat if hawkdaddy or something posts something i want that on the blog

and you agreed to that

what happend?

Are you thirsty for followers or something that you do something like this

and now the blog is the bad guy

we reposted from youfix this shit

this is your mess

you fix it

this fandom needs to fucking know what a repost actually iscause we did not repost your post whatsoever

fucking bunch of drama queens in this fandom i swea

i need you to fix this though cause it’s on you to clear it up

you’re a coward just so you know

and don’t try to paint yourself as the victim in this situation

you know exactly what you did is not what an admin is supposed to do

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propertyhold · 6 years

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8 Years!

Let’s just make this clear right off the bat: I’m not stopping this blog train! I’ve noticed that every time I open a blog post by talking about blogging, or life, or anything not explicitly house-related, inevitably a contingent of readers thinks I am trying to signal the end times. Not so! Relax! I am, however, immensely flattered and still amazed that anyone would find such an announcement even mildly consequential or distressing. But that’s not what’s happening so don’t work yourself up! It’s only Tuesday! We have the whole week for that! Pacing is key!

Here’s what is happening: Sunday marked EIGHT YEARS since I published the first post on Manhattan Nest. I think that’s almost a century in Internet-time? What a crazy thing.

Eight years is a long time, I think, for most people to stick with any one thing. Which isn’t to overstate the longevity here—I mean, this morning I fell down an Instagram rabbit-hole and discovered that Heidi and Spencer have now been married for almost NINE years, and that shit knocked me right back down to size. But still, 8 years is something. Can we just IMAGINE for a second if I had applied the same level of long-term commitment to, say, physical fitness? Who even KNOWS the heights of hotness I could have reached! I certainly don’t. But it’s sort of fun to think about.

It feels a little funny/wrong/weird/indulgent (maybe because it isssss!) bringing up this 8-year milestone at all, primarily because of all the things this blog is not. You’d think after this much time, I might have figured a lot of stuff out about blogging, or at least about my own blog, but the truth is…nope, not really. Stuff like…is there a goal here with this thing that I’m doing? Why am I doing this? How does it fit into my life?

You know that feeling that everything we do ought to be undertaken with a specific goal in mind? Yes hello. You get the degree to get the better job. You practice the sport so you can win the game. You stitch this piece of fabric to that piece because all the small efforts will add up to one hawt caftan, or whatever. But what if you don’t know if you’re sewing a caftan or a quilt or a circus tent or a throw pillow? What if you just kind of like the activity of it? That can feel a little aimless, because it is. And not very worthwhile, sometimes.

I’ve been lucky to meet and know a lot of bloggers over the years, and have always felt super out of place when a conversation shifts to posting schedules or strategies to grow follower counts or subscribers or newsletters or video content or sponsorship deals with the kind of budgets that have definitely never come anywhere near my inbox.* In 8 years, I’ve never been successful at sticking to a posting schedule for any significant amount of time. I’ve stepped away from it all for weeks or occasionally months when other stuff took over my life. I’ve never done any of the smart things bloggers do to organically grow traffic and increase shares and gain larger followings. I’ve never pitched myself to a brand. I’ve never created goals for blog-derived income or really any blog-related goals, period. Yet, 8 years. Here we are.

*For the record, pretty much all blog people I’ve ever met IRL are really cool and fun and smart and mostly talk about things other than blogging.

For a long time, I felt like I was doing this whole blog thing very wrong. Actually, not even a long time—I mean pretty much the entire time. Like I accidentally created this thing that had potential to be…something…and I never got my shit together to really figure out what that thing was. I’ve never been able to figure out if this is job, or not a job, or kind of a job but totally different than my actual job, or an extension of my actual job, or what. It’s personal, but how personal? It’s professional, but how professional? Sure, I think I should be entitled to make some money off of it, but how much money? And how? And at what cost? How much time is too much time to spend on something that isn’t how I make a living, but contributes to it? Could I make it a job if I really dove into it with everything I had? Would I even want that if it was an option? Questions like this are shockingly easy to avoid thinking too much about, but I think the consequence is creating an abyss of not-knowing-ness. Without the clarity of a direction, often you don’t really know what to do. I guess you can just stop, but if it feels good…what’s the harm in continuing? For eight years.

I don’t have an answer but maybe that’s because I’ve been considering the wrong question. Maybe it doesn’t have to matter all the time what something should be, because how often in life are we honestly allowed to just not really know? Through what other mechanism can I have fun shooting the shit about stuff in my life and get paid even a little bit for it? And interact with a bunch of awesome people who want to talk about it? And make some legit friends along the way and see some amazing things and learn so goddamn much?

Maybe it kind of already is what it should be, which is a collection of all those things. That doesn’t mean it can’t be more. That doesn’t mean it won’t at times become less. But recently I realized that I was looking back on my 8 years of blogging as story of underachieving, a collection of personal and professional shortcomings, of all the things I somehow never wrote about or didn’t complete, of taking for granted what I know plenty of people work really hard for. We tell ourselves harsh stories, sometimes. But that’s one perspective, and it’s a bad take. My idea of a big project when I started this blog was building my own desk, and now I’ve built a house—maybe what this thing should or shouldn’t be just isn’t all that relevant. The fact that we’re even talking about it at all 8 years in is worth something. The fact that it’s still fun is worth something. It actually feels like it’s worth a lot of somethings, at least to me.

This blog is, and has been, a source of incredible good in my life—this I know. And maybe a consequence of sitting for so long in that abyss of not-knowing-ness was the creation of this space, right here. This kooky little dimple of the internet where people are actually fucking nice to each other, and smart, and knowledgeable, and generous, where we can freely engage big ideas as much as fawn of pretty stuff and adorable raccoons. Sometimes I worry that acknowledging the rarity of that will come off as self-congratulatory, but honestly? I didn’t create it—you guys did. There have been almost 36,000 comments posted on this blog, and I don’t even think I’d need all ten fingers to count the shitty troll-y ones. Where else does that happen? I really don’t know, but it’s a real honor to be part of it here.

I don’t know what the next 8 years or 8 months or 8 weeks looks like with this blog, but I’d like to approach it with less concern about what I should be doing and more about what I want to be doing, since that’s pretty much all I’ve ever been good at anyway. It’s the internet, guys. We can do that kind of thing. And I hope you’ll come along for it, because I really like having you here. We have a nice time together, I think.

So from the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you, thank you for these past 8 years! Year 9—let’s do this thing.

8 Years! syndicated from findqueenslandelectricians.wordpress.com

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propertyhold · 6 years

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8 Years!

Here’s what is happening: Sunday marked EIGHT YEARS since I published the first post on Manhattan Nest. I think that’s almost a century in Internet-time? What a crazy thing.

*For the record, pretty much all blog people I’ve ever met IRL are really cool and fun and smart and mostly talk about things other than blogging.

So from the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you, thank you for these past 8 years! Year 9—let’s do this thing.

8 Years! syndicated from findqueenslandelectricians.wordpress.com

0 notes