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heartsywritesthethings · 3 years

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Tickling! Plus Ultra! 4

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

“We’re nothing alike.” Bakugo growled at the villain in front of him. “I’m way more cooler than you. I’m gonna be the number one hero.”

“Sure, sure.” Dabi said, waving his hand dismissively. He looked Bakugo up and down, a smirk still plain on his face. Bakugo wanted to blast that stupid look off of that face. It was like Dabi was so calm about everything going on, not at all worried about Bakugo or anything else for that matter.

“You’re all gonna be dead. The pro heroes are going to rip you losers to shreds.” Bakugo said, sparks of flames jumping from his fingertips just thinking about when he would be able to safely fight back against these villains. Of course, he wanted to put out a fight now, but it was definitely too dangerous for him to fight back. Even he knew that.

“Like the last time? Please. You should know by now that the heroes are just about as useful in these situations as the quirkless. The only difference is that they make more of a mess.” Dabi said and licked his lips. He looked around thoughtfully, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket. “Listen, you and I both know how a fire can burn, right?”

Bakugo didn’t respond. Just glared at him.

“Right…well, from my observations of the heroes and others like us…they’re far too dangerous to be in the hero business.” Dabi continued, unbothered by the silence of the boy in his care. Bakugo wondered what he meant by that, but didn’t voice his curiosity.

“Take the Number two…well, I suppose, thanks to you, he’s the number one hero now. Endeavour.” Dabi said, spitting out the name as if it were a piece of trash. Bakugo supposed that the league of villains would hate the pro heroes, but the way that Dabi spit out Endeavour’s name made him think that maybe there was something else there.

“Fire. While people like your so-called teachers will try to convince you that the fire you use can be used for their own good. To save…that is not fire’s true nature. It is only to burn.” Dabi said, pressing his fingers against his scarred chin. He turned back to Bakugo and smiled.

“You’re talking fucking nonsense! I can be a number one hero with my flames of fury!” Bakugo said, throwing a ball of fire towards Dabi. The villain easily stepped aside, using his own flames to push Bakugo’s aside.

“We can use our quirks to burn down the false heroes like Endeavor. We can expose them for who they really are!” Dabi laughed, stepping closer to Bakugo. He raised a hand and it looked as if he was going straight to Bakugo’s neck. Then, he stopped.

“You know all about these heroes who claim to better the world, but are only in for their own selfish reasons. After all, the traitor amongst your class informed us about the weaknesses of your dorm so we could snatch you up. Not very heroic.” Dabi tisked, shaking his head. “And then there’s your dear friend Shoto. Has he ever told you about how he had gotten that scar? Why he refuses to use his left side?”

Bakugo went back to being silent. He was seething on the inside. Of course he knew about Half and Half’s scar and the reasoning for it. Ever since the fight between him and Deku, the entire class knew about it. Shoto was slowly coming out of his shell and telling jokes, but they all seemed to be related to his past trauma.

But the thing that was really bothering him was the mention of a…traitor? Someone among their ranks that willingly handed out information to the league of villains? Who the hell would do something so damn stupid?

“I’ll let you think about that for a while, little fireball.” Dabi said, patting his head on Bakugo’s spiky hair.

“Oh she’s really giggling now.” Toga laughed as she continued to dig her fingers all over Uraraka’s stomach. She poked around and dug her fingers into Uraraka’s navel. All the poor girl could do was laugh as the tickling continued. It became apparent not too long ago that she definitely couldn’t get herself free from the nomu’s grip.

“EhehahahahahahAH! Nohohoho! Plehehehehehease! Ihihihihhi caahahahahan’t!” She laughed and giggled, her laughter spiking up every time that Toga’s wiggling tickling fingers swiped over her belly button. Unlike Deku, she wasn’t one to wiggle and squirm when she was tickled. All of her energy was usually spent just laughing and trying to think of some kind of counterattack. Not that there was any hope of doing that now.

“You know, your cheeks are usually pretty pink, but this is ridiculous. You’re super ticklish all over this cute little belly. Is that why you leave it so exposed all the time?” Toga teased. It seemed impossible, but Uraraka turned an even darker shade of red as she was teased. This was just about her biggest weakness when it came to tickling. Sure, she was pretty ticklish, but it was the teasing that really got under her skin. Just as she felt as she couldn’t take any more, Deku yelled from the other side of the room.

Using only 10% of his concentrated power, Deku twisted and broke free of the intense grip of the nomu. The monster growled, it’s fangs snapping together in frustration. It reached for him as he landed carefully on the ground.

“Well, I guess I should have worn you out a bit more.” Toga said, stopping her torment of Uraraka and instead pulling out her knives. “Looks like i’ll just have to cut you up a little bit before taking you in as my pet! How fun!”

Deku jumped again, darting out of the grasp of the incoming nomu. He kept a close eye on Toga as she lept towards him. Using his quirk, he darted out of the way from her as well. Instead of looking frustrated, Toga looked thrilled.

“You’ve grown so much my little Deku!” Toga said, shifting her stance in order to face where Deku was bouncing now. It was hard to actually get a good look at him as he was jumping around the room. He was using the ceiling and the surrounding walls as he did so, using basically anything he could as a jumping off point.

He needed to get the others free, but he didn’t know how exactly he was going to do that. It wasn’t as if he could pry them out of the nomu’s grip without seriously injuring them. These monsters were ridiculously strong and any attempt to just pry his friends away using brute force would probably end up in some dislocated shoulders and hips. So how–?

A sharp stab of pain darted through his leg and he stumbled during his run, half smashing himself into a nearby wall.

“There we go! I knew I would get you eventually if I just kept throwing my knives!” Toga laughed, getting another handful of her knives in order to get another shot. It didn’t appear as if she would stop until he was a bloody heap…she was having far too much fun. Suddenly, Deku stopped. He stood between Toga and his captured friends.

“Toga. I’ll go with you. Willingly.” Deku stated with more confidence than he felt. He was terrified of what this maniac would do to him. Especially after all of that tickling had taken him apart so carefully.

“No! You can’t!” Uraraka exclaimed, straining against the Nomu’s grip.

“Don’t give up yet, Deku! You can take her!” Kirishima yelled. Honestly, Deku was kind of surprised to hear something from the red head. He had been quiet most of this ordeal anyways. Strange.

“Aw, you’ll give up that quickly. I only just pricked you. No fun.” Toga said with a small pout before putting her knives away. As disappointing as it was for her to stop her chase, she was relieved that her new little pet would so willingly run into her arms.

“Only if you free my friends. If you don’t, I’ll have to fight you and believe me, I’ll win.” Deku said, pointing a finger at himself. Just against Toga and this other guy, he could definitely win. He’s seen them fight enough to know their styles. Sure, it wouldn’t be easy, but he had confidence in his abilities now. Thanks to the training that UA had put him through, he definitely had the strength.

But

If it meant that his friends would be freed…he would gladly give himself up. It’s what a true hero would do.

Toga thought about this, bobbing her head from side to side as she entertained this idea. Sure, she could probably fight her best, but she had never seen her little green bean jump around as fast as he was right now. But, what would that mean for his little friends? Where would they go? Surely to some pro heroes who were always so bent on getting them behind bars. But, jail was so goddamn boring.

An evil smile spread across her face.

Todoroki sent his ice wall at the monsters in front of him. It broke through both the wall of the dorm and the wall of nomus. A few stumbled aside and he managed to catch one in an actual ice trap. He also set ice across the ground, giving Shoji a clear icy path to where they needed to place the mattress. Without hesitating, Shoji pushed himself across the ice and towards the spot they had agreed upon. As he did, several Nomus reached out and swiped at him. Todoroki used both sides of his body to fend them away from Shoji.

Even Mineta was helping. Well, as much as he could. He yelled as he tossed his purple balls at anything that happened to move.

Which also happened to include Todoroki himself. One of the purple balls stuck right in front of his foot and he lost his balance. Rather ungracefully, Todoroki crashed to the ground. He slid to a stop in front of another nomu, which proceeded to pick him up by his shirt.

“Sorry!” Mineta yelled, the top of his head already beginning to bleed. He didn’t stop throwing his balls everywhere he could. Some bounced harmlessly off the ground while others hit Nomus and made them stick to the place they were already standing.

“Now, Shoji!” Todoroki yelled as the heavy arms wrapped around him. The crushing weight was enough to push the air from his lungs.

Shoji tossed the mattress onto the ground before getting caught himself. Two different nomus grabbed him, tackling him to the ground.

Tsuyu had assured him that she would be able to get Iida to a specific part on the ground because of her perfect aim with her tongue. Todoroki just hoped that this was true. Though he did have a few back up plans, this was the one that he found the most promising.

Iida dropped onto the mattress. The nomus all turned to look at what had just happened. Not soon enough, however, as Iida began running in the direction of the school as soon as he got his balance.

“We’re coming, guys. Hang in there,” Todoroki muttered breathlessly.

“Have you ever wondered what it would be like if everyone was as powerful as we are?” Dabi wondered, getting comfortable on a nearby chair. He tossed his legs up, resting his feet on a table. He lazily bounced around a blue ball of flame between his fingers. “If these so-called heroes were held to the same standards as what they call villains.”

Bakugo ventured a few steps from where he had been standing. Dabi didn’t seem to mind his moving. Slowly, Bakugo began to look at his surroundings, looking for any way to escape.

“We’re just trying to keep these shit heads accountable. They all try and tell everyone that we’re the bad guys when we’re just trying to show the flaws in the heroes as a whole.” Dabi said with a wave of his hand. “They will claim that we’re in the wrong when we’re just taking you on a short ride around the city. They’re the ones who are holding you and your class hostage in that shit building they’re calling your dorms. They’re the ones who willingly send you back to shit homes at the end of the day.”

Bakugo looked over at Dabi curiously. He didn’t think that a villain like this would be this concerned about living arrangements. Dabi noticed his look.

“I’m just saying. If they were anything like what a school should be, they would have had a real talk with some parents already. I mean, some of these kids don’t exactly want to go home, right? Listen, fireball, if you stick with us, you won’t have to worry about your ma wailing on you all the time. That ain’t what parents are supposed to do.” Dabi said.

Just for a moment…a tiny moment…Bakugo considered it. After everything he had been through in the hero course, getting muzzled, getting told he was a monster, being put through hell trying to train for some dream he had come up with as a kid. He was still a kid, damn it.

“We’re back! Thank you for the escort!” Toga said as she bounced into the building. Bakugo tensed as she sauntered in. Tailing behind her was the rest of the villainous crew…and that damn nerd Deku.

“You were stupid enough to get yourself kidnapped, Deku?” Bakugo barked at his friend. Midoriya looked a little sheepish, but shrugged. He seemed too nervous for a rebuttal. It was weird to see him this nervous ever. Sure, he was a little bit of a crybaby at times, but this was different. His usual hopeful look was completely gone.

“What took you so long?” Shigaraki asked, scratching at his neck as he did so. He seemed anxious to leave.

“I wanted to have some fun with my new pet.” Toga whined before leaning over and giving Deku a huge kiss on the cheek. Deku huffed in disgust and rubbed at his cheek to get rid of the spit she had left over. Gross. He made his way over to Bakugo, standing near him.

“How are you holding up, Kacchan?” Deku asked, looking his friend up and down for any kind of wounds. When there didn’t appear to be any, a small relieved smile played on his lips.

“I’m fine, idiot. What about the others? Did they take you too?” Bakugo asked, nudging his friend in the side. Deku’s smile became strained and he rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment.

“Uh…well…not exactly. I kind of…followed them.” Deku said with a nervous chuckle. Bakugo smacked him on the back of the head.

“You idiot! Now we’re both stuck here.” Bakugo huffed with a roll of his eyes. How the hell were they supposed to get out of this now? Not that he had been placing all of his hope on Deku, but this definitely wasn’t good.

“It’s alright. I left a clue or two for the authorities to find so that they could get to us faster.” Deku said with a small nod. Bakugo grit his teeth. Hopefully, they would be found in time.

“Let’s hurry up and get out of here before some–” Shigaraki said before the wall behind him blew up.

There, standing amongst the rubble, were pro heroes ready to free the students captured by the league of villains.

They were saved. Thanks to the hard work of their fellow students and the clues that Deku had dropped along the way during his transit, the pro heroes were able to quickly track down where the students were being held. Uraraka and Kirishima were also able to follow along, despite Toga’s best efforts to tickle them both too crazy to even think about following them.

11/25

GA!babe

#25 Days of Fics #11/25 #submission #GA!babe #Tickling Plus Ultra #this is great babe but also uhhhhh DABI #he is quite literally all I care about I'm so sorry I'm just focusing on him full stop #I will never tire of dabi and bakugou interacting in any way shape or form #it just be like that #mha #bnha #tickle fic #never underestimate my simping #again sorry I posted this bad boy late

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ciestessde · 4 years

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NOT My Hero Academia: Part 1 – Ch.5

It was the next day, and the students were back in their homeroom. "Good work with yesterday’s battle training," Aizawa addressed the class.

"I’ve looked over your grades and evaluations, and I only have a few notes. Bakugo…" Izuku saw him shift slightly in his chair. "Work on your awareness of enemies during battle -- even minor threats can take you out if they surprise you." Bakugo grimaced. "... Got it," he muttered.

"Midoriya, Uraraka, Iida." Each of them sat straighter when their names were called. "… Well done." Their expressions shifted from surprised to pleased, and Iida stammered out a "Ah -- Thank you, sir!"

"Now, on to homeroom business… Sorry for the sudden announcement, but today… you’ll pick a class president."

The feel of the room shifted. Everyone started shouting, clamouring to be picked for the position. ‘Oh yeah,’ Izuku realized after a moment, ‘It’s not just a bunch of mundane tasks at U.A. To be the leader of a group… It’s the kind of position suited for a top hero in the making.’

After only a few moments of this, Iida, ever the voice of reason, cut through the noise with a suggestion. "I put forward the motion… that our true leader must be chosen by election!" "But Iida," countered Tsuyu, "we haven’t known each other long enough to build any trust." "And everyone’ll just vote for themselves!" added Kirishima.

"That’s precisely why anyone who manages to earn multiple votes will be the best-suited individual for the job!!" Iida turned to Aizawa, who had already zipped himself up inside his sleeping bag, "Will you allow this Sensei?!" "However you do it, just make it quick."

As expected, most people came out with only a single vote. Although there were a few exceptions, as some people actually had none.

Momo Yaoyorozu won with only three votes. And the vice president, with only two, was-

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sitting with Iida and Uraraka at lunch, Izuku said, "I admit, I’m a little worried about being vice president…" "Worry not," said Iida, "Midoriya, although I personally felt someone with a quirk to be a more fitting vote, your ingenuity and decisiveness in a pinch make you a perfectly acceptable leader." Uraraka said, "Didn’t you want to be president, Iida? You’ve got glasses and everything!" Iida, looking a bit nervous, set his drink down. He avoided eye-contact with both of the other students. "Ambition and suitability are different matters… I humbly made the choice I thought was correct."

Noticing his speech pattern, Uraraka excitedly asked, "The way you talk… Iida, are you… A rich kid?!" Iida responded hesitantly. "... I don’t like people to know, so I try to hide it, but… Yes. Mine is a renowned hero family. And I am the second son."

Izuku went into fanboy-mode after realization hit him. "Of course!! Ingenium!! He employs 65 sidekicks at his office in Tokyo!! So you’re…!" Finally looking up -- and even looking a bit cheered -- Iida responded, "How very informed… Yes, he is my brother." Now filled with pride for his family, Iida went on, "He leads the people with his unwavering adherence to rules and regulations. A truly beloved hero!! It’s my admiration for my brother that’s inspired my own desire to become a hero."

He deflated slightly, smiling with admiration. "Though I realize I’m not yet ready to lead anyone. As the superior candidate, it was right that the role should go to Yaoyorozu."

Uraraka and Izuku paused in their eating. "Never seen you smile before, Iida," Uraraka observed. "Eh?! Is that so?! I smile on occasion!!"

‘Iida has Ingenium to look up to, huh…?’ No longer eating, Izuku watched his classmates banter in front of him. ’I guess I have Master and Kurogiri-sensei, but… It- doesn’t feel the same. I don’t want to be a vigilante like they are.’ He looked down at the bowl in his hands. ‘But… do I… still want to be like All Might…?’

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He was taking a break, drinking some water in the middle of training, when Kurogiri asked him, "Tell me, Midoriya…" He stopped drinking. "What kind of hero do you want to be?"

"I-…" Izuku looked away, thinking. Every time he thought about becoming a hero, Izuku couldn’t help but remember that video. The one of All Might rescuing so many people with a smile on his face! But, at the thought of All Might… Izuku’s mind turned to that moment on the rooftop. Yet still… Izuku’s fist clenched, and he replied, "I want… to be the Greatest Hero, who smiles as he saves people!"

"So… You want to be like All Might, correct?" Izuku’s gaze shot up to Kurogiri. "It’s not an unusual assumption. But… Do you really believe society will allow someone who’s quirkless… to become the Number One Hero?" Kurogiri’s wispy, mist-like face was unreadable, but his tone was full of pity. "After all… It is a popularity pole more than anything, isn’t it?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

…

While riding the bus with his class on their way to "Rescue Training" the next day, Izuku was still contemplating that question. But his thoughts were interrupted by Tsuyu, "I generally say what’s on my mind, Midoriya."

"Oh?!" Izuku’s head snapped to face the frog-like girl. "What is it, Asui?" "Call me Tsuyu," she corrected him automatically, "Without a quirk, hero training seems kinda pointless. Why not just become a police officer?" "Ah! Well!" he floundered, "See, I considered it and all, but-!"

"Hold up, Tsuyu," Kirishima said from the seat on the other side of her, "Police officers and heroes are totally different! Heroes can patrol and help people completely independently, and can even have part-time jobs, if they want! Not to mention those support items Midoriya has. You can’t have those as a police officer, and they’re awesome! You can do a lot of cool stuff with them!"

Kirishima struck a pose, activating his quirk. "Not like my hardening. I’m good in a fight, but it’s real boring." "I think that’s pretty neat, though. Your quirk’s more than enough if you wanna go pro," said Izuku. "Pro!" Aoyama exclaimed from across the aisle, "But don’t forget that heroes also have to worry about popular appeal!!"

Izuku flinched, just slightly.

Aoyama didn’t notice. "My navel laser is both strong and cool. Perfect for a pro." "As long as you don’t blow up your own stomach!" said Mina. Aoyama didn’t seem to like that comment.

The conversation was cut short when All Might wooshed by the bus, and everyone realised how close they already were to their destination.

Thirteen, their instructor for the day, greeted them by talking about how a lot of quirks could easily be used to kill. How "one wrong move with an uncontrollable quirk" could defeat society’s restrictions and monitoring of quirks… "During Aizawa’s physical fitness test, you came to learn of your own hidden potential. Through All Might’s battle training, you experienced the danger that your respective quirks can pose to others. This class…"

Thirteen’s previously grim demeanor did a 180.

"... will show you a new perspective! You will learn how to utilize your quirks to save lives. Your powers are not meant to inflict harm. I hope you leave here today with the understanding that you’re meant to help people." Izuku thought to himself, ‘I can’t help thinking that… somehow… that doesn’t apply to me.’

Thirteen bowed to the students, the unwilling audience to his speech. "That is all! I thank you for listening." "Great." Aizawa stepped forward, away from Thirteen, All Might -- and Mirio. "First off… Midoriya."

Izuku felt his stomach drop. ‘Please, let me be wrong…’

The teacher’s words were cold. "Without a quirk, these exercises will be pointless for you. Honestly, you should just leave the rescuing to professionals in these situations." It wasn’t an attack. His tone made it clear: He was -- or he believed he was -- stating facts. Which just made it worse. "But still… we’ll teach you the basics, for now. Everyone else will be divided into groups and rotate through the different sites. Listen for your name."

While Aizawa listed off names, Mirio approached Izuku. "Hey… That’s a bummer. But don’t let it get to you!"

Mirio practically shined with optimism, "There’s plenty of awesome things you’ll get to do here at U.A.! And that strategy you used yesterday -- not to mention getting into U.A. without a quirk in the first place…!" Mirio’s eyes sparkled, and he practically shouted, "That is SO Plus Ultra!! I’m actually kinda jealous!" At the older student’s support… Izuku couldn’t help smiling.

All Might called Mirio back over; it was time to start the lessons. Before leaving, Mirio said, "Hey, if you ever want some pointers -- or just to train -- give me a call, ok?!"

After that, the rest of the day wasn’t too bad.

But still… Aizawa’s tone… Izuku wasn’t sure what to call the teacher’s tone, actually.

Except maybe… pity?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Beginning]

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#villain!deku #villain deku #my hero academia #izuku midoriya #fanfiction

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softboy-writes · 4 years

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Naturae (BNHA x Son of Aizawa! Mother Nature! Male! Reader)

Chapter 2: Recommendations and The First Day of School

“(Y/N), there’s a letter for you!” My dad called from the porch. I stopped my sit ups, looking towards him. He held an envelope with the UA insignia pressed on it in ink. His face held a big smile as he waved it slightly.

I got up, running across the backyard to the porch and attempting to grab the envelope. Dad moved it away from my hand, smiling wider.

“You don’t need to read it. I already know what it says,” He laughed. “You’ve been accepted into UA Highschool and since I already know how good your quirk is you don’t have to go to the recommendation exams. You’re start (date),”

I stared, wide eyed, at my dad. Jumping at him, I pulled him into a hug and laughed, chanting ‘I got in! I got in!’. Dad laughed, hugging me back.

~Very large time skip~

Dad and I trained hard over the next few months. My muscles have become even more defined. I mastered mixed martial arts and expanded my quirk time limit to over 24 hours.

Before we knew it, the first day of school was upon us.

~~~

“(Y/N), get up,” Dad poked my forehead.

“Noooooo,” I whined, pulling my blanket over my head. “Five more minutes,”

“That’s what you said five, ten and fifteen minutes ago,” Dad deadpanned. “You only have ten minutes to get ready before I leave you here,” Wide awake, I sat up. Dad laughed as I rushed to put on my uniform.

“Don’t laugh, old man,” I glared lightly at him, throwing on my bag and leaving my room. He followed close after me, grabbing his keys as I pulled on my usual black converses.

We left the house, soon arriving at school. I awkwardly followed my dad, slightly anxious and not knowing what to do. He walked to a room, which I assume was the teachers lounge, and put on his yellow sleeping bag.

“Hey, (Y/n), you should pull me to class,” He smiled creepily at me. I rolled my eyes, using vines which emerged from my arms to wrap around him and the sleeping bag. I dragged him out of the room and down the hall, following his directions until we reached a large door labeled 1-A.

I stopped in front of the doors, grimacing as I heard the loud talking from inside and unwrapping dad. He stood up, ruffling my hair for reassurance.

“Don’t worry. You’ll do great,” He smiled, the same creepy smile I’ve gotten used to. He flopped back down and put on an extremely tired face. “Go somewhere else if you want to play at being friends. This is the hero course,” He unzipped the sleeping bag, pulling a Go-Go Squeeze out and sipping from it, scaring the three students standing in the doorway. He stood up again, unzipping the bag and pushing it down. “Okay, it took eight seconds before you were quiet. Time is limited. You kids aren’t rational enough,” He paused, staring at the kids. “I’m your homeroom teacher, Shota Aizawa. Nice to meet you,”

The whole class broke out in murmurs.

“It’s kind of sudden, but put this on and go out to the field,” The class made a collective sound that seemed to be a sound of confusion, but all eventually went to the locker rooms and changed. I went as well, dad handing me the gym uniform he pulled out of his sleeping bag.

~~~

“A quirk assessment test?!”

“What about the entrance ceremony? The orientation?” A brown haired girl asked.

“If you’re going to become a hero, you don’t have time for leisurely activities. U.A.’s selling point is how unrestricted its school traditions are. That’s also how the teachers run their classes.” His voice still sounded bored and tired, like he had just woken up. I shook my head at him, grinning slightly. “You’ve been doing these since junior high, right? Physical fitness tests where you aren’t allowed to use your quirk. The country still uses averages taken from results from students not using their quirks. It’s not rational. The ministry of Education is procrastinating.” He turned a little. “Bakugo, you finished at the top of the practical exam, right? In junior high, what was your best result for the soft ball throw?”

“67 meters,” A spikey blonde, the same boy from the sludge villain incident, responded.

“Then, try doing it with your quirk,” The blonde walked to the circle and dad threw him a soft ball. “You can do whatever as long as you stay in the circle. Hurry up. Give it all you’ve got,”

“Then,” The blonde stretched before winding up, and throwing. “Die…!” He added an explosion, fire swirling around him and following the ball as it flew through the air. The same green headed kid who had tried to help during the sludge incident questioned his choice of words and dad turned towards us.

“Know your own maximum first. That’s the most rational way to form the foundation of a hero,” He held up the tracking device, showing 705.2 meters. The class, again, broke out into murmurs and chatter and a pink skinned and haired girl said the assessment looked fun. Big mistake. A black haired kid commented on being able to use out quirks as much as we want.

“‘It looks fun,’ huh?” Dad started. “You have three years to become heroes. Will you have an attitude like that the whole time? All right. Who ever comes in last for all eight tests will be judged to have no potential and will be punished with expulsion,”

“Huh?!”

“We’re free to do what we want about the circumstances of our students,” Dad pushed the hair out of his face.

“Welcome to U.A.’s hero course!”

~~~

The brunette who asked about the entrance ceremony commented on how it was the first day of school and how it wasn’t fair.

“Natural disasters, big accidents, and selfish villains. Calamities whose time and place can’t be predicted. Japan is covered in unfairness. Heroes are the ones who reverse those situations. If you wanted to talk to your friend at McDonalds after school, too bad. For the next three years, U.A. will do all it can to give you one hardship after another. Go beyond. Plus Ultra. Overcome it with all you’ve got,”

“All right. Demonstrations over,” He paused. “The real thing starts now,”

~~~

We started the quirk assessment test with a 50 meter dash. I used the air around me and managed to come right after a blue haired boy, whose quirk seemed to be engines in his legs, with 3.1 seconds.

Next was grip strength. I used vines to form a sort of protective layer and covered that with a rock glove. I used the gloves to help with the grip test and scored 325 kg.

We continued through the tests. I either got a very good score or scored the best in the class. I used the air around me for the long jump, the air and the ground around me for the repeated side steps, and vines and the air to get the second highest score for the soft ball throw.

“Okay, I’ll quickly tell you the results. The total is simply the marks you got from each of the tests. It’s a waste of time to explain verbally, so I’ll show you the results all at once,” Dad’s voice was still boring and tired sounding. His eyes were red and looked painful. I’ll make sure he takes care of it after the results. He used the last of his bottle after his intervention with Bakugo and that Izuku Midoriya kid.

Dad showed the result and I placed third, pushing Bakugou to 4th. Izuku Midoriya was 21st.

“By the way, I was lying about the expulsion,” That was a lie. He saw potential in Midoriya and I can see it. “It was a rational deception to draw out the upper limits of your quirk,” Dad smiled for the first time since we’ve been around the rest of the class.

“What?!”

“Of course that was a lie. It should’ve been obvious if you had just thought it through,” That’s not true. She obviously hasn’t heard about dad expelling an entire class. She would have taken him seriously and known it wasn’t a lie if she had.

“With that, we’re done here,” Dad turned to walk away but I called out.

“Wait!” He turned back around and his eyes landed on me.

“What, (Y/N)?” I ran up to him from my spot in the middle of the crowd and pulled a bottle of eye drops out of my jacket pocket.

“Your eyes are red, dad,” I handed him the bottle. “This is a new kind. Tell me if it works better, okay?”

“You got it kid,” He smiled at me, opening the bottle.

“Dad?!”

“Hmm?” Dad hummed. “Yeah, this is my kid, (Y/N) Aizawa. I hope you treat him well,” I smiled and bowed before following my dad. He stopped at Midoriya, handing him a pass and telling him to head to the nurses office.

~~~

“Aizawa, you liar,” Dad and I stopped, turning our heads to look at All Might.

“All Might. So you were watching?” Dad turned his head away. “Too much time on your hands?”

“‘A rational deception’ you said?” All Might asked, not answering Dad’s question. “April Fools was last week. You punished a whole class of first years with expulsion. You cut those you judge to have no potential without hesitation. For a man like you to take back his words-- That must be because you also felt the potential in that kid, right?”

“‘Also’?” Dad questioned. “You seem to be supporting him quite a bit. Is that how a teacher should be acting?” All Might faltered.

“I got it,” I put my fist to my palm, as an ‘I-Just-Had-A-Breakthrough” gesture. “You’re related to him in some way. You have some sort of connection and you were worried about him. That’s why you came to watch, isn’t it?” Dad gave me a look before starting to walk away.

“His potential wasn’t zero. That’s all it was. I will always cut those without potential,” He looked down at his feet while he walked. “There’s nothing crueler than letting a dream end midway,” He said it as if he were saying it to himself. “Come on, (Y/N),” I bowed to All Might before jogging a bit to catch up to my dad, slowing when I reached him.

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gloomstudy · 6 years

Text

11 (jk actually 33) questions tag, again!

tagged by @jacistudies, @geetstudies, and @thestudyofkats. thank you all so much!!

not tagging anymore people since i’ve already done this, but anyone is welcome to answer the same questions! :)

questions from jacistudies:

1. are you a fan of mint chocolate?

yes, if it’s made well.

2. favorite food?

sushi!

3. describe your childhood in 3 words.

long awkward moment.

4. describe your style.

simple and minimal. dark and neutral colors.

5. why make a tumblr?

bored, curious, and wanted to connect with people who shared the same interests as me.

6. how do you usually spend your day off?

sleeping in, catching up on tv shows and anime, mindlessly scrolling through tumblr, watching youtube videos, listening to music, and talking with my mutuals. sometimes i make gifs/edits for my main blog if i’m in the mood.

7. top 3 songs you jam to

at the moment, i really love “feeling good” by day6, “keeper” by the boyz, and “dance the night away” by twice!

8. what’s your favorite cuisine?

aside from cuisine from my own culture (chinese), i also like japanese and korean food!

9. favorite flavor?

matcha/green tea~

10. what’s your dream home like?

ultra modern exterior, minimalist interior, neutral colors, and environmentally friendly.

11. what kind of music do you like?

my taste in music is all over the place, but i mostly like to listen to pop, kpop, edm, lo-fi, and rock. sometimes i listen to alternative, indie, and classical.

questions from geetstudies:

1. favorite quote from a book/movie/tv show?

"the chance to let your talent truly blossom, perhaps it’s today.” -oikawa tooru, haikyuu!!

2. recent read review?

i haven’t read any books recently, but i read an article this morning about the science of music, and i didn’t like how this one guy said that today’s music is “auditory cheesecake.” basically, he said that the (popular) music that we listen to these days is trash, and i feel that that’s not true at all. perhaps he’s from an older generation and has yet to catch up and understand. *smiles sheepishly and shrugs* other than that, the rest of the article was pretty interesting!

3. your go-to person for motivation?

hmm...probably @lavietudier. he’s good at brightening up my day. :)

4. greatest source of inspiration?

music!!

5. an abstract goal in life?

i don’t really have any abstract goals? uhhh...i guess it would be cool if i could go to space someday, ahaha.

6. favorite word in your native language?

i don’t really have a favorite cantonese word, but my brother and i like making puns out of cantonese words that sound like english words!

7. most effective note taking system that works for you?

outline format! everything is laid out nicely with main points and sub-points, and if i need to write a paper about a certain topic later, i don’t really need to write a rough draft because almost all the information is already outlined in my notes!

8. biggest distraction?

honestly? the entire internet.

9. most overrated trend in your opinion?

dabbing. just...pls stop.

10. one word to describe yourself.

divergent.

11. three lines of advice for new studyblrs.

share original content, don’t worry about the numbers, and ignore the haters.

questions from thestudyofkats:

1. what is the most joyous memory you have? how old were you, where was it, etc.?

the day that i found out that i got into the uni that i currently attend! i was 17 and in my senior year of high school. i was at home and got a call from the uni saying that i got off the waitlist and that i was accepted. i was so so so excited! i was screaming and jumping around all over the place, ahaha. it was such a great day! :’)

2. why is your favorite color your favorite?

my favorite color is lavender! it’s light, and it makes me happy and keeps me calm. i also feel like it’s kinda healing? overall, it’s just a very nice color!

3. if you could learn one foreign language what would it be and why?

either japanese or korean. i mean, i’m currently already self-studying japanese and i’ll be taking korean next semester, but those two languages are the ones that i’ve been most interested in for a very long time now.

4. who was your favorite teacher from primary/elementary school and why?

my 2nd grade teacher! she was so kind and fun to be around, and she always made class very enjoyable. by the time i was in 3rd grade, she left and went to teach at another school, and i missed her a lot ;;

5. what is the last book you read for fun, or for school, and genuinely enjoyed?

to the lighthouse by virginia woolf! i absolutely love how the perspective always changes from one character to the next, and it kinda feels like you’re watching a movie when you read it.

6. what is one past historical event you wish you could get a front row seat for to see what it really looked like?

not really a specific event, but i’d love to watch debussy compose his pieces and ask him how he makes them all sound so pretty~

7. when you were young (sometime aged 5-8) what did you want to be when you grew up?

a doctor or an astronaut. if you told me that i would be a musician, i might have believed you.

8. what is a song you could listen to on repeat for days and not get tired of?

“write it in the sky” by kina grannis (ken loi remix)

9. what is something you feel strongly about? tell us a bit about it!

john cage’s music is actually pretty interesting if you take the time to really listen and understand. i appreciate his philosophy of music being anything that makes sound, including silence. silence can be meaningful, too.

10. what is your ideal study environment?

at home, alone, at my desk, in my room, during the day, lots of natural light, all of my necessary stationery and study materials neatly laid out, and good music with no lyrics.

11. why do you care about school? what goals do you have related to your schooling and future?

i care about school because education is important, not only for learning new things, but also to develop your critical thinking skills, apply what you learn to real-life situations, and figure out who you are. i hope to graduate successfully by spring 2019, and i’m considering going to graduate school and getting my master’s degree in audio engineering. i’d love to work for a large entertainment company someday, and i’d like to have my own studio and produce an original album as well! :D

#kat rambles #tagged #tag #about me

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system-architect · 6 years

Note

50 Q for Vax... please, I need it

OH BOY vax... i’ve been rping him a lot lately but he still remains a bit of an enigma!! lets see..

Personal

1) Age? 23! he acts older than his age i think

2) Gender? like all my other ocs bc i’m very self indulgent, he is a trans guy!

3) Romantic/Sexual Orientation? vax can think boys are cute, but he’s never been a very romantically active person. he doesn’t lack a capacity for affection, he’s just always... busy with other stuff? it’s not something he thinks about often. if he’s buzzy around someone it’s probably bc he adores their cybernetics/etc work

4) Height? probably smth like 3′9″

5) Race? asura (+ cyborg??)

6) What do they look like? (i.e, hair color, eye color, etc). i’m gonna link The Vax Draw, i’m undecided about whether his hair is naturally full black or if the white stripes are weird pigment loss... PS he has a ton of moles all over, not just on his face :D

7) Any disabilities? hokay this is a Vax Secret but he has some sort of muscular and/or skeletal disorder i need to research into/get specifics on but the general idea is that he can get very weak and achey and have trouble moving sometimes! he deals with this via another Vax Secret i might talk about sometime

8) Is there a meaning to their name? in asuran ?? idk i dont think their names have meanings, but irl its a shortened asurafied version of ‘vaccine’ bc i thought it sounded cool

9) What makes them, them? Odd Question but he’s very shaped by his childhood experiences studying his father’s work and looking up to his dad and he’s very defined by his innate drive to bulldoze towards goals he has and wants to research... he’s a very stubborn and determined person who’s very much an agent For Himself

10) What do they want to be when they grow up/what do they want to do with their lives? he is Growed Up but he really wants to keep chasing revolutions in prosthetics/augments/cybernetics.. he wants to help people in ways they couldn’t otherwise be helped (atypical inquest huh)

Family

11) Do they have parents? What are they like and how do they act with their child(ren)? yes one parent, a single dad! ppl who’ve been watchin my hell rp server stuff will know his name is akka and he’s one of the top prosthetics smiths in the industry and was very private about his work but had a very cutting edge philosophy towards artificial parts and lead some really revolutionary work... dr. akka is a very kind and patient man with a good soul who is a tad weary from the world but he loved his son very much! he and vax had a great bond and vax was always eager to learn about his dad’s life work and his dad was always eager to teach him.. akka is an overall pretty amazing man, it’s a shame he joined the inquest for some reason and now we don’t know his current whereabouts......

12) Do they have siblings? How do they interact with them? If not, do they wish they had siblings? he technically has a sibling! maybe more? but he’s never met them... vax is perfectly pleased with being an only child, we’ll have to see how he reacts if he ever meets this one. it’s actually a character y’all are already familiar with.......

13) Extended family? Do they see them often? nope and nope

14) Do they like where they live? (Is it a safe place?) vax essentially lives out of his workshop within the sigma-5 prime division laboratory space which is Not a safe place no....... but he loves it... he technically has an apartment somewhere in soren draa that is as much of a junk pile as his workshop whoops (vax is very much a ‘i know where everything is in this chaos. don’t move it’ person...)

15) Where do they live? Are they wealthy? Poor? Middle-Class? i semi-answered this above but he has enough funding via the inquest to do his research projects as well as have a place for himself! i wouldn’t call him upper class probably just kinda middle ish, he keeps himself afloat alright

16) Do they have a lot of expectations/pressure on them from family to do great? despite vax’s attachment to akka’s work and vice versa, akka is a very chill guy who never expected vax to live up to it or anything like that.. he just thought it was great vax had the interest in it

17) Do they have pets? alas, no.... if he did i could see him owning smth more atypical like a ferret and fuck i kinda like that idea now i’ll have to meditate on it

18) Who do they look up to the most/are the closest to in their family? take one guess

19) This there anything special about their family? his dad being a renowned prosthetics doctors is pretty special yeah

20) Do they wish they lived in a different family/household? absolutely not

Friends

21) Best Friend(s)? alas vax is... very very much a lone wolf! this section is gonna be hard to answer and i’m probably gonna have to cross out some stuff because vax purposefully doesn’t really get close to anyone and he’s exceedingly unperturbed about this.. i meant it when i said he’s very self-driven! he’s not ultra egotistic and he doesn’t hate other people, nor is he unempathetic (i’d say he has a good degree of empathy actually), he’s just kind of... uninterested? he won’t hate you or be nasty to you for no reason, he’s just not interested in befriending/being around you as an aspect of his life

22) Who was their first friend? probably some of the other progeny tried to befriend him in precollege he he was Smart which is Cool but they quickly learned that vax’s idea of friendship is he will give you a quick synopsis of what he’s currently on and then go silent as he continues to work on it

23) What is their friend group like? there are a lot of inquest underlings who try to suck up to him because he’s their boss and also a shining star virtuoso with his work................. vax remains oblivious and unpeturbed

24) Do they have a love/hate relationship with any of them? yes. specifically plex. who is his best tech ops drone but plex is a... sort of pushy person wrt trying to Befriend vax and he has a very obvious crush on vax and vax is mostly oblivious to it but sometimes feels weird about plex’s sudden ‘random’ bursts of being super buddy-buddy with him. in plex’s defense a bit, plex doesn’t know how to interact with people either

25) Do they consider any of their friends to be like siblings?

26) Have they ever hurt a friend or lost one? he’s probably unintentionally driven off people by coming across as super cold... i think he feels bad if he accidentally upsets people with his demeanor but he’s not quite sure what to do about it bc he doesn’t really want to upset people but he also doesn’t want to force himself to be MegaFriendly anyway esp considering his trials with social interaction are kind of a hardwired brain thing (he’s got like... vague assorted ADHD-autistic spectrum traits)

27) Do they have a crush on any of their friends?

28) Do they share classes with good friends?

29) Whom do they go to the most when they need a shoulder to cry on? vax internalizes all his problems and works through them privately khgjdf he’s a weird mixture of stable and mature but sometimes unhealthy

30) What would this person do without their friends in their lives? [img of vax doing vague shrugging motions here] as aloof as he is he probably at the very least appreciates that other people have interest in his work! so would be a bit sad if he didn’t have that

School

31) What grade are they in? If they aren’t in school, how come? he has graduated college! he was top of the class his year at dynamics

32) Do/Did they like their teachers? Was there a good one? Bad one? i’m sure he’s had a Variety of teachers but most of his teachers probably liked him a good bit since he’s smart and yknow, Asura Be Like That... i’m sure he’s conversely had a few who butted heads with him over his philosophy on cybernetics because he has a much more open ended approach that’s a bit focused on the idea that prosthetics are body parts and people with prosthetics are Whole People not People With Additional Bits Slapped On/In and he’s very ginger with prosthetics/augments he handles and treats them like they’re the same as fleshy body parts and deserve the same delicate care despite being metal, and overall he has more of a focus on the actual people he’s working with i think, and i can see some more hardass/uptight teachers in particular not liking this because it’s kinda unasuran to more traditionalist types to have such a.. humane view on work rather than being enthused solely with your numbers and research results

33) Do/Did they listen to their teachers or are/where they goofing off a lot? vax is very headstrong and if you have useful advice then its useful advice but if you dont then fuck off and let him do his work how he’s determined to do it... he doesn’t goof off but he has no respect for authority if authority gives bad commentary

34) Are/Where they a good student grade wise? top marks except for in classes where he was abrasive with the teachers who’s work ethics clashed with his but what can you do

35) Do/Did they need extra help? nope... he probably ended up tutoring a few people actually (which probably was due to a nudge from a teacher and not.. vax’s sole volition of wanting to tutor people)

36) What is/was their school like?

37) Do/Did they have bullies in school? i’m sure he Didn’t Get Along With some others bc he’s Weird

38) Have they ever gotten into a fight at school? yes he’s absolutely metaphorically gone for someone’s throat because they had the audacity to challenge him on something that they were both wrong about and not as passionate about as him

39) Have they ever done something stupid/embarrassing at school? i’m sure he has but i can’t rlly think of anything (boring answer srry)

40) How far do they plan to go with school? If they dropped out, do they want to go back?

Other

41) Are they dating anyone? Do they want to date? Are the married? Divorced? i already kinda answered this but he’s not partic romantically involved... however i think if he found someone he was In Sync With and who understood his mannerisms then he’d be very content with them... i think he would need a stable easygoing relationship based on shared interests and just casually fitting together and supporting each other rather than anything passionately heated or overly focused on traditional displays of affection

42) What is their favorite hobby? Do they keep it a secret? he’s a big nerd who collects various prosthetics/augment models and he absolutely doesn’t keep it a secret...................... 75% of the RP i’m in with him rn has been him geeking out over augs. the other 25% was me describing the facility.

43) If they could have one thing in life, what would it be? i think he’s more overall focused on the idea of a continuous stream of improvement over a few static goals? he’s constantly laying out new traintracks in front of himself to steam ahead on... he’d like to be happy and successful at what he does, ultimately, and really attain super advanced inventions

44) Do they work? If so, what is it? If not, are they looking for one or even want one? despite everything i’ve said here about him being a good empathetic guy, he is Inquest........ the inquest funds his research he does at their labs and they pay him for being the sigma-five supervisor

45) Do they use social media? i can’t see him using social media much tbh... he might be into podcasts and asuran youtube a bit

46) Have they ever been in the hospital? due to his strength issues and some stuff that happened as a very small child he has been quite a bit yes

47) Do they believe in the supernatural, that there is more than the eye can see? this is a weird question in the context of gw2 which has canon ghosts whoops.. im gonna interpret it as ‘are they superstitious’... vax isnt superstitious and i think he’d be very brave facing questionably supernatural forces but in a sort of logical way uh... he would Not be the first to die in a horror movie.... he’s a skeptic of non-scientific magic things with i think some lingering internal paranoia.. he’s a very logical person

48) What do they do when they get angry, stressed, or upset? broods in private probably....... depending on what he’s heated about he might go sit by himself for awhile or he’s gonna take his anger out while working on a project

49) Would they consider themselves as a good person, bad person, or morally grey? i think he tries to be a good person but he’s skeptical of that Status a lot and worries over it a good bit... again, typical inquest!

50) Does this OC have any part of you in them? (I.e, personality traits, similar background, etc) all of my ocs have parts of me in them to some degree, i think vax carries some things related to my disabilities, interpersonal and moralistic struggles, and the nerdy passion over my special interests

#oc talk #ask memes #tHIS TOOK SO LONG IM SO SORRY #vax

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reekierevelator · 5 years

Text

Museum Pieces

A short story by Brian Bourner

Mr McLaughlan, Raymond, dozed in his armchair. He wasn’t really listening to Radio 4, but he picked up on the word ‘museum’. It sent him off into a pleasant reverie of times past. Since his wife Maude had finally tired of calling him a boring old stick-in-the-mud and left he could nap whenever he wanted. He might be a little unkempt, the rooms dusty, and his dishes unwashed, but he consoled himself with the thought that at least he didn’t have to put up with someone moaning and complaining that he never did a hand’s turn around the house.

A smile crossed his face as memories of childhood visits flooded back. He could visualize the awesome skeleton of the gigantic blue whale which hung down across Chambers Street museum’s vast central atrium. And then the major attraction for him, always the model steam trains, presented in large glass display cases, with brass buttons to press and make the wheels go round. It was fantastic. It didn’t matter that the museum tended to be quiet and cold, thinly populated, smelling of freshly polished varnish, and haunted by lurking caretakers. That was how museums were meant to be. Of course he’d visited many other museums when he was older.

The British Museum of course. The wonder of closely inspecting letters and hieroglyphics carved into the Rosetta Stone thousands of years ago. The artistry embodied in the Benin bronze masks. Then there was the agglomeration of artefacts comprising Oxford’s Pitt-Rivers Museum. It had lived long in his memory, with its bejewelled Indian turbans, South American pipes and Polynesian headdresses; exotic symbols of the empire on which the sun never set. Yes, over the years he’d been lucky enough to visit many museums and been fascinated by so many things men had created, from the Venus de Milo in the Louvre to the Pergamon Altar in Berlin to…

Suddenly, filled with renewed enthusiasm, Raymond jumped up, threw on his old hat and musty tweed coat and, for the first time in years, hurried out the door and made his way to town. It felt good to escape the stale air and dusty furniture of his home.

Finding himself on the sunny High Street, thronged by crowds of foreign tourists, sweat was forming on his brow and he had a desperate urge to return indoors. He was magnetically drawn to the nearby Museum of Childhood.

Inside he found splendid old Victorian spinning tops, hoops, and ancient wooden dolls. But, surprisingly, there were also so many items with which he already had an intimate familiarity: Dinky toy cars, pink plastic piggy banks, Beezer and Dandy comics, bags of marbles. ‘Oh well’, he thought, ‘for the little children who are brought here nowadays I suppose anything more than a few years old must seem antique.’

He left and carried on to his main objective, Chambers Street Museum. Of course it was completely different from the way he remembered it, even its name had changed. Still, he was grateful that there was now a ground level entrance. It was no longer necessary to climb the long flight of stone steps up to the majestic oak front doors.

Inside it was greatly changed. His head swivelled this way and that trying to take it all in. He concluded the museum had been largely taken over by tea shops. People from all over the world were chattering loudly in all sorts of languages over clattering cups of coffee. They were not poring silently over ancient artefacts as Raymond thought they should have been. And on one side of the great atrium a whole new museum of Scottish history had been tacked on to the building. ‘Another foolish attempt to differentiate Scotland from Great Britain’ Raymond thought, and was amazed at a sign which indicated a completely new and unnecessary full scale haute cuisine restaurant had been added to the top floor.

In a corner a class of small children, a veritable ant hill of activity, bubbled around a table which spilled over with crayons, paper, and playdough; a harassed teacher encouraging the infants to create images of museum artefacts.

Needless to say the blue whale skeleton had gone. The model railway vitrines had gone. Even the central hall’s fishpond, full of decorative carp and a great novelty on his last visit, had evaporated.

Instead Raymond found himself staring at some massive Heath Robinson contraption described as ‘The Millennium Clock’. It looked medieval but dated only from 2000. Suddenly surrounded by a crowd of jabbering children he backed away.

He wandered into an exhibition hall where he typed his name on a keyboard and an ultra-modern robot dutifully retrieved appropriate letters, one at a time, from a pile of coloured letter bricks, and laid them out in the order that spelled out his name. Jostled by other visitors he turned to find himself inspecting the interior of a jet engine alongside an Oriental gentlemen, and then he was confronted by the internal workings of some McLaren super-car of recent vintage. A cluster of wearisome children gathered round it enthusing in German.

Searching desperately for the ancient artefacts whose mental images had precipitated his visit Raymond hurried on, hot and bothered, to yet another room. There he found displayed, under glass, as a rare and exotic item, the exact transistor radio on which he’d listened, in his youth, to pop music from Radio Luxembourg. Next to it, proudly presented as an antique, and apparently requiring a long explanation on a specimen card to render it intelligible to visitors, was an identical reel-to-reel tape-recorder to the one he kept in his cupboard at home, the one he occasionally brought out to hear again the voices of people he had known.

There was even a display of portable telephones. “Surely such modern devices don’t yet rank alongside Aztec daggers and gaming dice from Skara Brae?” he wondered aloud, attracting a disparaging glance from a teenage girl who proceeded to raise her eyebrows and roll her eyes. And only then did he notice his own long-serving little Nokia, as its black plastic glinted in a corner of the display. Raymond turned away, disgusted that the item in his coat pocket that he still considered a novelty could be treated as a fit object for a museum. He resolved to take himself home. But first a visit to the Gents was required.

Even the bathroom was busy with people and strange noises. Taps turned themselves on and off and the toilets flushed themselves automatically. Hand-driers suddenly roared into action. ‘Is there absolutely nothing genuinely old and valuable in this vast museum any longer?’ he muttered to himself disconsolately.

But as he opened the door to leave, in the mirror on the opposite wall, he caught sight of rheumy eyes embedded in a crumpled red and wrinkled face, topped by thin, silvery hair, and he decided he already knew the answer. ‘My God,’ he said, shaking his head sadly, ‘things have come to a sorry pass when it seems I must be the oldest and most valuable thing currently available in this museum.’

As he hurried towards the exit, casting his eyes upwards in one last farewell to the high balconies and vaulted ceiling, he accidentally stubbed his toe on the plinth of a gigantic Buddha and tripped, toppling head over heels and cracking his head on the stone statue. The fatal blow left his body to finally come to rest sprawled awkwardly across the museum floor.

A crowd of fussing, concerned visitors quickly closed in around Raymond but, before any caretaking or medical staff could reach him, a little boy had tunnelled under the crowd and placed a sheet of paper on top of his old coat. It carried bold words written in red crayon: ‘smelly old man - made a long time ago.’

#Reekie Revelator #short story #museum #edinburgh #scotland #old age

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thelowbrass · 7 years

Text

Probably more than you want to know about me

I have a 3-5 page essay due the day I come back to school about who I am and what I want out of life and the class it’s for (an honors theater course). That isn’t a problem though; I can talk about myself and my thoughts for days. In fact, I struggled to keep it under 5 pages (it’s about 3 words away from running over… after I altered the margins slightly so I’d have more space). It really just ended up being be rambling about music, running, and depression though

I’ve decided to share my rough draft on here, just for shits and giggles. I finished typing it about 5 minutes ago, and I haven’t edited it at all (so please let me know if you find any mistakes). Feel free to read and critique!! (it’s a pretty casual essay though)

Probably Too Much Information About My Life

My name is John Sterrett. I am a 17-year-old freshman from Martin, Tennessee, a “city” that’s home to roughly 11,500 people and a small university (enrollment: 8,000). Both of my parents are engineers, and they both taught at the university until my mom moved to the high school this most recent school year to teach math. I have an older sister, Tamara, and a younger brother, Nicholas. I frequently come across as a straight, white, middle-upper class professors’ kid who’s always made pretty good grades and never got in trouble. That’s okay. It’s what I am. I use Old Spice deodorant, and I brush my teeth twice a day with Crest Ultra-whitening toothpaste. I have a collection of books that’s slowly becoming more non-fiction than fiction, and I keep my hamper in the corner of my room by my door, but with enough room for my door to open without a problem. I have narcolepsy, and I’m terribly nearsighted. My glasses stay on the desk by my bed at night. I take a multivitamin every morning. I go to bed too late.

However, I live a life pretty different from most people; I’m an ultramarathon runner. I run for hours on end for the hell of it. Simply put, I’ve come to like running long distances. There is absolutely no need nowadays for me to be able to run 50 miles, but I do it, and it has become who I am. I find solace in the solitude and the discomfort. People call me crazy, or (as my calculus teacher put it) a “masochistic freak.” They ask me why I do it. Don’t worry, I’ll answer that later.

Though it makes up a large portion of my life, running doesn’t take up all of my time. I also play the trombone, piano, tuba, and euphonium. I spin poi, and I love listening to and writing music. I keep a few plants, and I thoroughly enjoy cooking (though I haven’t been doing much at college). I’m an Eagle Scout. I climb and cycle frequently, and I log a couple hundred miles of backpacking each year. Additionally, I spend my copious amounts of free time reading, especially non-fiction. However, I guess I need to move on to answer the pressing, ever-important question that adults always ask me. I’m a nutrition major on a pre-physical therapy track. It’s a path I never would’ve expected myself to be on, but I’m extremely happy where I am. To give you a deeper understanding of who I am, an idea of how I got here, and knowledge of where I want to go, I’ll basically tell you my life story, starting the summer I turned 7.

The summer after second grade, my grandmother moved in with my family, and she brought her piano with her. I, of course, started messing around on it, finding out what notes sounded good together and what notes didn’t. By the time third grade began, I had figured out major and minor triads on my own and could play a few songs by ear, and my mom helped get me started on piano lessons. Thus, my musical journey commenced. I continued with these lessons until I dropped them at the start of sixth grade to join band. For some reason, I didn’t think I could or even should play two instruments.

In band, I was assigned to play the trombone, which I was ecstatic about. Once I started playing, I found I really enjoyed it, so I played around and practiced for hours every week (much to my parents’ dismay). I got pretty good, and I was invited to play in the high school band when I was in eighth grade, which definitely helped accelerate the learning curve. More importantly, however, it really sparked my love for music and challenge. Moving on to my freshman year of high school, I kept practicing and working hard in school. I found that the more I did, the more satisfied I was. I auditioned for the All-West Tennessee band that year and placed fourteenth.

If you can’t tell by now, I was pretty used to being good at things. I had sat first chair in my section ever since seventh grade. I made straight A’s. I wasn’t used to being beaten, so placing fourteenth didn’t exactly make me happy. As a competitive perfectionist, I was searching for what in my mind was idealistic, musical perfection: no missed notes, no mistakes. By this point, I was absolutely sure I wanted to major in music, so I was dead set on being perfect. However, perfection isn’t music; it’s not art, and, most importantly, it is not possible. I stressed myself out a lot seeking it though. By my sophomore year, with school weighing heavier and music becoming more intense, I started having a lot of trouble with stress. I wore myself beyond thin. Almost every practice session ended with me in tears: my tone wasn’t good enough, I missed a note, or I couldn’t get the dynamic range I wanted. Basically, I was tearing myself apart for not being on the level of someone who had been playing for five times as long as I had. I couldn’t handle it, so I had to find some way to get the stress out.

I started running, and it helped. I liked it. Life got better. I was dealing with a ton of stress, but I was able to manage it. That year, I got ninth chair at All-West and first chair at UT Martin’s honor band. I was pretty happy with those. My friends and I helped start up my school’s charter cross country team. I started running more and training hard. As I said, life got better.

That summer, however, I started developing depression. At the time, I didn’t realize it; I thought I just kind of felt less stressed and slightly bored because school was out or something. It got worse as junior year started, and I started thinking something was wrong, but I was afraid to tell my parents because I was afraid they’d make me quit band or cross country, which they saw as unnecessary activities. For me, they were the only times I really felt anything.

Junior year of high school is a tough time as it is. There’s pre-cal, the ACT, looking at colleges, and, in general, a much higher workload in classes. Once you throw a sport, marching band, narcolepsy, and depression on top of all that, life sucks everything you have left out of you. I felt empty, except for when I played music and ran, and it started getting to the point where those weren’t helping me much either. Life wasn’t even gray or black; it had no color. I felt suspended in nothingness and pointlessness. One plus one didn’t equal two; it didn’t equal anything because it didn’t matter. Though math was pointless, I struggled to get away from letting non-perfect numbers represent me. By the end of the semester, I was in shreds.

That winter break, I decided I needed to do something about it, so I tried to figure out how to help myself. I really started trying to look at everything I did as an art. I added more color to music, more emotion, more feeling. I scrounged up anything I could find and poured it into everything I did. I started running free, running without a watch. I just ran, and I started venturing longer and longer. I ran my first marathon solo on roads near my high school on New Year’s Day. I started seeing the natural beauty in math and science. A sense of color came back to me. I was able to back off on my competitive and perfectionist nature.

As the semester came around, All-West auditions were creeping up, and I was shooting for All-State, which meant I had to place in the top three of West Tennessee. One week before the audition, however, I came down sick and wasn’t able to play until the audition (I was still sick for the audition too). I wasn’t able to play too well on a technical level, so I went in with the goal of making music; I wanted to make art. They wouldn’t know I was sick, so they would not be taking easy on me for missing notes, and I had to compensate by making them feel something. The next day I also auditioned for Tennessee’s Governor’s School for the Arts, and that audition went even better. I ended up getting fourth chair at All-West and missing All-State by one chair; however, I made it into Governor’s School!

I finished out that school year slowly getting better, with – of course – a few relapses (that still come about occasionally). My summer at Governor’s School went well, and I absolutely loved it. My passion for music grew deeper. However, later that summer, one night at the track with a friend, I had a realization: I need music to not be my profession. I need music as my art; I need it as a way to release stress; I need it as a way to find what’s inside me. So, the plan became to major in exercise science, since, as a runner, that had really started to fascinate me. I also started looking at a career in physical therapy.

My senior year, in general, I was happier than I’d ever been before. We qualified for state in cross country, and I ran my first two ultramarathons that year. I placed third at All-West, and I ended up getting second at All-State. I spent a lot of time thinking about why I did what I did, leading me to figure out why I like running ultras, something that’s generally considered crazy.

I fell in love with ultrarunning for the same reason I fell in love with music. It makes me feel something. I spent plenty of time feeling nothing, and now I crave the opposite. I do it for the discomfort, the array of emotions that comes with it, the highs and the lows. I’ve become a firm believer that discomfort heightens sensitivity, and prolonged, repeated mental discomfort gives people a certain “depth” that you can’t find elsewhere. For me, that discomfort comes from ultrarunning. I’ve seen people go from crying to laughing in just minutes during an ultra, and I’ve personally experienced emotional intensities and swings I never knew existed.

All this has helped me develop, and I think I’ve found what I want out of my life. I want to help people, and I’ve found that nutrition and physical therapy are two wonderful tools that I can use for this. I’ve found that I love the connections to nature and myself that come with running for hours on end. I’ve found that I’m happiest when I’m accepting, both of new challenges and new people. I’ve found that I believe our humanity is rooted in art. I know I seem like some half-crazed hippie who likes to play the trombone and run. That might be who I am.

I spend my time looking for challenge, for art, for discomfort, for new knowledge and new feelings, and I hope that gives you an idea of what I want out of this class. I want art. I want to improve my ability to think and learn. I want to experience. I’ve tried to fit a painting of myself onto these five pages of black words on a white canvas by telling the story of how I got to where I am now. I hope you can draw from this who I am and who I strive to be.

#me #personal

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usnewsaggregator-blog · 7 years

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‘Read me!’: Students race to craft forceful college essays as deadlines near

New Post has been published on https://usnewsaggregator.com/read-me-students-race-to-craft-forceful-college-essays-as-deadlines-near/

‘Read me!’: Students race to craft forceful college essays as deadlines near

Leslie Atkin leads a college essay workshop at Wheaton High School in Maryland on Oct. 17. (Bonnie Jo Mount/Washington Post)

Find a telling anecdote about your 17 years on this planet. Examine your values, goals, achievements and perhaps even failures to gain insight into the essential you. Then weave it together in a punchy essay of 650 or fewer words that showcases your authentic teenage voice — not your mother’s or father’s — and helps you stand out among hordes of applicants to selective colleges.

That’s not necessarily all. Be prepared to produce even more zippy prose for supplemental essays about your intellectual pursuits, personality quirks or compelling interest in a particular college that would be, without doubt, a perfect academic match.

Many high school seniors find essay writing the most agonizing step on the road to college, more stressful even than SAT or ACT testing. Pressure to excel in the verbal endgame of the college application process has intensified in recent years as students perceive that it’s tougher than ever to get into prestigious schools. Some well-off families, hungry for any edge, are willing to pay as much as $16,000 for essay-writing guidance in what one consultant pitches as a four-day “application boot camp.”

But most students are far more likely to rely on parents, teachers or counselors for free advice as hundreds of thousands nationwide race to meet a key deadline for college applications on Wednesday.

[College admissions edge for the wealthy: Early decision]

Malcolm Carter at a college essay workshop at Wheaton High. (Bonnie Jo Mount/Washington Post)

Malcolm Carter, 17, a senior who attended an essay workshop this month at Wheaton High School in Montgomery County, Md., said the process took him by surprise because it differs so much from analytical techniques learned over years as a student. The college essay, he learned, is nothing like the standard five-paragraph English class essay that analyzes a text.

“I thought I was a good writer at first,” Carter said. “I thought, ‘I got this.’ But it’s just not the same type of writing.”

Carter, who is thinking about engineering schools, said he started one draft but aborted it. “Didn’t think it was my best.” Then he got 200 words into another. “Deleted the whole thing.” Then he produced 500 words about a time when his father returned from a tour of Army duty in Iraq.

Will the latest draft stand? “I hope so,” he said with a grin.

Admission deans want applicants to do their best and make sure they get a second set of eyes on their words. But they also urge them to relax.

“Sometimes, the fear or the stress out there is that the student thinks the essay is passed around a table of imposing figures, and they read that essay and put it down and take a yea or nay vote, and that determines the student’s outcome,” said Tim Wolfe, associate provost for enrollment and dean of admission at the College of William & Mary. “That is not at all the case.”

Wolfe called the essay one more way to learn something about an applicant. “I’ve seen rough essays that still powerfully convey a student’s personality and experiences,” he said. “And on the flip side, I’ve seen pristine, polished essays that don’t communicate much about the students and are forgotten a minute or two after reading them.”

William & Mary, like many schools, assigns at least two readers for each application. Sometimes, essays get another look when an admissions committee is deliberating.

Most experts say a great essay cannot compensate for a mediocre academic record. But it can play a significant role in shaping perceptions of an applicant and might tip the balance in a borderline case.

[Top colleges put thousands of applicants in wait-list limbo]

Essays and essay excerpts from students who have won admission circulate widely on the Internet, but it’s impossible to know how much weight those words carried in the final decision. One student took a daring approach to a Stanford University essay this year. He wrote, simply, “#BlackLivesMatter” 100 times. And he got in.

Advice about essays abounds, some of it obvious: Show, don’t tell. Don’t rehash your résumé. Avoid cliches and pretentious words. Proofread. “That means actually having a living, breathing person — not just a spell-checker — actually read your essay,” Wolfe said.

But make sure that person doesn’t cross the line between useful feedback and meddlesome revision, or worse. (Looking at you, moms and dads.)

“It’s very obvious to us when an essay has been written by a 40-year-old and not a 17-year-old,” said Angel B. Pérez, vice president of enrollment and student success at Trinity College. “I’m not looking for a Pulitzer Prize-winning piece. And I get pretty skeptical when I see it.”

Some affluent parents buy help for their children from consultants who market their services through such brands as College Essay Guy, Essay Hell and Your Best College Essay.

Michele Hernández, co-founder of Top Tier Admissions, based in Vermont and Massachusetts, said her team charges $16,000 for a four-day boot camp in August to help clients develop all pieces of their applications, from essays to extracurricular activity lists. Or a family can pay $2,500 for five hours of one-on-one essay tutoring. Like other consultants, Hernández said she does pro-bono work. But she acknowledged there are troubling questions about the influence of wealth in college admissions.

“The equity problem is serious,” Hernández said. “College consultants are not the problem. It starts way lower down” — at kindergarten or earlier, she added.

Christopher Hunt, with a business in Colorado called College Essay Mentor, charges $3,000 for an “all-college-all-essays package” with as much guidance as clients want or need, from brainstorming to final drafts. He said the industry is growing because of a cycle rooted in anxiety. As the volume of applications grows, now topping 40,000 a year at Stanford and 100,000 at the University of California at Los Angeles , admission rates fall. That, in turn, fuels worries of prospective applicants from around the world.

[Stanford dean: Ultra-low admit rate not something to boast about]

“Most of my inquiries come from students,” Hunt said. “They are at ground zero of the college craze, aware of the competition, and know what they need to compete.”

At Wheaton High, it cost nothing for students to drop in on a college essay workshop offered during the lunch hour a couple of weeks before the Nov. 1 early application deadline. Cynthia Hammond Davis, the college and career information coordinator, provided pizza, and Leslie Atkin, an English composition assistant, provided tips in a room bedecked with college pennants.

Her first piece of advice: Don’t bore the reader. “It should be as much fun as telling your best friend a story,” she said. “You’re going to be animated about it.” Atkin also sketched a four-step framework for writing: Depict an event, discuss how that anecdote illuminates key character traits, define a pivotal moment and reflect on the outcome. “Wrap it up with a nice package and a bow,” she said. “They don’t have to be razzle-dazzle. But they need to say, ‘Read me!’ ”

As an example, Hammond Davis distributed an essay written by a 2017 Wheaton High graduate now at Rice University. In it, Anene “Daniel” Uwanamodo likened himself to a trampoline — a student leader who helps serve as a launchpad for others. “Regardless of race, gender or background, trampolines will offer their uplifting influence to any who request it,” he wrote.

Soaking this in were students aiming for the University of Maryland at College Park, Towson, Howard and Johns Hopkins universities, Virginia Tech, the University of Chicago and a special scholars program at Montgomery College. One planned to write about a terrifying car accident, another about her mother’s death and a third about how varsity basketball shaped him.

Sahil Sahni, 17, said his main essay responds to a prompt on the Common Application, an online portal to apply to hundreds of colleges: “Discuss an accomplishment, event or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.”

Sahni showed The Washington Post two drafts — his initial version in July, and his latest after feedback from Hammond Davis. (It’s probably best not to quote the essay before admission officers read it.) During the writing, he said, he often jotted phrases on sticky notes when inspiration occurred. If no notepads were handy, he would ink a keyword on his arm “to stimulate the ideas.”

Sahni summarized the essay as a meditation on the consequences of lost keys, “how the unknown is okay, and how you can overcome it.” He said composing three or four high-stakes essays also had a consequence: “Every day you learn something new about yourself.”

Senior Sahil Sahni with Cynthia Hammond Davis, the college and career information coordinator, at Wheaton High’s college essay workshop. (Bonnie Jo Mount/Washington Post)

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giveuselife-blog · 7 years

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Russian Web 2.0 Explodes with material - 10 Million Blogs in 2008

New Post has been published on https://giveuselife.org/russian-web-2-0-explodes-with-material-10-million-blogs-in-2008/

Russian Web 2.0 Explodes with material - 10 Million Blogs in 2008

I used to be a fortunate youngster. Due to the fact that I used to be seven, I waited with first-rate anticipation for lunch time, while my mother, who worked at a massive publishing house, might convey a freshly revealed percent of Soviet newspapers, like “Izvestiya,” “Pravda,” “Trud,” “Komsomolskaya Pravda,” “Krasnaya Zvezda,” “Sovetsky Recreation,” all in all, up to ten+ newspapers. There has been not anything extra quality than to chomp on a juicy apple and examine all the trendy information in one p.C.! I even used to fight with my older brother over who will get “Sovetsky Recreation” and “Komsomolskaya Pravda” first.

Despite the abundance of patterns, from the stiff and legitimate “Pravda” to the greater at ease and youthful “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, the evaluations expressed were trimmed to the regulations of the reigning Soviet propaganda system. Best after the genie of glasnost got here out of Gorbachev’s bottle, I noticed a few surprisingly important articles in the Soviet press. Even then, human beings nonetheless could not sincerely talk up or relate their critiques to particular activities, except discussing it with friends or relatives in their tiny kitchens, where humans ought to speak anything and the entirety at small kitchen tables with the assist of vodka and pickles…

Unfortunately, within the early Yeltsin era, the newly minted democratic Russian media advanced in a motley crew of yellow press, scandals and soap operas. Frequently it turned into tough to sift through this flow and locate a few real pearls of true truth and compelling critic. in the late ninety’s, the Net gave a start to the running a blog universe, and it quick gained reputation from mass users, reporters, politicians, and critics, growing an enormous Russian salad of critiques and philosophies by no means tasted before.

These days Russian running blog services are on their way up. The trendy studies by using Yandex, the Russian seek engine No. 1, showed that the two most famous services in the Russian Net (RUNET) are LiveJournal’s Russian language community (RULJ) and LiveInternet (LI). On June 6, 2007, the RULJ proudly recorded 1 million registered customers and blogs. Yet the long status #2 running a blog webpage LI is unexpectedly accomplishing its most important rival, RULJ, in terms of recent blogs and regular notes.

But, space is still huge: LI has one hundred seventy,000 everyday traffic, while there are 600,000 visitors at RULJ. LI’s Trendy Director German Klimenko stated to CNews that the quantity of lively blogs at LI will exceed LJ by way of the quit of 2007. Yandex research suggests that the general increase of the Russian blogging sphere is seventy-four% (forty-one% international), but the total wide variety of Russian blogs account for Best three% of worldwide blogs. Analysts consider that by 2008 there could be at least 10 million blogs inside the Russian a part of the global blogosphere.

Permit’s make a brief contrast among LI and RULJ. After you check or sign up to both, one issue will become clear at once: RULJ is virtually extra mature and garners an older target market. LI, boasting a kaleidoscope of offerings, is crafted for teens and young adults. Certainly, LI’s target audience is developing faster than that of RULJ. In spite of everything, kids are yearning for the organization and socializing. The massive distinction is in the high-quality of Content material and blogs, in which at LI bored teenagers spill out their sparkling 1/2-thoughts and dreams, whilst the coolest on’ RULJ crowd is plenty more Content material with serious topics and informative Content. There is a terrific number of actually interesting blogs and boards at RULJ. Although, each blog arenas cover nicely for their kind of audiences.

Depressed Russians and Football Widows

properly, yes, while you are coming into the Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport, the first Russians who you notice are not smiling and look quite gloomy. However, in reality, associating Russians with depression – that sounds funny to me. Little did I recognize that a new term “a Russian” method just that! Here is what one RULJ person, Underneath the subject “presenteeism” this user shared newly coined English language terms that hadn’t Yet come to Russia. Those are the first 3 words:

“mac nazi” – humans crazy about Apple Macintosh products

”Football widow” – a female who believes her husband is useless in the course of Football fits

”a Russian” – someone who is constantly in melancholy and sees the world in black

And There’s a whole lot extra of this new language in there.

Now, how about checking the most popular blogs in Russia? Yandex frequently publishes its own score of RUNET’s blogs at Blogs.Yandex.Ru/top. As of July three, 2007, there were 2,189,160 blogs rated at the Yandex machine.

For example, the pinnacle-4 blogs in the Russian Net on July four, 2007, included:

1. Alexander Jdanov and images of the “Star Manufacturing facility” – famous tune display

2. “an illustrated mag about everything within the international”

three. blog of Leonid Kaganov, Russian writer

four. particularly diverse pictures of glamor, animals, humans and fashion

Blogger services rating with the aid of Yandex, July 3, 2007

• LiveInternet 51,823 facts on July three

• LiveJournal forty-eight,439

• Diary.Ru 18,609

• Blogs.Mail.Ru 12,289

• Love ♥ Planet 7,935

• Planeta.Rambler.Ru 2,875

• Ben.Ru 2,398

• Jamango 2,129

search in blogs through Yandex, July three, 2007

• Steve Bloom

• Transformers the sport

• torent

• Timothy and Sobchak

• Harry Potter

On July 3, 2007, famous classes protected (most famous are in caps letters): Anime, CRAP, spring, VIDEO, questions, youngsters, DIARY, friends, Eurovision, LJ, life, games, thrilling, Internet, history, photos, cinema, books, culture, private, lay TDY BR or ksnls,h, love, humans, my mind, my life, tune, thoughts, mind aloud, mood, news approximately life, about me, relaxation, fantastic, POLITICS, pranks, nature, psychology, journey, job, pondering, numerous, desires, events, Game, hyperlinks, poems, tv, creativity, assessments, movies, Photograph, Football, hockey, faculty, humor, me, me and my pals.

Copycats Entice Thousands and thousands of customers

But big RULJ and LI communities are, fortuitously There may be much more that you may discover in the Russian blogosphere. Ever puzzled what the Russian copies of the well-well famous Western weblog websites had been? Here you’re: MoiKrug.Ru is a local version of LinkedIn; Odnoklassniki.Ru – Classmates.Ru; Fakultet.Ru, Vkontakte.Ru — Fb; Habrahabr.Ru – Dig.Com; Privet.Ru (Combo) – MySpace. MoiKrug focuses on expert community. Odnoklassniki is looking for lost contacts, in particular from their excessive schools. Vkontakte and Fakultet are oriented in the direction of students. while the copycats of the “A million Dollar website online” that secured an actual million to its British proprietor did now not spark with the skeptical Russian Net-network, social networks quick went berserk.

The ultra-modern hit of the Russian Web 2.zero is Vkontakte.Ru. Recently Alexa (www.Alexa.Com), a main Internet Statistic Portal, located Vkontakte as the top-four Russian web page, right after such giants as Mail.Ru, Yandex, and Rambler. customers reward the website for clean-to-use design and plenty of features similar to Fb. As an instance, Currently, Vkontakte introduced the video, permitting users to feature movies to their pages. The website additionally allows you to look by using process touch, friends, and remind you of your buddies’ birthdays. In line with Vkontakte data, a few 12,000 people check in on this website every day.

Created in 2006, Habrahabr.Ru, an analog of Dig.Com, became successful almost at once. Habrahabr’s audience consists of people inquisitive about the Web development and Internet economy, Net-designers, programmers, journalists, analysts and diverse companies interested in the Internet. The challenge permits its users to feature blogs, write articles, paste information and create private audio and video applications. In 2007 Habrahabr received the undertaking of the Yr 2007 and First-rate Net community Awards.

Aside from These websites that assist in finding friends and offering socializing platform, there are some interesting tasks covering diverse social wishes.

For instance, In line with Habrahabr, Lately E-Generator.Ru supported by means of FINAL protecting released DrugMe.Ru (note that in Russian drug actually way “a friend”), a social site for people with various illnesses inquisitive about socializing with each other, finding better capsules and doctors, recommending desirable clinics, and so on. A number of the offerings which range from RULJ, a unwell person can search among customers with the equal analysis and depart a reference approximately a selected doctor and hospital, and many other matters. through the quiet of 2007, the site hopes to get as a minimum One million users. And its principal promotion approach could be the usage of virus advertising via the happy pool of first customers, supplemented by using catchy scientific news and success tales.

Training is every other sphere that is destined to be Net-two-odd. For instance, in 2006 Intel and TransTelecom together released a web 2.zero venture for Russian teachers. The Letopisi.Ru project geared toward teaching teachers in the use of Net 2.0 ideas to create a platform for collective instructional projects. Letopisi.Ru helped many Russian instructors involve their students in institution initiatives.

show Me the Cash: ‘Cherchez La Femme’ and L. A. Russ

So, where is the Cash? Mamba.Ru President, Nikita Sherman, said that some 15 million humans use Net courting sites. And this market is growing 70% to one hundred% annually. For that reason, in 2006 Internet-courting web page proprietors harvested USD 34 million of earnings. In line with iKS-Consulting, fifty-two% of those target audience are men with higher Training and enterprise owners. sure, for a chance to find your Cinderella/Jolie or a Tremendous/Spiderman, Russian men and women don’t mind spending their difficult earned rubles.

But Net 2.zero web page owners also look for the “inexperienced” light in the end of Internet tunnel. Given that you created a unique, famous and beneficial website online, the easiest manner is promoting your begin-up commercial enterprise and merging with massive Russian Net coins cows. That’s what MoiKrug.Ru and Damochka.Ru did, selling their groups to Yandex and Rambler respectively. However, top managers of Fakultet.Ru chose a different manner to monetize their business. According to CNews, Fakultet actually presented every of its users their percentage within the venture, making their subscribers shareholders. This August the employer will trouble A million stocks (1% of Charter Capital) and distribute among its users. The agency owners are looking to both monetize their commercial enterprise and engage their clients in this enterprise. Sooner or later, other corporations, like DrugMe and Eva.Ru, are looking for sponsors and advertisement.

One way or some other, Russian Internet 2.0 is evolving into a very creative and dwelling organism that brings people together and offers brilliant enterprise opportunities to bright entrepreneurs and programmers. So, are you feeling Russian now?

Dr. Andrey Gidaspov has over ten years of experience in commercial enterprise consulting within the IT and telecom (ICT) fields in Russia, CIS, and Asia. Andrey has sealed offers for loads of American organizations with Russian and CIS companions, starting from begin-up companies to big multi-national corporations all through Eurasia. His beyond clients consist of 9aaf3f374c58e8c9dcdd1ebf10256fa5 generation leaders which include Motorola, Harris, Tekelec, Oracle, Corning, Tellabs, Qualcomm, Net2Phone, Nortel, Andrew and lots of others.

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