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cherryonigiri · 4 years

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S/O that thirsts over anime/game guys

reposted bc wasn’t showing up in the tags + I want to keep nsfw under the cut

@nononononojustno asked: Okay so could you write a headcanon where 2 random boys (can you pick then? I love all of boys from hq) and Ushi-kun where they walk on their gfs fangirling or thirsting over another anime/game character?And she was talking how hot he is? How they would react?👀😂 have a great day/night and dont forget to eat and get rest, love you💕

A/N: hahahahaha i laughed while writing this. FYI these are all based on legit crushes i had on anime/game characters at some point in my life - see if you’ve watched the shows i’ve watched :) ILY I PROMISE I’M DOING MY BEST TO EAT THREE MEALS A DAY AND GET ADEQUATE SLEEP MWAH. also i went overboard and added an extra boy bc why not. These are a little shorter since there were 4 characters but I hope you enjoy!

Content warning: implied nsfw for Atsumu + slight nsfw hcs for Matsukawa (both are under the cut)

PS: If anyone wants a spicy sequel/one shot for matsukawa i’m open to the idea 👀👀 let me know in my inbox!

Ushijima Wakatoshi

Ushijima definitely knows you’re into anime + games

Having visited your dorm room on multiple occasions he’s seen your extensive collection of manga, anime posters and you always seem to be playing on your switch whenever you have free time

Of course, he notices a significant portion of your collection is centered on male characters

And you’ve definitely mentioned a few games to him - Ikemen Sengoku, Code:Realize, Hakuouki (wow i’m really out here exposing myself) etc.

He doesn’t really mind though? Like - at the end of the day these are 2D men, whereas he is a very real boyfriend

At least he thinks he doesn’t mind

Recently, he notices that you seem to be on your phone a lot, and you seem to be texting the same group chat very often

He asks why and you laugh - it’s not actual text messages you’re just trying out a new otome/simulation game called Mystic Messenger. He finds the name silly but he just brushes it off he’s definitely J E A L O U S

Until one day he walks into your room while you’re calling one of your friends to freak out about that specific game

You sound kind of teary from outside the door “Oh MY GOD OH MY GOD I GOT THE GOOD ENDING WITH JUMIN!” and “[friend name] I THINK I CAN DIE HAPPY I’M MARRIED TO JUMIN HAN WHAT MORE DO I NEED IN LIFE” and “HE’S SO FREAKING ATTRACTIVE UGH I AM BLESSED”

He’s like who TF is Jumin and immediately bursts into your room looking pissed off

Poor babie is all like “you’re married?” and “if you had someone else you were interested in you should have told me.” “Who is this Jumin Han???” 🧐

Oh my god you start cackling, but you manage to tell him that NO you are not married and that Jumin Han is a fictional character from the game you’re playing

Ushijima looks confused after you explain - why would you find fictional men attractive when you’re already dating him?

Tendou almost dies laughing the next day when Ushijima tells him about what happened

Oikawa Tooru

Since practice finishes pretty late he usually goes to see you at your house at night, but tonight things wrapped up earlier - he’s excited to spend more time with you

You’ve finished up most of your homework so you’ve just been rewatching Attack on Titan since you’re super excited for the new season

You’re kinda distracted/have headphones on so you don’t hear your boyfriend knock on the front door. Your mom answers it and lets him in and he climbs the stairs

He can hear your fangirling (freaking out) over something as he walks towards your room

You jump in surprise when he opens the door, because you thought he would be a bit later but immediately release your pent up excitement

“Tooru just LOOK at him he’s such a bad ass like oh my gosh he literally has swords and he’s still running around slaying the MPs who have guns. God whenever he gets angry he looks so hot,” etc. etc.

You’re shoving your laptop in his face, showing him gifs and video of attack on titan, specifically the captain of the survey corps that you are obsessed with

Tooru gets it - for him its space, shitty alien films and astronomy. For you it’s video games and anime - or more specifically, handsome characters from said franchises

Even though he understand that it’s something you’re passionate about he still makes a whole show about whining how you’re in love with Levi Ackerman (lmao i still thirst over our favorite captain) instead of him

“y/n i’m taller than him! And more handsome! He has blood on him all the time! And he’s super annoying because he’s obsessed with cleaning.” *cue pouty Tooru*

You probably shouldn’t tell him that you are an avid follower of the levi x reader tag on tumblr

Tooru still somehow finds out you’re also reading reader insert fanfic and goes BERSERK with his pouting and whining - literally everyone and their mothers have heard his sob story about how “his darling y/n is leaving me for a short germaphobic asshole”

The rest of the team finds it hilarious - the end up pranking him by posting pictures of Levi in his school locker or texting them in the volleyball groupchat (Oikawa is Suffering™)

Makki and Mattsun get him a Levi keychain for his birthday and cackle when he chucks it violently into the nearest trash can

Miya Atsumu

Doesn’t really know you’re into anime/gaming at first

I don’t think that’s on purpose - Atsumu just has such a one track mind when it comes to volleyball and he’s always busy with practice

so he just kinda doesn’t really give all the anime merch in your room a second glance even though it’s a dead giveaway

I bet Atsumu secretly watches some superhero anime - probably shounen stuff like My Hero Academia, one punch man etc.

He probably starts to notice you’re into anime/games because you’ll play games on your phone/gaming device all the time

One day he notices you’re giggling + blushing while looking at your screen. He’s curious to he heads over to you when coach says they can have a break

Peeks over your shoulder because he wants to know what you’re playing - but instead he’s greeted by some 2D samurai guy called Harada Sanosuke asking you to marry him

“Huh, I didn’t know you were into this kinda stuff y/n” tries to sound playful but internally he is screaming / ?????? WOT I DIDN’T KNOW MY S/O WAS INTO OTOME GAMES

Atsumus pretty chill about it at first, he probably teases you a lot about playing the game but isn’t really bugged about it

“Maybe you should thirst over your boyfriend instead of a fictional character babe~”

I mean - he knows he’s attractive and why be jealous? You only really play the game when he’s busy and you don’t really let the game play seep into your dates/hangouts

But one time he walks in on you reading some ~spicy~ hakuouki x reader fanfic and he’s like are u serious

Like you were lowkey quiet screaming to yourself and muttering “omg omg omg” when he walked in and you definitely tried to close your laptop so he couldn’t see what was open in your browser

Too bad Atsumu has mad reflexes and manages to prevent you from making your computer go to sleep

Briefly skims whatever it was that you were reading and smirks at you

“Hey, if you really want something like this, why don’t you let your real boyfriend deliver” before kissing you

Matsukawa Issei

Look, Issei just wants a chill movie/tv show night where the two of you can bundle up on the couch and binge whatever anime you feel like

Has everything set up - this man is ready to go: snacks? he has all of your favorites, couch? filled with soft pillows + multiple pillows. Attire? Comfy sweatpants shirtless 🥵

Last time he chose the series for your binge sleepover so he let you choose what the two of you were gonna watch this time

Turns out you decided to watch Psycho-Pass - it seemed like a pretty cool show, he was down with the whole dystopia/psychological concept

Starts out pretty normal, is appreciating the action + mystery elements and is glad that you chose that show

About halfway through the anime you two decide to take a break - he goes to the kitchen to refill your snacks, leaving to stretch you back.

When he comes back with more food, he notices that you’re hunched over your phone, typing something

He sneaks up behind you after he puts the food down, “Whatcha reading there babe?” You squeak and try to hide your phone, but not before he sees the words kougami x reader typed into your tumblr search bar

Lit-rally exCuSE me what - he’s not mad (more amused than anything else) but he also kind wants to tease you (bc Mattsun is a little shit)

“Is that the reason you wanted to watch this show?” he asks playfully. “He’s pretty hot tho, I kinda agree with you there babe.”

Now that he’s released the floodgate, he can’t stop your occasional comments like “omg how does he look so GOOD when he’s punching someone” or “he could shoot me with his dominator and i’d still say thank you”

The thirst comments are kinda getting to him, so he decides to take things in a different direction

“Let me what I can show you with my dominator~” L M A O I’M SORRY THIS EXISTS

Suddenly you’re being pulled onto his lap, and pressed against his bare chest, Issei barely gives you time to adjust before he’s kissing you roughly, tongue plunging into your mouth

His hands wrap around your hips pressing your core closer to his own, and you can feel his hard-on pressing into your stomach

He’ll be sure to suck a dark hickey onto the side of your neck and his hands travel under your shirt, just to remind you who your real boyfriend is

Needless to say, you won’t remember a single thing about the second half of the show after the night is over couch sex? Couch sex 😏

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webcricket · 6 years

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Looking Glass

Chapter 11 - Under Your Spell

Pairing: CastielXAU!Reader

Word Count: 3180

Summary: The final ingredient needed for Rowena’s location spell leads to an angelically intimate reveal. Warning for a swear word and non-explicit sexually suggestive situation.

Miss a chapter? Have a Masterlist Link!

Retracing his footsteps from the task of securing the door following a soggy return to the bunker and your subsequent sprint to your bedroom in search of a dry clothes, Castiel’s rain sodden boot leaves the last metal stair and lands on the floor with a slosh at almost the same instant Dean materializes in the hall door traveling the well-worn route from kitchen to library.

The hunter carries two condensation glazed amber bottles of beer, neither of which is intended for the angel.

Cas’ fingers pause in their anemic struggle to loosen the slippery blue knot of his silken tie. He eyes the alcohol; the thought passes fleeting that he could use a beer, or thousand. From the wind-mussed mat of dark brown locks slicked to his forehead down to the pruned-skin toes shoved into squishy socks, his demeanor drips defeat over the washed-out chance to kiss you and the continued existential battle waging within between his sentimental heart and reason-ruled mind regarding as to where, should your relationship develop further despite his ineptitude in processing and directing his developing emotion toward you, this newfound and deepening desire fits into his angelic existence and your otherworldly one.

Staring at his friend in the saturation of silence as though he’s also been caught in some seraphim subterfuge for having gone against Dean’s strongly worded decree that you not be allowed outside the controlled confines of bunker-dom, he thinks perhaps Dean should have warned, too, that you not be permitted to breach the boundaries of his heart; it’s precisely the sort of distraction none of them need right now – not that the angel necessarily abides by anything Dean dictates.

“Dean, you’re back.” Defaulting to the observable in the absence of anything more concrete to say about the maelstrom of confusion vexing his mind, the gravelly greyness of his tone emulates the storm roiling outside.

“How was your wa-” Dean’s gaze pops upward, widening upon perceiving the soaked state of the seraph. “-what the hell happened?”

Suit stuck to his skin, pallor oddly pale, a puddle gathers around Cas’ ankles as he tries to decide if and how to articulate to Dean the tale of a perfect afternoon punctuated by a near kiss preempted by an inner tempest of hesitation deluged by a literal tempest with an ending ultimately steeped in regret and the never-ending cycle of life’s uncertainty. It’s the sort of benign blow so consistent throughout the angel’s undertakings that it could be considered his trademark. Preferring to nurse his woes in private, dreading Dean will add insult to injury, he says nothing.

Waiting for an answer, and unlike the droplets of water sliding off the glass bottles to splash the concrete at his feet a darker shade of grey, the Winchester’s patience runs dry. “Cas, why are you wet?” he reiterates his question with specificity.

“It’s raining.” Cas shrugs his slouched trench coat-less shoulders as he mutters the specific, albeit overall vague in actual terms of why, reason for his dampness. He avoids looking directly at Dean.

“Ya think?” Dean gestures the neck of one of the bottles at the atypically disrobed angel. Astute to angelic body language, he doesn’t miss the glancing guilt. “Not to state the obvious, but isn’t this the exact scenario trench coats are made for? Where’s yours?”

Cas misreads the waved refreshment as an offer to take it. Slogging nearer, he reaches out to pluck the drink from Dean’s grip; twisting off the top, he downs the contents in a single long glug. Wiping wetted lips with a wetter sleeve, he professes, “I gave it to Y/N to dry off after she went swimming.” As the bunker houses no pool, which implies your swim occurred significantly out of bounds of Dean’s directive, his eyes dart sidelong to assess his friend’s reaction to the revelation of defiance.

There’s a rise of anger in the guise of vocal gruffness, but not toward the anticipated detail of your outing. Running his free hand through his hair in irritation, he huffs, “Don’t tell me she took a bath in my fishing hole.”

“Dude,” Sam interrupts. His cross-armed figure leans against the library threshold – parched, impatient, inquisitive, or all of the above. A smirk stretches his cheeks. “Why do you insist on calling it a fishing hole when you’ve never caught a single fish?” The arch of his brow wordlessly inquires as to the location of the beer his brother promised.

Grateful for an intermediary and the redirection, Cas contributes, “It would be a miracle if you did catch a fish considering there aren’t any inhabiting your so-called fishing hole.”

Surrounded and outnumbered, Dean’s lip curls in defense. Unapologetic for the angelically absconded beer, opening up the one remaining in his possession and laying claim to the rim with spit, he grumbles around a swig, “The art of fishing has nothing to do with whether you catch anything. I wouldn’t expect either of you to understand the complex nature of-”

“Here we go again.” Sighing, Sam uncrosses his arms and turns to wander into the library. “Heard it before, still not interested.”

Dean and Cas trail after him – the human casts the angel an appalled glare as his soles gurgle and squelch with every step.

Cas senses Dean’s aghast glower. Endeavoring to keep the conversation from detouring to you, he engages in the act of small talk. “Did you retrieve the rest of the ingredients?”

“Yeah, everything except an angel feather. Turns out they’re in scarce supply these days, but I figured you could-” He clasps Cas’ shoulder roughly and apes tugging a feather. “-you know.”

“Of course.” Cas suppresses the wince that threatens to contort his features with a mask of impassiveness. Yanking the rare intact plume from the scarred span of his wings is a bit like pulling a fingernail out by the cuticle; and yet, it’s nothing he doesn’t believe he deserves for his multitude of transgressions. In his heart, he judges this small sacrifice to be the least he can do for what he’s done. “Anything to help,” he adds, mostly to convince himself.

Dean’s grin is as genuine as Cas’ passivity is disingenuous. “Great, Rowena’s waiting-”

“On the wings, so to speak.” Rowena winks, simpers, and rises with a slow stretch from the leather lounge in the alcove. Yawning, she snaps shut a book she wasn’t actually reading and balances the slim volume on the arm of the chair. “Hello again, tweetie pie.”

Cas bobs his chin politely in acknowledgement. He notes mutely that the red-haired witch’s compulsive proclivity for using nicknames must be hereditary based on her son’s penchant for doing the same.

Her pout over the lack of a more rousing response to her flirtatious greeting morphs into one of contrived concern. Heavily mascaraed lashes fluttering, somehow intuiting the precise topic Cas wants to avoid, she extends her delicate dancer’s frame to full height on her heels to peer over their shoulders. “And where’s that poor disturbed child scuttled off to?”

All eyes alight on the angel for the answer.

Cas’ mouth presses into a pallid line under the burden of expectation for an explanation. “After we returned from the walk, she, uh, she wanted to warm up in the shower.”

“Oh?” Rowena’s crimson mouth quirks in avidity of amusement. Her gold-dusted eyes dart to Sam and Dean to ensure she holds their attention. “Because it looked to me like things were heating up nicely until someone stumbled over their cold feet.”

“Wait, what?” Dean sputters and chokes on a poorly timed sip of beer.

Sam smiles – the insinuation of budding romance explaining an abstract aloofness verging on daydreaming afflicting the seraph of late.

“You,” Dean states in disbelief, “and Y/N? Since when?”

“We’re not-” Sidestepping further elaboration, the self-inflicted torture of feather removal being preferable to Dean’s teasing, he veers for his quarters, muttering, “I’ll return with the feather.”

Target out of sight, Dean directs his interrogation at the witch. “Were you spying on them?”

She narrows her gaze. “It’s called scrying, and there’s little else to do for diversion in this dank dungeon of yours.”

“What else are you sticking your nose into?” Dean scoffs.

A soft smile of satisfaction slithers across her aspect. “Let’s just say the seraph’s not the only one with a stimulating secret or two around here. Do our dear young Samuel and haloed hero know about that nondescript box you keep hidden in your closet vent?” Pirouetting, she sinks again into the chair and recommences her non-perusal of the book.

Forehead furrowed mid-brow, Sam’s mouth shapes to utter an astonished ‘What box?’

Before he can speak, Dean holds up a palm. “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing indeed,” Rowena titters, licks a finger, and flips the page.

Suit coat draped over his arm, tie slung undone around his neck, white dress shirt flapping agape as he pulls the ends of the damp garment from the tuck of his pants, Castiel peers up from unbuckling his belt as he enters his bedroom surprised to see you seated at the desk.

Freshly showered, snug in cozy pajamas, smelling sweetly of lavender soap, you sit with your eyes fixed not on the computer perched in your lap, but upon the strip of tanned and toned torso visible to you. The intricately beautiful black lettering of a tattoo peeks from beneath the fabric covering the left side of his stomach.

The angel halts in the doorway, spine stiffened under your scrutiny, belt half unlooped from his trousers and hanging in his hand as if he doesn’t know whether to come or go.

Realizing the impudence of your sustained stare, cheeks hot, you gawk with sudden interest at the laptop and punch at a few random keys. “Hey, uh, I was looking for you,” you murmur. “Thought I’d give this Netflix thing another go, but I can’t seem to find the second season of Firefly.”

“The space western?” Relaxing, letting the leather slip forgotten from his fingertips, Cas steps into the room. He slings his coat and tie across the corner of the dresser to dry and moves nearer your side to squint at the screen.

His increased proximity and decreased dress does very little to diminish the hotness flushing your skin. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

Frowning at being the bearer of bad news, he reclines against the edge of the desk and shakes his head sadly. “I’m afraid that series was cancelled before the second season. I don’t suggest bringing the topic up with Dean, it’s an extremely touchy subject.”

“You’re kidding!” Sulking, you shut the screen, spin in the seat, and slide the computer back on the surface of the desk. You can’t help but steal another glimpse of the tattoo inked across his abs; this close, you recognize the strange symbols as Enochian warding – he’s an angel warded against other angels.

His blues narrow askance. “Why would I joke about that?”

“I guess you wouldn’t, I just thought-” Stumbling over your words, the significance of his tattoo – the possibilities of what occasioned the necessity of it – enthralls you. “Things really are different here, aren’t they? I may come from a world wrecked by an apocalypse, but at least we had six glorious seasons of Firefly.”

“I suppose, apocalypse aside, things have the potential to be quite different here. Hopefully some, too, for the better.”

Glancing upward, you meet his steady gaze. You perceive in the softened sapphire sheen of his eyes a glint of hope that he may be one of those positive differences.

“So-” You shift, nervously looking away to chew your lip; remembering your misreading of the kiss that wasn’t by the pond, you think perhaps your interpretation of this hope is only a mirror of yours and not a reflection of his own sentiment. “Dean’s back?”

“Yes.” He sighs subtly having lost your gentle regard and denies the desire to hook your chin with a finger to again lift up your disarming eyes to him.

You imagine – a pout creeping to downturn the creases of your mouth – you’ll be left alone in the bunker, again. The temper tamed until now climbs your throat. “Then I suppose you’ll be leaving soon to go searching for Gabriel?” Your tone scrapes the air and his ears more abrasively than intended.

He straightens at your harshness, hesitates, then moves toward the dresser. “We need one more ingredient to complete the spell. But then-”

“What is it?” You rise to your feet to follow him, trying not to appear too eager or desperate not to be abandoned. “Can I help?”

He rests his palms on the dresser and peers at you through the hazed glass of the rimless utilitarian rectangular looking glass mounted above it. “It’s not something you-”

“I can help, Cas.” You touch a hand lightly to his shoulder. “I feel so useless locked up in here. Please, let me help you with this.”

The flesh of his vessel prickles pleasantly under the thrum of your fingertips. He wanted to say in the sordid scope of history encompassing the collusions between heaven and humanity, he cannot recall a single soul granted permission to harvest a plume from an angel’s wings, let alone see their corporeal shape beyond shadow. It’s a side of him he reasons you don’t need to be subjected to – a glimpse of his tarnished true form. Proof of his failures. He blinks heavily, focus falling to the sanded twist of a knot darkening the smooth finish of the dresser’s woodgrain – an imperfection, but a flaw that makes the piece of furniture all the more beautiful. Proof of survival. Perhaps, he thinks, there’s a chance you might view him this way. “It’s a feather we need.” The low bass whisper raises the hair on the back of your neck. “One of mine.”

You squeeze your fingers firmer into the muscular arch of his shoulder. “Seems simple enough.”

“Simple, yes, but I’ve never-” He shakes his head. “No mortal has seen any more than a shadow of my wings. Revealing them, it’s an . . . a very intimate act.”

“So, kind of like you seeing me naked.”

“Yes, kind of like that,” he agrees, adding, without processing the intimation of attraction to you in what he says, “only you’re lovely, and they’re . . . not what they used to be.”

“You don’t have to hide from me.” Flipping your hand, you brush the backs of your knuckles down the length of his arm to weave your fingers through the spaces between his where they splay on the dresser; constricting your grip, you urge him into the light with sincere reassurance like he urged you to step into the sun today after so long in the dark. You coil your fingers until no gaps remain and his eyes lock on yours in the mirror.

“Close your eyes,” he rasps the breathy command.

“Cas-”

He covers your interlaced hands with his unconstrained palm and, sliding them from the dresser, spins to face you. “Unless you wish to be permanently blinded when the dimension where they’re cloistered phases into this one, I suggest you shut your eyes now.”

Your eyelids squeeze tight. You inhale and hold a lungful of the charged air building between you. A blaze of light burns bright against your shuttered lashes. A rush of soothing warmth washes sun-like over your skin. The atmosphere quivers to life with the sound of feverish rustling. His fingers fidget – fitful – in your grasp, then break limply loose.

“We need an unspoiled feather to give the spell the best chance of success.” He utters coolly – his voice seems somehow distant to you. No, detached – surely a measure of protection against the judgement he awaits when your eyes open.

Your eyes remain clamped. You worry you were too bold asking this of him; or, too manipulative in likening the revelation of an angel’s wings to the exposure of your body – an unremarkable human form at that, with a structure battered and stitched together by scars, inside and out, he chivalrously called lovely. Lovely. Your heart flutters – the compliment races in a flurry from right atrium to ventricle, circulating hot to sear the held breath in your lungs, then speeding with renewed fervor left atrium to ventricle to oxygenate your limbs in a weakening tizzy of excitement.

“Y/N, it will be easier for both of us if you open your eyes now.”

Lashes lifting, looking upward, you exhale an enraptured gasp and stumble backward; he catches you by the waist.

Imposing jet black wings branch above you; their span curves, cramped, into the corners of the room. In sections, the feathers erupt sparse from scar-coarsened sinew, in others, the quills are frayed and blunted almost to bone, and yet the overall effect astonishes. “Unspoiled, right.” Reduced by awe to echoing, you repeat his instruction.

He dips his head once, chin to chest, and sinks to one knee.

Your attention roves the broad span and finds a prospective plume jutting out near the juncture of his shoulder blades. “And when I find one, how do I remove it?”

His fingers stay at your waist, twisting at the hem of the fabric there as if bracing himself. “You pull. Hard.”

“Won’t that hurt?” You isolate and clutch the bony base of the intact quill in your fist and flatten your palm to his bowed shoulders for leverage.

“Yes,” he hisses between his teeth at your tentative tug.

“Sorry. Sorry! Are you okay?” You flinch at the raw power behind the curtailed flap tensing the insulted appendage.

“You have to pull harder,” he growls. Burrowing his forehead into your stomach, he clutches at your sides to bolster his support.

Readjusting the angle of your grip, you waver. “I don’t think I can do it.”

“I’ll be fi-”

You wrench at the feather as hard as you’re able.

“Fuck.” The respired humid heat of his agonized expletive and succession of pained pants as he struggles not to completely collapse at your feet steams through the cotton barrier of your shirt to moisten the hollow of your navel housed beneath – the graze of his fingers sinking into soft flesh will surely leave bruises.

The angelically absurd exclamation of obscenity and the carnally redolent contact aches as a surge of ardor flourishing at the apex of your thighs. Catching his breath, he leans backward to gaze up at you with watery blues. The spellbinding scent of your unmistakable arousal floods his senses.

The hard-wrung feather floats from your fingers to the floor, fingers favoring instead to card through the angel’s still damp halo of chestnut locks. He doesn’t appear so formidable with his scaffold of scarred wings sprawled behind the shrunken figure of his vessel – doesn’t seem so unattainable sat suppliant on his knees before you, pinpoints of lamplight sparkling in the black pools of dilating pupils. Cupping his cheek in your palm, daubing at a stray tear tenderly with the pad of your thumb, you bend to ghost the gentlest of kisses to the corner of his mouth.

Next: Ch. 12 - A Funny Thing Happened on the Road to Amarillo

#castiel x reader #castiel x you #castiel reader insert #castiel fluff #castiel series #castiel x y/n #spn x reader #castielxreader #castielxyou #reader x castiel #you x castiel #cas x reader #cas x you #spn reader insert #castiel fanfiction #spn fanfiction #castiel x au!reader #castiel fanfic #cricket writes cas

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michaelandy101-blog · 4 years

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Beyond Responsive Design: How to Optimize Your Website for Mobile Users

New Post has been published on https://tiptopreview.com/beyond-responsive-design-how-to-optimize-your-website-for-mobile-users/

Beyond Responsive Design: How to Optimize Your Website for Mobile Users

Everyone can acknowledge the importance of a mobile-friendly website, especially after Google’s Mobilegeddon algorithm update.

Mobile optimization is here to stay, and it’s demanding more and more of businesses and their websites. But mobile optimization is about more than just a responsive website design.

In this article, we tell you why and how to adopt a mobile-first mindset for your website.

What is mobile optimization?

Mobile optimization is the process of designing and developing your website and its content to perform as well on mobile devices as it does on a desktop. As more consumers access websites on their smartphones, mobile optimization is increasingly important.

Google’s mobile-friendly algorithm change in 2015 (and a few more since then) was evidence that the search engine recognizes its responsibility to surface websites that painlessly get users what they need at the time that they need it.

Google doesn’t want to send mobile users to websites that provide a frustrating browsing experience — that would damage its promise to its users to always deliver helpful, relevant content.

Moreover, this algorithm change was and is a signal of a much larger shift that’s afoot — consumer behavior is changing, and it’s your job to adapt.

How to Optimize a Website for Mobile

Map your customer journey.

Seize intent-rich micro-moments.

Reconsider your metrics.

Embrace the intimacy of mobile.

Remember the basics and think ahead.

Building a mobile-friendly website is step one, but tweaking your website will not keep you ahead of consumers’ changing behavior and expectations.

In short, you have to infuse your marketing strategy with a mobile-first mindset. Here’s how.

1. Map your customer journey.

Imagine the experience of Sally, a young marketer who has just moved to Chicago. While out for a walk, Sally passes by a hair salon and realizes she needs a haircut. She pulls out her phone a search for hairstylists in Chicago who specialize in curls and color. Her Google search pops up Joann’s Stylez.

She flips through the website quickly and wants to research more, but it’s too hard while on the move — so she texts herself a link. When she gets home, she opens her texts on her tablet and quickly checks Yelp reviews, examines her calendar, and then books an appointment using the simple form on the Joann’s website.

When Sally loads up her laptop later that night to check her email, she discovers an email from Joann’s that confirms her appointment and gives her the option to add it to her calendar. The next day, 30 minutes before her appointment, she receives a push notification on her work computer reminding her of the appointment.

The next day, Sally receives a mobile email asking for feedback on the cut and offering to set up a recurring appointment at a discounted rate. She’s sold.

Sally’s experience is illustrative of the cross-device, omnichannel journey that many customers now make as they move through the marketing funnel. Every day, consumers switch a handful of different devices when completing common tasks such as online shopping, readying blog posts, booking appointments, or communicating with each other.

HubSpot’s Blogging Software equips you to publish relevant, conversion-optimized content you can preview on any device — allowing you to engage with customers wherever they are.

Consumers now expect this type of experience from all of their digital interactions. They want to be able to accomplish whatever fits their fancy on whatever device is at hand. This means that simply adapting your site to look nice on different devices is not enough. As a marketer, you must dig deeper into your customers’ and prospects’ lives.

For example, at HubSpot, we know that a visitor on a mobile device is very unlikely to fill out a long form on one of our landing pages. So we started using Smart Content to automatically shorten the form when a mobile viewer is looking at it. By doing this, our mobile prospects increased by 5x.

2. Seize intent-rich micro-moments.

You’ve likely already developed a strong set of buyer personas. You’ve conducted user research and testing to understand which content and CTAs to present to each persona as they move down the funnel. You must now go a step further. You must understand both the rhythm and rhyme to when, why, with what, and from where people are interacting with your website and content.

Google encourages marketers to identify the “micro-moments” in a customer’s journey:

Micro-moments occur when people reflexively turn to a device — increasingly a smartphone — to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or buy something. They are intent-rich moments when decisions are made and preferences shaped.

A number of brands have figured out how to anticipate and capitalize on these micro-moments. Apple Passbook loads up your Starbucks card when you’re near a coffee shop. Hertz sends you an email when your plane lands to let your know that your car is ready. Starwood allows you to check in and open your hotel room with your smartphone.

Consumers are increasingly becoming acclimated to companies offering such intimately responsive experiences. 59% of shoppers say that being able to shop on mobile is important when deciding which brand or retailer to buy from, and 39% of smartphone users are more likely to browse or shop a company or brand’s mobile app because it’s easier or faster to make a purchase.

How can you figure out these micro-moments and design your content to meet prospects’ intent? Tap into your data. Here are three analyses you should start with:

Search: Which queries, ads and keywords are bringing users on different devices to your website and landing pages? Once they land on your site, what types of searches are users on different devices performing?

Content: Examine the content that users access by stage in the funnel and by device. Is there a trend around what prospects on their phones are downloading? Sharing?

Flow: Dig into a flow analysis segmented by device. What is the path mobile-using prospects follow? What is the path tablet-using customers follow? From what sites and sources are these visitors arriving?

After building your trove of micro-moments, it would be easy to think: “Okay, we just need to strip our website down to the specific things our visitors will mostly likely want to access on the go.”

But mobile users are not limited to completing short, simple tasks. The device does not directly imply location or intent.

A busy professional may use her commute time to conduct in-depth industry research on her phone, process her email inbox on her tablet while watching a movie with her family, and browse the websites of potential contractors while flying across the country.

Confirming this intuition, the Pew Research Center’s study of U.S. smartphone found that 99% of smartphone owners use their phone at home, 82% use their phones while in transit, and 69% use their phone at work each week. (This study was conducted in 2015, but we believe it’s still relevant, if not more so, today.)

People don’t want a stripped down set of content. Instead, they want quick and easy access to the materials they need on whatever device they happen to be using.Thus, while you want to optimize your site, landing pages, emails, etc. for micro-moments, you do not want to force visitors into a box from which they cannot escape.

3. Consider (and reconsider) your metrics.

The metrics you established in the desktop-centric days may not seamlessly translate to our new multi-device, micro-moment world. For example, you might have fought tirelessly to find ways to increase visitors’ time on your site, recognizing that more time means higher engagement, which translates to higher conversion.

The micro-moments you identify for mobile visitors, however, might suggest that you want a lower time-on-site. A prospect visiting the website of a consulting firm may be looking for:

An infographic they want to show a coworker

The bio of a partner with whom they are about to meet

A case study to read while traveling

In order to meet this prospect’s expectations for their mobile experience, you must design your website to quickly and intuitively help them find the specific piece of information for which they are looking. If their mobile visit is distracting, frustrating, or too time consuming, you’ve damaged their perception of your brand.

4. Embrace the intimacy of mobile.

For better or worse, I go to bed with my phone (reviewing tomorrow’s schedule and reading a nighttime meditation) and I wake up with my phone (silencing the alarm and checking the weather). I communicate with my partner and my best friends everyday — all through my phone. When my MBA classmate sends a GIF of Tyra Banks being sassy, I turn my phone to the person next to me, and we have a good laugh together.

Day-in and day-out, these interactions create an intimate connection between my phone and me. And I’m not alone: Most consumers imbue their mobile experiences with more intimacy than desktop experiences. The Pew Research Center found that Americans view their smartphones as freeing, connecting, and helpful, and associate their phones with feelings of happiness and productivity. These associations can inspire greater engagement with and interest in content.

As marketers, we should take advantage of these trends and consider how to make our prospects’ mobile experience more personal and social. Perhaps change your website to increase the proportion of social CTAs you display when someone arrives on mobile.

5. Remember the basics and think ahead.

Overall, embracing the mobile mindset means ensuring that the entire customer journey is responsive, relevant, actionable, and frictionless. As a marketer, you want to help consumers quickly and easily find what they want to find and do what they want to do. Again, this means thinking ahead, understanding when, with what device, and from where your prospects will interact with your content.

This can seem daunting, but mostly it means diligently applying the basics across channels. For example, since nearly half of all emails are opened on mobile, ensure your emails are mobile optimized. We recommend doing the following:

Use large, easy-to-read text.

Use large, clear images and reduce file sizes.

Keep layouts simple and invest in responsive templates.

Use large, mobile-friendly calls-to-action and links.

Recognizing the personal associations people have with their phones, you’ll want to ensure that the “From” name is familiar and that the preview text is inviting. And think ahead: Don’t email a link to a form or an event registration landing page that is not mobile-friendly.

Use HubSpot’s Free Landing Page Builder to launch landing pages that look perfect across devices and automatically change content based on who’s viewing your page.

Over to You: Time to Optimize

Follow these tips and you will be well on your way to living the mobile mindset and weathering the change in consumers’ digital behavior. Move quickly and your organization could be at the head of the pack.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in June 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years

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Why the World May Never Truly Be Rid of Dongles

A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

As you may guess from the stuff I write about, I have a lot of computers, of various shapes, sizes, and functions.

Some of them I only mess with occasionally; some are frequent companions; some (like my Pinebook Pro) are destined to be frequent targets of tinkering for me. But the one thing that they have in common is that they encourage me to plug in a rat’s nest of cabling to plug into the various gadgets I own. The monitor I got late last year I purchased specifically because I needed a USB hub to go with my high-resolution screen.

But despite all these efforts to simplify my cabling life, dongles rule everything around me. And around you, too. It comes with the territory.

Ultimately, the problem the dongle solves may never truly go away.

“We don’t know much, for sure, about the word that has been a source of so much frustration and controversy and, regardless, ubiquity. But that hasn’t stopped people from guessing.”

— Megan Garber, in a 2013 essay in The Atlantic discussing the origin of the word “dongle,” which she noted was fairly unclear. A 1984 article from The Guardian, in reference to Clive Sinclair’s ill-fated Sinclair QL computer makes a reference to dongles as “an ancient piece of computer jargon,” despite the fact that it’s one of the earliest references I can find in a mainstream newspaper. It suddenly showed up in newspapers around 1984, as did one of the earliest patent filings regarding dongles, in the United Kingdom. In technology publications, the first references I see date to October 1981, in issues of New Scientist and Byte, both in reference to antipiracy technology.

An example of a parallel-port dongle. Image: Raimond Spekking/Wikimedia Commons

The dongle’s original legacy as an antipiracy tool

Last year, when the latest iteration of the Mac Pro came out, one thing that may have confused observers looking at this machine, which they will likely never use, is the unusual placement of a USB-A port on the machine’s motherboard.

To those that only lightly follow technology, the existence of this port likely made no sense. But it reflects a decades-long legacy of tying security to actual hardware that, for some programs at least, persists to this day.

A 1984 New Scientist piece explained the dynamic that led to the growing popularity of dongles throughout the period, but noted that despite their goal of security, they ultimately were seen as easy to break by technical users:

The dongle is a small plastic box which plugs into one of the ports at the back of a computer. A program protected by a dongle contains a routine that asks a computer to check whether the dongle is present and sometimes to read a code from it. If it has not been plugged in the program will not run. Most dongles do not prevent programs from being copied, but they stop the copies from being used, since each copy needs a matching dongle to work.

Unfortunately, there is nothing to prevent the owner of a dongle-protected program from displaying the program code on his computer screen and removing the dongle check from it. One expert says this task takes about two hours.

The dongle system has been refined by some companies. Instead of supplying a program in plain computer code, some or all of the instructions are scrambled. The key to this simple encryption is held by the dongle which passes it to the computer’s operating system (the program which coordinates the computer’s operations). Once unscrambled, the program is loaded into the computer’s memory and runs in the normal way; but it is not difficult to remove the built-in checks.

For games, these approaches were eventually replaced by copy-protection schemes inside manuals or by different distribution approaches, like shareware. But dongles for more high-end or specialized software products, along with employee security, never really went away. In fact, they got more sophisticated, adding their own processing capabilities that interacted with the software being used.

Of course, people aren’t aware where they actually came from in the first place, as The Atlantic_’s Garber implied. This has led to fun stories, the most colorful of which was invented by the tech company Rainbow Technologies, which, in a 1992 advertisement than ran in _Byte, invented a character named Don Gall who they claimed the device was named after.

“He wasn’t famous. He didn’t drive a fancy car, but dressed in his favorite Comdex T-shirt and faded blue jeans, he set out to change the course of the software story,” the fable started.

While obviously totally made up, it nonetheless became something of an urban legend.

These devices generally hooked up to serial or parallel ports throughout the 1990s, with adapters that allowed users to continue to plug in devices such printers. In terms of video games, cheat tools like the Game Genie could be thought of as dongles.

But in the late 1990s, these devices were able to shrink thanks to USB. These dongles, while less prominent than they once were, have largely stayed in common use in a handful of industries, specifically those that sell computer-aided design or manufacturing software, and those that offer software for digital audio workstations. ACID and Autodesk, two manufacturers that specialize in are probably two of the best-known companies that rely on hardware security dongles in the modern day. These are the kinds of devices for which the Mac Pro has an internal USB-A port.

More common, however, are devices intended specifically for two-factor authentication, such as the YubiKey, which serve a similar security function, but for the user or the organization for which they serve, rather than to prevent piracy. These tools work in similar ways to the dongles of yore, perhaps with additional security mechanisms.

Speaking of USB, the switch of formats, which was ultimately a good thing for technology, helped create a pretty big market for dongles big and small, many of which connect to all variety of objects, from printers to TV sets. (Apple, the company that moved to USB early, is responsible for many of our dongles.)

The USB thumb drive is a great example of a dongle, and perhaps the most prominent example of flash disks around.

Similarly, video standards have a way of adding dongles to our lives. Ever converted HDMI to DVI to VGA to composite to RF? (No, just me?) Then you’ve lived the dongle life.

It’s a fact of life, and one that has only become more of a fact of life thanks to the rise of USB-C creating natural incompatibilities for dongles.

Five of the weirdest dongle connectors I’m aware of

USB-C to MagSafe. As is well-documented, I have issues with the design of the Mac’s default power brick, which I think has serious deficiencies because, prior to its conversion to USB-C, its primary cable is both thin and non-removable. For years, Apple made this port proprietary and failed to allow for alternative devices to be made, but after moving to USB-C, Apple took its eye off the MagSafe ball. I bought this adapter off of eBay, delivered straight from China, and use it with the adapter that comes with my HP Spectre x360, which supports USB-C by default.

Jawbone UP24 to USB. Despite the fact that most people associate exercise bands with the brand Fitbit, it was Jawbone that really set the stage for the category’s success with its UP series of fitness trackers, which actually pulled off the neat trick of looking cool without being showy (a credit to its designer, Yves Béhar). It helped to build a market segment … which Jawbone’s competitors quickly took for themselves. For this discussion, though, The interesting thing about this device is how it charged: You take off the cap and a 2.5mm headphone adapter appears. You plug that into a USB-A dongle with said jack, that isn’t useful for anything else.

DVI to ADC. While VGA is a far more memorable adapter for those looking to get a signal onto a video display, DVI has been a more consistent part of the video experience in recent years, appearing on video cards even today, while DisplayPort and HDMI are locked in a battle for supremacy. But ADC? This was a relatively brief attempt by Apple to try to minimize the number of cables needed to connect cables to its monitors. It was arguably ahead of its time—it took USB-C 15 years to make this capability common across the computer industry—but the problem was that the port was proprietary, and if you wanted to use a computer other than Apple’s G4 towers (say, a PowerBook), you needed to break apart those signals—which required a really big dongle. Apple’s official dongle, released in 2002, is both extremely expensive and as large as a standard laptop power brick, and while there is a smaller third-party alternative, it’s harder to find. At least one hardware-hacker has gone to the trouble of creating a reasonably sized version.

Crazyradio PA USB Dongle. This dongle, an open-source device, is essentially a USB radio that works on the same open 2.4-gigahertz as early versions of Wi-Fi. Why would you want this? Well, it’s effectively a wireless mouse dongle for everything else, except with a much larger antenna. Highly hackable, open-sourced, originally developed for a tiny drone, and with a massive range, it can be used for any manner of weird stuff, and is a popular choice for hardware hackers, though some have gone to the point of hacking those wireless mouse adapters for whatever they want.

The Shugru-covered wireless mouse connector. For those with wireless mice, Apple’s move to USB-C on laptops has made life a lot more frustrating because it requires the use of a dongle with your dongle. Rather than be stuck with that state of affairs, the YouTube channel DIY Perks pulled apart one of those mouse connectors, soldered it onto a USB-C breakout board, and covered the whole thing with Shugru, the moldable glue popularly used for DIY projects. A little hacky, but it totally worked.

There was once a massive dongle for sale that could Hackintosh your system

The very nature of dongles means that they come and go, and no dongle, perhaps, has come and gone as quietly as the EFiX USB dongle.

Unlike the security keys used to protect software from installation, EFiX literally does the opposite—it allows users to install software that its maker would prefer users didn’t.

A gadget modern enough that it was featured on websites such as Engadget, the EFiX (also known as EFI-X

, with both names referencing the UEFI firmware that is common today but Intel Macs were relatively early to) harkens back to a time when installing MacOS on a non-Apple PC wasn’t particularly easy. This object, produced by a firm named Art Studios Entertainment Media, was what the company called a “Boot Processing Unit,” which essentially took all the complicated parts of building a hackintosh (all the messy code and what have you) and hid those from the user.

“EFI-X

is not for everyone. It is not for who wants to save money, at all. It is for enthusiasts that put expandability and extreme performances before anything else in their computing needs. We heard those voices, and we answered,” the company that built this device stated on its website.

The device, which plugs directly into a USB header on a motherboard rather than a single USB port, essentially handles all the messy parts of installing Mac OS X on a standard desktop PC. (The key word there is desktop; laptops tend not to have user-accessible USB headers.)

A 2008 Gizmodo review of the device noted that while you did have to open up your machine to plug it in, it was incredibly simple to use:

If you’ve got the hardware, the whole process is simple, so that even if you’ve never cracked your desktop before, you could still get this done with a quick search online for the requisite know-how. I plugged the EFiX dongle into a USB header on my motherboard-not, as you might have assumed, to a USB port on the outside. That’s really it for getting your hands dirty, though. I restarted my computer, selected EFiX as the boot device-it was listed under hard drives, actually-and was greeted with a drive selector. After selecting the Leopard disc, it started installing without a hitch.

But those who did get more technical were fairly skeptical about what they found. One Hackintosh blog doing an autopsy of the device in an effort to come up with a software-only solution said that despite the flashy looks and the use of an ARM processor on the module, it was not particularly novel.

“The whole thing, inclusive PCB, case, cable and packaging should cost less than 10 dollars, I guess,” the author wrote.

If this all sounds fairly gray area, it’s worth noting that this device came to life around the time that the Florida company Psystar was getting some negative legal attention from Apple after announcing plans to sell a Mac clone system—a battle Psystar ultimately, famously, lost.

The USA seller of the EFiX dongle, EFiX USA, at one point announced plans to release a clone system of its own … but then quickly changed course, realizing it would probably put them in a world of legal hell.

EFiX and its manufacturers faded away eventually, and the Hackintosh community came up with other solutions for easily turning a computer into a Hackintosh—no proprietary dongle necessary.

The thing with ports is that there is never a shortage of choice in terms of what you can do with them. But when you try shopping for cables with a specific use case in mind, things get confusing, fast.

Last fall, I made a trip to Micro Center, in part because I heard it was the best computer store chain in the country and I was utterly curious about this Mecca to silicon and circuitry. Overall, the experience was fairly positive, but I felt strangely claustrophobic in one section of the store—the section around KVM switches, which are devices (glorified dongles, really) that allow users to swap between different computers.

So many cables. So much switch. Image: Priwo/Wikimedia Commons

These products, generally, require a lot of cables. An absolute ton, a level that will make you never want to see another cable again. And there are a lot of them, of different shapes, sizes, and use cases. Despite the fact that VGA is a dinosaur of a technology, the vast majority of KVM switches that handle video seem to rely on VGA in the year of Our Lord 2020.

The perfect KVM switch is often hard to find if you have a specific need—and they can get ungodly expensive if you’re not careful.

I can’t remember what I was looking for, but I remember vividly that I not only didn’t find it, but I suddenly had a strong desire to leave this store I went out of my way to visit. Again, I’m the guy that loves computers enough that I wrote an entire article about dongles, and I couldn’t take it. I psyched myself out.

The good news is that USB-C has the potential to simplify the use of KVM switches entirely, at least eventually, as they will only require one cable from each device that you’re switching from. The bad news is that USB-C has confused the spec significantly, in some frustrating ways.

By way of example: Recently, I set up a wall stand next to my desk (a floating shelf for DVD players, essentially) that I set up to allow me an easy place to put my laptops and use them without taking space on my desk. Conceivably, I could plug in my USB-C-based laptops using a single cable and get going. The problem is that USB-C adapters have short cables that are embedded into the device.

So, what do you do to resolve this? First, you find a USB-C hub that doesn’t have a cable built-in. Great; here’s the only one I could find that cost less than $50 that had good power-delivery capabilities. But now this cable has to pull double-duty. It needs to be long enough that it isn’t directly next to your computer, able to transmit high-speed data, but able to charge a laptop. This is harder than it sounds. My HP Spectre x360 relies on a 90-watt charger; most cables with the ability to transmit power and high-speed data top out at 60 watts. Want one that supports 100 watts, powerful enough to handle the latest MacBook Pro? In most cases, the speeds will max out at USB 2.0 levels, meaning you may be better off with Thunderbolt 3, which costs even more than USB-C does. I want USB-C for compatibility for multiple devices.

So it took quite a bit of digging to find the right hub and the right cable to make this setup possible. But now I can plug in a single cable to my laptop and start working. (OK, technically two, because the hub transmits HDMI at a slower speed than the port on the laptop itself. Can’t win everything.)

So why am I telling you about the complications of all this? Simply, I think it’s important to point out that we’re replacing dongles with ports that can theoretically take basically everything, but that have specifications so inconsistent and hard to follow that, once USB-C becomes the one port to rule them all, we may be replacing the physical hell of dongles with a sort of technical hell of inconsistent standards, where the value of a specific cable is defined by what it can do rather than what it looks like.

You can buy a working system for a lower price than you can this cable.

We’re already seeing this. Recently, Apple drew a lot of attention for selling a Thunderbolt 3 cable for $129. It was very much a weird-flex-but-OK situation, but part of the reason that it sells for so much is that it’s relatively long (2 meters, or 6.6 feet, or $1.63 per inch), but supports the full Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 specs. Most cables of that type only support certain elements of these specifications; Apple’s expensive cable supports the whole thing, making it an extremely valuable cable for someone who prides maximum compatibility, maximum speed, and maximum flexibility in a single span of braided black cable. This kind of consumer, apparently, exists.

All of this raises the question: Are dongles as bad as they look? Probably not. But they sure look weird.

Why the World May Never Truly Be Rid of Dongles syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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exploringsocialinformatics · 4 years

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Post #1: A One-to-One Utopia

I am basing this post off the article “One Laptop Per Child: Vision vs. Reality” by Kenneth L. Kraemer, Jason Dedrick, and Prakul Sharma, which I chose both because the timeline of the issue was very interesting and also due to my background in a Secondary Education program where I took courses related specifically to education and technology.

I am wary of anybody who says that they’re going to change the world, but the transition from reading about the Utopian vision of One Laptop, Per Child (creator Nicholas Negroponte once said that they were “invent[ing] the future” [“The Hundred Dollar Laptop: Computing for Developing Nations”]) to the slow but seemingly inevitable downfall was still somewhat surprising. The program is one that had been within my peripheral vision as someone who studied education in my undergrad program and I can understand how people got swept up in the concept, especially when the technology available was less accessible. On first glance, it does seem revolutionary and, in ways, it is. Revolution requires follow-through and support, though, and it inspired doubts even before its initial roll-out, with supporters expressing hesitant skepticism like, “We were excited about the prospects, but kind of scared by the over-simplistic plan, or lack of plan” (Robertson, 2018).

As Kraemer, Dedrick and Sharma note, the issues behind OLPC’s original downfall were based in seemingly more consideration for the creation of the hardware than the people they were creating the hardware for (66 – 68). There are plenty of these issues to talk about—the entirely reasonable argument that basic needs like water and physical school structures should be met before the government spends money on untested technology, the notion that OLPC is just a “one size-fits-all American solution to complex global problems” that functions more as a “marketing ploy” (Robertson 2018) than any type of organized program—when it comes to observing why OLPC struggled to the point where they shuttered their organization until it was relatively recently revived. I would argue, though, that one of its fundamental flaws and potentially the most immediately debilitating was their lack of consideration for teachers and, in particular, their lack of follow-through when it comes to measuring their success.

In The Effect of One Laptop per Child on Teachers’ Pedagogical Practices and Students’ Use of Time At Home, a very thorough study that had to be thorough due to a lack of substantive data from OLPC’s program, the researchers found that there was no significant impact on school performance when the laptops were introduced in Peru (Yamada, Lavado, Montenegro 2016). Additionally, Morgan G. Ames—who I will reference several times due to her excellent research in Uruguay—found that the laptop use was largely focused on media consumption: music, TV, video games (Ames 2015). While media consumption absolutely has a place within education, it’s clear that this usage isn’t falling within the realm of what Negroponte was envisioning: namely, programming (Ames 2015) and creation. Essentially, the laptops are often a tool to consume and not create.

In a presentation titled the same as her recent book, The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death and Legacy of One Laptop per Child, Ames explains in-depth the fundamental issues that marred the program from its inception—extremely worth watching if this topic interests you and a fantastic introduction—and tells the story of how Nicholas Negroponte’s main goal was to get laptops in the hands of children and trust that they would make the most of it on their own (Ames 2019). Kraemer, Dedrick and Sharma emphasize this, saying in 2009 that “it appears to some that the educational mission has given way to just getting laptops out the door” (66), which implies even more explicitly that the intentions skew a bit more towards business than ever stated by the organization—or, at the very least, attempting to save face when it became apparent they would not make their now obviously over-ambitious goal of getting 150 million laptops into the hands of kids in two years.

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It’s important to note that OLPC has consistently stated that their program is about more than the laptops and is also focused on education. On their website, they emphasize, “OLPC is not, at heart, a technology program, nor is the XO a product in any conventional sense of the world. OLPC is a nonprofit organization providing a means to an end—an end that sees children in even the most remote regions of the globe being given the opportunity to tap in to their own potential, to be exposed to a whole world of ideas, and to contribute to a more productive and saner world community” (“OLPC: Mission”). Considering that Kraemer, Dedrick and Sharma reference this quote in their article (68), which means it hasn’t changed since at least 2009 and likely since the first launch in 2005, this is an idea that they’re attempting to embrace without necessarily having the means to do so.

There is an explicit education philosophy—constructionism, which encourages kid to “think about thinking” and have tangible experiences (Robertson 2018)—behind OLPC. I see issues with the implementation of it but don’t want to be overly harsh about it as a concept—after all, I absolutely believe it has a place in classrooms and Seymour Papert, the original mind behind it, studied with Piaget and was openly praised by him (“Seymour Papert”), which is pretty amazing. The main issues with constructionism from my perspective, especially as it applies to the distribution of the OLPC laptops, are twofold: 1. Many teachers in a variety of different educational systems are highly limited in how they’re able to teach and 2. As an educational philosophy, it arguably requires the students involved to have some. . .instruction. Very few, if any, educational practices are studied without being properly implemented by an educator.

This isn’t to say that OLPC doesn’t involve educators in implementing their programs. This is to say that they didn’t do enough in their implementation to properly prepare teachers for how to use the technology in their classroom, including, for example, not even providing teacher training when they rolled out the program in Libya or contacting the teacher’s union in Peru before they were already starting the program there (Robertson 71). In her presentation, Morgan G. Ames describes the decline of use in Paraguay where she studied for several years due to the fact that OLPC didn’t provide any service or repairs to laptops that were imminently more breakable than they advertised (Ames 2019). OLPC’s ultimate plan was to get laptops to kids. I would argue that this does not function as an education plan or even do more than offer a potential tool without guidance to introduce a constructionist philosophy.

We can see a hint of how OLPC values teachers by looking back to their charter, which states “building schools, hiring teachers, buying books and equipment [. . .] is a laudable but insufficient response to the problem of bringing true learning possibilities to the vast numbers of children in the developing world” (“OLPC: The Mission”). That really speaks to most of the major issues: if there isn’t basic infrastructure in place—physical schools with working water—and teachers to guide their learning, can students who haven’t been exposed to this kind of technology (or even those who have) truly benefit from it? How do we measure those true learning possibilities? Can we measure them? It might seem overly technical to try to apply statistics to some big, expansive dream but the dreaminess is, in and of itself, the problem.

Just because these issues exist doesn’t mean that we must write OLPC off entirely, though. The bones of the idea are genuinely well-intentioned and they’ve still managed to get a significant amount of technology to kids even if they didn’t meet their stated goals as their original incarnation. As of this October, they’ve given out 3 million laptops (Cameron 2019) and that certainly matters. Regardless of the outcome, sharing those laptops made opportunities that could help kids in developing nations change their lives and open up more possibilities in the future.

While there is plenty to criticize about the program, many of the fundamentals are worthy of praise: constructivism is an important educational practice that can unlock critical thinking skills and creativity in a way that many kids don’t have the opportunity to explore. Just the ability to own and hold and use a laptop is empowering and prepares kids for using other technology. And, overall, Negroponte’s philosophies and reasoning are absolutely inspiring.

He talks about kids becoming “change agents” and allowing them to “connect with the world, think critically and challenge indoctrinations of intolerance” (Ashling 2010). He wants kids to have the whole world open up to them and has a singular vision for doing so which, for better or worse, is a vision worth exploring.

Also, in a vein I hadn’t considered, Jason Johnson argues in his 2010 article “Can a Laptop Change How the World Teaches?” that he observed sixth graders in his one-to-one laptop program educationally benefiting from their laptops outside of the classroom through things like tracking sports statistics, recording skits, and creating address books (72). While he also invokes the need for a teacher to guide students toward productivity, this is another important factor to consider: OLPC laptops have gone to all kinds of kids in all kinds of places and other one-to-one programs have also been gaining popularity throughout the years. Broadly looking at how kids in general use laptops could bring new significance and meaning to these programs.

From articles titled The Laptop That Will Change The World to articles titled OLPC’s $100 Laptop Was Going to Change the World—Then It All Went Wrong, it’s both fascinating and discouraging to watch OLPC’s struggle. As people, we want to believe that we can change the world—that good people stepping up can change the world—but this is an overly simplistic concept in a complicated world. One good idea constructed within one cultural framework and one philosophy of education that by no means represents both the majority of teacher’s experiences or their capabilities within struggling, flawed educational systems isn’t enough.

One laptop can’t change the world.

With a sustainable plan, though—it’s not a bad start.

Ames, M. G. (2016). Learning consumption: Media, literacy, and the legacy of One Laptop per Child. The Information Society, 32(2), 85–97

Ashling, Jim. (2010). Laptops bridge gap in structured learning. Information Today, 27(5), 22 - 23

Johnson, Jason. (2008). Can a laptop change how the world teaches?. Knowledge Quest. 36(3), 72 - 73

Kraemer, K. L., Dedrick, J., & Sharma, P. (2009). One laptop per child. Communications of the ACM, 52(6)

Lavado, P., Montenegro, G. & Yamada, G. (2016). The effect of one laptop per child on teachers’ pedagogical practices and students’ use of time at home. IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Robertson, A. (2018, April 16). OLPC's $100 laptop was going to change the world - then it all went wrong. Retrieved January 29, 2020, from https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17233946/olpcs-100-laptop-education-where-is-it-now

Seymour Papert. (2007, March). Retrieved January 29, 2020, from https://web.archive.org/web/20150308021353/http://web.media.mit.edu/~papert/

The Hundred Dollar Laptop: Computing for Developing Nations. (2005). Retrieved from https://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16067-the-hundred-dollar-laptop-computing-for-developing-nations

The Life, Death and Legacy of One Laptop Per Child. (2019, March 5). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH13bVUfNuk&t=2s

#this might be what the kids call TLDR

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cherryonigiri · 4 years

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Okay so could you write a headcanon where 2 random boys (can you pick then? I love all of boys from hq) and Ushi-kun where they walk on their gfs fangirling or thirsting over another anime/game character?And she was talking how hot he is? How they would react?👀😂 have a great day/night and dont forget to eat and get rest, love you💕

Content warning: implied nsfw for Atsumu + slight nsfw hcs for Matsukawa (Matukawa’s hcs are below the cut - UPDATE TUMBLR IS NOT LETTING ME PUT THE CUT WHERE I WANT IT SO JUST LETTING YOU KNOW THAT THERE IS IMPLIED/SLIGHT NSFW FOR THE LAST 2 CHARACTERS