#Programming & Development

[jobsbureauforkenya]

Oracle Internships 2025 | Paid Technical, Corporate & Veteran Programs

Oracle Internships 2025 | Paid Technical, Corporate & Veteran Programs Launch your career with Oracle’s Internship Programs, where innovation meets impact. Whether you’re passionate about coding, business strategy, or making a difference as a veteran, Oracle offers diverse internship paths to help you grow professionally and prepare for success in today’s tech-driven world. Explore Oracle…

[vcqrupvt]

How To Create a Simple Customer Referral Program?

Counterfeit products are harmful for buyers, businesses and economies worldwide. To combat this issue barcode scanners are emerging as a powerful tool in the fight against counterfeit goods.

[solrazo]

Chinabank renews partnership with LinkedIn to empower employees, boost talent mobility

In line with its commitment to employee development and talent mobility, Chinabank renewed its engagement with LinkedIn for enterprise learning and hiring solutions. The contract signing took place on June 27 at the Chinabank Academy in Makati City. Chinabank Chief Finance Officer Patrick Cheng and LinkedIn Learning APAC Head Georgina O’Brien (4th and 5th from left, respectively) sign the…

[selfdiscoverymedia]

LOA 23-49. Joanne Watson Pets Behaving Badly

Love Our Animals with Sara Troy and her guest Joanne Watson, on air from December 6th I want more people to know about the options on how to get your pet to behave differently over Zoom. One thing that COVID showed us is that many different and often surprising things can be accomplished over Zoom now.  This is one of them. I believe in fixing Pets Behaving Badly because life is stressful…

[miradiarys]

"A Deep Dive into Fiverr's Programming & Tech Services"

Introduction In the dynamic landscape of technology, innovation propels us forward, bridging the gap between creativity and functionality. Within this realm, Fiverr’s Programming & Tech category emerges as a digital agora, where skilled freelancers converge to offer their technical expertise. With the tap of a button, individuals and businesses can access a multitude of programming and tech…

[apomaro-mellow]

Built for Loving 1/? Read on AO3

Another one from the steddie fic adopt community:

Eddie lands his dream job at a robotics facility that's best known for its pleasure bots. He doesn't mean to make a bot of his old high school crush but the design gets approved all the same. Problems begin to arise when the customer lodges complaints about the android.

Eddie had always messed with whatever he could get his hands on. When he lived with his parents, it caused trouble and he quickly learned that whatever he took apart, he should know how to put back together. It wasn't until he started living his his uncle as he reached adolescence that this particular quirk was encouraged. The first couple of weeks were awkward.

They loved each other and Eddie trusted his uncle. But a weekend visit was different from "both of my parents went to prison and I have nowhere else to go". But all it took was his Uncle Wayne walking in on him disassembling an amp and then everything fell into place.

Eddie knew his uncle worked with his hands too, but not the specifics. It turned out he was an actual robotics engineer. Wayne downplayed it, saying he just did repairs on defective bots, that he wasn't anyone special, but that sounded like Eddie's dream job. And it was for a while. Eddie was on his best behavior, he went to school and got good grades because he knew these places only hired people with degrees.

College was no picnic, both the classes and paying for it was a test of endurance for Eddie. But he struck gold when he graduated. He never thought he'd be the kind of guy to say he had connections, but Wayne was able to get him an interview. And thanks to the awards from the robotics competitions and glowing recommendation letters from some of his professors, Eddie got the job.

He was about to start living his dream. Although his dream had changed since he was a kid. Eddie had forged a new passion during his late nights, drawing up blueprints and designs. He no longer wanted to simply repair robots. He wanted to design and build his own.

And there was no more prestigious position than that of Android Art Director. Especially for the company at the top of the android business, Brenner Ventures. Everybody wanted a Brenner Bot. They made all kinds, med-droids, nannybots, and tutor trons, but the most popular and most expensive were the entertainment automatons. That was their official moniker from the company. Most people called them pleasure bots.

A plethora of skills could be programmed into them but no one was using their human-like throats for singing. Eddie had never owned one. He'd only seen them from behind the glass of window displays. Even in college, he'd only gotten to see them a handful of times in the lab. Pleasure bots busted beyond repair but broken down to be used as a teaching model. Unlike other kinds of robots, people didn't readily parade them around. They'd be ordered discretely and then kept in the home of the buyer to be used however the customer pleased.

Eddie was no prude, he didn't care what people used to get their rocks off. It was the idea of creating something almost human. As close as they could possibly get. And after about a year on the bottom rung (customer service, repair, automaton editing) he had finally arrived. He got the email inviting him to a Research and Development meeting. He attended, noting how he was the youngest in the room. And then at the end of it, he was given his first real job as an art director.

He was going to design and build his first pleasure bot.

The client had filled out the request form and it was quite simple. White, male, 20s, no taller than 5'10 but no shorter than 5', brown eyes and hair. Eddie could see why he'd been given this task. On paper, it looked rather plain. Fleischer was giddily drawing a bot with an impossible waist while Bird had to figure out how to give one Rapunzel length hair that didn't tangle or mat.

Senior Art Directors got the first pick of client requests and they always went for the challenges. Eddie, as the new meat, got what they considered boring. But Eddie knew it wasn't all about what was on the form. It was what you made of it. He sat at his desk, monitor on and started with the basic build. The face was the most important part to these people, so that's what he started with.

No notes had been given on personality besides "agreeable, submissive" which wasn't much to work on, so Eddie got to imagining. He thought about the type of guy he'd want, which felt like an easy place to start. It took a couple of hours into drawing the face, erasing what didn't feel right just to draw a very similar line anyway, to realize he was drawing Steve Harrington.

Steve hadn't said two words to Eddie in high school and yet he'd been obsessed. A guy who ran through girls like toilet paper and so everyone pegged him as the playboy. But Eddie had spent long enough watching him from afar to read the yearning on his face. Imagine that, someone so beautiful who longed for love and yet never found it? Eddie hadn't seen him in years, made he'd found love by now. Found a nice girl to settle down with perhaps. But who was to know?

Once the thought was in his mind, Eddie couldn't let it go. If he did nothing else in this world, he had to let Steve be loved. Which meant he had to build this bot right. He did what he could at the office but ended up bringing his work home with him. Because it was only there that he had the material he needed.

He had to rifle through some boxes to find it, but there it was - an old notebook from his senior year. The year when his obsession with Steve reached its peak. Inside of it were dozens of sketches of Steve. Not just his face too. Eddie had drawn his profile, his hands holding objects, his legs in those stupid basketball shorts, his torso when they played shirts vs skins.

"God, someone should lock me away for this", he said before getting up from the box and taking the notebook to his computer.

He spent the better part of the night, finishing his design, using his sketches as references. One thing about the usual clientele for pleasure bots was that they were loyal. Once they bought one they liked, they held onto it, insuring it, getting regular repairs, sometimes even traveling with them if they were to be gone for a while.

Eddie would never get to tell the real Steve how he felt. But in his own strange way, he'd be making sure Steve felt that love somehow. Obviously overtime didn't exist in the Brenner Bot employee manual, but Eddie didn't care. This is what his whole life had been leading up to.

"You look like shit Munson. The bland bot givin' you that much trouble?", Fleischer said when he came in the next morning.

"I finished his design last night, actually", Eddie beamed, reveling in how his co-worker's face dropped.

Fleischer quickly picked it up. "Still gotta have it approved. And then the build. You sure you're up for it?"

Eddie shrugged. "If I can't handle a bland bot, then I wasn't meant for this job."

His design was anything but bland. Steve was anything but bland. He was beautiful, gorgeous even. The feelings that had cooled thanks to the separation had burned as bright as ever last night. Eddie sent his design to be checked. He'd played it off in front of others but he didn't know what he'd do if any part of it was critiqued or turned down.

It was checked in house first to make sure it met company standards, then sent off to the client to make sure it was what they wanted. Eddie waited for an excruciating 48 hours before the email came in.

Company Approved: Yes

Client Approved: Yes

Part 2

[whirlybirbs]

About "Bruised Ego"

If I may ask how long has Toshinori been attracted to Derecho? Has it been one of those "for a villain, i'd tap that." Or more of a developed after the rehab? Has there been moments of where they go out to eat and Derecho or All Might get hit on leading to the other person to get a little jealous.

But honestly amazing writing as always, I've been following since the ben solo days and still go back to read them every now and then!!

it's complicated.

truthfully, pre-villain rehab derecho is dangerous.

you're some old money, long standing yakuza's prized guard dog, constantly amped up on quirk enhancers — a drug i personally consider the biggest, baddest stimulant crossed with an immediate performance enhancer. it's essentially like feeding you a live wire.

all might's agency has a task force dedicated to arresting derecho — or, well you. before you had a hero name. before you were anything short of a frenzied, violent enforcer on a short leash. back when you were a grinning mugshot and an extensive rap sheet.

you were different, then.

toshinori knows it's the drugs — he knows that's how you came close to nearly killing him that one night. it's how he learned not to go toe-to-toe with you in the rain. water is a conductor and all that.

you are beautiful — and you were back then, too. scarier. tougher. less of a light in your eyes and more of a blood thirst that earned you title of most wanted. it's almost like a knife's edge. get too close and you'll get cut.

toshinori likes strong women. strong men, too.

but back then, he hated you.

there was a sliver of him that knew you were a victim of your circumstances — but all the playful rivalry went out the window that night in april when your fists cracked across his face in the pouring rain and you swore you'd kill him and everyone he ever loved.

I LOVE MAKING YOU BLEED.

it's the night you almost flatlined back in that disgusting, cold yakuza safe-house. it's a wake-up call. you flew too close to the sun. one breath away from an overdose you wouldn't come back from.

he arrests you the next time you go head to head, after a botched robbery downtown. you... you just can't keep doing it anymore.

it's that image that winds up on the front page of every newspaper in japan — the one with your chest slammed down against the hood of a detectives car, your legs spread, and all might gripping the cuffs behind your back to tightly you had bruises for weeks.

they muzzle you.

it's... poetic, really.

truth be told, prison is the best thing that ever happens to you.

the villain rehab program is second.

it takes toshinori a long time to agree — with a lot of bargaining and parol restrictions placed on your head. but the hero commission are different sort of vile ilk. the kind you don't argue with.

it takes toshinori a long time to even loosen up around you, too. truth be told, he regrets to admit he was convinced you would end up back behind bars — this time in tartarus.

you're irritable, short-tempered, violent, and often times cruel.

but you're smart. and, despite your circumstances, you do have a good heart. slowly, toshinori can see the fear melt away and you're less like a cornered dog snapping its jaw.

you take praise well. you enjoy routine. you begin to attend those meetings gran torino recommended — after all, it's not just villains who struggle with quirk enhancer addiction. there are plenty of heroes who have wandered down that path, seeking greatness at the cost of their sobriety.

it's slow. a new sort of dangerous. over time, you become enmeshed in his life in a different way than years ago. now, it's through text typos and late night patrols. it's you letting toshinori hitch a ride on the back of your yamaha ninja. it's comfortable silence in the agency's infirmary after a long mission.

and when you smile. well, shit.

yea, he's always liked strong women.

and you're dangerous.

— a reference to this fic here ;

[skys-archive]

The more I read about the "treatment" for amplified pain disorders and the guy who created it the more I think no this is fucking insane.

"Put them (usually children AROUND 12 YEARS OLD) in as much pain as possible through 6 hours of daily pt for up to 6 or more weeks"

"They do not talk about their pain or pain level at all, we only ask if the activity is easy, medium, or hard"

"Not everyone is a good fit for this program because it can further traumatize them"

"They cannot take pain medication or anything related like nausea medication during the treatment"

The guy who created it says that the invention of the pain scale has caused more people to develop chronic illnesses "because they're thinking more about pain" and by not thinking about it you will be cured.

Treatment for amplified pain disorders doesn't focus on treating the pain or making you feel less pain, it focuses on putting you in enough pain and desensitizing you (and almost surely traumatizing you) to the point that you just do everything through the pain.

And if you're teaching , again, CHILDREN that because the pain won't injure them they should just push through it even though supposedly it's one of the most painful disorders to have, what do you think is going to happen if they do get injured? If they get ulcers, or strain a muscle, or have chest pains because of a heart issue, or any other problem you can't obviously see? What are they supposed to just assume it's nothing?

And of course this isn't just children because adults have AMPS too they're just usually diagnosed with something more specific like fibromyalgia or CRPS, but this is especially horrible for children who's brains are growing and don't have the capacity to understand as much that this is wrong.

Why is your "treatment" to put usually children in as much pain as possible for up to months on end? So, what? That they essentially give up and assume they'll always have to push themselves far beyond their limits because, "it won't injure you", right? "It's just pain", right? Even though they're in excruciating pain?

Do you understand how unbelievably fucked that sounds?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Austin Grossman’s ‘Fight Me’

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

In Fight Me, the novelist and game developer Austin Grossman uses aging ex-teen superheroes to weigh the legacy of Generation X, in a work that enrobes its savage critique with sweet melancholia, all under a coating of delicious snark:

http://www.austingrossman.com/fight-me

It is, in other words, a very Gen X kinda novel. Prodigy (AKA Alex Beekman) is a washed-up superhero. As a nerdy high-schooler, he was given super powers by a mysterious wizard (posing as a mediocre teacher), who gave him an amulet and a duty. Whenever Alex touches the amulet and speaks the word of power, reaclun (which he insists is not "nuclear" backwards) he transforms into Prodigy, a nigh-invulnerable, outrageously handsome living god who is impervious to bullets, runs a one-minute mile, and fights like a champ. Prodigy, he is told, has a destiny: to fight the ultimate evil when it emerges and save the world.

Now, Alex is 40, and it's been a decade since he retired both Prodigy and his Alex identity, moving into a kind of witness protection program the federal government set up for him. He poses as a mediocre university professor, living a lonely and unexceptional life.

But then, Alex is summoned back to the superhero lair he shared with his old squad, "The Newcomers," a long-vacant building that is one quarter Eero Saarinen, three quarters Mussolini. There, he is reunited with his estranged fellow ex-Newcomers, and sent on a new quest: to solve the riddle of the murder of the mysterious wizard who gave him his powers, so long ago.

The Newcomers – an amped-up ninja warrior, a supergenius whose future self keeps sending him encouragement and technical schematics backwards through time, and an exiled magical princess turned preppie supermodel – have spent more than a decade scattered to the winds. While some have fared better than Alex/Prodigy, none of them have lived up to their potential or realized the dreams that seemed so inevitable when they were world famous supers with an entourage of fellow powered teens who worshipped them as the planet's greatest heroes.

As they set out to solve the mystery, they are reunited and must take stock of who they are and how they got there (cue Talking Heads' "Once In a Lifetime"). With flashbacks, flashforwards, and often hilarious asides, Prodigy brings us up to speed on how supers fail, and what it's like to live as a failed super.

The publisher's strapline for this book is "The Avengers Meets the Breakfast Club," which is clever, but extremely wrong. The real comp for this book isn't "The Breakfast Club," it's "The Big Chill."

When I realized this, I got briefly mad, because I've only had two good movie high concept pitches in my life and one of them was "Gen X Big Chill." Rather than veterans of the Summer of 68 confronting the Reagan years, you could have veterans of the Battle of Seattle living through the Trump years. One would be on PeEP, one would be an insufferable Andrew Tate-quoting bitcoiner, one would be a redpilled reactionary with a genderqueer teen, one would be a squishy lib, one a firebreathing leftist, etc. The soundtrack would just be top 40 tracks from artists who have songs on "Schoolhouse Rock Rocks":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoolhouse_Rock!_Rocks

Every generation has some way in which they seek to overthrow the status quo and build a new, allegedly better one, after all. "Big Chill"'s impact comes from its postmortem on a generation where it was easy to feel like you were riding destiny's rails to greatness thanks to the sheer size of the Boomer cohort and the postwar prosperity they lived through. A Gen X Big Chill would be a stocktaking of a generation that defined itself as a lost generation reared in the Boomers' shadows, armored against the looming corpo-climate apocalypse with the sword of irony and the shield of sincerity.

Which is basically what Grossman is doing here. What's more, doing this as a superhero story is a genius move – what could be a better metaphor for a teen's unrealistic certainty of destined greatness than a superhero? Superhero fantasies are irreducibly grandiose and unrealistic, but all the more beautiful and brave and compelling for it.

You know, like teens.

At 52, I'm a middle-aged Gen Xer. I've got two artificial hips and I just scheduled a double cataract surgery. My hairline is receding. I'm an alta kaker. But I wasn't always: I was a bright and promising kid, usually the youngest person in the room where we were planning big protests, ambitious digital art projects, or the future of science fiction. I had amazing friends: creative and funny and sweet, loyal and talented and just fun.

We're mostly doing okay (the ones that lived; fuck cancer and fuck heroin and fuck fentanyl). Some of us are doing pretty good. On a good day, I think I'm doing pretty good. I had a night in 2018 where I got to hang out, as a peer, with my favorite musician and my favorite novelist, both in the same evening. These were artists I'd all but worshipped as a teen. I remember looking at the two selfies I took than night and thinking, Man, if 15 year old me could see these, he'd say that it all worked out.

But you don't get to be 52 without having a long list of regrets and failures that your stupid brain is only too eager to show you a highlight reel from. No one gets to middle age without a haunting loss that is always trying to push its way to the fore in order to incinerate every triumph great and small and leave ashes behind.

That's why there's a "Big Chill" for every generation. Each one has its own specific character and meaning situated in history, but each one has to grapple with the double-edged sword of nostalgia. Not for nothing, John Hodgman (a bona fide Gen X icon) calls nostalgia "a toxic impulse."

Grossman really makes Fight Me work as a Gen X Big Chill. He's a great Gen X writer; his first novel, Soon I Will Be Invincible, was a knockout debut about superheroes and supervillains that had a very "The Boys" vibe, you know, that neat little move where you contend with the banal parts of a super's life and show how super powers don't make you a good person, or even a competent one.

His followup to Invincible came six years later. YOU is a coming-of-age story about the games industry with a second-person narrator (think "Zork"). Grossman is an accomplished game dev (Tomb Raider Legend, Deus X, Dishonored, etc), and he uses YOU to really plumb the depths of what games mean, what fun is, and how working on games isn't just work, it's often really shitty work, the opposite of fun:

https://memex.craphound.com/2013/04/16/austin-grossmans-you-brilliant-novel-plumbs-the-heroic-and-mystical-depths-of-gaming-and-simulation/

Grossman's last novel was Crooked, a very daffy alternate history in which Richard Nixon is a Cthulhoid sorcerer locked in a Lovecraftian battle of good and evil. This is a purely hilarious romp, wildly imaginative and deliciously certain to offend reactionary jerks:

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/08/26/austin-grossmans-crooked-the-awful-cthulhoid-truth-about-richard-nixon/

All those chops are on display in Fight Me: a book that covers its brooding with wisecracks, that spits out ten great gags per page even as it drives a knife into your heart. It's a great novel.

Fight Me doesn't come out in the US and Canada until tomorrow (it's been out in the UK, Australia, NZ, etc for more than a month). Normally, I would hold off on reviewing this until the on-sale date, but this is my last day on the blog for two weeks – I'm leaving on a family vacation early tomorrow morning. I'll see you on July 14!

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/01/the-big-genx-chill/#im-super-thanks-for-asking

[crow-quilll]

Hello :) i really like ur writing style and wanted to know your writing tips!

Like, how do you get a clean and nice pace? Or how to write intense scenes? Or what words to choose? Etc

I thank you graciously for sharing your works 🙏🙏

HELLO SLEEPY!! I meant to respond to this way earlier but stuff got in the way -- however I have arrived!!

Let's dig in:

In terms of pacing, it is always helpful to have a clear outline of every event that will happen - I write all of mine in a notes app, write down each key event and how the chapter will progress. I think that way I get a good idea of what sections should be longer, which are more important and need more detail, and which should be intentionally fast to amp up pressure. Ofc it depends on what you're writing! I've always written these sorts of angsty hurt/comfort fics, so I've just had a lot of practice with them. I can assure you that I'd struggle with a slow pace slice-of-life au in any fandom.

Writing intense scenes mostly comes with practice, I've had 10 long years of experience haha! But there are some things that I've learned to do for those scenes:

Positioning is important, set it up early. You want your readers to know exactly where your characters are so they aren't confused which will slow down how they read the scene. You want them following the speed of the scene you've set.

Shortening your sentences and descriptions will make your scene more intense because your reader feels like they are struggling to keep up with it. It also makes them predict a breaking point - a point in the sentence structure where it reaches a limit and either stops completely or slows back down. So they hang on to every word, waiting for that drop.

Metaphors and imagery are great for describing emotional or physical pain - but I try not to overdo it, especially in "Nobody's Soldier" when those scenes are pretty lengthy. I try to keep those scenes feeling intense and quick because the stakes are supposed to feel high for Gi-hun - and by extension, for the readers.

As for word choice, that really depends on your style and where you find your inspiration from! Like I said, I've primarily written hurt/comfort and whump fics, so my style developed to be very physical: I always think about the facial expressions of the characters, the way their body reacts to stimuli, where they are standing and how they stand, etc. That comes from working on how to describe reactions to pain, and they always tell you to show it instead of telling it: "he winced/he flinched" rather than "it hurt him".

A lot of my style just comes from the things I take inspiration from. Funnily enough, I don't read fics or books for fun because I read so much for university in my history/english program. So I find my inspiration in the historical sources and literature I read. I think a good example I can give is from a poem by Wilfred Owen, an English poet who fought in WWI, called Dulce et Decorum est, which uses very visceral language (ie. "His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;/ If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood/ Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs..."). I'm sure you can some similarity between his descriptions and my own -- albeit, mine are far less sophisticated than his. But I still try to emulate how grotesquely he describes the human body, as well as the sharp rhythm of certain lines like "sick of sin." ANYWAYS thats enough university talk that i'm sure sounds boring haha. I also find inspiration in video games, in TV shows, in everything. The world around us is composed of sentences waiting to be written, you just have to look for them and put pen to paper :))

One last tip I can give is to just write what you enjoy! I know ao3 can be disheartening if your work doesn't get a lot of love, but honestly as long as you are having fun, it is well worth it. I have written for dead fandoms in the past - and in fact, I have more often written for dead fandoms than for popular ones. I'm somehow always late to the party, except this time ofc with Squid Game.

Anyways, I think that is all I have for now!! If you have any further questions, please ask away. I'm so flattered to have been asked about something like this, thank you to coming for me and reading what I write <3 <3

[jobsbureauforkenya]

Oracle Internships 2025: Paid Technical, Corporate & Veteran Programs | Apply Now

Oracle Internships 2025 | Paid Technical, Corporate & Veteran Programs Launch your career with Oracle’s Internship Programs, where innovation meets impact. Whether you’re passionate about coding, business strategy, or making a difference as a veteran, Oracle offers diverse internship paths to help you grow professionally and prepare for success in today’s tech-driven world. Explore Oracle…

[vcqrupvt]

Why Need Build Customer Loyalty? A Comprehensive Guide

VCQRU is a leading anti-counterfeiting solutions company in India, offering one-stop solutions for anti-counterfeiting, custom QR code, smart packaging, labels stickers, and e-warranty solutions with dynamic QR code.

Read more:

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

Part of the problem with public health is our healthcare professionals are broadly un- or misinformed about infection control and prevention. Sad.

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted gaps in infection control knowledge and practice across health settings nationwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with funding through the American Rescue Plan, developed Project Firstline. Project Firstline is a national collaborative aiming to reach all aspects of the health care frontline. The American Medical Association recruited eight physicians and one medical student to join their director of infectious diseases to develop educational programs targeting knowledge gaps. They have identified 5 critical areas requiring national attention

[bumble-the-sun-bee]

i have too many Malware related thoughts bouncing in my brain

Thanks to being programmed with caretaker protocols, Malware will often be highly protective of those he considers family.

This is amped up by maybe 20 when he is aware of new life.

He kinda goes into this weird state where he will do anything to make sure the person he's guarding stays safe and unharmed. His eye changes as well. From his normal optic setting to a magenta- maybe lavender color with just a white pupil.

This is also kinda seen in Ambrose in its more recent development. Its hostile code is dimming so the caretaker/guardian parts of coding are the stronger motive

[smallredrobin13games]

Sitcoms fascinate me; much like children's media, what we allow on the sitcom says a lot about the culture of the time. But I'm also fascinated by the "live studio audience" aspect, which I've worked to incorporate into Pilot Episode's mechanics and themes.

The inclusion of a "live studio audience" in early sitcoms is linked to early television's reliance on sound, to the point where it was sometimes referred to as 'radio with pictures', according to Glen Creeber's Small Screen Aesthetics (Which is also the primary source for this post). As the small screen developed, sound began to be used as a way to regain the audience's attention, as "television has also to compete with the distractions of the domestic space". This made the laughter of the live studio audience important as a way to engage the viewer and indicate that something funny is occurring.

Sitcoms also draw from tv's early aesthetic similarities to theatre (early tv programs were sometimes referred to as 'plays), particularly vaudeville style shows that relied on the energy of a real audience for it's comedy. We can still see this when someone edits out the laugh track of a sitcom and suddenly the humour of the show evaporates (looking at you, Big Bang Theory).

This is also where we get the term 'fourth wall' from! Early sitcom sets were build like it was a theatre stage, a traditional set with the fourth wall missing so the audience and camera could look inside. One early sitcom (The George Burns and Gracie Allens Show) even had a character break the fourth wall by standing to the side and commenting what was happening in the set, to the amusements of audiences in the studio and on the other side of the screen.

The audience watching through their tv also developed a kind of unique relationship with television sitcoms which also influenced Pilot Episode, but that's for another post I think. In the meantime, what does this have to do with Pilot Episode?

Well, we see it mostly in the music. The music in this game is used to indicate when an episode begins and ends, much like in the original Time To Drop. When the music ends, so too does the episode and the players must reset. So the use of audio cues lives on. But, this isn't all.

The main antagonist of Pilot Episode is the Audience. The Audience is an otherworldly being (or perhaps collection of beings depending on your reading) who demand entertainment. They won't let you leave until they've been entertained. As their thirst for entertainment grows, their laughter becomes less human. This, much like the vaudeville shows of old, amps up the energy as the album progresses, making the players more desperate to escape before the loop resets again and they are subjected to another episode. Much like the live studio audience of old, they're always looking in (not through a literal fourth wall but still), they're always watching. They're always looking to be entertained, no matter how many takes you need to do to get it right.

If any of this interested you why not check out the Kickstarter for the game I did all this reading for.

[ecargmura]

Medalist Episode 13 Review + Final Thoughts - Good-bye To The Old Inori

I love how the season ends with Inori saying good-bye and thank you to who she was before she got into skating. The stark contrast between her in the first episode and the final episode of this season is astounding. She’s still the same person, but a lot more confident and happier. That’s what character development truly is. There’s no need for Inori to become an edge lord as people think that traumatic events and becoming a shell of their former selves surmounts to character development—it’s not. As long as the character is able to retain who they are from beginning to end, even with a few tweaks, that’s what I believe character development is.

While it was obvious that Inori was going to pass her Level 6 badge test, the way she did it was so satisfying. She got a new dress, song and skills to show off how much she changed. I do like that even though her program was a success, but she’s still feeling anxious whether she did something correct or if she made unknown errors that could make her fail. I’m glad that Rioh was able to reassure her that she did great. Her new song, The Flower Fairy, has vocals and the lyrics do feel as if they’re narrating Inori’s journey to now.

Speaking of Rioh, I do wonder why his performance, although brief, was animated in 2D. Regardless, I can see how he’s like Inori in that he’s imitating Tsukasa’s movements like how he saw at the camp, but also amps it up with his triple-spin double toe loop combo that he had been struggling with. The way he gives off that satisfied, confident smile when he pulled it off was so nice. It shows that nothing is ever a waste of time if you work hard, regardless if you have the best deck of cards or the worst one. The way Tsukasa and Shinichiro were excited when he pulled off his combo was great. They’re so proud!

It’s also nice to see the interactions of the other characters. It was super hilarious to see Shinichiro thanking Tsukasa for pulling Rioh out of his slump. Tsukasa’s power knows no bounds when he’s got freaking Sung Jinwoo bowing down to him (Jinwoo and Shinichiro share the same voice actor, Taito Ban). Also seeing Inori’s interactions with her family was sweet. The part where she was asking Mika if she had changed was nice. Even if Mika doesn’t see Inori that much due to school, she does notice a subtle difference within her sister. Nozomi, on the other hand, got me tearing up when she hugged Inori and thanked her daughter for helping her see that she has such a strong daughter. Remember how she was negligent, negative and underestimated her daughter a lot? Look at Nozomi now. She’s such a supportive parent and it’s all because of both Inori’s passion for skating and Tsukasa’s support. Her love for her daughter is shown with the dresses she makes for her as Inori’s white and gold dress is a lot more detailed and her new pink dress is very elaborate. Nozomi should work as a figure skating  dress designer because her designs are amazing.

There was also a cute moment between Inori and Hikaru. Fun fact, Hikaru is actually younger than Inori, yet she’s so much taller. Japanese school systems have it to where kids born from April 2nd to April 1st of the following year are grouped together for the same year. Inori’s birthday is April 16 and Hikaru’s is January 31. I can’t wait to see these two compete because Hikaru did say she’s waiting for her. Their showdown is going to be epic.

Fortunately, Medalist did get renewed for a second season and the post-credit scenes did show off new rivals for Inori, so it’s going to be exciting! Let me know your thoughts on the finale!

Final Thoughts

Imagine being a lauded manga, but got stuck with a rather infamous animation studio. Like, I remember people bemoaning ENGI being the studio in charge of Medalist, but it seems that the complaints have died down as the months pass. I can safely say that Medalist has saved Studio ENGI from total infamy and that’s an amazing feat in itself.

Sure, it’s not perfect as I’ve seen people complain that some scenes were toned down for the anime, but I’ve seen more praises than complaints for this adaptation. From an anime-only’s perceptive, I can tell a lot of love was poured into this project. The CGI used for the performances were very good; the music choices like having Kenshi Yonezu singing the opening song and having a stellar voice cast really sealed the deal for a successful project.

It’s rare to see a sports anime be this good because the popular ones usually focuses on team sports like basketball, baseball, tennis, volleyball and soccer to name a few. Heck, the biggest sports animes have always been the team sports with a pretty boy cast. So, for a story about an individual sport like figure skating to be this detailed and intriguing really shows that anyone can make a compelling sports story if they know how to write.

I know that Yuri on Ice is another case of a successful figure skating anime and I like the it a lot too. However, Yuri on Ice is a story about how skaters past their prime get another chance before they retire. Medalist is the quintessential youthful sports story with a rare female-dominated cast. I like seeing that difference to show that Medalist isn’t some sort of Yuri on Ice copy, but it’s own genuine figure skating story as a whole.

I think it’s a fine way to showcase a sport with such a short shelf life from the perspective of a child who grows into an Olympic medalist. I think that seeing time pass by and Inori aging is one of the positive things because sports stories usually stick to the characters being in a team for one school year and that’s that. However, the story isn’t just about the kids as it’s also a story about the adults too. Sports stories don’t usually involve a coach and if they do, they aren’t as emphasized as much as the athletes. Because figure skating is an individual sport, the bond between coach and athlete is a must and it’s amazing to see adults be a positive aspect of a sports story as their decisions affect their young skaters.

  Not only that, the way the children are written in this story is such amazing. I mentioned before in my Episode 11 review that a writer’s capability is determined by how well they write children. Some stories have it to where they write kids as short adults, so they don’t feel realistic, but the ones in Medalist are very realistic in that they behave like kids. Inori and Rioh are examples of extremely well-written kids with stories that differ in their circumstances.

Watching Medalist makes me excited for more sports anime and what the second season has to offer. It’s so fun to learn about the fundamentals and the techniques of the sport. It makes me want to go to a skating rink and have a fun time skating for fun. Though, my only skating experiences come from roller-blading which I am good at! I don’t know if roller-blading and ice-skating are the same thing because ice is silppery and my sense of balance is awful. But yeah, the best thing about Medalist is the new things I’ve learned from it. It’ll definitely be useful for writing later on. I’ll definitely be checking out the manga when I can. Let me know your thoughts on this anime as a whole!