throwrocksatthem

Something I have heard a lot of people talk about in regards to Digimon Frontier, is... Well: "Why was it like this?" Especially because of three things: Why is Izumi probably the most sidelined and sexualized female character in all of Digimon (outside of maybe Digimon Xros Wars' female cast)? Why is Izumi the only girl? And why do Takuya and Kouji get so much front and center screentime in comparison to everyone else?

The thing is that I know some of the answers. And no, it isn't really that the series composer (a role roughly equatable with an US showrunner) Tomita Sukehiro is a sexist or anything. He worked actually on a lot of female lead anime, some of it adaptions of Shojo manga, some even mostly original work.

Now, I do have the slight suspicion that Kaizawa Yukio, the main director, is a bit of a horndog, Mainly because Xros Wars became a whole lot hornier when he joined the project after not being included from the beginning. So, I wouldn't put it past him. lol

Ironically, a lot of what Digimon Frontier is, can be explained with what Digimon Adventure did not get to be.

I would say that Digimon Adventure had an infamously chaotic preproduction, but fact is that this is neither famous not infamous. But yeah, the pre-production of the show went through a total of three teams, before finally ending with the team that we know did the series. With Kakudou Hiroyuki (who was involved from the very beginning, but in another position) as the director, Nishizono Satoru as the series composer, and with Yamatoya, Maekawa, Yoshimura, Masaki, Yoshida, and Urasawa writing episode scripts. (Maekawa and Yoshimura would eventually go on and do the series composition of 02.)

If you were to ask me what the biggest issue with Digimon Adventure is, then I would say it is the overcrowding of the show with characters. 8 main characters is a whole lot for 50 episodes. It is something you usually can only do if you outright make clear priorization happen. Because you will not be able to adaquately develop 8 characters (16, if you count the Digimon) in 50 episodes. Or I guess 54 episodes.

In a way Digimon Adventure does prioritize the characters, but in a way that it is not properly communicated towards the audience. I think it is pretty clear, that there is a priority towards Taichi and Yamato, though ironically towards Mimi and Jou as well, if go by time that we focus on those characters in particular.

Now, the thing is, that Nishizono knew this were too many characters. Originally when developing the plan went like this: "We do six characters, one for each of the 'good' fields established before." Meaning: One character with a Dragon's Roar Digimon, one with Nature Spirit, Wind Guardians, Deep Savers, Jungle Troopers and then one Virus Buster.

I think most people know by now that indeed it was not intended from the beginning for Hikari to join the main characters. (Which is also the reason why Gennai is totally not surprised to see seven kids on File Island, but then suddenly remembers later that there should have been eight.)

But even without Hikari (who also received a Virus Buster), there is another group overpresented: Jungle Troopers. And this is because originally Mimi was not planned to be there. However, fairly late in pre-production it was decided that to have a bit more appeal to a female audience (while boys were always the main target-demographic) there should be another girl. So Mimi and Palmon were added fairly late.

This is ironically the reason why Mimi is fairly well written: She follows a different writing paradigm than everyone else. Which is kinda ironic, because it also made her to one of the favorites of many folks working on the show. lol

But yeah, this brings me back to Digimon Frontier.

Tomita and Nishizono knew each other and were pals. And when the call was made, that Tomita would do series composition for Frontier, the two of them went out and toyed around with ideas. And one of the things they ended on was this "too many characters" problem Nishizono had run into.

So, Tomita wanted to make show that worked with somewhat similar ideas to Adventure (note how both shows start with the kids being isekai'd to the Digital World) with a group of characters based on the original make up of the Adventure-crew prior to executive meddling. Hence eventually six kids, just one girl, and one small kid. And with a clearer focus on who the main-main-characters are - Takuya and Kouji.

I personally do not really mind the fact that Izumi is the only girl in the group. But yeah, the fanservice can at times be weird, given that even as Fairymon she is just a 10yo kid. lol

But yeah, in the end, the context of how something like this happens can be very interesting, I think xD

also on a completely unrelated note

Buffalos build friendships based on similar personality traits

“Our research provides evidence that friendships among water buffalo can form among individuals with similar behaviors. These findings offer valuable insights into the evolution of friendships,” said Dr. Debottam Bhattacharjee, a Postdoc in CityUHK’s Department of Infectious Diseases and Public Health. “Personalities and social relationships will be potentially important for understanding how buffalo use their habitats during different seasons (wet and dry) of the year with fluctuating food resources.”

These little dudes are not only chillin' but also warming themselves in heated cubbies to help them beat a fungal infection!!

Photo from the article in Science.

as hell! Idk how many of you are familiar with chytrid fungi, but they cause a nasty disease in amphibians called chytridiomycosis, where the fungus infected and spreads across the skin. Amphibians both breathe and absorb water through their skin, so once the infection spreads enough it makes it difficult for them to breathe and drink. It's often deadly and has been introduced all over the world, likely from people releasing captive amphibians into the wild. Research has linked chytridiomycosis to the extinction of over 90 species, and is considered one of the primary causes of the global amphibian population crisis we're fighting.

Worst of all, there is no cure viable enough to use on wild populations.

This 'hothouse' method, if it continues to prove effective, would be a cheap and easily-implemented tool to help wild frogs cure themselves!! This could help save dozens -- if not hundreds -- of species from extinction!

Like worstie, I can barely promote my own published book without wanting to curl up and die.

They’re just not disclosing it as ads, which they are supposed to do, and instead it's marketed in a very Tumblr-esque way which can be summed up as “omg guys look how CUTE this is” followed by a different account underneath going “omg found it!!” and it links to a drop ship site with the item(s).

And the link usually has an affiliate tracker in it, which you may or may not be able to spot unless you’re familiar with them, which is also something you are legally supposed to disclose.

I used to get a lot of offers from around 2016-2020 to sell “moon lamps” on here, y’know those orb lights that look like a moon? Yeah. I was offered a higher kickback to make it look like I wasnt posting an add because these sellers know Tumblrites don’t like ads.

They wanted it to look as organic and hyped up as possible and then I’d just so happen to be like “omg you guys it's on sale” and post a link. Which is skeevy as shit and also illegal af in the US.

It’s like the insta/tiktok girlies saying “link in bio” to get around saying “here’s a product I make money on if you buy it” because they want to sound like your friend because people are more likely to impulse buy stuff if a “friend” is recommending something.

They’re also trusting that everyone knows “link in bio” means “affiliate link” which is technically not enough of a disclosure but whatever.

This is why I tag all my own book promos with “affiliate links” because depending on which storefront you buy Hunger Pangs from, I may get a kickback from the vender which I do to help mediate the fees I lose from distribution. It’s not much—literal pennies in some cases—but I’m still legally required to state it.

It’s also why when I do post products I use or like, I make a point of letting people know I’m not an affiliate and not sponsored because despite the legal ramifications these people are flirting with by not disclosing their affiliate status, I want to be fully transparent with my followers when it comes to me trying to sell them things.

Y’all keep my lights on by reading my work and through my ko-fi and patreon. I am not about to risk that trust for the sake of some shitty vibrator sales from a sketch-ass drop shipper who wants me to pretend I’m not selling you things.

So, yeah. People do successfully sell stuff on here. A lot of us small indie creators sell our own work all the time.

(Screenshots I took at the time - this particular blog has been thoroughly scrubbed from existence in the meantime.)

There is an extensive interconnected network of blogs with URLs like haha-lol-cute-funny, daily-meme-inspiration, omg-wow-tiktoks, etc. that bulk post vast quantities of stolen memes with broad appeal, spam them in a million popular tags, and then reblog them back and forth from each other. Once any given meme takes off, the OP is edited and the meme replaced with one of these stealth ads. Then, because of the inflated note count, the ad version of the post will get pushed to the dashboards of anyone tracking those tags.

If you go into the notes of any of these, half the reblogs will still be of the original meme. Here's an example: Original meme / the ad it turned into.

(The OP of this one has already been taken down - screenshots because the images in this post are also liable to get scrubbed.)