Well now I kinda am proper-back, but looking back on the under-a-rock period and it’s still almost just MentalMoe MentalEdge and me - idk, it’s a bit disheartening that if the two of us (and I guess hal_5700X in third place) all got hit by a bus the posting activity would die with us, even in a community of >1000 people. Somehow we seem to be doing worse than the 1% rule, which is already not a very high bar. Maybe it’s hard to compete with the presumably-numerous Discord communities :(

RIP squishies, we barely knew ye

Roses are red
Gura is blue
One time she said “A”
So now I must too

On the off chance anybody cares despite it being two days late, here’s the original xeet: Xitter

Other than you (if you have notifications turned on) there’s gotta be close to 0 people who’ll ever see this, but here’s a link to the comic: https://falseknees.com/comics/247.html

Chaser’s got something pretty close: Indigenous elected official slammed for daring to speak out against unelected British man in Australian parliament

Art of Fauna appears on the screen,
My kami-oshi, in black and green.
 So my braincells go uuuuuuuuuuuuu,
 Then my fingers do too -
Just ordinary sapling routine.

Frustrating how hostile markdown is to poem formatting 🫠

edit: I spent half of the time writing that figuring out the last line, and I think I now prefer:

Another comment left for my queen

Since it makes more sense / links better with lines 3+4.

Without ever directly watching the talents themselves, someone could watch / read / play / listen to well-made fan content as a full time job and still be pressed for time. It’s genuinely nuts!

😬 not proper-back yet (just a brief lull), but thanks haha

Fat F for AmeSame

I literally have not gotten around to watching her debut yet, so you could say I’m a bit behind even though I’ve watched plenty of her streams over the years.

The fact that it’s not a “real” graduation (while also not going to staff) seems to imply she might come back for special events or something? As much of a bummer as this is, that’s what has me most curious:

Any future activities that involve Watson Amelia will be announced through official social media and other channels.

At least we still have https://watsonamelia.com/

edit: it looks like someone is making good use of https://ameliawatson.com/ as well (it used to just redirect to her channel)

You may also enjoy: Government announces plebiscite to determine whether to put sexuality/gender questions in census or not

Well, it looks like I have to go back into the mines for a while* so probably won’t (or perhaps more accurately shouldn’t) be posting for a bit, and the popular 0 up / 1 down submission seems like a good place to mention it 🙃

Here’s the stuff in my queue if you wanted some easy submissions while I’m in the mines:

• YT: HoloMyth and iron (animation) (I LOVE THIS and was trying to wait out the YouTube thumbnails to post it)
• YT: Gura say something crazy to marine…!? (animation)
• YT: Bettel getting flak for lack of an intro (clip)
• YT: Elizabeth Rose Bloodflame anime intro (animation)
• YT: CC learns Japanese (animation)
• YT: HoloEN’s “All My Fellas!” + JUSTICE! (short / animation) (this is really cool, and there’s a standalone version for each of the four EN gens)
• YT: Ina reacts to Endermen stealing her house (animation)
• YT: They’re cuddling (animation)
• YT: I love how Gura never changed… (clip)
• YT: Cecilia & Gigi (animation)
• Fanart: Uncovered evidence (by ShiroO)
• Fanart: Fluffy and Fuzzy (by kukie-nyan)
• Interview: An interview with a director and lead engineer about sandbox game development
• Needs to be processed into something shareable (get screenshot / clip etc): Gigi and Cecelia played a horror game and Gigi freaked the fuck out the entire time
• Needs to be processed into a screenshot: Raora / Gigi pineapple scuffle on Xitter

* I did try to hang in there as long as I could since it seems like when I stop posting there’s not much going on ): but sometimes the mines need some extra attention

As the article already states, even with a ban it would still be a reactive process of taking it down after-the-fact, which we already know Isn’t Great™ based on other times when the juicy-but-false news headlines that come out first get more eyeballs than the later corrections.

Still, on balance it’s probably better than a complete free-for-all? I guess there’d need to be clear lines about what’s okay / not, as it seems very easy to overdo it if the language is too vague (e.g., in an extreme case, accidentally banning all manipulation of images / video in political contexts).

Might have to wait for the founding of Cover EU :P

A (slightly long) highlight:

Anime Herald: You’ve had a chance to receive some feedback from the fans. What have you learned that might change how COVER Corp. operates going forward?

Max Kim: We hear from fans all the time, over the years. If there’s one thing we’d want to enhance, it would be for users in the West to have better access to our merch and content. That’s one of the reasons I’m here. We have our own merchandising, as well as merchandise that we create via licensing. Watching the stream is one thing, but also being able to buy their goods.

In Japan we call it “Oshikatsu.” Supporting the talents that you love, not just by watching online, but participating in various activities. It’s very difficult to do that in the West. The shipping fees are high. It takes time. It’s difficult for fans to get their hands on the official goods.

That’s why some of the collaborations here in America were successful. We could provide the licensed merch for the fans, so they could wear it to the anime conventions and show their support. We want to make it happen more frequently so it’s easier for them to get their hands on it.

Anime Herald: That sounds a bit like Japanese idols. You support your favorites by buying the merch, or the chekis.

Max Kim: Yes.

Anime Herald: I can imagine why that would be a tricky culture to recreate in the US.

Max Kim: At the same time, here in the US, sports fans buy their merch. You watch them on TV. It’s not just about watching. I don’t think it’s as foreign as idol culture. It’s just physically difficult right now.

Anime Herald: In America, with rock bands, you buy the tee shirt, you buy the album, you go to the concert.

Max Kim: Yes.

I hope you’re all ready for Breaking Dimensions the breakfast cereal

I didn’t really want to dump this in as its own link and I know some people only browse here every few days, so you might also like Polygon: I went to a Hololive concert and now I’m convinced VTubers can do anything

There’s !arcane@lemmy.world, but it’s very small

I feel like your preference makes sense when aligned from the perspective of a conventional forum-like platform. However I’d argue that that’s missing a core part of what kbin is/was – and by extension what Mbin is – which is the microblog integration alongside the forum-like stuff. With that context in mind, boosts (or whatever term you want to use for “retweet”) make sense to integrate imo.

Whether or not you think Mbin should try to integrate the microblog side of things is of course a subjective - I personally think it’s a cool idea to try at least, but with how dominant lemmy has become it can be difficult to reconcile differences and incompatibilities between it and other software like Mbin.

Mbin has a specific and different meaning for the term “post” as used in the OP, so it’s one place where translating from lemmy or other “generic internet forum” jargon doesn’t work. It’s for microblog posts associated with a magazine that are independent of threads in that magazine.

E.g.: https://fedia.io/m/firefox/microblog has “posts” in Mbin terminology – though if I had to guess I think most Mbin users will use the qualified “microblog post” or similar if they actually mean to reference the Mbin meaning of the term.

The most interesting Q+A pair for me personally:

hololive DEV_IS was introduced in 2023 as a new branch that focuses on music. What do you see as the driving force of hololive DEV_IS and ReGloss? How would you describe them to new viewers?

hololive DEV_IS is not a group focused solely on music, but rather a group that aims to explore new frontiers. We hope fans will support their journey as they take on these new challenges. Previously, hololive’s music efforts have centered around solo artists like Hoshimachi Suisei and Mori Calliope. With ReGLOSS, we plan to expand into a new dimension by focusing on music as a unit.