I really appreciate it, honest, reminding myself to check out the little hidden portion of the site every week isn't really intuitive. I can't imagine Artist Alley grants anywhere near as much exposure as it did in its first month or so simply because it might as well be Cohost's best kept secret at this point.

Which is why I wish we could've gone all the way, I struggle to imagine people being aware of the profile's existence after the current Cohost Corner announcement goes by, after a while I imagine it'll be this little known feature that someone might make a "Did you know about this really neat thing?" post about from time to time. What I'm saying is that @artist-alley is just too little, in my opinion.

I don't understand why there's such a big resistance to inserting user ads into the site when we got over 50% of the screen to the sides completely empty, not to mention I think it's pretty popular on sites like FurAffinity, e621, some comic hosting sites, etc. It lets people discover art, which they're actually passionate about and want to consume.

Maybe @artist-alley could be automatically followed by anyone that creates an account on Cohost, or it could just be heavily encouraged like with the staff accounts, obviously my preferred solution is still ads, but I mean, we could still go a bit farther yeah?

Ultimately I know my opinion is a drop in the bucket, the site staff ultimately has their own thoughts on the matter, even if I think they're very misguided, like with the "no volunteers" thing. People are passionate about this site and want it to succeed, the mere existence of a place like this is a goddamn miracle, it'd be a shame for it to fail because big money raising opportunities weren't taken.

Butterfinger!Bart

🫐 couldn't help but notice while watching the new Masaru-san video that in this little joke-y interlude where they freeze frame it, play a jolly tune and caption it, that there's a conspicuous blank circle where you'd see し to make the phrase しんだ！？, and even though we're far from fluent in japanese you learn pretty fast that し shi means death, so yeah it looks like you can't do that in japanese youtube or they get you too, even as a joke.

aaa I hate modern online and everything needing to be censored!!! the video's fine, everyone knows what the joke was meant to be, the english captions didn't even bother censoring it there, so it's so annoying to see. the video's absolutely ridiculous and fun but this specifically gets to me. I was enjoying seeing the funny fisherman frying a 50kg fish in an oil drum and risking serious burns but had to stop to share this. absolutely ridiculous.

The dialogue between Mae and Osha is SO fucking stilted for some reason. It lacks so much. It's using language that both actresses are struggling to make sound genuine and 'their own'.

Conversely, the Sith's dialogue all feels on point. No spoilers since his identity is revealed, but it's pretty good.

Also god damn if the fights aren't top notch. There haven't been lightsaber fights this good since Phantom Menace, tbh. Some absolutely brutal kills, too.

Also, the helmet and vambrace seem to disrupt lightsaber blades, which is dope! Reminds me of Legends Cortosis, altho that's just Beskar nowadays. It's used cleverly in the episode too. Like, the stunts are tooooop notch. The fights are fast and don't have TOO many flashy-wouldn't-connect-at-all swings, which is real nice. Lots of arrogance and mindgames on display in the fighting, which is really good to see.

It's not enough to really elevate the show up to Good - they still haven't gotten past the key issue where everything except combat and the Villain's dialogue feels cludgy and stilted, especially Mae and Osha, but it's got enough legroom that it should hopefully end alright.

Sad about who dies this ep. We'll see where it goes from here.