Honestly, we don't even really know what this affiliate shit even means. It's VERY vague on purpose. Ame hasn't done shit with Hololive since, and we don't know what Chloe is going to do post Hololive. For all we know, affiliate might just mean "we still sell merch of them sometimes". Until they actually do something with it, it's functionally the same as graduation. The thing that sucks here is how secular vtubing has become with corpos. Yeah, this has been a problem for a while, but it's become even more so since things have started consolidating and companies have gotten too large. Back in the day, it didn't matter what corpo you belonged to, you could collab with whoever the fuck you want. Now we've got these walled gardens where if you're in, you get to play with whoever you want so long as they are ALSO in. The second they go out? No longer allowed to ever appear. It makes these awkward "Friend C" bullshit situations, but it also means that if you leave, you're cutting yourself off from everyone you worked with for several years. I understand why people like Shondo would be celebrating right now, but I personally mourn the loss of the interactions more than the loss of the streamer. I mourn the fact that we're never going to get another SNOTcast until they all graduate, if that ever happens. I obviously can't know what the individual situations are for Chloe, Aqua, and Fauna, but I can only feel like it's got to be something really shit to give up all of that perminently.
