As promised, here's my summary of today's unarchived stream.
Fubuki said she wants to talk about Akutan in this stream and noted that she hasn't really addressed the topic either on Twitter or on stream at all except for when she did the school project stream with Aqua. She had a lot to think about. She doesn't want to sound cold, but she felt a bit weird about how she was able to accept Aqua's decision so easily.
When she got the offer by Akutan to join her graduation live she was curious what she wanted to sing together, and when it ended up Little Busters she was really surprised at first, but she agreed that it was a good representation of their relationship and how it developed over these past six years. Unfortunately I don't know much about it, but looking up the lyrics to the song kind of made it made sense to me too. She thinks Aqua chose all the songs by herself so she must have put a lot of thought about what she wanted to sing with whom.
She said the interview was originally supposed to be narrated by A-chan, she saw her name was still on the script when she got it. It does seem to imply that the A-chan thing was a lot more sudden than this graduation which seems to have been in the works for quite a while, so
Aqua must have been considering it for a long time. She was very happy to have had the opportunity to do the interview in A-chan's stead.
Someone said "Fubuki please don't leave us", but she told us not to jinx it by saying stuff like that, although she does understand the feeling. When the graduation finally came, she kind of felt conflicted about how she was able to just send her off and let her leave so easily. When Coco and Rushia left, she cried a lot, but with Aqua she was able to accept it readily.
She then said that most of us probably never even heard of this or maybe forgot about it, but Gen 1 originally had six members and there was a girl called [Hitomi] Chris, too, but she only ever talked to her a tiny bit. But what affected her the most by far was Mel. She's not too proud about it, but when she first heard about Aqua's graduation a while after Mel had left, her first thought was "so she gets to do a graduation stream". She kind of feels bad about thinking these kind of weird thoughts. She did cry when she first heard about it, but she accepted it relatively quickly and decided to be supportive and send Aqua off. She didn't treat her any different from the usual and tried not to talk about it and just wanted to spend the time they had left together normally.
When she was in the studio for a meeting with her manager after they had already recorded the graduation live guest performance, she was able to meet Akutan by chance one final time and their final conversation was just something like "Otsukare! You have work after this? Me too, let's do our best".
In retrospect she feels like it was perhaps a little TOO casual, given that both of them were probably aware that it was likely to be the last time they'd meet like this, but the words that came out of her mouth that felt right were just this normal conversation. She's not exactly regretting it, but she does wonder why she never ended up telling Aqua thanks for everything or something like that. She wonders if she maybe she just wanted to stop herself from ending up saying something like "don't leave" because she had decided to be accepting and send her off. Maybe it would have been better to have a last conversation and reminiscence a little instead, but she definitely didn't want to tell her to stop just so that she herself can feel better.
She also thinks that Aqua is not the kind of person to change course once she has made up her mind just because other people try to convince her, so it would not have been the right thing to do either way. But she did want to do something together with her before she left, so she decided to invite her to do the
school project stream with Pekora.
She is still surprised at how easily accepted it in the end. She feels like it might have been the loss of Yozora Mel that kind of triggered this change in her. She wonders if it will be just like this time in the future when someone else leaves. Mel was especially difficult because she joined at the same time as Fubuki and they went through everything together, and not even a week before she left, they had
that 1st Gen off-collab and talked about wanting to do more together this year. That really messed her up and she took a lot of emotional damage from what happened. And she thinks that kind of hardened her a little and changed her way of thinking, and that ended up kind of preparing her for Aqua's eventual graduation. It made her kind of appreciate the Holomen that are still with her and cherish them as long as she can.
She then quotes Jinbei "Stop counting only those things that you have lost!" and laughs and says maybe One Piece taught her this. She still has her friends! So she has to send of those that are leaving with a smile and treat them like nothing changed. She then pivots a little and says that for us fans, it's of course fine to cry and be sad as much as we need to about what happened. And if we still like Hololive, she would be happy if we come back and support everyone else even if Aqua is no longer there. But it might be hard to get over it, so she understands if someone wants to leave for good after this, too, and that is fine. And if after a long time, we feel like watching Hololive once more, then she is sure there will be a Holomen out there streaming and having fun for us to watch.
She then gave us a little anecdote about when they were recording the interview and there was the thing with Aqua's weight in the end and they had to reshoot that part three times because Aqua couldn't decide how to pose and how exactly to do the joke. Aqua's manager was also very moved when
Aqua read her letter to her. Fubuki also thinks that it's great how long Aqua's manager was in charge of her. She also said the manager did kind of feel like Aqua's mother at times.
She then talks about the Little Busters song once more and how it made her feel when Aqua chose this one because of the lyrics. Seems like she was a little moved by the song choice and what it represents, but she wasn't really able to tell Aqua how she felt about it. The song is way too fitting, during these six years Aqua was both a rival and a friend to her, and the song choice made her reminiscence about the old days and how tough it was at times until 3rd Gen debuted and she kind of passed the torch to Marine and then we had 4th Gen, 5th Gen, EN, ID...
She became really nostalgic about the old days and the Non Stop Story era. It was a great time. She never did much with Aqua when it comes to collabs on stream, but they met a lot in the office and had opportunities to talk to each other then and even went to do stuff together in the past. She has a lot of great memories, and she is really glad that even though Aqua is not here anymore, her (and our!) memories of the time they spent together will not go anywhere and she would happy if we would keep cherishing these memories. She would also happy if we would keep celebrating her anniversary and her birthday and stuff, like the Kiryukai have been doing for Coco. Even if Aqua is not here anymore, Fubuki is sure that she would be happy about it and will look back fondly on her time at Hololive. It would also be nice if during events like Holofes or the Expo those whose (only) Oshi is Aqua would keep representing her by bringing her goods and stuff and having fun together as Aqua Crew still. There's also a chance that Aqua will be there as a fan, who knows! "Aqua, if you are watching right now, please stop watching, it's embarrassing!"
But no matter what Aqua is going to do from here on out, Fubuki is sure she will live on in us all and she would be happy if we would keep drawing fan art of her and stuff like that, too. It's now our duty to keep her alive by talking about her and passing on her legend to future generations. She then said she is glad we let her vent like this about how she felt. She asked us to take as much time as we need to process that she left and come to terms with it slowly. In the end, she wants us all to be happy and enjoy ourselves when we come to watch everyone's streams.
She probably won't talk about her thoughts regarding the situation again in the future and wants to stay positive from here on out, but she does really wish that nobody would leave, that nobody would have to leave so suddenly again. Her voice breaks down a little for the first time in the whole stream here and she said she feels like she might start crying, but managed to suppresses it. She then expresses her wish that if someone ends up leaving, it is on their own accord and with a graduation stream, and that she doesn't want anyone to suddenly have to disappear again because that is really scary to her. You could really feel that what happened to Mel really affected her.
