I was expecting this to happen ever since the mysterious hiatus (but that's probably because I have an overly negative mindset), so I guess I wasn't as shocked as I thought I would be. I'm still really sad about what happened, I can't even begin to describe how I'm feeling.
Even though Vesper is most likely alive, I'm still worried about him. He's gone radio silent on his PL account. Lando said that he was planning to play Baldur's Gate with him but that "it probably [wouldn't] happen". I know that I mentioned a fight between them before, but I can't see both of them choosing to graduate after that, nor do I think a fight, even a really bad one, would be grounds for termination.
I have other oshis but I can only watch an entire stream if the game they're playing or the subject they're talking about interest me, but that wasn't the case with Vesper. I could watch him play anything, and talk about anything, and I can't see another vtuber doing that for me - at least for now.
He was the only Tempus boy I regularly watched too. Regis and Axel lost me with their "political statements" (for lack of a better term), and while I do like Bettel and Hakka, I didn't have time to watch them very much. Maybe I'll give them a try after this "grief period" (again, for lack of a better term), as I don't think I can bring myself to watch anyone right now.
I had a few theories about what happened, and even posted the most ludicrous one here. It's frustrating that we probably will never know what exactly transpired but I still have a few things to say:
1. I really don't believe that this is somehow tied to contract renegotiation. The contracts are probably signed months before the debut given that: Sana graduated even before her 1 year anniversary, about a month before her debut and I don't think that she'd skip the celebration if possible; most of the PLs go on hiatus at least a month before their actual debut. Plus, why would they go on break to try a renegotiation? You could argue that was because they were trying to force Cover to accept their demands, but it seems that it was actually Cover that put them on break as they were suddenly gone, even though they had plans to collab and do more solo streams.
The only way I can see that being somehow tied to contracts is if their initial contracts were replaces shortly after the debuts for some reason. But even so, the point about how weird them going on break was still stands.
2. I don't believe that (at least) Magni did anything that would get him in serious trouble. I don't see not-Bettel collabing with Lando if that was the case. At least not for a while as it could damage his career.
But I could be very wrong about that. Maybe it really was something related to their contracts, maybe one of them really did do something really bad, maybe Vesper really tried to kill Bettel in a fit of rage after finding out that him and Magni were dating, maybe it was an entirely different thing altogether.
I don't know.
I just know that I miss and will miss Vesper a lot. And that I hope that both him and Magni are doing good. Even if Randon never comes back, I really hope he's doing good and can achieve happiness. I really, really do.