>>35880225I kind of doubt that the talent is from the audition since I feel that if they have someone with such a power level applying, we would have heard about it already. I'm probably wrong but my guess is that the talent is someone they sccouted for gen 1 but the model *might* be intended for gen 2. My reasoning's that since we know gen 1 talents have a lot of input on their avatars (based on what Liora said, she was given a few keywords to choose from, and she could choose which artist draw it), which is both a time-consuming process (as Liora remarked that the process will be different from gen 2 on due to that) and one that's unlikely to have leftover avatars for use.
The fact that the girl is debuting by herself and not as part of a gen also makes me feel it was not part of the original plan - either something caused management to want a new vtuber out *quickly* or something has delayed her debut for half a year. In the former case, the most likely cause that we know about is the twins' sudden hiatus. Given how sudden it is, I doubt the management was aware of it before June (when the hiatus happens), and the decision to debut another vtuber to fill in the blanks likely happened after late July (when the twins' twitter went active for a day or two before going radio silence once more). I doubt that gen 1's original avatar process could let her debut within this time frame (especially given that they would also be working on Liora and Lofi's summer outfit at the same time), so it was probably already in the process of being made by then (the audition is announced at the tail end of July, a few days after the twin's last twitter activities). As such, my guess is that the avatar was likely intended for gen 2 (the audition has 2 sample characters but we don't know if it's rigged, and to be honest their quality doesn't seem to be high enough to match V&U's existing standard) but was used for the girl instead.
An alternative explanation would be that she *was* originally part of gen 1 but got delayed significantly, but I had my doubts on that given how long it took after gen 1's already delayed debut (at least I think that is the case) unless the artist and/or rigger had some serious troubles. The lack of tarot motif teaser material also make me think the character is not part of the original gen 1 plan, although that is something that could easily be disproven with new teasers and material. Personally I would not mind being proven wrong in that regard because I would love to see more tarot motif.
I guess either way we'll know what we need to soon enough so it doesn't really matter, but it's still kind of fun to play internet sleuth.