Nyanners will retire, or at least semi-retire, this year, and here's why:
Everyone knows she's a dumb weeb who's really into reading books and watching documentaries about dumb weebshit like geishas for some reason. Despite what some of you may think, geishas are actually not old-time Japanese prostitutes. They're actually entertainers who chat, sing, dance, and perform for their primarily male guests for money, nothing sexual attached. They're women whose entire job is to make lonely men feel less lonely. The geisha culture still lives on in Japan in the form of hostess clubs, where girls will pretend to be your friends and chat with you for money, or in forma de parasocial as idols, where you can follow a girl throughout her journey to become a real superstar.
Sound familiar? I have zero doubt that Nyanners, being a nerd about this kind of weebshit, hasn't noticed that vtubers are essentially the internet age version of geishas. They play games, chat with you, sing karaoke, do little funny skits to keep you from going insane being cooped up in your lonely apartment during COVID or whatever. So what is my point here?
You know what geishas do when they fall in love and get married? They're in fact not banned from doing that. They just retire after the fact. They tell their "mother" (leader of the okiya, where they work) that they are getting married, pack their shit, and leave. This also still somewhat applies to idols in Japan: it's not a job for life. You're expected to stay single for the duration of your idol stint, then you "graduate" (funny word for retirement that vtubers also have adopted), and then you can go live your life as you please and marry whoever.
So why do they "have" to retire? Well, let's take geishas for example: for the geisha, they probably want to dedicate themselves to their husband instead of trying to entertain other men for money, even if it's non-sexual. For the husband, he might feel jealous over her wife doing that. And, most importantly, for the guests: When they hear that the woman they are chatting with to feel less lonely is taken, even if there is nothing sexual attached, even if they know that it's just her job, their lizard brain will start alerting them that they are stepping on someone else's toes here, and are unwelcome.
Of course this isn't as quite strict in vtubing, either in the West or in Japan. Vtubers generally operating on a "don't ask don't tell" principle. They might be single, they might not be single, who knows. Some tell their significant others to go hide in another room and be quiet when they're streaming, others only bring them up if asked but it's never a big part of their stream. As for Nyanners though? She's right that she couldn't have possibly hidden her relationship with Aethel, but she leaped into the deep end: She made her streams _their_ streams. Her streams are not about her anymore, they're specifically about them, together.
Think about a hypothetical scenario where a geisha brings her husband with her to entertain a guest, or a hostess who tries to chat with a guest about how she and her boyfriend are moving together and it's really stressful. It sounds absurd in this context, but that's essentially what Nyanners is trying to do here. She's a trailblazer when it comes to pretending to be an anime girl online, but there's no way in hell she's going to make this one work. There's an inherent conflict here, and it won't resolve itself.
She's a longtime e-girl and definitely knows the struggles when it comes to having a relationship as as a streamer well. Not only that, this time she's in a relationship with a big power imbalance, and it's not the way you might think it is. Despite her higher income and bigger audience, Aethel is the one calling the shots here. She's at the age where women will start desperately trying to settle down or die trying, and she's an exceedingly average looking girl with a weird sense of humor, weird hobbies, and a lot of baggage in the form of internet schizos and daddy issues that most high value men (the vast majority of whom are taken in her age bracket anyway) absolutely do not want to deal with. I wouldn't be surprised if she had essentially accepted life as a weird cat lady at some point before having, by some divine intervention, have Aethel fall onto her lap. Think about it: Talented, muscular, handsome guy who shares all her retarded hobbies and sense of humor, is into weebshit like her, is in her age bracket, and just by some miracle happens to be untaken is just coming back to America after dealing with his mommy issues in Japan. For Aethel though? I don't think he would have a lot of trouble with finding a suitable partner even if this relationship doesn't work out. He's in high demand.
