18. I’ll be the Cameraman!
Weeks passed, and nothing much happened.
As was the case with other viral clips, the Racist Taco Truck Girl discourse, having burned brightly for a week or so, rapidly faded with no definitive conclusion.
To those who had been aware of Rippa’s existence, Buttons, by virtue of being friends with Rippa, remained a transphobic, racist Nazi, which they said had manifested during the incident at the taco truck.
To those who had not been familiar with VTuber dramas, Rippa, by virtue of being friends with a white supremacist girl who had brutally beaten up teens of color, was a racist by default.
And to those who often used words such as ‘fatigue’, ‘pattern recognition’, and ‘statistics’, Buttons and Miss Pendrake had become a pair of unfathomably based heroines.
Rippa knew better than to engage with these labels. She refused to dispute them, but instead focused on doing her thing. Haters seethed seeing Rippa’s community carry on as usual, but then again, everyone who was familiar with the VTubersphere already knew Rippin’ Rippa was uncancellable, as proven by the wizard game controversy years ago.
The gangs, however, were still looking for Buttons. The neighboring town’s Facebook page often had concerned parents posting about shady-looking teens watching school drop-off zones and playgrounds. In this regard, Rippa was grateful that Buttons was so insanely identifiable. Otherwise, an innocent ginger kid might have been hurt.
The 4chan detectives on the /vt/ board once again did their thing and correctly determined that Buttons had actually been in a group of three, not four, when she stood in line. Thereafter, however, their hubris took over, much to Rippa’s relief and amusement. The internet armchair detectives were so confident in their psychoanalysis of Rippa, and so sure of her paranoia, that they concluded Rippa must have seen the TikToker doing a street interview and didn’t join her friends in the line. Any other explanation would require them to downgrade their assessment of the degree of Rippa’s paranoia, which wasn’t good for maintaining their parasocial headcanons. Needless to say, Rippa had a good laugh reading the thread.
“I guess I’m safe now,” Rippa told her parents, but they wanted to be absolutely sure and told her to stay put for a couple more weeks.
It was during this time that Rippa was introduced to international cuisine. It was mostly on Buttons’ whims. “Oh, if you liked that, you will like this, too,” the kid would say, and the kitchen would serve it that evening, and the cycle would repeat the next day.
Rippa became a big fan of Indian food, but she was also quite fond of Ganjang Gejang, a Korean dish of raw crab marinated in soy sauce. Even Mom and Dad loved the dish. She had since looked up how-to videos on YouTube, and with permission from Goggles, set up a handcam in the kitchen, and managed to pull off a highly chaotic, but entertaining, cooking stream featuring Buttons’ small hands and shenanigans.
It was also during this time that Buttons took Rippa to her winter palace on the snow island. The island was about two hours away on a yacht, departing from the jetty at the beach. There, Goggles taught Rippa how to ski. At this point, Rippa had given up on questioning the ridiculous vastness of this magical kingdom. Narnia, literally.
Mom and Dad came often, both to check on Rippa and deliver Amazon packages she had ordered. Mom loved the kitchen and also enjoyed the wide selection of tea blends in the tea room. They would stay for dinner, and in the evening, while Rippa streamed from Goggles’ office, Mom and Dad would sit at the patio outside the tea room and watch Buttons chase fireflies across the dark lawn.
***
One day, Buttons noticed Rippa was rather busy discussing something with her moderators.
“You look troubled,” the kid commented.
“Ah, I have to reschedule the IRL street walk stream,” Rippa explained. Apparently, one of her Discord moderators had some business to attend to in the coming days, in a city not too far from Rippa’s town. Rippa knew the place quite well and thought it’d be a fun stream if the guy walked around the city with a bodycam while Rippa told him where to go and what to do. After he was done with his business, of course.
“Oh, I know! You’ve done that in New York,” said Buttons.
“Yeah, but now his plan has changed, and his trip is canceled. So I’m looking to see if someone else would be the cameraman somewhere, but it seems nobody’s available that day. I think I just do something else entirely.”
Buttons’ eyes sparkled. “Oh! Let me do it! I will be the cameraman!”
Rippa brushed it off. “Nah, kid, I’m not gonna make you walk around the city all alone.”
“No worries! Miss Pendrake will be with me,” Buttons insisted.
“Yeah, and how did that work out?”
“Aw, come on!”
“Nah~”
Buttons then rushed off. “Goggles!”
Minutes later, she returned with Goggles, dragging him along by the hand. The butler listened to both sides of the argument and thought about it for a moment.
“How about we do a test run beforehand?” he suggested. “Let’s send Miss Pendrake first. Have her walk around the city.”
“So, you are not gonna say no?” Rippa was rather surprised.
“Well, she has been cooped up here for nearly eighty years, so touching some grass is a welcome change. After all, it is indeed a rather exciting adventure,” Goggles put a hand on Buttons’ shoulder. The kid beamed and nodded. “Besides, she can be quite intensely stubborn.”
“Well, if you say so,” Rippa conceded, “but only after Miss Pendrake proves it’s safe, OK?”
Buttons nodded, delighted.
“Alright, let me order some stuff first,” Rippa opened the Amazon app on her phone. Since the cameraman who had all the stuff needed for the stream could no longer do the job, Rippa now needed to buy gear for her new eyes on the street.
If Buttons and Miss Pendrake were going to be on the street, then why just a single camera when Rippa could have two? She could just switch scenes between Buttons-cam and Hayasaka-cam in OBS. ‘Yes, that’d be a lot more interesting,’ Rippa thought.
There were, nevertheless, many things to consider. Rippa needed a live feed from the street, so the camera had to have Wi-Fi connectivity. The easiest solution was a smartphone, which raised the issue of a selfie stick. Buttons would be walking with a cane in her right hand. Having her walk around with both hands occupied wasn’t going to work very well. That led Rippa to consider a body harness, but then the height issue came to light. Buttons was a kid, and Miss Pendrake was a short, petite girl.
In the end, Rippa settled on backpack-shoulder-strap mounts. The Buttons-cam would still be quite low, but that would at least give a different perspective in comparison to Miss Pendrake’s shoulder height.
“Wait, do you guys have phones?” Rippa inquired.
“Is this an out-of-season April Fools joke?” Buttons couldn’t resist, but seeing Rippa’s frown, she rushed toward her bedroom, then stopped. Why fetch, when she could simply call? Madam J.D. teleported in and handed Buttons her smartphone.
“What the heck is this?” Rippa examined the kid’s phone front and back. “OnePlus?”
“Good phone,” Goggles interjected.
“How about Miss Pendrake?”
Miss Pendrake appeared and showed her phone.
“Nothing,” said Goggles.
“What do you mean, nothing? It’s right here?”
“Ah, I meant the brand name. It’s Nothing.”
“Never heard of it,” Rippa admitted.
“It is a UK brand.”
Rippa looked between Miss Pendrake and the phone. ‘OK, that makes sense.’ She then squinted her eyes. “Don’t tell me yours is a Pixel.”
“Why, yes, it is.”
Rippa sighed and went back to her Amazon app. She added a couple of DJI mics into the cart, and after a brief thought, added two pairs of cheap earbuds as well. And—
“Have you placed the order yet?” asked Goggles.
“I’m about to check out.”
“Mind showing me the cart?”
Rippa turned her phone screen toward Goggles and showed the items in the shopping cart ready for checkout.
Goggles took one look and then spawned the items on the table.
“Goggles! Did you just steal them from Amazon?”
“No, no, Miss Rippa. I just duplicated them.”
“That’s bad for the economy,” Buttons interjected. “That kinda thing makes servers shut down.”