Chat, My Friend is a Literal God. What Do I Do?

Rippa was at home, doing dishes while Mom sat behind her at the kitchen island and lamented.

“Imagine places I could take her if only I also had an anti-doxx skin myself.”

Rippa didn’t answer. The problem wasn’t that Goggles was refusing to give Mom an anti-doxx DLC skin. It had more to do with Mom’s indecision on the appearance. Dad, too, suffered from the same issue.

Goggles had made it clear. No real-life person. That threw TV and movie characters out the window.

“How about Princess Leia? She’s dead—” Mom had ventured, to which both Dad and Rippa had objected, but for different reasons.

“Mom, too soon!” was Rippa’s.

Dad, on the other hand, was against Mom getting Princess Leia because “if you are getting Leia, then I want Han Solo, but I can’t.” Besides, he didn’t want to catch himself wishing Harrison Ford dropped dead.

Rippa thought Mom and Dad were taking it too seriously. “Just pick something, and if you don’t like it, ask Goggles to change it,” she wanted to tell them, but then again, her parents were the kind of people who would agonize over such simple things. For example, Dad still hadn’t decided on his home screen background, so his phone had been using the factory default for years now. Which, when Rippa thought about it, was kinda upsetting. Dads usually had their wives and kids as their home screen, no?

Rippa thought about the local moms and let out a sigh of relief. Yes, they had seen both her and Buttons before when Mom took them to the bouncy castle. They had eventually learned the kid was the now-famous Buttons, and therefore, Mom was Mamapin and Filippa was Rippa.

She had suffered a massive panic attack about it, but Mom had shown the moms all the death threats Rippa had received and screenshots of Bluesky posts wishing death and rape on Rippa, if not outright vowing to find and kill her.

“Buttons or not, there are people who want to hurt Filippa,” Mom had told them.

The local moms had quickly decided that they didn’t want to have these lunatics roam the neighborhood. Besides, having news vans and paparazzi camped outside 24/7 wouldn’t be very pleasant either.

So the neighborhood moms would keep the secret, much to Rippa’s relief.

The problem was, they then started intruding on her. Not with malice or out of rude entitlement, but out of emotional investment. When they spotted Rippa walking to the convenience store or in the yard mowing the lawn, they would occasionally approach and casually comment on last night’s stream like soccer moms discussing last weekend’s game.

“That bit was very funny,” or “Ah, you shouldn’t have reloaded there,” or “There’s this video you should totally react to,” and all that stuff, which made Rippa feel awkward. She didn’t know whether to say, “Thank you,” or “Mind your own business.”

Rippa was almost done with the dishes. “You could go for an older Buttons? Like the one I have,” she suggested, putting away the last plate.

“No,” Mom rejected the idea immediately. “I don’t wanna see our cute little Buttons all wrinkled and sagging.”

“No, Mom, that’s not how it works. You don’t see it yourself. Only others—”

“Yeah, I know. That makes it worse, doesn’t it?”

Rippa imagined old Buttons. Welp, to be fair, Mom wasn’t that old old, but still, she tried… and didn’t like what she saw. Mom had a point. Rippa decided she didn’t want others to see it either.

“Well, you think about it,” said Rippa, drying her hands on a towel. “Would you wake her up? I’ll go get changed.”

With that, Rippa and Mom headed upstairs. Mom went to the master bedroom to wake Buttons up from her nap while Rippa went into her room to change out of her dirty, hole-ridden hoodie into a cleaner one.

As she walked out of her room, Mom was ushering yawning Buttons into the hallway. The kid was rubbing her eyes.

“Slept well?” asked Rippa as she picked Buttons up and walked downstairs.

“Have fun!” said Mom, opening the front door for the two girls.

Rippa nodded, shifting the kid in her arms to free a hand to take out the truck key from her pocket.

Buttons waved over her friend’s shoulder.

As Rippa approached her truck in the driveway, Miss Pendrake walked out of a portal and stood by the driver’s side. As Buttons cheerfully greeted her bodyguard, the young blond girl looked at Rippa rather eagerly.

“No, no. I’m driving. Don’t even think about it,” said Rippa.

***

The three finally had tacos. At first, Mr. Popescu was shocked to see the girls who had made his truck a Racist Taco Truck, but he was quickly charmed by the kid’s enthusiasm and the pretty ginger lady’s smile. He gave three cans of Coke for free.

Of course, many noticed the famous god-kid and her superhuman bodyguard, and a wall of smartphones was erected before the child.

Rippa noticed a group of youths clad in dark hoodies and masks looking at the trio menacingly. Grumbling among themselves, they left the parking lot. ‘They wouldn’t dare.’ She was sure. But on the one hand, she secretly wished to see the Caliburn in action.

With the cane, the taco, and the Cola can, it was quite a handful, and Buttons needed a place to sit and put things down. Miss Pendrake located a bench across the road, and the three settled on it. Cans on the bench by their hips, tacos on their laps. A maid walked out of the portal and distributed some napkins before going back in.

“Madam J.D. will come later, won’t she?” Buttons dreaded, but nevertheless drank her Cola with great joy.

Buttons and Miss Pendrake paid no attention to the crowd, which reminded Rippa of the chicken farm analogy. Rippa herself had gone out with Buttons quite many times and was now used to facing walls of cameras. Besides, hiding behind the anti-doxx DLC skin, it felt just like a VTuber stream, and that mindset put her at ease.

“Thank you for chipping in,” Buttons said between bites. “How can I repay you?”

“Bruh, it was only fifty cents. Don’t mention it.”

“Welp, now I’m truly out of money. Eleven dollars, all spent. For a good cause.”

Rippa had her mouth full, so she just nodded. The three girls then enjoyed their tacos in peace and quiet—

“You are the Buttons kid, right?” a bespectacled young woman wearing a beanie pushed her way through the crowd.

Buttons did not pay attention.

“Hey, lady, leave her alone,” people were telling the woman off. “Don’t you know the rules?”

But the woman ignored them. She got in front of the bench and waved. “Hello, hello? Buttons?”

Rippa threw a quick glance at Miss Pendrake. The blond girl was calmly drinking her Cola. No sign of alarm. ‘OK, no bad thoughts detected.’ Rippa was relieved.

“Hello? Kid?” the woman snapped her fingers in front of Buttons’ face.

“Hey, cut it out,” Rippa raised her voice, irritated.

“Hmm?” Buttons only now registered the woman’s presence. “Can I help you?”

Cameras were pushing in. This was going to be a good clip. The woman, however, took it as a sign of support that brought optics into her play.

“You should solve world hunger,” she said.

“Ma’am, please don’t—” Rippa was going to intervene, but Buttons put a hand on her friend’s elbow.

“What’s that?”

“There are people starving. You can solve this.”

Buttons looked horrified. “Oh, no. That sounds bad.”

“Goggles can just create food, right? You tell him to feed hungry people.”

“Ma’am,” Rippa couldn’t let this go on. “That’s our problem to solve.”

“Who the fuck are you to gatekeep gods from us?” the woman shot back.

Rippa was taken aback.

“So, Goggles feeds people every meal?” Buttons, on the other hand, was musing aloud. “Every day? Forever?”

The crowd started to pitch in. It was ridiculous. Absurd. “That’s communist bullshit!” one of them shouted.

“No, not forever,” the woman backtracked. “Just until everyone is on their feet to feed themselves.”

“That’s gonna destroy the entire food industry,” a man in the crowd objected to the idea. “Farming, fishing, everything.”

“Hmm, good point,” Buttons nodded and gave the man a thumbs-up. “Free items make crafting players quit the game.”

“Or,” the woman was changing course, “you could buy food from farmers and fishermen.”

“So, there is enough food?”

“Ah… Not exactly. But with your wealth, you could pay for enough food to become available for everyone in the future.”

“Sorry, miss. I’ve just spent all my money.” Buttons looked sad.

Much to Rippa’s dismay, the kid took out a finger-sized gold bar from her coat pocket. The crowd gasped.

“All I have is this, but Rippa said I can’t buy things with this anymore.”

Rippa tried to cover the gold bar with her hand. “Buttons, put that away.”

But the woman’s eyes gleamed. “Great! You can sell that!”

Buttons’ eyes narrowed. “Sell for what? To whom?”

“To people. They’ll give you money!”

“Is that how it works?”

“Yes!”

“So, there already is enough money among ye?”

The woman stopped. Her eyes were darting left and right, trying to come up with an argument.

The crowd started to snicker, which quickly became loud jeering.

She could not come up with a counterargument. Enraged, she—

Miss Pendrake sprang up so suddenly everyone gasped.

The woman staggered backward and fell on her bottom. She then realized in horror what she was about to do to a child. She quickly stood back up and muscled her way through phones shoved in her face.

The crowd booed as she hastily left the scene.

Rippa stood up and pulled the kid’s elbow. “Buttons, let’s go. That’s gonna make people—”

She couldn’t finish her sentence. The crowd erupted in loud cheers. She turned around. Madam J.D. was walking out of a portal, armed with a toothbrush.