King: It ain't too much going on, but it's what I came up with. This was a simple one, but one to get done quickly enough. I hope you all enjoy the idea.

Prompt: Cardin is a V-tuber with a bunny model. (I admit that I couldn't do much with that alone, so I wrote around the idea more than the idea itself.)

From Shifuru

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"NO!" The sound of yelling came from a scroll, followed quickly by Ruby's laughter. Ruby was currently in her team's dorm room, lying on her stomach on her bed with her scroll in front of her. It was a moment of rest on a weekend. Blake was in the library and Weiss was out getting more Dust. With those two out, Ruby was free to watch streams without one of them giving her a funny look for watching someone else play video games instead of playing them herself. They just didn't seem to get the point of streaming, but she didn't blame them. That did mean that Yang was still here, but she just did her own thing most of the time. But this one got her attention. She must have been pretty bored.

Yang approached and hopped up on Weiss' bed to peak up at her sister. "New streamer?"

"Yep." Ruby moved slightly to let her sister join her and see the screen.

At the bottom left corner of the scroll's screen was a virtual avatar of a rabbit man with blond hair and hazel eyes. He wore a white button up shirt with a grey and bronze dress vest. There was a chibi sticker in the upper right corner of the stream that showed he also had a pair of black dress pants and dress shoes. The chibi sticker was curled up and using a pink heart like a pillow. The game he was playing was an old shooter, one of the notoriously hard ones with labyrinthian levels and enemies that just pop in when you least expect it. The streamer, using the name [Vince Vitalio], got caught in one of these ambushes and died due to having low health at the time. He let out a groan and returned to a previous save to keep playing. Yang and Ruby watched as his ears drooped down a bit as he concentrated, only for them to burst upward as another ambush took place, Vince pausing the game as he nervously laughed. "I know it was coming and it still got me!"

"That's some impressive rigging." Yang mentioned. "He must be a rabbit faunas given how the ears tracked so well. Reminds me of how Velvet's ears react."

"Probably." Ruby watched as the streamer got back into the game. "That or they had a great animator to tie the expressions together."

"But pretend to be a faunas with an avatar?"

"Anonymity? You know, not wanting to be known in public?"

"I guess, but that looks too smooth."

The two were now focused on the ears and how they would jump or sag according to Vince's state. It seemed so real with how they moved and reacted to what was happening. The two just seemed to accept that it's something impressive one way or the other.

A knock on the door caused Ruby to call out, "Come in!"

The door opened before revealing Jaune Arc with a folder under his arm. "Hey Ruby! Thanks for letting me borrow the notes from last Friday. I swear Doctor Oobleck is hard to understand without the extra coffee."

"No problem." Ruby swung herself around and left her scroll on her desk as she started to put the folder away in her shelf. "And yeah, I guess the extra speed I'm used to is helpful for understanding him."

"Yeah, that makes sense." Jaune's eye moved slightly before leaning to the side and looking at Ruby's desk. "What's that?"

Ruby looked up toward her scroll and the stream was still playing. "Oh! I like watching gaming streamers now and then."

Jaune blinked, silent for a moment as he watched the rabbit man on the screen.

With Jaune's silence, Ruby felt the need to explain herself. "I used to watch Yang play games when we were younger, and while it's fun playing with people, it just reminds me of back then, you know?"

Yang chuckled and moved up next to Ruby. "Aw, that's adorable~" She put her sister into a one armed hug and ruffled her hair.

"Yang!" Ruby struggled to free herself.

But then, a curveball hit the scene. "You know that's Cardin, right?"

The room went quiet for a moment. Did… did he just say…? Both sisters slowly turned to Jaune, looking confused and skeptical at the same time. "What?" They spoke in unison.

"That's Cardin."

They turned back to the stream, showing Vince laughing goodnaturedly at a joke told in the chat. Then they pictured Cardin behind the screen, playing the part of the streamer. And not any streamer, but a faunas based streamer!

"Yeah right." Yang let go of her sister and moved her weight to the side with a hand resting on her hip. "Real funny, Vomit Boy."

"I'm serious. He's using a voice filter to make it hard to recognize him and specifically used a bunny boy theme to keep distance."

"If he did all that, how do you know that, huh?!" Ruby was having a possible crisis. There's no way the fun bunny boy was actually that total b- … bully.

"It's how I got him to stop blackmailing me. I found out about his streaming and we agreed to let bygones be and move on. He didn't ask me to keep it a secret or anything, but I didn't say anything to be nice."

"That doesn't answer my question!" Ruby was refusing to accept it. Then a scroll was moved in front of her face.

On the screen was a series of files and folders with labels like [Vince_Expressions], [Facial_Animations], [Facial_Tracking], and [Ear_Rigging].

"W-what is…?"

"He found out about how I used to help out my sister's avatar and had me help his function better. In exchange, I was off the hook."

"You rig V-streaming models?" Yang asked, genuinely surprised.

"Your sister is a V-streamer?" This was what surprised Ruby.

"Yeah. She's Selene. The one with the moon shaped pendant."

"Ah, no way! I love Selene!" Ruby said before it registered. "YOU'RE SISTER IS SELENE?!"

"Can we get back to the part where Cardin-fucking-Winchester is Vince Vitalio?!" Yang shouted in annoyance.

"Oh right!"

"Yeah. I set up the animations and rigged the ears to react based on his face. I… kind of watched how Velvet's ears react to anything that happened and worked on them based on that. Before you say anything, she knew that I was working for Vince, but not that he was Cardin. I didn't want to make anything worse than it had to be."

The two sisters turned to the stream before Ruby closed the stream and put the scroll down. "I don't know how I feel about that…"

"Okay, but," Yang interjected, "why would Cardin choose to use a faunas avatar?"

Jaune just shrugged. "I didn't ask. I just got him off my back. Anyway, thanks again." Jaune quickly retreated like he didn't just shake up the fundamental world of Ruby and Yang's entertainment.

\/

"And that's the end of the stream today!" Cardin called through his mic. "I've got a thing tomorrow, so I'll see you guys next week." After a moment, Cardin closed the stream and let out a sigh. Then, he felt a chill up his spine. "I feel like Arc just ratted me out… Whatever." With his stream ended, he left the computer and shut down the system. Stretching his back, he let out a groan. "Next time, I'm beating that boss."

A ring from his scroll made him flinch. He sighed and answered it. "Yeah, pops?"

There was a pause for Cardin.

"No, I told you, I make extra side money with a local job."

…

"Yes, it's above board! Why would you think I would do something illegal! I'm going to Beacon!"

…

"No, I don't work with any Faunas, dad…" Cardin deadpanned with a twitch of his eye. Looking back, it was obvious where he got his biases from. His time at Beacon was eye opening, but it was hard to get passed. Old bullying targets saved his life a few times and everything gets flipped on its head. Cardin rolled his eyes and sighed, "Look, I have to study. I'll talk to you later, alright?"

…

"Love you too, dad." He hung up and put his scroll away. There was a reason he did so much to hide who was behind Vince Vitalio. But right now, he needed to get to the library for a paper due next week.