On the bright side, things could have gone worse for Raven, although perhaps just marginally more, at this point.
"Look at the rows of lanterns up above, they're pretty cool-looking," Cyborg watched Raven say on his forearm screen. He'd been tuning into Raven's inaugural vlog, who was visibly touring Chinatown. Although, 'touring' would have been too generous a vocabulary.
Cyborg felt a familiar hand rest on his metallic back.
"Whatcha watching?" asked Bumblebee, peeking from behind. "Is that Raven? What is that woman doing?"
The couple watched as Raven revealed the lanterns to the audience, awkwardly panning the camcorder downwards.
"Here's an angle I bet you viewers have never seen before," Raven uttered.
Cyborg looked at his girlfriend with a pained look of cringe.
He explained, "Believe it or not - I myself haven't - Gar set her up to this."
Bumblebee squinted at him.
"As in, some kind of afterlife prank, or is there a better explanation? Because as it stands, Raven's sucking the 'live' out of 'livestream'..."
Cyborg's eyebrows rose. "Now when you put it like that, it's kinda on-brand for him."
They heard a notification bell on his forearm, and checked out the latest update on Raven's livestream.
"What was that?" Raven asked, her pupils wandering below the camcorder's camera, the viewers seeing her close-up forehead.
A pop-up had appeared on her livestream, with the top caption reading 'Beast Bums decide! What should the Beast Bae Raven do?' with three options below it.
Simultaneously, Bumblebee and Raven read out the choices.
"Have a 'Guilty Pleasures'-themed karaoke night... Prank some undisclosed villains... Or attend a dance party... For real?"
Cyborg's mouth was agape.
"Dance party?" Bumblebee wondered out loud. "That could mean the upcoming annual Titans East Gala."
"Gar scheduled a poll to influence Raven's next video," Cyborg uttered. "That sneaky snot... Brilliant."
Bumblebee nudged at her boyfriend, bringing his attention to Raven, who had visibly come to the same realization.
"The audience is deciding on this?" Raven asked no one in particular, though her eyes were on the camera, as if talking to the viewers. "I do not want to do any of these!"
The Titans couple - as well as the rest of the viewers - heard a zap as Raven's nervous energy had triggered a stray telekinetic energy to cut a line of lanterns, causing a row of them to trickle down on to the Chinatown walkway.
Bumblebee nudged at her boyfriend again, reaching for his arm.
"Where's the virtual keyboard on you?"
Raven continued walking as she saw the poll bars move with every vote cast while the comments continued streaming, most of them being commenters' pitches for their pick. At the same time, Gar's video message to her replayed in her memory bank.
"Explore that silly side of yours! You might find something you like. Something that I've found in you a long time ago."
She also recalled one of Gar's past letters.
You can stop following my trail of love letters anytime. Whenever you feel you're out of that rut. Or whenever you've had enough of my fun schemes! You can stop this adventure I created for you at anytime at your discretion.
Whatever option was going to be the most popular, she was going to have to decide beforehand whether she was emotionally willing to do that activity. They all sounded meaningless and out-of-character for her, sure. The main cusp of her decision was to decide for herself if she would want to do it for Gar. As importantly, would she want to do it for herself? To explore this silly side of hers, if any at all?
She noticed a highlighted comment, sent from one of the Chirrup accounts that Gar's account was following.
You don't have to do any of it - Bee.
Raven read that the Chirrup handle was Cyboogie, which was probably Cyborg's account.
She calmed herself down before she put the camera back on to her face.
"Well, that was a surprise," she said. "We'll see what happens but until then, let me take you all to a delightful landmark here called the Legion of Honor..."
As the day progressed, Raven found herself getting the hang of showing the viewers around the city. Sure, she felt awkward as she equated her experience to merely talking to herself or having a one-sided conversation with millions of anonymous watchers, but once she'd desensitized herself from that notion, it was actually alright.
Raven rested near a pond in Golden Gate Park as the sun was beginning to set.
"So... people, this experience wasn't half-bad, but it wasn't half-good enough for me to comprehend how Gar found joy in doing this consistently. Although, I suppose part of this exercise was for me to find that joy by doing this. I hope what I did was silly enough for you people... and for Gar. I think it's been plenty silly for me."
Raven read a few of the comments.
This was aight.
At least we got one last hurrah of Beast Boy Vlogs, even if we won't get anymore BB...
Is this chick serious? This entire live was a borefest.
Raven gasped, offended. That last comment had riled her up. Her eyes began to glow black.
"Listen here, you... Robinfire69, I'm doing my best and I felt silly all day and I bet that's what Gar would've wanted. So if you don't like what you see, by the grace of Azar get out of your screen and get up your lazy sedentary butt!"
That seemed to rile up the commenters just as much, with polarizing comments now flowing on to Raven's screen. One highlighted comment caught her attention amongst the growing arguments. It was from Cyborg. Or Cyboogie.
Relax, Raven. Your powers. Don't let the comments hold power over you.
Cyborg was right. Even though her powers were still muted, she wasn't going to allow an anonymous civilian to ruin her mood, especially during her first day on camera, live.
Her eyes reverted to their normal violets. She leveled the camcorder such that it displayed her face, with patches of grass in the background.
"Listen, everyone. I don't know how Gar handled all this attention. It's probably fair to say he enjoyed it, actually... I know I'm a far cry from Gar in terms of personality. Not to mention I never expressed interest in these videos."
Raven took a deep breath. The streaming comments became generally more supportive, though there were still a few hecklers. She could tell Gar's fans loved him.
"But this is one of the things I've decided to do to honor Gar. And I will make sure we explore this silly side of mine - Ack!"
Her talk was disrupted by a full-on tackle from a robotic body. Holding on to the camcorder, Raven found herself head-to-head against Adonis. With a lunge, Adonis pinned Raven against a wall as panicked parkgoers scattered.
"What are you doing here?" Raven grunted.
Adonis snickered. "Found out through Chirrup that you are all alone in San Francisco, and thought you could use some company."
Raven rolled her eyes, realising that she was lucky to have reduced the intensity of the numbing spell.
"Not a good feeling, being stalked, but I hope you'll regret your decision."
Raven's eyes began to glow black again, and her free hand was glowing the same.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" she chanted, aiming to have a talon shroud push Adonis backward.
Bzzt. Nothing came out.
"Uh oh." Raven looked up, concerned. Adonis charged at her, and with her combat training she managed to fend him off. But without her powers, she couldn't exactly finish him off.
Adonis guffawed.
"What's the matter? Got no strength without your boyfriend?"
Raven could feel her palms sweating out of nervousness, her grip on the camcorder slowly loosening. She took steps back, while Adonis advanced closer.
Suddenly, there came a whoosh of white and red. Raven's cloak flapped as there appeared three familiar figures. Mas, Menos, and Bumblebee.
"Back off, Cyborg reject," Bumblebee taunted, her stingers at the ready.
Mas and Menos ran to Raven.
"¿Estás bien?"
Raven nodded. "Muy, thanks."
Bumblebee snickered. "Good. For the sake of your livestream, justified butt-whooping is always good content."
Adonis charged at the trio of Titans East members as Raven showed the audience the brawl. Mas and Menos charged at him, their arms tripping the lanky man in giant gear. Bumblebee delivered a stinging uppercut.
With an angry guttural grunt, Adonis recovered and tried to land a punch at Bumblebee, only to be stung by her.
"Time to put you out of commission!" With that, Bumblebee shrunk herself, and began shooting her charges of electricity at Adonis' metal joints, unscrewing them one by one.
Mas and Menos liked their leader's plan, and began to hastily unscrew Adonis' suit as well.
Adonis whimpered as his suit began to fall piece by piece, putting it out of order.
"No! My suit! My baby!"
When he was exposed enough, Raven ran towards him, before lunging, her left foot forward.
"How's this for Azarath Metrion Zinthos?!" she shouted, kicking him in the face.
Adonis moaned, disoriented, as the Titans East members disassembled the rest of his suit.
"I'll... get you... for this..." he mumbled before dropping face-first to the ground.
Satisfied with herself, Raven thanked her friends.
"That had to be good content," she uttered to the camera.
The rest of the day went about as normal as far as a regular vlogger would consider normal.
Raven was making her way back home, concealing the camera during her trip so as to retain her secret location.
"What does Gar call you viewers again? Beast Fans? Bestials?" she tiredly asked, simultaneously to herself and to whoever was still watching the livestream. "Whatever. I'm beat and done for today."
She sat on the sofa and let out a yawn, its contagiousness surely transcending the screen.
"I know I didn't get to conduct much silliness today, but I'll try harder tomorrow, once those poll results are finalised. Uh... What's his signature sign-off? Uh... Toodles?"
Again satisfied with herself and her achievement, without much thought she placed the camcorder on the desk, failing to realise that she had not successfully stopped the recording.
The livestream was still going on, displaying the Gar shrine, as Raven could be heard in the background sleepily humming to Always Be My Baby by Mariah Carey as she got ready for bed.
"Doo doo doo..."