“Hey, you know that one YouTuber who does the donation thingy?”
-Tom117z
“Gonna need a name here, bub.”
-Skijarama
“Ol’ Beasty Boy innit.”
-Tom117z
“Ah, yeah. What about him?”
-Skijarama
“Rarity.”
-Tom117z
“I’m back!” Twilight announced as she hopped back on through the mirror portal, a gleeful smile on her muzzle and a pair of saddlebags on her back. “Spike?”
“Yeah, Twilight?” Spike asked, jumping from the ladder up the side of one of the library’s many bookcases with a flex of his new wing muscles. “How was the trip?”
“Amazing as always,” Twilight responded happily, trotting to a nearby table and depositing her saddlebags. “I always learn new things about the humans every time I go. Did you know that they have a thing called a YouTube?”
“A Me Tube?” Spike asked, scratching his head in confusion. “Why do they have a Spike in the tube?”
Twilight gave him a deadpanned look. “That’s not, well… I think other me posted a video but… That’s besides the point, YouTube posts home-made movies on a thing called the internet.”
“Oh… What the hay is the internet?”
“This!” Twilight announced, levitating out a small black box shaped device from her saddlebags. “Ta-da!”
Spike crossed his arms. “Uh… that’s a box.”
“It’s not just a box, Spike,” Twilight scolded as she gave the device a look over. “It’s an advanced piece of technology some years beyond our own. It gives people the internet.”
“Still waiting to hear what that is exactly…”
Twilight gave him a bright ‘lecture time’ smile. “It’s a series of optical fibers and hubs that all link together to send information and data back and forth across the whole world, creating a massive network! All of that information can then be looked at by using special devices as a point of entry.”
Spike blinked. “Say that in ponish?”
Twilight sighed. “It sends information through the air to a screen you can see it on.”
“Ohhhh,” Spike said in a small amount of comprehension. “And they don’t have magic?”
“I bet we could do it in a less convoluted way,” Twilight said with no small amount of smugness, before returning her attention to the box. “I got this off of Sunset. It should connect to Earth’s internet.”
“One, what do you mean by ‘got’,” Spike asked suspiciously. “And second… how will it connect to another world?”
“One, well… I guess ‘borrowed without permission with intent to return and/or reimburse’ is a more accurate term,” she admitted sheepishly. “Second, I plan to modify it to connect through the mirror portal itself, and then hook it up to a computer, a machine used to perceive the internet, that I’m going to construct from base parts.”
Spike looked more than a little worried. He gave the weird box thing a critical look over, and gave a glance into the saddlebags to see all kinds of strange metallic equipment he had no idea about.
Combined with the ‘science face’ he knew all too well on Twilight’s features…
“So… uh… You sure this is a good idea?” he asked carefully. “Won’t Sunset be mad you stole her internet thing? And besides, it’s gonna be Saturday in a couple days. And you know how those tend to go.”
Twilight gave a ‘pish’ noise of dismissal. “Eh, it’ll be fine. Especially once Sunset sees the advancement of human technology I’ve made with Equestrian magic, oh how exciting! I can’t wait to show the girls the wonders of the internet!”
Spike’s claw slapped hard against his face. He knew just how badly this would end...
Rainbow Dash eyes the curious contraption in front of her with one eyebrow higher than the others. It was an odd thing, to be sure, a metal box with wires connecting to a screen and a pad full of buttons in front of it. It was set up in one of the study rooms of Twilight’s castle, and she had been brought in by Twilight’s request to have a look at the ‘internet.’
The screen was mostly white, with the word ‘Google’ in the center in friendly, multi-colored text. There was also the word ‘images’ beneath it, followed by a rectangular black outline. That was the ‘search box’ apparently. Twilight had shown Rainbow the basics of how to use this thing, from the buttons on the ‘keyboard’ to the custom designed ‘trackpad’ that she was supposed to use to move this pointy thingy called a ‘cursor’ around on the screen to select things.
A vertical black bar was blinking in and out of existence in that aforementioned rectangle, taunting her as she stared at it. “So… uh…” she muttered before tapping a hoof to one of the keys. ‘I’ appeared in the search box. Now seeing what was happening, Rainbow began to type in the words ‘I want to see something awesome.’
She blinked when she hit ‘enter’ and a long list of pictures appeared. Curious, she leaned forward and studied the first one that showed up.
‘Want to see something totally awesome? Go look in a mirror!’ was written in friendly white text against a big blue background.
Rainbow smirked. “Heh, don’t I know it?” she said smugly, giving her mane a little flick before looking at another one. She saw a flat, mostly furless face surrounded by red and yellow expanding lines. Above and below were white text in bold letters.
“Hey want to see something awesome? Pees in suit.”
Rainbow’s nose wrinkled. “Ew. No,” she groaned before going back up to the search box. She saw that first result again and, with a small smirk, typed in the words ‘Rainbow Dash.’
She cackled somewhat when the results came up. “So that’s what human me looks like, huh? ...Cute butt.”
She continued to scroll through the images, though one in particular caused the smug self serving smile on her face to become somewhat of a frown.
“She’s afraid of rollercoasters…?” Rainbow Dash deadpanned. “What the hay, me!”
“What has Twi gotten us roped into now?” Applejack deadpanned as she and Fluttershy sat before the strange machine. “And what in Equestria is this newfangled doo-hickey.”
“Um, I think she said it was a ‘computer’,” Fluttershy pointed out. “But, um… I’m not really sure what it is either.”
The Google search engine sat open in front of them, completely idle as the two ponies stared at it in confusion. They glanced towards each other, and then back towards the screen. Finally, Applejack looked down towards the keyboard and gingerly gave it a tap.
‘A’ appeared in the search bar, and a list of words labeled ‘suggestions’ popped up under it.
“Um… I think you did a thing,” Fluttershy noted.
“Yeah… Uh…” Applejack looked at the list that had just appeared. “What’s this now…?”
‘Amazon’ was the first result. There were a bunch of others all starting with that specific letter, and then right at the bottom was simply the word ‘acre’.
“Huh…” Applejack muttered. “I wonder…
“Hm? Wonder about what?” Fluttershy questioned, leaning slightly over to get a better look at what the farmer was doing.
She carefully got to typing, pressing down on each key with the very tips of her hooves. It took great concentration on her part, but eventually she was able to type into the search bar ‘Sweet Apple Acres’ before hitting the ‘Enter’ key.
The effect was immediate, and the top result was ‘Sweet Apple Acres - Home of the sweetest apples this side of the States.”
With a curious look, Applejack clicked on the result and observed the website that followed. It had a background of rolling green field with… ponies? Horses? Some kind of equine creature that was similar and yet… more primitive-looking.
Fluttershy squeaked. “Are those ponies? Oh, I do hope they have good living conditions.”
And right there at the front was the strangest thing she’d ever seen. There were images of her whole family, standing before a familiar orchard. Only…
“Twi’s described ‘em, but it’s a whole other thing seeing your entire family be weird monkey critters,” Applejack said in bemusement. “And why are they all wearing clothes? We all fancy over there or something?”
“Um… maybe its because they only have fur on their heads…” Fluttershy suggested. “Poor things, they must get so cold during winter…”
And then, with the proverbial light bulb igniting above her head, Fluttershy looked towards Applejack with an almost pleading expression.
“Applejack? Can I please have a go?” she asked nicely. “If you don’t mind?”
“Uh, sure Fluttershy,” she replied, shiting over to let the pegasus be directly in front of the keyboard. “What’re you searching for.”
Fluttershy only smiled eagerly a she typed the words ‘cute furries’ into the search bar.
“Oh,” Applejack said in acknowledgment. “Figures you’d want to see their animals.”
“Oh, yes!” Fluttershy said enthusiastically as she moved the cursor over the ‘images’ tab. “I hope they have bunnies!”
She clicked the tab, and the images all loaded in.
Both ponies were silent as the grave, and after a moment of severe mental processing a heavy blush appeared on both of their faces. Applejack glanced away in embarrassment, while Fluttershy just sat with a gaping maw and… maybe a little drool coming from her mouth as her wings started to extend.
“Uh…” Applejack stammered in discomfort. “Well… they’re bunnies alright. I think.”
“Oh my…” the pegasus muttered, eyes all but glued to the screen.
Twilight glanced up at the door of the study, her brows furrowed in confusion as she heard Pinkie Pie chattering away on the other side of the door. She’d been at this for hours, just talking to the screen. Twilight was sure she hadn’t invented a phone alongside the computer, so who in the silver flying buck was she talking to?
She heard Pinkie Pie burst into a fit of giggles and decided enough was enough. She opened the door with her magic and poked her head in.
She saw Pinkie Pie staring at the screen with her hooves clapping together in delight while the human Pinkie was depicted on the screen, laying on her belly in her room and smiling back. “Wowie,” human Pinkie said, sitting upright. “Is that what Twilight looks like over there?!”
Pony Pinkie looked over at Twilight, grinned and nodded. She then waved at Twilight. “Twilight! I found me on Omegle!” she announced spastically.
Twilight blinked, backed out of the room and closed the door behind her.
And then there was Rarity, who finally took her go when Saturday came about and she had time away from her boutique.
Twilight and Spike were going to be out for a few hours more, running princess errands or some such, and Rarity herself by now had figured out much of the device’s functionality. And despite the cobbled together nature that Rarity took issue with, she found the interface itself an elegant delight. She had discovered all sorts of utilities on the machine that she wished she had to assist running her business, it would make selling her brand to all of Equestria just that much simpler.
She would have to talk to Twilight about inventing the internet for their universe after all was said and done.
Still, for now she was browsing the ‘YouTube’ that Twilight had told her about, and had been delighted to find her own counterparts page. Apparently rather than owning the Carousel Boutique she was a mere intern trying to get started there, odd considering in her world she founded the boutique herself, but the designs shown on her videos were simply divine!
If she were allowed to toot her own horn a bit, in a manner of speaking…
She was also rather delighted to find that Derpy Hooves had a YouTube channel, containing videos called ‘Twitch Stream Highlights.’ Apparently, Derpy played video games on Twitch, and there was a link to this ‘Twitch.tv’ website in the video description. Clicking it, she soon found herself looking at a video that, if the little text in the corner was to be believed, was live. Derpy’s face was in one corner, while on the screen was a video game showing a house with ponies in it. Above the video screen was the text ‘derpyderp is playing ‘The Ponies,’ 321 viewers.’
Rarity blinked. “The Ponies, huh?” she mumbled. Curious, she observed the screen for several minutes, fascinated. She saw Derpy direct one of the ponies in the digital household to speak to another one, selecting the option that read ‘imply mother is bread’.
Suddenly, there was a weird sort of xylophone sound, and text appeared on the right side of the screen. ‘Generousfashionista3000 has just donated $5!’ Beneath those words was a message that was then read aloud in a computerized voice. “Love your streams, Derpy!”
“Aw, thank you for the donation Genro… general… uhm…” Derpy’s eyes briefly got back into alignment, her face scrunching with effort. Then she grinned. “Generous Fashionista! Thank you very much.”
And then the two digital ponies started fighting.
While that was happening, Rarity blinked in surprise. Donations? There was an option to donate? With a happy little giggle, Rarity searched the page and soon found the big, friendly ‘donate’ button. Without hesitating, she clicked on it. Any chance to be generous could not be passed up, after all!
All of the fields were already filled out, so she didn’t really stop to look it over. She simply sent the donation through at ten dollars. She then clicked back to the stream and watched in anticipation. Maybe ten seconds later, there was another sting of xylophones, and more text popped up. ‘RagingSheDemon40K has just donated $10!’
Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Raging what?”
Derpy also looked slightly bemused by the name, but still smiled gratefully. “Oh, RagingSheDemon! Thank you for that ten dollar donation!”
There were a few minutes of more general gameplay, before another donation appeared on the screen, again from Generous Fashionista. It was at twelve dollars, with a message. “Because I can, here, have more money.”
Derpy grinned. “Aw, thank you, Fashionista! How generous!”
Rarity blinked, her head tilting. “Did… did they just try to one-up me?” she asked herself curiously. She then set about testing the waters a bit, sending a donation at fifteen dollars, and adding a message of her own.
“I can be more generous! I am more generous! Take my money, Derpy!”
Derpy giggled in amusement at the bigger donation. “Aw, that’s nice. But it’s really not a competition…”
Another donation from Fashionista, twenty dollars. “I’m the most generous person at my school, and in my neighborhood. What have you done, out of curiosity?”
Rarity almost felt insulted but was quick to reign in her temper. “This pony- person doesn’t know you yet, Rarity,” she reminded herself under her breath. “No need to get all pissy...” with that said, she sent a response with a thirty dollar donation.
“I’ve helped fund the construction of local homes with my own money, donated to plenty of charities, given away a gem as big as my head, made dresses for my friends free of charge, and things that you really wouldn’t understand.”
Derpy blinked, her eyes widening. “Oh, uh, you two… uh…”
Another donation from Fashionista, forty dollars. “Try me.”
Derpy gulped. “People…?”
Rarity rolled her eyes and sent in a fifty dollar donation. The message read as such: “Don’t worry about that. Right now, in this moment, I am the more generous of the two of us.”
Derpy was going silent and covering her mouth with a hand when yet another donation, at one hundred dollars came in from Fashionista. “I can do this all day, you know.”
Rarity cracked her neck and put on her ‘game face.’ Another donation, one hundred and fifty dollars. “Oh, it is on!”
Fashionista replied. Two hundred. “Bring it on, my dear! This won’t even make a dent in my savings!”
Rarity followed up. Three hundred. “If I were a betting mare, I’d say my savings are bigger than yours.”
Fashionista answered with three hundred and fifty. “Mare? Do you identify as a pony now or something?”
Rarity winced slightly. Right, Ponies were just animals to these people. Well, except for Twilight’s small circle of friends. She was quick to correct herself with her four hundred dollar donation. “Oh, pardon me. I am just really into this game!”
A five hundred dollar donation came in. “I bet; you’re donating thousands of dollars to someone playing it. I salute you, ma’am!”
Rarity blushed only slightly before sending in another donation, five hundred and fifty again. “Why thank you, you are quite generous with your pockets as well. But I fear I have forgotten someone; how are you holding up, Derpy?”
Derpy just shakily shook her head, having been sitting still and just watching her screen in shock for the past several minutes as the donation war raged on, the ponies in her game just doing whatever while waiting for her input. “Uhm… thank you?” she squeaked, her eyes darting around the screen in confusion and concern.
Fashionista sent one more donation at fifty dollars. “Don’t worry about it, my dear. There is more where that came from; but you have to keep playing first.”
That was partially successful in snapping Derpy out of her trance. With a shaky nod, she got back to playing. A few minutes passed with her just trying to remember what she was even doing in ‘The Ponies,’ her mind having been frazzled from the sudden onslaught of dosh. At one point she got tired of thinking and asked her audience what they thought she should do. The chat on the right side of the screen became flooded with a unanimous suggestion.
Build swimming pool.
Have ponies dive into pool.
Take away the ladder.
Build walls around the pool.
Watch ponies drown.
Rarity balked.
And then she saw another donation come up from Generous Fashionista, at fifty dollars. “Is it bad that I am agreeing with the chat right now? Build the pool!”
Rarity felt her eye twitch. “But… but… they’re so cute!” she shouted, wasting no time in beginning to send another donation, at fifty five dollars. “No! Don’t kill ponies! They don’t deserve that! Look at them! They’re adorable! Shame on you, Generous Fashionista! There is nothing generous about murder!”
She sent the donation and stared at the screen with twitching eyes.
The donation appeared, the text was read aloud, and Derpy got a slightly worried look on her face. “Uhm..”
A moment later, another donation appeared, this one at sixty five dollars. “Why are you getting on my case? We all know that it is just a game.”
Rarity hissed and sent another response. Seventy dollars. “Oh, really? Then why are they moving?”
Derpy was growing really concerned.
Another increasingly substantial amount of money rolled on in, and Derpy began to sheepishly sink into her seat. The girl really didn’t know what was going on. The money was nice, but the arguing…
She’d just wanted to play with some cutie virtual ponies like some kind of overbearing muffin goddess…
And the cash just kept rolling in. Far too much that it made Derpy’s eyes go straight because of it all. Each one had an increasingly angry message debating the sapience of virtual online avatars and the morality of drowning them in an equally virtual pool.
The chat was cheering them on all the while.
“Why are aren’t you concerned about the slaughter!?” the next message read alongside the donation of one thousand dollars.
“Sunset, darling. I know why you’d take this personally, seeing as the whole pony thing… But come now, why are you getting in my face like this!?”
Rarity’s teeth gritted, and she was about to respond… When something clicked.
She gave a small donation this time, merely thirty dollars, alongside the words of: “Sunset, darling? As in Sunset Shimmer?”
“Uh… yes?” the next donation responded at thirty. “Wait, who is this?”
“Rarity.”
“...” was the simple text on the next donation of ten dollars.
There was silence for a moment, and the unicorn thought that whoever she’d been talking with in her little Donation War had finally departed.
And then another donation came up, and another message with it.
“Uh, yes… I assume this is Rarity of Ponyville? I, well… am also Rarity.”
Oh.
OH.
Rarity blushed. She’d been arguing with herself!?
Another few dollars. “So sorry, darling! I had no idea! It is Saturday, I should have realised the unlikely would occur.”
“Indeed,” was the response amidst another five dollars. “I’m a little scared to ask, but where did you get access to Sunset’s internet?”
“Twilight Sparkle.”
“Of course… But, darling… Whose bank account are you donating with?”
Rarity frowned, typing the next confused message with a donation of fifteen dollars. “What’s a bank account?”
Meanwhile, in another worlds a bacon haired human was going about her day. A very, very frustrating day.
“Ugh, where’s my internet router…?” she asked to herself, searching everywhere.
She’d been sleeping around at Sweet Apple Acres helping Applejack with a project at the farm. She’d just gotten back earlier that day, only to find not only her internet router gone but her computer as well.
Actually, the case of the latter was still there. The insides were gone.
She’d definitely been robbed.
With that mind, she pulled out her phone to dial the police and report the issue… when she received a text from Rarity.
Check your bank account, NOW!
Sunset frowned. Why was she asking her to do that? She hadn’t made a purchase in at least a few days, since food had been kindly provided by the Apples up at the farm. Still, the text seemed urgent. So Sunset did as she was told and quickly checked her bank account on the internet, using her phone’s data and logging herself in.
$4.94.
Sunset gawked, glancing down with zero emotion on her face at all the donations of… everything she had to her name.
“...Celestia damn you all to Tartarus.”
“Well… at least Derpy is rich now!”
-Tom117z
“Money money money.”
-Skijarama
“Though Sunset will get paid back by Rarity, I should think. Probably.”
-Tom117z
Author's Note
This game references an in-development video game that I am a voice actor for called The Ponies. Here is a link to the website if you are curious.
