Fluttershy Hacks Fimfiction
"Do it, Fluttershy," encouraged Twilight, her face cold as ice. "Hack them."
"Okay, I'll try..." Fluttershy replied meekly, inspiring zero confidence in the crowd of five spectators behind her.
Rainbow Dash placed her hooves up onto the back of Fluttershy's swivel chair with enhanced lumbar support, stumbling briefly for balance. "Yeah, flutters. Make them pay for what they've done."
"Okay," she replied as she put her hooves onto the keyboard to begin typing. A few moments later, however, she stopped. "Or maybe I could just give them a really stern warning?"
Applejack slammed her hoof onto the desk with a thud that shook everything on top of it, almost spilling Fluttershy's cup of tea. "No way, no how! What they've done just ain't right. Y'all might as well call me the Element of Justice, because that's what needs to happen right here, right now."
"I must say I agree with Applejack on this one, dearest Fluttershy," added Rarity, who was sitting in the corner of the room whilst filing her hooves. "Normally I'd be against these sorts of vindictive escapades, but this is just too personal. Right, Pinkie Pie?"
"Right! Vengeance! Whee!" Pinkie Pie replied as she spun around in another chair.
"Okay, here we go..." Fluttershy said as she placed her hooves back onto the keyboard. She quickly shifted her gaze toward the monitor, eyes focusing inward and peering deeply into the screen. She was in the zone.
Fluttershy first located the web browser icon and double-clicked it, accidentally opening two instances to her annoyance, then closed the second one and moved the cursor to the search bar. Her hooves rapidly tapped against the keyboard at a blazing rate of 12 words per minute, filling the room with clicks and clacks as the rest watched the master at work.
"Almost...there..." she muttered under her breath, typing the remaining characters of her hacking spree into the search bar. She then hit the Enter key with a satisfying click, and everypony shifted inward to watch as the screen displayed the fruits of her labor.
"I'm in..." said Fluttershy, leaning back in her chair.
The top of the page displayed a colorful logo on the left side, with the following text slightly above it:
https://www.fimfiction.net/
Filling up the rest of the screen were various images of ponies and other creatures from Equestria, alongside bits of text that appeared to describe them.
Twilight's mouth was agape. "You mean there's more of them? I thought there was only the one."
"Oh, for Celestia's sake," said Rarity. "I'm starting to think we have other issues now."
"It's worse than we feared," said Applejack, her eyes scanning over the pictures until one popped up that caused her to recoil in disgust. "Is that me?"
"...and ME?" exclaimed Rarity, aghast.
Displayed prominently on the screen was a slightly saucy picture of Rarity and Applejack and some accompanying text: When Rarity pays a visit to Applejack, the two quickly realized they have more in common then they realized.
"BAHAHA," bellowed Rainbow Dash, crying from laughter. "Fluttershy, you have to click on that."
"No you ain't!" Applejack quickly stumbled over Fluttershy in an effort to divert the cursor away from the inevitably embarrassing content, causing the web browser to click on something else entirely at random.
"Honestly," Rarity said after regaining her composure, "the grammar in that description is what irks me most. Can anypony just write whatever drivel they want on here?"
Another photo and story description appeared out of nowhere.
"Oh my," Fluttershy said, blushing and covering her eyes with her hooves.
Rainbow Dash suddenly went red from embarrassment. "That's...not real. That can't be real."
Applejack got to her hooves and belly-laughed. "It sure looks real to me!"
"It's not. Right Fluttershy? I mean...it can't be...can it? You and me..."
Fluttershy's face was hidden deep within her mane, uncertain of what to think about seeing the raw visual of something she'd always wanted but had been too terrified to ever even dream about.
"Okay, okay," said Twilight. "These aren't the stories we're looking for. We need to stay focused, everypony," She continued whilst eyeing a similar photo with herself pictured prominently near the bottom of the screen, hoping nopony would notice. "Fluttershy, can you use your hacking skills to locate the perpetrator?"
Fluttershy reluctantly came out of hiding behind her mane, quickly hitting the back button on the web browser. "Yes, I'll try." Fluttershy moved the cursor onto the magnifying glass symbol and clicked on it. "What's our query?"
"Pinkie Pie?" said Pinkie Pie. Everyone looked at her. "What? I just wanna see what they write about me..."
"We don't have time for that, Pinkie," said Twilight, moving forward. "Try the author's name. That should get us close."
Fluttershy typed it in and hit the Enter key once more. At the top of the screen was precisely what they were looking for -- the thing that was causing irregularities in causality, rifts in time and space, and utter confusion and panic all throughout the land of Equestria.
Twilight scanned it quickly. "That's it. That's the one. That's the story that we must be stuck inside."
Fluttershy clicked on it. A new screen appeared with the title of 'Fluttershy Hacks Fimfiction' and a short description below.
Applejack cocked her head sideways. "Well I'll be...that's a picture of you just a minute or so ago, Fluttershy."
"This is so confusing," said Rainbow Dash. "I don't understand what's going on anymore..."
"Just click on it," said Twilight. "We just need to figure out a way to get rid of it, so things can go back to normal before it's too late..."
Fluttershy clicked on the first and only chapter, and waited as the screen loaded. They all huddled together around Fluttershy and looked at the screen, beginning to read the story.
"Zero confidence? In Fluttershy?" said Applejack. "This author isn't very nice..."
"Honestly," said Rarity, "I don't really speak that verbosely, do I? 'Vindictive escapades?' I wouldn't ever say something like that. Oh...I suppose I would. Did? Will? Oh for Celestia's sake, please make this horrendous nightmare end..."
A fluffy pink unicorn suddenly pranced into the room from atop a rainbow and gave Pinkie Pie a hoofbump on the way out.
"Fluttershy," said Twilight, "I know we're asking quite a lot of you, but do you think you could hack the author's account? Maybe if we can alter the story, there's hope of us escaping this nightmare."
"I can try, I suppose." She navigated to the login page of the website and typed in the author's username. "But we'll need to hack the password. Any ideas?"
"How about ########?" said Rainbow Dash. "I bet they'd have a stupid password like that."
Fluttershy typed it in, and the author's name appeared at the top of the page. "It worked!"
"Okay, I have a good idea," said Twilight. "Why don't we alter the story so that we guess the author's password on the first try? We've been at this for hours now."
"Oh, Twilight, Twilight..." said Rarity. "We can't make it that simple. What kind of plot development is that? There's no conflict, no intrigue! No, no, no, it must be a brilliantly executed literary masterpiece, and nothing less."
"I changed it," said Applejack after tapping away at the keyboard while Rarity finished her monologue.
Rarity sighed. "Fine, I suppose we can do it that way. Nopony wants to read hours worth of trial and error, I suppose..."
"Okay," said Twilight, "now we need to find a way to end this story in such a way that it resolves all conflict and plot holes. Otherwise, well...we're going to be stuck here forever."
Rarity scoffed. "Good luck with that. It's rife with inconsistencies and pointless dialog. Honestly, it's almost like the author just wrote it through in one shot and did minimal editing afterward. Pure mediocrity."
Whilst the others were distracted, Pinkie Pie, suddenly intrigued by the possibilities presented by the blank canvas in front of her, climbed over Fluttershy to make some clever edits to the story prior to the present point.
"Pinkie," said Twilight, her head rearing back, "what are you doing? Don't you realize that an inadvertent mistake could cause anything to happen?"
A smile grew across her face. "Anything?" Pinkie Pie typed another sentence into the story. After typing it, she suddenly had the memory of hoof-bumping a fluffy pink unicorn in her mind.
Rarity sighed. "Now anypony who reads this is going to wonder where the hay that came from..."
"I like apples!" Applejack suddenly exclaimed jubilantly. "Wait, what? Why did I say that?"
Pinkie Pie made a few more edits as well.
"All of these alterations to the past parts of the story aren't getting us anywhere," said Twilight. "We need to erase this story without somehow also erasing our own existence..." She pondered out loud. "I've got it. I'll just write something after the current point in this story...which is dictating everything I'm saying at this very moment...wow that is really weird...it's almost like it knows what I'm going to say next......WHOA," she exclaimed whilst suddenly moving to her left, then appeared intrigued and entertained at the same time.
"Weird...anyway," Twilight continued as she moved in front of the keyboard, "if I make an addition after this line of dialog that gives me power over the continuity of the story, I should be able to finish it and it will be like nothing ever happened--"
"STOP!" shouted a future version of Twilight who had just appeared out of an inter-dimensional portal.
"Wait...that's not what I wrote," said the present form of Twilight.
"I know," replied the future form of Twilight. "You have no idea what I had to go through to undo what your addition caused. This story would have been about ten chapters long had it not been for--"
The future version of Twilight suddenly vanished into thin air with another one taking her place. "Don't listen to her! You just need to manifest a time machine, go back in time, and--"
Similarly, that future version of Twilight vanished and another one took her place. "Ugh, this is getting old. Just don't make any more additions like that, okay? It doesn't work. Trust me, I've tried. Hundreds of times. Good luck, by the way. Existence has no meaning or purpose."
The Nth future version of Twilight disappeared into thin air, leaving everypony speechless and unsure of what to do next.
"This is getting too random," said Pinkie Pie. "Like...even for me."
"I've got an idea," said Rainbow Dash as she nudged Twilight out of the way. "Let me type at the keyboard."
Rainbow Dshah sudfenly had doubel hre wnigspan and wwas now albe to preform an utlra supre-snoic rainboom.
Rainbow Dash studied her wings. "Hey what gives? Why didn't my addition work?"
"This is why grammar and spelling is important, darling," said Rarity. "Let me take over from here." She hit the Enter key a dozen or so times in a row, creating a massive blank space at the bottom of the text box. "Now we have a buffer zone to give this story some real plot."
Rarity, seizing the opportunity to provide a sense of style and creativity to the literary work in front of her, began typing at the keyboard.
It was an odd and mysterious evening in an undisclosed location. Rarity found herself in quite the predicament, but was confident that she would be able to discover a way to solve it. After all, she always did. But first, she had to
"Okay, that's enough," said Twilight, highlighting the several paragraphs Rarity had written and deleting them.
"Darling!" exclaimed Rarity. "Could you not have at least hit the save button? I put my heart into that..."
"We've got bigger issues right now," said Twilight. "We're stuck in a causal loop of pointless shenanigans. Can't you see what's going on? We're all taking turns at the keyboard as a way for the author to pad their story and provide interesting bits to read!"
"Interesting," Rarity said with air quotes.
Applejack put her hoof up in protest. "I haven't done much of anything interesting yet, cept' provide humorous quips and country charm, I 'spose. Honestly, sometimes it feels like I'm just here in the background to bring a sense of realism to y'all."
"Regardless...it seems like we're out of ideas," said Twilight. "Except maybe one more...perhaps if we don't do or say anything, maybe things will just go away..."
"Aw, do we have to?" Asked Pinkie Pie.
"Yes."
"Okay..."
Everypony was silent and unmoving for several seconds. And then several seconds more. In fact, they remained silent and unmoving for an impressively long duration of time. The silence filled the room silently as nothing continued to happen. Simultaneously, they each had their own unique train of thought with regard to the situation that they found themselves within. Twilight, for instance, was attempting to determine a logical way out of this seemingly impossible predicament, utterly failing to do so. Rarity was upset, feeling as though her recent actions were a bit more exaggerated than usual for some reason. Rainbow Dash was starting to get bored, silently wishing that she could be doing literally anything else. Applejack was becoming annoyed as she began to realize that her main function in the group was essentially to keep them in line. Fluttershy realized that she hadn't spoken in several paragraphs, but was actually totally okay with that. And lastly, Pinkie Pie thought about the meaning of existence and eventually convinced herself of hard solipsism.
Silence permeated the room for several hours as the six of them pondered and pondered, hoping that this nightmare would end. But it would not. It couldn't. The very premise of the story created a paradox that could not be resolved, leaving the author, and evidently the characters within the story, with no choice but to ramble on and on and on, trying everything in hopes that an interesting ending would simply come to them, somehow. So instead, they chose to ramble even more.
"This isn't working," said Twilight, breaking the vow of silence.
"Phew," said Pinkie Pie. "I was getting really tired of thinking about nothing as hard as possible, and I came up with some weird stuff. Like have you ever wondered if we're what's not real? Or if only I'm real and you're all just figments of my imagination? Or if we're all brains in vats? Or if everything I'm saying right now are just words in a story?"
"They are," said Twilight. "We're trapped in our own fanfiction, remember?"
"Oh, right. Nevermind."
"Ugh," Rainbow dash sighed. "We need to get out of this. I am dying--"
Suddenly Rainbow Dash fell to the ground, her eyes wide and hoof across her body, not breathing.
"Fluttershy, change the story! Quickly!" Exclaimed Twilight.
"Oh my!" She shrieked, scrambling towards the keyboard to type.
Moments later, Rainbow Dash began breathing. "...of boredom..."
She coughed several times before returning to her hooves. "What in Tartarus just happened?"
"You bit the dust," said Applejack.
"Okay, okay," said Twilight, hyperventilating. "Now we know that we need to be extra careful with our words...good to know. Does anypony have any other ideas?"
"I thought of something in the past few hours that I think might work," said Rainbow Dash.
"Fine, but let me type it, darling," said Rarity.
"Whatever," said Rainbow Dash. "Try typing in 'Everything was resolved perfectly.'"
Rarity typed it in. Immediately, the problems of world hunger were solved, there were no more wars, and everyone lived a peaceful utopian existence.
"Did it work?" asked Twilight.
"I don't think so," said Rarity. "Our words are still showing up on the screen."
"Hmm," Twilight pondered. "Well, let's undo that change then. It might cause us problems later on."
The world and all its problems returned to the way they were before.
"It seems like there's no way we can fix this," said Twilight. "Except if we just...I don't know...delete it or something."
"Delete it?" said Applejack. "But wouldn't that, you know, make us...not exist?"
"To be completely honest, I don't know," replied Twilight. "But at this point I don't know what else to try."
"Do it, Twilight," Pinkie said flatly. "Nothing has any purpose or meaning anyway."
"Well I certainly wouldn't protest," said Rarity, sighing. "This mediocre piece of writing doesn't deserve to be read...is that too harsh? For my character? I don't know anymore...and do I really sigh that much? For Celestia's sake!"
Rarity sighed, then scowled as the words at the beginning of this sentence appeared onto the screen, then pulled back aghast at what seemed like an invasion of her own thoughts.
Suddenly, Discord appeared with a poof of magic behind them.
"Who wrote that in?" asked Twilight. "That last thing we need is Discord to be involved in this mess."
A quill and paper magically appeared in Discord's claw and paw, respectively. "It was I, Princess Twilight Sparkle. I am the one writing this story."
Twilight pondered hard for a moment. "Really?"
"Pfft, no," he replied, poofing a comfortable couch into existence to lounge on. "I'm just here to watch the show. Creatures like me have a seventh sense for these kinds of shenanigans."
"You mean you don't know why you're here? Can't you help somehow?" asked Applejack, Pinkie Pie counting on her hooves behind her.
"I never know why I'm anywhere. And my chaotic magic only applies to this universe, I'm afraid," said Discord. "Whatever chaos magic created this is beyond me, surely. For instance, has anypony questioned the fact that you've been using a computer, and that Fluttershy of all ponies is supposed to be a 'hacker'?"
"I 'spose not," replied Applejack. "Come to think of it, I don't even know what a computer is...what the hay is going on? How did I get here? Why can't I remember anything?"
"And what's a hacker?" inquired Rainbow Dash. "They sound awesome...but I don't even know why."
Rarity looked around the room. "Also...where's Spike?"
"Poor fella," Discord said solemnly, a bouquet of flowers held over his heart. "He probably didn't make it through the editing process."
"And come to think of it," said Applejack, looking around rapidly. "Where the hay are we? Fluttershy's cottage? An underground bunker? All I know is that there's a computer, a desk, some chairs..."
"Obviously setting description isn't this author's strong-suit," Rarity said snidely. "And while we're at it, there's a well-known rule of literature called show don't tell you might be interested to know about," Rarity continued, loudly talking upward toward the ceiling. A cold and ominous chill went down her spine shortly afterward, however, as if she had offended someone listening to her criticisms.
"Uhh, Rarity. Who are you talking to?" Asked Applejack
A moment of brilliance came to Twilight. "I know how we fix this!" She exclaimed, ignoring everyone else again. "All we need to do is point out every unbelievable aspect of the story so far, and things should return to normal!"
"Sounds plausible enough," said Discord. "You can start by removing me, I suppose. Although I'd appreciate it if I weren't simply used as a brief cameo to drive the plot further. But what are you gonna do..."
Discord poofed away, somehow conveying apathy in the way he did so.
"Okay..." Twilights mind raced for several moments. "Now let's move backward. What happened before Discord appeared?"
"We were talking about deleting this story," said Rarity, adding another bit under her breath. "If you can call it that..."
"And that doesn't make sense, right?" Twilight asked rhetorically. "If the story deleted itself, then we wouldn't have been able to edit it. So we won't delete it. Or rather...didn't delete it? What happened before that?"
"We solved all the world's problems but our own," said Fluttershy.
"And that's ridiculous as well," continued Twilight, "that sounds more like a medium-effort joke more than anything else. Before?"
"We didn't do anything, for hours," said Pinkie Pie, laying flat and sprawled out on the floor, staring upward. "And I had an existential crisis."
"Right!" exclaimed Twilight. "And that doesn't make any sense either, because we all know Pinkie Pie could never sit straight for several hours."
"It's true," she said dejectedly. "Except for that one time when I did exactly that. But hey, for all I know, you're all not real and I'm just a figment of my own imagination..."
"And what happened before that?" Twilight continued, too excited to reach a solution. "Just a bunch of random occurrences, essentially. Nothing about them made any sense, and they only lasted for what, at most a couple paragraphs? Oh, and we should probably censor the password too, I just realized."
Twilight edited the story so the author's password would no longer be visible, then scrolled to the top of the page. "Is that it?"
Everypony looked around, expecting something to happen.
"Did it work?" asked Applejack, looking up at the ceiling for no apparent reason. "Are we free?"
At the top of the screen was a bar with several buttons on it. One of them said 'Edit' and the other said 'Publish'.
"No," Twilight said, dejected. "Nothing changed."
Fluttershy, who had been silent for a long time, had a sudden realization. "I know how to end this," she said with confidence, resuming her position at the computer and moving the cursor slowly towards the 'Publish' button. "The only way out is to share this story with the world."
"Whoa, are you sure?" Asked Rainbow Dash. "I'm not sure they're ready for...whatever this is."
"What if it doesn't work?" asked Applejack. "What if we stop existing?"
Fluttershy noticed Twilight pondering and gave her time to speak before doing anything. "It's plausible that allowing the story to reach its most natural state of being might close the causality loop that we created by opening it in the first place," said Twilight. "After all, what good is a story left untold? Of course, the worst case scenario might be that telling the story would implode the universe..."
"But even worse than that," added Rarity, "what if it's not well-received? What if they hate it? What if they think my character is horribly written?"
"That's a risk I'd be willing to take," replied Twilight.
"I'd consider retracting that bit of dialog if I were you," Rarity muttered in response.
Fluttershy took the heated moment to interject into the conversation. "I'm going to do it. Maybe it's whoever is writing this story or maybe it's actually me, but I'm going to do it, and I don't care who I am or who 'me' is. We've been at this for long enough, and 3950 words is plenty for a random one-shot comedy," she said as the others looked at her with surprise.
Fluttershy placed her hoof over the mouse and hovered the cursor above the 'Publish' button, the others watching as she continued to speak aloud. "If the world doesn't like it, then so be it. Writing shouldn't be about being perfect, it should just be about getting things out there."
And so, awaiting the hopeful conclusion of their story, and wishing with all their hearts that they might be freed from it, the others watched with bated breath as Fluttershy raised her hoof upward to prepare to click the button.
Putting on a brave face, breathing inwards and taking a large breath, her eyes became focused and voice more serious. "And if they don't like it, well..." Fluttershy said as a devious smile grew across her face, "I guess they'll just have to take it up with me."
Everypony gasped, and Fluttershy clicked the button.
~
Author's Note
Um...I don't think it worked.
Great. Now they're going to judge my horribly-written character.
At least y'all won't be portrayed as a boring background one.
Whoa...where are we?
I have no idea, Pinkie Pie.
I'm done with this. Anypony up for grabbing a hay burger?
Wait, Rainbow Dash! I think you're displaying an action of free will.
Free what now?
Free will! Your brief death must have introduced a paradox in the meta-fictional space-time continuum! Quick, say something that will end the narrative. Anything!
Uhh...The End?
Still here, darling.
Try not making it a question. That leaves room for uncertainty.
Oh, right. The End.
