Fauna of the Heart

“~Hello to all my lovelies out there~!”

Sunset Shimmer waved to the webcam on the computer desk pointed at her. With expert skill, she flicked her attention back and forth between her dual monitors, paying attention to both her game and her stream's chat with equal fervor.

“~Tonight's another exciting evening of Shimmer Code!~” Sunset adjusted the mic in front of her while smiling pleasantly. “You know the drill: I'll be getting to thanking donations at the halfway point. But for now, I figured we'd cut to the chase and get this session started! As we all know—the latest Sigma patch sucks goose gonads... goose-nads? Anyways—I figured we'd take a teeny-tiny break from Overwatch and chill with some Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Nintendo Switch. Now, some time has passed since I last played the game. Sooooo hopefully all of my villagers haven't totally forgotten about me. Friendship is magic—after all. Even if it's digital and ever-so-slightly-bestial.”

As she spoke, the game booted up. An anthropomorphic dog appeared on screen, announcing the date and hour before rambling off some dialogue with high-pitched autotuned babble.

“~Say hi to Isabelle, everyone~” Sunset Shimmer winked to the web-cam. “I always wondered whose job it was to sit down and localize one-hundred-plus instances of dialogue to fill in for Isabelle not having any 'exciting news' to announce for Tom Nook's island on a given day. That she-puppy reallllllly loves her soap operas and trivia shows. Hmmmm... I wonder if Spike would enjoy this game.” A beat. Sunset blushed slightly. “That last one's an inside joke. Anywhoooo...”

She rapidly button-pressed her way through the dialogue tree. The game capture faded to black, then soon opened up on Sunset's cozy little cottage. A cute super-deformed avatar frolicked out of the tiny house's front door, posing before a mailbox with a blinking white light.

“Heh. No shit I've got a lot of mail,” Sunset Shimmer mused. “Guess I should check that out and then it's on to pulling weeds and earning bells.”

Fingers on the controller, Sunset pivoted her character towards the mail box and “opened” it. After connecting to the Nintendo Online network, a window representing her character's inbox was displayed. The array of unread messages was a digital mile long.

“Whoah.” Sunset blinked. “Okay.” She blinked again. “Heh... that's waaaaaaay more letters than I was expecting. I wonder if they're all from Gulliver, explaining in nautical puns how he and his shipmates had to resort to cannibalism in the South Pacific...”

Her words trailed off.

As did her eyes.

About ninety-five percent of the messages came from one source. A user. A human being who had to have been on Sunset Shimmer's Nintendo friends' list.

“'Greendahlia?'” Sunset's face twisted as she scrolled and scrolled... … … and scrolled-and-scrolled-and-scrolled-and-scrollllled down the gargantuan list of messages—all sent from the same player. “Uhhhhhh... Lovelies? Is this one of you guys? I mean, I appreciate fans of Shimmer Code, but this is a bit... … ...b-bordering on Ricardo Lopez territory...”

She stroked her chin in thought. Her eyes narrowed.

“Mmmmm... buck it...”

At last, she flipped to the very first message on the insurmountable list of letters.

“Consider this an unofficial mail-bag stream, I guess.”

Sunset clicked on the letter. A pastel-colored greetings card appeared. There was a near-infinite amount of space for text to appear. But, in a pure waste of digital real estate, only one word materialized in the center:

It's

The young streamer's head cocked to the side. Her cursor blipped over to the “present” attached to the item. Probably a DIY Blueprint that her Animal Crossing toon already knew, but she wasn't prepared to drop it into her inventory.

Instead...

...she backed out and thumbed the cursor up to the next letter within the virtual inbox. She opened it. Once more, the greetings card was mostly blank, except for one word in the center:

been

Biting her lip, Sunset repeated the process.

a

She snarled.

long

She growled.

road

She roared.

gettin'

Sunset backed out and looked up the infernal list of three hundred and forty-four remaining messages. Her yelling reached a fever pitch and she smashed smashed smashed the Switch docking station to bits with its very own controller. The game feed cut, and all that was left on stream was a very very very angry rectangle featuring a livid redhead who was foaming at the mouth.

“Fuckin' little fuckmeat's fuckwad! I dunno how you fuckin' found me but the fuck buck stops here you fuckin' little fuckle muck! That's it! Shimmer Code's canceled! Now and forever! Don't believe me???”

Nimbly, Sunset bent over and stripped off her shoes and socks. Within the next second, she was reclining heavily in her chair, slapping her bare feet up onto the desk.

Th-Thump!

“There! Feast your eyes, you sycophantic sickos!!”

She shoved those golden sweaty heels up against the web cam.

“Clip this and ban me!” Sunset spat. Her angry face materialized in shutter stop-motion snarls between the flickers of her toes. “Clip this and ban me!!” Her turquoise eyes bugged from afar. “Bannnnnn meeeeeeeeeee—!!!”

—blip!—

And the broadcast went dark...