This story is a sequel to Mundane Utility
Nopony seems to understand how hard this is on her. Maybe Zipp can find joy in social isolation, but the more sensible of the sisters recognizes that she's been largely cut off from fame, fortune, and the constant reinforcing platitudes of those who clearly love her. Still, when Pipp is truly feeling lost, she can always power up Bestie, check the views on her latest video upload, and bask in the approval of the upvote count --
-- what's that little red symbol? That's never been there before...
...okay. Even more to the point: who cast that downvote, and how can Pipp make sure they never do it again?
(Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.)
While the story is labeled as a sequel, this just indicates that it takes place after the original tale. No extra reading is required.
Upvoted to assuage Pipp's ego. And for the bad advice at the end.
I see she found the trolls. I am surprised it took that long, or at least ponies who weren’t her subjects and felt safe enough to express their opinions.
There just doesn't seem to be the support for G5 that there was for G4. I've seen predictions that G5 will end in 2025.
However, it seems highly likely Hasbro will back a G6. Hopefully, they'll do better.
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Oh, please, don't get your hopes up. Massive amounts of negative opinions on the internet rarely amount to anything in a corporation. My best guess is we're with this thing until 2027, at least. I only hope some people would appreciate it for the child elements.
Goddamit, Sparky!
So does this mean we can say for certain that Pipp is a lesbian?
...I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.
Poor Pipp will forever be mocked as the short one.
WOW.
It's easy to have a character that wants everyone to like them come off as annoying but I think you did a great job at making her enjoyable.
I also like this kind of zany craziness.
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Canceled? Where does it say that?
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There’s petty, and then there's trolling.
I downvoted because you used the word "design" instead of "deign".
Huh, so Equestria has absolutely no libel laws, but Zephyr Heights does have Lese-Majeste laws, even if they're not really enforced. I do wonder if one was caused by the other?
And I'm glad to see that for all her ego, Pip is still willing to learn.
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I call it Estee's first downvote.
(well not really but for this fic it is. Also I'd like to point out it wasn't me.)
Fantastic work... and a grim reminder of how constructive criticism is the exception rather than the rule, especially online. (I do love the backstory for Rocky; it makes total sense.) Thank you for a delightful read and an excellent reason to provide an upvote.
Nice progression from silly (while still revealing a lot about Pipp's character, as well as giving us an excellent background for Rocky), to suddenly sober and heartfelt (with still a bit of humor) with Ms. Clef, to silly again. I must say, I like "shortissimo" as a bit of musical trolling.
"Pip! Get off the ledge!"
"I swear, I'm going to jump!"
"Pip, you're a pegasus."
"Well..."
"And you can fly now."
"I still mean it!"
"And we lost connection to the livestream."
"What! I'll be right down. Did we lose signal? Did somepony not pay the bill? You didn't break anything, did you?"
Hey, they've controlled it so well that none EVER gets into the finished product!
The true meta of this piece is a W.
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I love reading your comments sometimes more than the stories themselves
Somepony Doesn't Like Raymond......and for a damn good reason.
Yeah, Pipp got what she deserved in this story. Onyx is awesome and deserves way more than just thirty percent of Pipp's numbers.
That last comment tells me that Zipp has her own YouTube account
A story about being downvoted gets featured.
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On that note, let us pause so to give Misty the routine hug of comfort and reassurance.
It does seem to be Posey's lot in life, complaining.
Speaking of...huh, it actually wasn't Posey who left the downvote. I was honestly prepared to bet money that it would've been.
...dang. She's got Pipp entirely pegged down on the first try.
I like the moral of this fic. And It shows Pipp isn't so...hopelessly a princess...that she's not willing to at least try to learn how to be a more normal pony instead (even if it is with mixed results).
Rocky is a Royal Guard, serving as Pipp's personal assistant. Now that's an unique head canon I really like.
I don't know which of this is more depressing.
I give her credits for the effort. She didn't half-ass that disguise.
What's that? Valid and constructive criticism? One the (Pony)Internet? How unrealistic!
Nice little nod to the meme about Jazz having no ears.
Finally some realistic comments. And I'm pretty sure one of them was secretly from Zipp just to annoy her sister.
That was a short, fun little story. I'm surprised that there's no Comedy tag because there was a lot of humor due to seeing things through the lenses of a spoiled Princess like Pipp.
However, I feel she has been somewhat out of character in this story. Maybe this was done purposely because of the tone of the story, maybe this is how the author interprets Pipp's personality.
Her getting upset about a single down vote is something I can imagine Pipp doing. Especially if it's about her passion: creating music. The story does a great job showing that while Mane Melody is just a side project, singing and dancing is what Pipp loves. It's part of her Butt Symbol after all. So ponies not liking her music is a serious blow to her self-esteem.
However, the story went a bit overboard with how spoiled she acted. Her using her status as Princess to ensure she has more views than anypone else in Zephyr Heights or her wanting to change the law of Maretime Bay so nopony can downvote her, feels out of character. She's not (that) shallow. My interpretation of Pipp is that she's craving attention but she wants the attention to be genuine. She wants to be loved by her fans for the stuff she does not having them pretend to like her because she's a princess.
Still that's a rather minor nitpick and that didn't really reduced my enjoyment of the story. Can't wait for the sequel where Pipp tries to order the Royal Hitman to kill the pony who made fun of her height only to learn that the position of Royal Hitman had been abolished a century ago.
this reminds me of a character in a Star Wars story, a crazy bureaucrat who had wound up in charge of a secret laboratory.
when they were discovered, his response was to write a book called "simplified emergency procedures", that was over 1000 pages!