Stories set in the Oversaturated World, some silly, some less so.
(FoME)
Sunny Flare prided herself on her academic ability and sheer focus. Of course, one couldn't get into Crystal Prep without some degree of intelligence, but Sunny had honed her mind to razor sharpness, effortlessly balancing her theatrical passion with the fourth best scholastic record in the school. Once she put her mind to something, nothing could distract her.
"Hey."
Nothing. Could. Distract. Her.
"Hey, Sunny."
Not even Lemon Zest.
"Sun Bun."
She was reading her book and paying no attention whatsoever to the girl who, by some freak accident, had the third best academic record in the school.
"Flare Bear."
The poking would do nothing. Not that she noticed it.
"Additional nickname."
Especially now that Zest had run out of pestering fodder.
"Second additional nickname."
"WHAT!?" Sunny felt her face all but burst into flames as everyone else in the school's library stared at her. She considered trying to see if she could teleport, then settled for clearing her throat and more quietly saying, "What is it, Lemon Zest?"
"Always meant to ask you somethin'." Lemon pointed at the other girl's wrists. "What's with the Littlepips?"
Sunny looked back and forth between Lemon and her own arms. "The what?"
"You know, from the Megaton games?" Lemon sighed as she took in the blank incomprehension. "Your wrist dealies!"
"You mean my bracelets?"
Lemon snorted. "Sure. 'Bracelets,'" she said, complete with air quotes. "Bracelets that cover your whole freakin' forearms. Come on, those things gotta do something cool!"
Sunny stared at the other girl for a long stretch of time. Lemon showed no sign of wilting under her scrutiny. "What color is the sky in your world?"
"Not sure. Let's find out." Lemon brought her hands together and bowed her head, a disturbingly calm picture of sincere piety. "O Most Glorious Bacon Horse, what color do you want the sky to be?"
A moment later, her phone let out an especially sick guitar riff. She gave it a look. "'Your prayer cannot be completed at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience. Also, stop calling me that.' Huh." Lemon put the phone away. (Nowhere in particular, mind you. Just... away.) "Hey Sunny, you ever hear of where'd you go?"
"She escaped while she had the chance," said a passing Sugarcoat.
Lemon sighed. "Man, story of my freakin' life right there."
(Masterweaver)
"Well obviously you didn't get a complete prayer," Raspberry Fluff pointed out. "You weren't facing west, you didn't do the glorious proclamation, or the prostration; heck, you mangled her primary title!"
"I thought that we were sort of joking with this whole religion thing—"
"No no no. Well, not the way you're thinking." The pink girl pushed the other pink girl into a chair. "Okay, look. We genuinely believe in Sunset Shimmer as our wellspring of magic and sanity, right?"
Lemon shrugged. "Sure."
"And we are fully aware that she does not like being worshiped."
"...alright."
"So!" Raspberry held up a finger. "When we worship her, we deliberately make it as over the top and ludicrous as possible!"
"...you lost me."
"Don't you see? By worshiping our divine bacon horse in a melodramatic fashion, we simultaneously allow ourselves to express our wonderment, show our appreciation for her acts, and acknowledge the ridiculousness of the situation!"
Lemon Zest mused on this. "So... we're performers."
After a moment, Raspberry Fluff sighed. "I pray for your soul, sister. I hope one day, you shall truly understand."
Moondancer and Sugarcoat are the top two students at Crystal Prep, for those wondering.
Also, Shimmerist theology is a silly thing. By design.
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7849728 They might be around if they're ALIENS!!! Or VAMPIRES!! Or ROBOTS!!
Or vampire alien robots! FROM THE FUTURE!!!
That's... actually an utterly brilliant compromise between the need to worship and the god's indifference.
Now, if only God would come right out and admit he's just an easily distracted stoner, church would get a lot more fun.
Poor Sunset; I think that being a goddess would be easier for her to take if she'd got some normal worshippers. Come to think of it, which deity could not say that?
I always liked the Eschaton (ascended AI bootstrapped from a telephone exchange) approach to divinity. Three commandments engraved in an indestructible monolith.
I am the Eschaton. I am not your god.
I am descended from you, and I exist in your future.
Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else.
Saves a lot of time in my opinion.
Shimmerism sounds a lot like discordianism/chaos
But seriously, what is ol' Flare Bear hiding?
7862359 Oh I know of the loops and the mlp loops are MASSIVE! It's even on the door stopper list in the TV tropes list in the part of larger Series list. The massive collaboration is kinda scary though...
7862487 Ah, but if you don't specify "first rank," you could promote a pawn to rook on the eighth rank of the king's file, and if all other rules are met, you could castle with that fresh rook.
How about this: there's a mate-in-one puzzle where White has king at a5, pawn at b7, rook at c7, and Black has king at a7 and rook at a8. Answer on Wikipedia
7863143 It's that very puzzle that had castling by file banned in chess tournaments.
7866021 ...Yes. I brought this up in the context of "Obvious Rule Patches." I meant it to be clear from context, or from visiting the mentioned page, that the scenario...
You know what? I'll just tell you what an Obvious Rule Patch is. A game (or political system, or whatever) starts with some rules, and over the years, it gains new rules. This is dandy, and often, the new rules don't particularly stand out from the old. But sometimes, a player finds a technique that's technically legal but subverts the usual pattern of the game, and officials face a choice of whether to allow the technique or add a rule to disallow it.
The Obvious Rule Patch can depend on what an individual finds "obvious," but here's what they mean. One rule may be so distinct, often because it applies only to a rare situation or set of situations, that it appears to have originated in the above scenario.
...Perhaps not the best description. But if you're dead set against going to TV Tropes (and who could blame you), I'll just describe "en passant." This doesn't exactly fit my definition, but it's a good example.
Chess pawns originally couldn't move two squares on their first turn; that was added in later to speed up the opening game. This had an unintended consequence; whereas two pawns on neighboring files formerly had to be careful of one another because a one-square move could doom one pawn to capture by the other, now a pawn might move two squares and avoid confrontation. So capture en passant was added in: if one player moved a pawn two squares, and this bypassed the normal pawn-takes-pawn response, the other player could either immediately perform the pawn-take-pawn diagonal capture anyway, or ignore their only opportunity (for this pawn).
...That rule is terribly clunky for such a specific situation, so it's an Obvious Rule Patch.
7853117
yay somebody else read those books!!!
Dang it, it stared half way through that little explaination of shimmerist theology, and now every time I re-read it I keep hearing it in my head in John Cleese's voice. I wonder if they also do silly walks?
Does Lemon Zest not work hard or does she just give off that attitude because if she doesn't work hard and she still gets the 3rd best grades then I will help Sunny murder her.
9560905
Oh, you don't get to the bronze medalist spot in Crystal Prep by coasting on natural talent. It just takes an ungodly amount of stress to actually make her sweat.