"Pipp is a FAKE. #fakeflyer" - FillyKraft
Pipp groaned as she endlessly scrolled through the infinite void of hatred that was scrawled all over her Trotter profile. The last time she had gotten anywhere near this level of kickback had been when she spilled an iced coffee on a filly. So she was not surprised by the absolute wall of abuse that was being thrown at her. She wasn't even surprised by the magnitude of anger. It was nearly certain that being revealed as a fake would have gotten a decent level of heat in response.
"I always new u were overhyped #cancelPipp" - PonyDewBetter98
Pipp frowned as she scanned through the messages looking for a common thread to focus on. This was an absolute public relations disaster and she could already tell that it was going to take her a long time to sort out all of this mess. Though there was something more vicious hiding under the surface of the typical flaming that kept pulling her back.
"The royals need to be removed, they lied and tried to let the unicorns and mud ponies in #cancelPipp #cancelZipp #cancelQueeny" - StallingStallion
Unfortunately, Pipp simply didn't have a few weeks to fix it. Unlike her past minor indiscretions, lying about flying was a very serious issue that could very well still have actual real legal repercussions. So a simple apology and a promise to be better would not be enough, heck actually improving herself and making sure that she learnt would not be enough here. That was like her ultimate apology material and it was useless here.
" PippPetalRoyal I luved u but nw you love thosebad unicorns and earth ponies. we both knw that thay smell bad so get away from thm b4 you smele 2" - Hay Hey Girl
Pipp frowned as she tried to decipher the mess of text before giving up and assuming that they were angry. There had been a few positive comments scattered through the avalanche of anger, but it did little to make her feel better. Negativity wasn't that unusual on social sites, though that didn't mean that it didn't hurt to read. Her fans nearly wanted her wings stripped from her. Some of them may have meant it metaphorically, but some seemed a lot more literal in their demands.
"the next time she shows her face we're goin to tear those fake wings off. Have you seen how fluffy the fake things are. No way they are real. She's clearly a dirty earth pony in disguise, so I think we should make sure she is one" - HorstTheRaddish
Pipp nervously swallowed and reported a message. Unfortunately, she knew it was unlikely that the site would actually take down the message. Her wings involuntarily fluttered as she pouted at the criticism of her wings. She didn't spend an hour each morning preening her wings perfectly for somepony to accuse her of having fake wings. She shook her head to clear the complaints about her wings from her head, she had more important things to worry about.
In truth, she did not blame anypony in Zephyr Heights for hating her. She knew that she deserved it. She had betrayed them. She had lied to them for years. So it was right for them to hate her. Though that did little to make her happy about it.
Maretime Bay was showing off its best light, the rich morning sun streaming over the seaside port. However, the wonderfully clear weather did little to help Sunny to enjoy the sun. Sunny was exhausted. Why she thought that it would be a good idea to meet up with all of her new friends early in the morning was beyond her.
Sure, she knew that they needed to get started on getting the unicorns and pegasi to also learn that they should all get along as well. Pipp had tried to show her some of the issues online that was happening back in Zephyr Heights, and Izzy had mentioned that not everypony fully understood it all. It was all very important, but Sunny also liked sleeping in. A life of waking at seven every workday had trained her to sleep late on weekends. So it was a sleepy Sunny that was trotting along that morning.
Izzy had been the first to get there, with Hitch arriving soon after with Sunny. Hitch had wisely gone for a big breakfast from the cafe, with Sunny and Izzy going for milkshakes instead. A decision that Sunny was already beginning to regret as the sugary drink wasn't agreeing with her for breakfast. Pushing it away slightly, her thoughts returned to the two missing friends from the table. Sunny had made sure to tell them last night to meet up, but the two royal sister pegasi had not shown their muzzles yet.
"I'm going to win if you don't try harder" Izzy called out before diving back to her milkshake and doing her best to inhale it as quickly as ponily possible. Sunny rolled her eyes and returned to her own drink without much concern. She didn't remember ever trying to make it a competition. Then again, she had just been nodding along with whatever Izzy was saying.
Sunny winced as Izzy noisily tried to suck the last of her milkshake out of the bottom of her glass. Turning and giving her best glare at Izzy, Sunny wasn't surprised to see that Izzy was entirely ignorant of Sunny's annoyance. She cared about the unicorn, but it still did irritate her and a sleepy Sunny did not respond well to annoying sounds. Sunny reached out and pulled the clearly empty cup away from Izzy, cutting off the irritation at the source.
"Can you just not do that now?" Sunny asked with an eye roll.
"Didn't get much sleep?" Hitch asked from beside her, though his attention was on the large plate of food sitting before him. He was already regretting ordering far too much. "Didn't you get the main suite?"
"I did, and I definitely appreciated it. I never would've been able to afford it on my own." Sunny groaned, rubbing one of her eyes with a hoof. "The bed was amazing, but I just couldn't stop thinking about what comes next."
"What comes next?" Izzy asked curiously, cocking her head to the side. "I thought we were just going to plan a proper sleepover at your home in a few days."
"I wish," Sunny yawned, covering her muzzle with her hoof before continuing. "We have shown everyone in Maretime Bay, but that is just the start."
"What's just the start?" Sunny span around to see Zipp hovering over them. She landed down beside them and leafed through the cafe's menu. "Also, do you know if they have any fish here?"
"Fish is a pegasi dish, so good luck finding that in an earth pony town." Izzy pointed out. "They barely had any crystal infused stuff either."
"I'm not sure that sugar counts as crystals," Hitch cut in with an eye roll, but Izzy just waved him off. She didn't need Hitch and logic taking away the perfect reason to order dessert for breakfast.
"Anyway," Sunny rolled her eyes at her friends' antics before turning back to Zipp. "I wanted to introduce everypony to the power of friendship so that they don't need to be scared of each other anymore."
"So what, you want to do some sort of road trip to Bridlewood and Zephyr Heights? Zipp asked with a smirk. "Sounds fun."
"Where is Pipp anyway?" Sunny asked with a frown. "I wanted to make sure you both have time for it."
"Pipp's probably lost in her phone again," Zipp replied with a roll of her eyes. "Pipp's great with that online stuff, but she does tend to get sucked into that world far too much."
"I think I saw her near the beach," Hitch supplied helpfully, still lost trying to finish off the ridiculously large breakfast that he had ordered. How was he supposed to know that a big breakfast would have enough on the plate to bury a small foal?
"Ooh, I'll go get her~" Izzy called out as she sprang to her hooves, the sugar streaming through her giving her the dam of all sugar rushes. She quickly bolted off before Sunny could get a single word in.
"So, what is good to eat here?" Zipp asked, fiddling with the menu with her wingtips.
"Do you want to share?" Hitch asked, the desperation in his voice incredibly evident. Zipp didn't hesitate. She may have been a princess, but free food was free food after all. Sunny did note with amusement, that Zipp's table manners didn't quite match her princessly upbringing as the pegasi gorged herself on Hitch's food.
"I think that's enough for me," Sunny pushed away from the menu and sighed, her appetite completely gone. Sunny pulled herself back onto her hooves and went to leave, before pausing and looking back at Zipp and Hitch. "I am going to go see if I can help the repair ponies fix my home. If you see Pipp, make sure you tell her what the plan is."
Pipp let out an absolutely adorable yelp as she felt a foreleg wrap around the back of her neck. She quickly turned to see Izzy's face a hoof length from her face. She had been so utterly engrossed in endlessly doom-scrolling through the hate-filled feed that she hadn't heard the unicorn's arrival. It wasn't like Izzy had made any attempt to be sneaky at all. In fact, Izzy had been singing a few bars to herself as she tried to look over her friend's shoulder before trying to give her a side hug.
"What are you doing?" Izzy asked her, looking over Pipp's shoulder so closely that her muzzle was almost embedded into the side of Pipp's mane. Pipp tried to lean away, but Izzy just moved closer to ensure that she violated Pipp's personal space as much as ponily possible. Izzy was that kind of mare at times. The others had made some attempts at teaching her personal space, however, everypony knew it was a losing battle. "Oooh, you've got a lot of words on that little screen. Can I have a look"
"You probably shouldn't look," Pipp tried to angle to screen away from the inquisitive unicorn, but Izzy just leant over until she lost her balance and fell on top of Pipp, squishing the smaller princess under her. Pipp squirmed out from under the unicorn and shoved her away. "Seriously, Izzy. I like you, girl, but take a hint."
"Okay", Izzy clambered off of Pipp's back with a smile, "Sunny wanted me to tell you that she wants to get together some sort of plan to visit all of our homes and get started on making sure that all the pony races like each other. Of course, she wants to see how to fit it into your royal schedule duty things."
"What royal duties," Pipp rolled her eyes, "we are literally wanted criminals. Not much point trying to perform to an audience that despises your existence."
"Wasn't your mother meant to be all queeny and apologise so everypony likes you again?"
"Seriously, when has mom ever even given you the impression that she knows anything about how to make a proper apology," Pipp huffed before returning to fiddle with her phone and quickly closing the Trotter feed.
"I'm sure it'll be fine," Izzy told Pipp as she pulled the smaller mare into a hug, "Sunny's wants to get the crystal rolling and meet all the other pegasi. So I'm sure it'll all work out when they see what great friends we can all be."
"Hang on," Pipp pushed her way back out of Izzy's embrace and grabbed the bubbly unicorn's shoulder, "when did Sunny want to do this race relation tour thing?"
"Not sure, if you and Zipp are free we might be able to head to Zephyr Heights tomorrow. Sunny was super duper excited to get started as soon as pony possible."
Pipp groaned as she realized the absolute mess that was awaiting all of them if Sunny was planning what Pipp thought she was planning. Hitch had been telling Pipp about Sunny's tactless attempts to unite the races in the past. The mare was determined, but the results had left a lot to be desired.
"I have to talk to Sunny before she does something stupid."
Sunny sat on the grass in front of the construction site that had been her home yesterday. It was tortuous just sitting there waiting, but Sunny was determined to do the right thing. The construction ponies had gotten rather cross at Sunny's attempts to help, so she had been relegated to lookout duty. Of course, they hadn't told her what she was meant to be looking out for, but she figured that she would know it when she saw it.
It did give her time to get her own thoughts in order at least, though it wasn't all sunshine and happiness beneath her magenta mane. Sunny sighed as she leant over with a hoof awkwardly supporting her head as she thought through the mess that was sitting waiting for her. A week ago she was just trying to get everypony open to the idea of being friends with each other.
Sunny smiled weakly as she thought back to the simpler times when she could just come up with a plan and try it out, knowing that the only thing she was risking was the town's already low opinion of her. Today was a completely different world, and while there was a lot of good with it, there was a lot of bad as well. Every pony was now looking at her, expecting her to somehow make every pony become friends overnight.
The pressure was intense and she didn't want to let any pony down. Thankfully she already had a plan in place and she knew that it was going to make every single pony become friends. Well, she hoped that they all would at least.
"Hitch said you would be here," Pipp commented as she sat down beside Sunny, shoving her from her muddled thoughts. "though I'm not sure why? Surely you trust the repair ponies to fix everything, right?"
"I did try to help them out, but they said that they needed a lookout," Sunny told Pipp with a smile, determined to do a good job to make up for the three sheets of drywall she had managed to destroy.
"Right" Pipp wasn't convinced but knew better than to actually say anything. "Anyway, Izzy was telling me that you had some plan for reuniting everypony?"
"Yeah! It's going to be awesome to finally extend the hoof of friendship," Sunny couldn't help smiling at the thought of her dreams finally becoming reality. "We can show them all that all three pony races can be friends and no one needs to hate each other. Aren't you excited as well?"
"I guess," Pipp told her as tactfully as she could, "but don't you think that you're rushing this?"
"Why should anypony be forced to live another day thinking that their only friend is fear?" Sunny was frowning at Pipp now, rather disappointed that her friend didn't seem as eager. "Why should anypony go a single day more as enemies? Everypony deserves to be friends and no longer be afraid."
"I'm not saying that everypony shouldn't be friends!" Pipp yelled in frustration before pausing to calm herself down. She carefully took a deep breath before continuing. "I'm just saying that we need to be methodical at this. You can't just turn up everywhere and wave a wing or horn in some pony's face and make them instantly be friends."
"Why won't that work?" Sunny wasn't frowning as much, though she clearly did not see the issue that Pipp was trying to explain. "It worked for you, as soon as you saw us we were all friends."
"No it didn't," Pipp shot back. "I did not trust you, Hitch or Izzy, when I met you. I stayed because I wanted to help my sister, not you. I pretended to be your friend that first night to earn your trust."
"What do you mean, Pipp?" Sunny's mouth was hanging open as she stared at Pipp in surprise. "You got on so well with us that night. Izzy and you got on well, especially when she was talking about the color of your sparkle."
"I hate aqua-marine," Pipp blurted out. "It is not my sixth favourite color, it's not even in my top ten. Admittedly most of my favourite colors are in the fuchsia and coral ranges. I do stretch out to heliotrope at times, but the whole cyan range is really not my thing. Also, don't even get me started on forest green, whoever likes that mess of a shade should be dropped into the ocean."
"I think you're going off-topic here," Sunny interjected, now more confused than shocked. "What did you mean by pretending to be a friend? Are we not friends?"
"We are friends now," Pipp huffed, "it just took more than a single evening for me to really trust you and want to be friends. I just faked it for the first bit because I wanted to know what you were up to and to make sure my sister was going to be safe around you. So no, we were not friends at first."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"To show that not everypony thinks like you. I want you to take it slowly."
"I know that you're worried," Sunny rested a hoof on Pipp's shoulder. "But I promise that everything is going to work out fine. As soon as everypony sees how good friends we are, then they will want to be friends as well. It's that simple."
"I don't think it is that simple Sunny."
"The day after tomorrow, when we all go to Zephyr heights, I'll prove it to you." Sunny gave Pipp a quick nuzzle on her cheek. "You don't need to worry about anything but getting to have fun with your fans. I promise."
Pipp frowned and rolled her eyes, but didn't respond. Sunny missed seeing Pipp's silent response, her attention back on keeping a lookout on the repairs being made to the lighthouse. Pipp made her leave, knowing that she had some things to sort out.
"Hey Hitch," Pipp called as she strolled into the Maretime Bay's sheriff's office. "Have you got time to talk?"
"He's out keeping the streets clean," A nasal voice came from beside Pipp. This time she managed to avoid yelping like a surprised filly, mostly. She turned to see Sprout with his hind hooves on his desk and his chair precariously tipped back balancing on two legs. A crossword puzzle was open in his lap. "I can help if you need it."
"I'm not sure if you're going to be much help for this," Pipp wrinkled her muzzle, "I kind of need to talk to someone who's been friends with Sunny for a few years."
"Sunny, Hitch and I have been friends for years," He paused and then grimaced, "well if you ignore these last few days. Sunny and I are not exactly getting on that well after what I did."
"Sunny seems to be a forgiving type," said Pipp, "so you're probably fine."
"Well, I hope I'll be able to make it up to her eventually, but I am trying to keep my distance for now." Sprout shrugged. "Better to spend some time avoiding her, than to force her to pretend to be nice to me."
"I'm not sure she really understands how to not be nice."
"Which gives me an even better reason to not force her to be nice to the pony that destroyed her home and nearly killed her," Sprout responded dryly. "Anyway, I do know Sunny well so if you need to know anything about her I can probably help. Favourite color, you name it I probably know it."
"Really?" Pipp did not believe him.
"Yeah, it's turquoise by the way." Sprout dropped back onto all four hooves and strolled over to Pipp. "So what did you want to know?"
"Well, I kind of needed to work out a way to slow down Sunny's reuniting everypony project before she rushes and makes a mess of everything," Pipp complained. "She just wants to rush out and make everything better somehow, but I don't think she has really thought any of it through at all."
"Yeah, you're not going to find a way to stop her." Sprout told her with an eye roll. "This has been a dream that she has had for pretty much her whole life. Hitch and I have tried to stop her down in the past, but nothing can temper her. So you're just going to have to make the best of whatever happens. I mean, for all you know she could be right and everypony may just get along."
"I really don't see that happening."
"Look outside, I can see Zipp and Izzy having a smoothie drinking contest in full view of everypony. A unicorn and a pegasus just sitting there out in the open, and no pony seems bothered in the slightest. A week ago Izzy caused a literal riot on sight and now look around. If it worked here, then what makes you think that it won't happen in Zephyr Heights or in the Bridlewood forest."
"I think I know Zephyr Heights better than anypony else." Pipp huffed, annoyed that yet another pony wasn't taking her concerns seriously. "I've been looking through the social media feeds and unicorn and earth pony sentiment is definitely not positive at the moment. If Sunny drags Hitch and Izzy there, then it'll probably just start a riot that never ends. We need to have a plan or something, maybe get some important people from Zephyr here first and try and ease them in. You know, some sort of actual plan."
"Sunny isn't a planning type of mare," Sprout told Pipp, "she had a vision and come to Tartarus or high water she will make it happen. You should've seen what she used to do to try and teach us about unicorns and pegasi in the past. Every week there was a new attempt until she started running low on ideas. Just be thankful you avoided the leaflet drop debacle. It took almost a week to find every scrap of paper."
"So, what you're saying is that I can't really make her plan anything."
"Not really, I think you're just going to have to work around whatever Sunny wants to do. Sunny doesn't change her mind."
"Sunny isn't that bad, Sprout." Hitch cut in as he trotted into the office, unbuckling his sash and laying it over the back of his chair. "So what are you trying to stop her doing?"
"Oh, hey Hitch," Pipp said, "I just had some concerns about the trip to Zephyr Heights and I wanted to slow Sunny down a bit for general sentiment to improve, you know?"
"Things seem to be going pretty good here?" Hitch shrugged.
"That is what I was trying to tell her," Sprout commented as he went back to his crossword puzzle, "but apparently Princessy Pipp doesn't think we know what we are talking about."
"Look, in Maretime Bay their sheriff was still liked by everypony when they introduced pegasi and unicorns," Pipp complained, "however it's not the same in Zephyr. Zipp and I are still literally wanted criminals who are hated for an entire reason not related to unicorns or earth ponies. Neither of us is in a position to vouch for anything. So you're just going to get the same panicking you got the first time you went there. Nothing is going to change, because for them nothing has changed."
"Pipp, pegasi have got their wings back!" Hitch argued, gesturing to Pipp's fluffed up wings. "Doesn't that change things?"
"Why would it change anything?" Pipp argued back. "They don't know that it was unity between the tribes that brought it back, all they know is that their royal family faked their flight. Then they kicked out the royal family, and then a day later they could fly. They didn't go through what we went through. They weren't there when the races came together. They don't know."
Hitch frowned. "Is it really that bad?"
"Yep," Pipp pulled out her phone and quickly tapped her Facehoof account. She shoved her phone to his face, "they are blaming unicorns and earth ponies for everything. Some are even accusing unicorns of stealing my flight. So things are that bad."
"Isn't this just some ponies venting online?" Hitch asked. "They don't actually want to do inappropriate things with unicorn horns, right?"
"Well, yeah," Pipp huffed in irritation. "Yes. They are exaggerating, but you can still see what they truly want behind their words if you read between the lines."
"I think this pony wants to use unicorns as oversized darts?" Hitch carefully pushed the phone back to Pipp. "I think that is a bit extreme. They are probably just joking or something."
"Okay, fair. If they are making comments like that then they are probably not angry." Pipp sighed as she took back her phone. "It's the ponies who make statements as if they are true that is the real issue. Look, just forget it. The point I was trying to make is that Zephyr Heights is not yet ready. We need to do more than just shove a unicorn in front of them and shout hooray."
Hmm," Hitch scratched his jaw as he thought over Pipp's point. "Okay then, what do you think that we need to do then?"
"Get Sunny to take everything a lot slower. Find someone that the pegasi in Zephyr Heights respect and get them to slowly introduce them all. Unfortunately that all takes time, and Sunny is going there in two days, so we need to work something out and do it quickly."
"So, you don't have a plan either?"
"Nothing that I can pull off overnight," Pipp admitted. If I had a few weeks, maybe I could fix this mess. But I have nothing that will work overnight. I need to buy some time and figure this mess out."
"Why is this something that you alone need to do?" Hitch asked as he sat down beside her, nudging her phone away from her hoof. "Your mother is right now in Zephyr doing her best to make sure that every pony understands, right?"
Pipp rolled her eyes at Hitch and shoved her phone over to him, a news article on the screen.
"Queen Haven returned to the empire today to try and explain the century-long fraud that the royal family had thrown on the innocent public of Zephyr Heights." Hitch read aloud as he scanned down the page, frowning as he continued. "However despite many attempts to explain the 'good'(sic) behind her clearly selfish acts, she was unable to actually provide any good reasons for the deception. Ultimately Zephyr News is forced to conclude that Queen Haven is definitely a phony pony fully of perjury and fakery."
Hitch stopped reading and raised an eyebrow to Pipp.
"Yeah, the Zephyr Newspaper isn't exactly what you would call..." Pipp paused as she searched for an appropriate word, "...competent? Anyway, the point is that things are not going all that well for mom. I love her, but she isn't all that great at the whole public relations thing. Look, I'm going to see if I can put a plan together, but can you see if you can slow down Sunny or something?"
There was an awkward silence as Hitch looked over at Sprout as if hoping for some level of support. Sprout didn't even look up from his puzzle.
Hitch sighed and turned back to Pipp. "I can't help you. Sprout was right when he said that Sunny isn't that easy to persuade when she has her heart set on something."
"We can't do nothing!"
"Look, Pipp," Hitch put a foreleg around her and pulled her against him, "I know that you are worried about this. I also know that you want to make sure that this all goes well, but I think that you're just searching for a problem to solve. Even if this goes wrong, it just means that we wait a week and try again."
Pipp shrugged off his leg with a pout and glared at him. "I understand Sprout trying to brush me off, but you are meant to be my friend. You are meant to believe me."
"I believe that you believe this, isn't that enough?" Hitch tried to placate her, but Pipp just shoved past him, glowering back at him before shutting the door behind her as hard as she could. The door smoothly shut with a click, stealing from Pipp even the joy of slamming the door. She walked off with a frown knowing that everything was now much harder.
She stomped angrily past Zipp and Izzy's impromptu smoothie drinking competition, ignoring the weird looks that the two sent her way. Pipp wandered aimlessly through Maretime Bay lost in thought as she tried to piece together the mess she had in front of her
The biggest issue sitting before her was that she just didn't have a week to sort it out. Sunny had the brilliant idea to take all of her unicorn and earth pony friends to Zephyr Heights within the next few days with absolutely no understanding that the pegasi there still thought that they were all evil creatures. Sunny had been completely obstinate about it, and Zipp hadn't even backed up her own sister. So now Pipp had just a single day to try and repair her own social media following, get her sister shoved into a good position, and somehow convince an entire city that unicorns and earth ponies were all okay.
"What am I going to do?" Pipp asked herself quietly as she fiddled with her phone. She kept on tapping back and forth between Trotter and Facehoof in the desperate hope that a good idea would present itself. "Think, Pipp. You've had to cover for Zipp in the past, surely you could do the same here, right?"
"Augh, no. A song is not going to fix this when they don't like you," Pipp groaned and covered her eyes with a hoof. "Okay, I need to think this through properly. What options do I have, and what do I need to do?"
"I need to somehow get Zephyr Heights to not attack Sunny when she turns up the day after tomorrow," Pipp mused to herself, tapping her chin with her hoof. "I don't need to fix everything, I just need to get everypony to know that the unicorns and earth ponies are the reason they can fly. Then they are going to welcome Sunny, Izzy and the others with open hooves."
"I still have a lot of subscribers," She pulled out her phone and quickly started jotting down any ideas that she could think of. "Sure, they may only watch to hate on me, but it is still an opportunity. I can sing, I can fly. I've got to be able to do something with this."
"Wait," Pipp froze as an idea hit her, "I can still live stream. Sure most of my followers aren't happy with me, but that just means that they are even more likely to switch over if I stream. Okay, this won't be fun, but this could totally work."
Chuckling to herself, Pipp tapped out some more notes. "Start a stream, give a proper apology, and then talk about how we can now all fly because of friendship. This should be easier than that endurance live stream challenge. I just have to make sure to be clear about it and then end the stream saying that my friends are coming so that they can all be friends. This could totally work."
A small part of Pipp knew that there was also a large chance that this wouldn't work, but she quickly pushed away that thought. Now was not the time for more negativity. She glanced around and was happy to see that no other ponies were around, so she wouldn't have to worry about anypony appearing in the background and scaring her audience. She checked her phone's battery life, happy that she had remembered to charge it this time. Starting a stream and then spending the first five minutes running for a charger was not an experience that she wanted to repeat.
She checked the notes on her phone again before opening the TrotTv app. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Pipp's hoof hovered over the start stream button.
"You can do this Pipp," she told herself as seriously as she could, "you've done hundreds of live streams. The only difference between those and this is a little anger in the audience. You can do this."
Steeling herself for what she knew was the come, Pipp tapped the little button. Nodding her head to the ten steady beeps that counted down to the start of the stream. Right now she knew that thousands of phones across Zephyr Heights would be buzzing, thousands of ponies were pulling out their phones to see a notification of Pipp's stream, thousands ready to jump into her chat. She swallowed nervously as the countdown hit zero and her live stream went live.
She didn't get a single word out before she saw the chat explode in action. Comments flying as emoticons flashed over the screen, however despite the ferocity of the comments Pipp was a seasoned veteran of reading the pipsqueak chat. She could already see confusion and anger beginning to flash through the comments as angry red emoticons flashed along the screen edge.
A lesser mare would have been overwhelmed at the sheer sensory overload, or at least from the knowledge that thousands were studying her every move. Pipp was not a lesser mare, her mother may have been the queen of Haven, but Pipp was the ruler of the online world. She was here to claim her throne. Either that or get chased out of town, she knew that it was a coin flip at this point.
"What is up everypony!" Pipp called out, knowing better than anyone that now was not the time for some false apology or fake sob story. "This week has been a long time coming. So let's be very clear. I am not going to try and trick you. I lied about being able to fly, and I always knew, even from a young age, that I could not fly. This was wrong and I should have never done it, and I want to make it up to everypony that I have let down."
Pipp paused to check the chat, wincing a little as she saw little change in the anger that had been thrown her way. She mentally floundered as she searched for a way to try and drag herself back. The chat's words were starting to nibble into her, but she mentally brushed it off. Pipp could take a little heat, she had done something wrong after all.
"I know that a lot of you are angry with me, and that is okay. I did do something wrong and I should not expect a simple apology to make everything okay. So I am going to stay on this live stream as long as I can and answer anything you want as truthfully as I can. If I am honest, I hope that you can understand why I did what I did and why I now need your help."
She glanced at the chat and paused for a few seconds to see what appeared in chat, though she was disappointed as the insults just seemed to fly. Normally her mods would've done a decent job and kept the chat somewhat under control, but she could see that they were joining in on the attack. She wasn't going to get much help from them. However, with a little perseverance, she eventually did start to see actual questions appear, though they were far from helpful.
"Let's see," Pipp mumbled as she read through the questions, hoping to desperately find something reasonable. There just simply wasn't anything she could answer. There wasn't any way to give a nice answer to a question asking for you to tear off your own wings. Pipp sighed and decided to just start at the top.
"Alright MarelyWeird asks, are you an earth pony with fake wings?" Pipp scoffed as she fluttered her wings at the thought that they were false. She beat her wings and hovered in the air, lifting up the phone so that they could get a proper view of her. "I can fly now that magic is back, my wings are and always have been real. Okay? Let's see what is next."
"SquidStallion asks, how are they real if your wings are so fluffy?." Pipp paused and rolled her eyes as she hovered back to the ground, flaring her wings as wide as she could manage so that the camera would easily see them. "I spend an hour preening them every day to make sure that they look this way. It takes a lot of effort to make them look like this. On to the next question."
"There's got to be something else," Pipp muttered as she scanned the chat as questions shot by. She skipped over far too many questions about whether the fluffiness of her wings meant that they were fake. Pipp felt the bite of the negative comments start to sharpen, but she was resilient. Finally, Pipp got to a question that wasn't about her wings, however, it was becoming harder and harder to actually find questions. The chat was getting angrier by the second and Pipp knew that she was not making things better.
"ErammarE wanted to know why I never told anyone that I couldn't fly," Pipp chuckled, "well done for being the first to not complain about how much I preen my wings. So this isn't an easy question for me to answer for a lot of reasons, and some of those reasons are not as simple as others."
Pipp knew that she was rambling, but the sad truth is that she didn't really have a decent answer for this. The main reason was because her mother told her to lie, and Pipp didn't see much reason to go against her. However, she also didn't want to just blame everything on her mother. That did little to make the chat's harsh comments not start to dig into her, forcing her to focus on appearing happy so that they wouldn't see a mopey Pipp.
"Look, I just don't have a good reason for what I did." Pipp nervously admitted, trying to balance being truthful with the actual truth. "I was always hiding it from the day I was born, so it took a long time before I even realized that I was hiding something that mattered. So it just never really reached a point for me to realize that I had to tell everypony."
Pipp winced as she saw the chat respond especially poorly to her statement. There was a verifiable flood of angry face emojis flowing over her screen as her audience took offence. This was far from the reaction that she was hoping to get, but she wasn't that surprised. Pipp carefully took her next breathe calmly, making sure to at least appear unconcerned. She knew that an over-reaction was always taken worse than an under-reaction. Crying or yelling can be endlessly rehoofed across the net before the stream even ended, but a calm Pipp reading comments were much harder to meme.
Unfortunately angry emoticons was not even the start of issues heading her way as she felt her phone vibrate with a notification. Pretending the read through the chat, Pipp checked the message to see that it was from one of the brands she represented. Pipp quickly schooled her features as she read the message informing her that they were no longer going to be working together.
She switched back to the chat to see the insults start to appear, accusations flying and even threats threading their way through the comments. She gulped nervously as the vitriol spread. They were no longer asking insulting questions, they had moved on to outright attacks on her. When she had started the comments were mostly disappointment with a small amount of hope that she would fix everything. Now they were outright hatred, and she quickly closed the chat so that she wouldn't need to look at it. No pony could read that and feel okay.
Pipp froze as the wall of hatred hit her, their words digging deep into her and repeatedly reminding her that she had failed them all. She valiantly tried to push past it and return to the search for questions, but it was just simply too much. The comments were flying quickly through the chat almost faster than she could process them, every comment that she did process doing its best to tear just a little more away from her. Desperately she tried to keep a smile on her face and not cry.
She could feel herself reaching her limit and knew that she had to end this. Feeling like an absolute failure, Pipp ran through a quick non-committal farewell before killing the live stream. Her hoof almost missed the end stream button due to her shaking so much.
Feeling utterly overwhelmed, Pipp sat down on the ground and stared at her hooves, her phone lying on the ground now that she no longer had the energy to keep holding it. Pipp stared into the nothingness around her, unsure of what she was supposed to do now. For years her audience had been the closest thing she had to friends, stuck in the castle on her own; she hadn't had many other options. Sure Zipp had tried to get along with her, but they were siblings.
When she first found Trotter it had being amazing to find so many other ponies that she could talk to and spend virtual time with. Pipp sighed as she thought back on the early days, back when her follower count was in the two-digit range and she could actually read every comment or trot sent her way. It had been so wonderfully peaceful back then and little Pipp had made so very many silly mistakes in those early years.
Pipp quickly rubbed the moisture out of her eyes. This evening's live stream was a wake-up call to her. Her followers were not just her fans, they were the closest things that she had to friends. Or they were until Sunny, Izzy and Hitch turned up. But she didn't want to lose her old friends to get her new ones. She needed them more than she ever wanted to admit to anypony, and now they were gone. Her friends now hated her.
A smaller part of her felt even worse to realize that her audience had never been her friend at all, she pushed that part deeper. There were just some things that she just wasn't ready to deal with.
The friends that got her through her younger years now despised her and wouldn't care if they found her in a ditch with broken wings. Some would even want to make that a reality. She did know that for most of the comments they were exaggerating their anger to make sure that she saw it, but that did little to make her feel better. The deepest hurt was just knowing that her old friends hated her.
Pipp closed her eyes and took two deep breaths, putting her hoof against her forehead to calm herself. She could feel herself slowly calming down, but it was far from enough. So she repeated the breaths again, in and out over and over. She focused on each breath, pushing everything else away as she pushed herself to calm. It took a long time, but she did eventually manage to centre herself and pull herself back to a level head.
She knew that as bad as everything had gone so far, she couldn't just give up and lead Sunny to a city full of angry pegasi. Pipp wanted to fix this, and she needed to fix this, so she was going to do her absolute best to fix it.
"Come on think," Pipp muttered to herself as she racked her brain in a desperate attempt to try and resolve the mess that was unravelling before her. Her audience despised her, that was unfortunate but not unexpected. "So your audience doesn't like you. You already know that. Push past it and work out what options you have."
Pipp tried to pull the threads together but she couldn't find any way to make them want to actually listen to her long enough. If she couldn't work out a way to sort this out, then Sunny would be walking into a dangerous riot tomorrow. She had seen the tech shown off at Canterlogic and it had been scary, but she knew that the Pegasi didn't need fancy tech to be dangerous. All it took was one angry or scared flying pony and Sunny would find herself falling into a ravine somewhere. Pipp knew that she had to sort this out, and she had to do it now.
Pipp paused and tapped the phone off as a thought struck her. She had been going about this all wrong, she didn't need to fix their public image of her. She just needed to get them to change their view of the other pony races. Pipp frowned as she followed that trail of thought as it just led straight back in a circle. The best way she could think of to fix their view of the other races would be to have someone they respected convince them.
Pipp ran over the options she could think of, anyone with a decent audience that she could use to try and help. However, she quickly came up mostly empty. Zephyr News would have been an okay option if they were actually interested in reporting newsworthy content, but they mostly just existed to add commentary to her live streams from what she could see. To make things more awkward, they were currently very clearly using Pipp's negative attention to make themselves the de facto source of gossip across the city.
So they were a worse option than Pipp herself.
There was really only one other option that Pipp could think of, and she knew it was a long shot. Pipp had been an influencer for years in Zephyr, running in the spotlight leagues ahead of everypony else. However, there was one other who could've easily joined her in the spotlight.
Her sister, Zipp.
Zipp was not a fan of the influencer lifestyle, she saw it as invasive and irritating. She also loved to complain to Pipp about how the whole thing was vapid and annoying. However, Pipp knew that Zipp's real issue was that it was just overly political at times and she wanted to spend her time getting away from the politics that invaded their lives. Pipp embraced it, Zipp instead chose to have a sensible work-life balance.
"Zipp would have a much easier time showing that she was doing the right thing," Pipp smiled as a plan began to form. There was a lot of risk behind it, and Zipp would probably not be happy with Pipp when she found out. However, Pipp didn't see any other way to convince everypony in Zephyr Heights.
Pipp was going to tell everypony about Zipp's secret flight research, and she was going to make Zephyr love Zipp. However, for tonight, she just wanted to find somepony who wanted to cuddle. Somepony who cared.
Sunny's couch was not the most luxurious couch that Zipp had gotten to sleep on. Zipp was a princess after all and that had allowed her to enjoy some of the softest couches and beds known to pony kind. However she was still a pegasus that liked her naps, so even Sunny's subpar couch was good enough.
Thankfully Sunny's home was not entirely destroyed by Scout's robotic menace. The living area had been mostly intact. So after the repair ponies had finished checking it over and shoring up a few walls, Zipp made sure to claim the couch as soon as she could to enjoy a proper nap. Sunny wisely decided to go distract Izzy and let Zipp enjoy the relaxation, and Zipp only needed to beg for a few minutes.
Zipp had almost gotten to fall asleep when she was jostled awake by a pair of soft hooves shaking her. Groaning, she opened her eyes to see that Pipp was currently kneeling next to her looking nervous. Zipp's complaints died as she saw the worried expression on her little sister's face. Groaning, she sat up, giving Pipp a quick glance as she did so.
"Can I stay with you for a bit?" Pipp asked nervously, biting her lip.
Zipp wanted to ask what was wrong, but she knew that her sister would just clam up at the first sign of a question. Instead she just sat up properly and unfurled a wing, gesturing for Pipp to settle down beside her. Pipp didn't hesitate, settling down into her sister's embrace and sighing as Zipp covered her with a wing. It had been a long time since Pipp had needed a proper wing cuddle from Zipp, but it had been a very stressful day.
"You look exhausted," Zipp pointed out, hoping that her little sister would take the bait and tell Zipp what was wrong. Unfortunately Pipp didn't comment, so Zipp curled her front leg around her sister's back. Pipp put up no resistance as Zipp pulled her close, letting them both settle into the warmth between them. Pipp was soon resting her head on Zipp's shoulder with her eyes closed as she tried to push away the bad thoughts.
"I tried to live stream," Pipp began before wincing at the negative thoughts that followed up her failure. "It didn't go all that well."
There was a long pause as Zipp waited for Pipp to continue, before realizing that she did not want to talk to her about it. Rolling her eyes she shuffled closer and arched her wing to better wrap her dejected sister into a proper wing cuddle. Pulling Pipp into her lap so that they could have a proper cuddle.
"I'm sure the next one will go better," Zipp responded quietly.
"I don't think they want me" Pipp mumbled miserably as she tried to move closer. Zipp responded by tightening her hug and settling her chin on to the top of Pipp's head. Pipp felt her eyelids start to grow heavy in her sister's comforting cuddles. "My friends are all gone."
"I'm always here for you, sis," Zipp tiredly mumbled as she felt Pipp's breathing begin to slow. "Why don't you have a nap and forget it for now?"
"I need you, Zipp." Pipp sleepily returned as she shuffled deeper into the sisterly embrace and let sleep take her. The quiet tell tale sounds of Pipp's adorable snoring soon filled the room as Zipp settled down against her sister. Zipp didn't fall asleep as easily, worrying about what Pipp had said.
Zipp had trouble returning to her nap. Her thoughts stuck on Pipp as she thought over the misery that Pipp had accidentally let her know. In the past Pipp had always tried to keep a perfect mask of happiness to drive up her glamour mare persona, however Zipp had always been able to see through it. However this was the first time that Pipp hadn't made any efforts at all to pretend to be happy. The idea that Pipp would just give up worried Zipp a lot.
Pipp's relationship with her audience had always been one that made Zipp worried. To find her sister so openly sharing so much of her life with everyone in the kingdom was not something that Zipp would ever understand. Pipp did seem to enjoy the attention, though Zipp did not even begin to know why. In the past Zipp and her mother had both worried that it was just some sort of short term obsession, but over the years it had simply grown. Now the social media empire that Pipp had created was one that Zipp worried about. All it would take was a few more bad experiences, and Zipp worried that Pipp would fully withdraw into the online world.
Zipp vowed to try and pull Pipp away from her phone and spend some more time with her three new real friends. Unfortunately, Zipp knew that tearing the phone away from her sister's hooves was an impossibility. So she would just have to keep an eye on her sister and try to push Pipp away from the online world and instead focus on the real one.
Zipp's musings were interrupted as she heard a call from Izzy about lunch. Pipp groaned from her lap, knowing that the short period of peace between them was over.