Group Precipitation

by FanOfMostEverything

/r/ise, by FoME

Vignette moved in a world of data. Hers was a realm of trends, metrics, networks. Especially networks. People weren’t important. Views were. Likes were. Shares, rechirps, follows, likes, subscriptions, the numbers were what gave any social media diva life. If your numbers weren’t going up, odds were that soon, you’d be going down.

The changing world meant little to her at first. Wider fingernails meant more real estate for manicure pics, but it was barely worth mentioning compared to Gofessional camera feeds of people flying under their own power. But then her phone spoke to her in a way that had nothing to do with the speaker.

And she listened.

And she learned.

The knowledge persisted as Vignette traded in for the latest model. She couldn’t be seen with something outdated, after all. Charmingly retro or vintage was one thing, but last year’s phone was neither. But it was still her phone. Something, some intangible but definitely present essence, carried over.

The upgrade to Paradiamond Mobile was more a formality than anything. Vignette had spent so much time and energy with her closest, truest friend that it was basically self-aware anyway, and that awareness was part of what she’d brought to the new model. But with the upgrade came so much more.

Vignette knew about augmented reality. She distinctly remembered her scathing takedown of the unforgivable dorkiness of Gillion Glass. But once her phone truly had a mind of its own, one that she had fed and nourished with her own magic during its development, she could truly experience AR the way it was meant to be. She never went without her feeds. She composed her posts by thought alone and watched the views climb in real time. Snapgab, Immediagram, MyStable, all eternally at her fingertips, the windows untethered to any screen, instead floating about her in a cloud only she could see.

As she bounced off the asphalt, the truck’s horn still ringing in her ears, she supposed that she could’ve made that cloud a teensy bit thinner when crossing the street.

Vignette wasn’t very tough or strong like other earth aspects. She’d given too much of herself to her phone to have much in the way of physical magic. But three million people knew she existed. Three million souls hung on her every word. Three million minds believed she was still alive.

The numbers gave a social media diva life. What was one girl’s opinion compared to that?

As she stumbled to her feet, hearing bones grind against one another, Vignette knew this wasn’t something she could just brush off. But it wasn’t that big a change.

After all, she’d always lived on her phone.

Author's Note:

Some liches create their phylacteries through great expense and mastery of the arcane. Some just put so much of their soul into something that it ends up with the majority share.

Comments

[Darkstarling]

Well, I suppose it's lucky that she and her phone are friends isn't it. The Magic of Friendship manifesting as Lichdom...Sunset is going to have a field day with this one.

[Sam the Anti-Ninja]

Well the plus side is, if she's truly a lich, she's now got all eternity to shitpost for subs. Imagine how big her (pony universe equivalent of) Patreon will get.

Downside is, lichdom comes with the obvious price of your soul being tethered to an object. And hers is stuck in a smartphone. Better not drop it.(Unless we're going off the idea that her soul reinforces the physical properties of her phylactery to make it less fragile.)

[Darkstarling]

9062398
She'd better not drop it, but it's an AI in it's own right so it should be able to call for help. And it's not like she can't upgrade.

Really, it's less like having a specific phylactery and more like she's got a spirit holding most of her soul that happens to manifest possessing her smart phone.

[Eroraf86]

Some just put so much of their soul into something that it ends up with the majority share.

Like Sauron and the Ring. He needed to pour the better part of his power and being into it in order to control the other Rings of Power. The obvious downside was, when the Ring was destroyed, all that power went with it, and Sauron was no longer able to manifest.

I hope that doesn't mean that if Vignette's phone was destroyed, she would go with it. Good thing that particular kind of stray Equestrian magic isn't a thing in this 'verse, right?

[WanderingPony]

Soul Intergrated Memory cards are thankfully transferrable between new phylacteries phones, after all.

[Orbiting Kettle]

I interpreted it as her essence latching on the idea of her phone more than on the physical aspect of her current phone.

Are we going to have a numina epidemic now?

[FortunateKitsune]

-soft whistle- wowzers.

[Snowdrifter]

Well, with all the phone zombies we already have, this isn't that much of a stretch.

[Speven Dillberg]

A lich bound to a powerful computer device? Sounds very Shadowrun to me.
And I wonder what would happen if a hardcore gamer accidentally turned their rig into a phylactery. Would upgrading/replacing parts degrade the bond between the two, or is just the idea enough to keep the bond?

[A.P.O.N.I.]

If she ever starts using cloud storage, then finding and destroying her phylactery becomes several orders of magnitude more difficult.

[Darkstarling]

9063640
It’s the Ship of Theseus problem. I’d say as long as the game system keeps its identity, even if the parts change, you’re fine. Especially since in this story a complete swap of the hardware didn’t lose it.

[Void Knight]

9063640

9064324

Yeah, I’d say that as long as it thinks of itself as the same phone/gaming rig/whatever, you’re fine.

[FanOfMostEverything]

9062395
Thus far, Sunset remains unaware of the nature of Vignette's reanimation. Video of Vignette shaking off the crash went viral, but no one realizes just how bad the damage was or the means by which she "survived" the impact.

9062398
I use "Benefacteor" for Patreon's local Bland Name Product equivalent. And, as Darkstarling noted, Vignette's phone is in a weird middle ground between conventional phylactery, a digital analogue (heh) to a psychic lich's astral legend, and a soul-storing familiar a la Nagini.

9062511 9062552 9063273 9063640
It's as 9066890 says, in part because Vignette is too... let's say "straightforward" to appreciate the complexities of the Ship of Theseus problem. ("If he owns it, it's his ship. If I own it, it's my phone. Dee-you-aitch.")

That said, the same principle would probably apply to just about anyone else. Further study would be required to know for certain, but this isn't exactly the most ethical field of research.

9063707
Starts? Please. Bits of Vignette's anima found their way onto servers all around the world by the end of the week.

[Ri2]

If the truck had run over the phone, too, would that have killed her?

[FanOfMostEverything]

9070085
It would've definitely hurt her. Without that physical fallback, she'd need to rely on remaining in the public consciousness. It's a bit like The Maker's Reject; until Valencia could get a new phone, she would exist only so long as people remembered she did and thought of her as living. And damaged as her physical body would be, it wouldn't be easy to make any kind of purchase.

Of course, given how tough her phone has become, a truck running over it would crack the screen and case, but it wouldn't render the device inoperable.

[Ri2]

9070101
Damn. (Sorry, I dislike Vignette.)

And the Maker's Reject reference makes me sad.

[cyberlord4444]

9062398
Easy fix, upload her soul to the Cloud

[Noctis Prism]

.....Oh sweet holy fucking shit. She became an INTERNET linked and empowered Liche in a world fueled by emotional and building ambient magic that transmits along all wave forms and attached her soul to her phone on top of that.

Yep, there is MASSIVE danger here.

[BenRG]

Some time later, Vignette is going to wake up somewhere strange, surrounded by weird Technomagic stuff and with Sunset Shimmer looking down at her with compassion in her eyes. "We need to talk to you about keeping your soul safe," she's going to explain as Rarity walks over. "Then my friend's going to need to talk to you about how to maintain a public profile without being consumed by it."

[Malandy]

Wait... is it Winter Lights who is gathering the Equestrian Magic Infused Objects?

So, Vignette is gonna have her phone taken soon? Or recruited into one of the Conspiracies?

[Frustration in Excelsis]

...

Huh.