Group Precipitation

by FanOfMostEverything

Holy Hugbox, by FoME

"Sunset," Rarity said one fine spring day at lunch, "I fear we need to do something about your worshipers."

Well, it had been a fine spring day, at least.

Sunset snorted. "Sorry, how many times have you tried to get Sweetie to worship you?"

"This isn't about me, darling, it's about the Digital Positivists."

"That's a new one," said Rainbow Dash.

Twilight shook her head. "It's actually one of the older ones. They believe that rather than ephemeral prayer or fleeting gestures, the best way to show their devotion is to like, upvote, or otherwise positively respond to anything and everything with Sunset in it on social media."

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "An' you jus' knew that off the top o' yer head."

"I'm the cohost of the holy vlog. It's hard to miss them when they turn every comments section into an an almost unbroken string of 'Praise Sunset.' At least they make sure the videos trend." Twilight crossed her arms and scowled. "Even if the term positivism should refer to empirical certainty."

Sunset sighed. "What did they do this time?"

"Well," said Rarity, "the problem lies with the Radical branch of the faith."

"Because that always bodes well," Sunset said as she rolled her eyes. "Shimmerists who explicitly call themselves 'Radical.'"

Dash frowned. "What's so bad about that?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "Different kind of radical."

That just deepened the frown. "This is the whole 'awesome' thing all over again, isn't it?"

"What other ones are there?" said Pinkie.

"The Orthodox branch," said Twilight. "They only feel the need to like and comment on images and videos that clearly have Sunset's face on or in them."

Rarity resignedly rested her head in a hand. "Whereas the Radical branch feels they must show their favor to anything even vaguely Sunset-related: A picture of her icon, a leather jacket with orange accents, a portrait of her done in ketchup and mustard."

Pinkie perked up and whipped out her phone. "Ooh, I've seen that one!" She shoved it in Sunset's face, letting her see an admittedly impressive likeness given the materials. "It took them four tries to get the blend for your skin tone just right!"

"And now, by the 'Six Degrees of Crispy Bacon' principle—Oh!" Rarity brought a hand to her mouth. "No relation, darling, he's an actor."

Sunset gave her a flat look. "I'm not that pop-culture illiterate, Rarity."

"We can never be too sure. By said principle, they've decided that my TackNote posts are fair game."

After a few moments of contemplation, Sunset said, "So... you're upset because you're getting bunches of likes?"

Rarity shook her head. "Bunches of meaningless likes. I use social media as a neutral observer, a million unbiased eyes who can tell me if my vision is truly as inspired as I believe it to be or if it's..." She cringed. "Well, Carousel Couture."

Applejack put a hand on her shoulder. "I thought that dress was nice."

"You're a sweetheart, dearest," Rarity said with a pitying smile, "but it made me look like a desk lamp. And even you can tell me no sometimes. The Positivists would like me wearing a burlap sack, just because I'm close enough to Sunset that they feel it's their duty to like it. They've turned my sounding board into an echo chamber."

Sunset gave a helpless shrug. "You know I can't control my worshipers, Rarity, and it's not for lack of trying. I'm sorry about this, but I don't know what you expect me to do."

"Actually," said Twilight, "I think I have an idea..."

---

Sunset frowned at the monitor, almost physically nauseous from unease. "I'm really not sure about this."

Twilight had on a wide smile, the one she wore when she was too enchanted with the theory to see any problems that might show up in the execution. "Once I proposed it, every influencer on the Net got onboard."

Sunset winced. "I have been eating into their viewer base, haven't I? But are you sure this will work?"

"It fills a vital niche. The Digital Positivists didn't really have a place to congregate, given their online form of worship. At best, they had forums where they'd post images of you or links to them." Twilight gestured to the website "But now they have a content aggregator that lets them praise you without disrupting anyone else!"

The site displayed rows upon rows of Sunset and Sunset-related images, along with yellow upthumbs and red downthumbs. Twilight had assured Sunset that the graphics settings let users toggle which was which.

"Sunnibooru..." Sunset grimaced. "Is this one going to achieve self-awareness?"

"Gillion said it would keep anything else from bootstrapping."

"That's not a ye—" Sunset's jaw clicked shut as a horrible realization hit her.

Twilight finally looked away from the monitor. "What?"

"There's porn of me on here, isn't there?"

"I haven't looked," Twilight said with a shrug.

"Guess."

After a few moments, Twilight shrugged again. "It's hard to say. On the one hand, you're their object of worship. On the other, you're an attractive young woman, it's the Internet, and it's not strictly against site policy."

Sunset massaged her temples. "You apes are so lucky my default state is serene tranquility."

Author's Note:

It really does make her look like a desk lamp.

Comments

[LEGION55]

"Sunnibooru..."

"There's porn of me on here, isn't there?"

HA!!!!!

[keroko]

Oh Twilight, you think porn of Sunset would be limited to just her human form?

[Darkstarling]

Porn of various deities is deeply traditional. Heck, sometimes it could be considered a form of worship...

[Thought Prism]

You continuously mine so much humor out of this AU, it's great.

[Crack-Fic Casey]

"You're a sweetheart, dearest," Rarity said with a pitying smile, "but it made me look like a desk lamp."

"Sugar, if you were dressed like a desk lamp everyone else would still look like a hobo by comparison."

[Neece]

"There's porn of me on here, isn't there?"

Did it really take her this long to realize?!?

[Dark Feather]

10064952
Vary true.
I think the Abrahimic is the only one to doge that.

[EnderHooves]

Not just some porn, Sunset, it's mostly porn!

[cogwheelbrain]

There's probably an entire sub-industry in the porn industry that's devoted to turning out Sunni videos.

[Crack-Fic Casey]

"There's porn of me on here, isn't there?"

"I haven't looked," Twilight said with a shrug.

We remeber your calendar, Twilight. You lie.

[LEGION55]

10065337
Which chapter was that again?

[Crack-Fic Casey]

10065728
I dunno, trying to find things in this book is like searching through a mountain that's sitting on top of a bigger mountian.

[LEGION55]

10065738
Aw. Tell me if you ever remember.

[FanOfMostEverything]

10064883 10064884 10065088 10065106 10065220
Rule 34 is a cruel mistress.

10064952
If they ever organize, I'm not writing any stories about them.

10065067
"True. But I do still try to look my best."

10065728 10065738
I download the whole thing as a text file for ease of searching. Kai's referring to "Heavenly Bodies."

[LEGION55]

10065753
Yes, yes it is. and thanks.

[keroko]

10065337
To be fair, she's probably just saying she hasn't looked here. Yet.

[MixMassBasher]

Ha! The reference at the end

[Herald of Opera]

10064952
I mean, given how much sex Zeus got up to in the myths, that's probably true?

Come to think of it, did he ever have children with his actual wife?

[Darkstarling]

10088087
Pretty sure Hephaestus, Artemis, and Ares are theirs. There might be more.

[Herald of Opera]

10088090
No, Hephaestus was Hera deciding to get even with Zeus for the whole Athena thing by engaging in her own case of parthenogenesis. Yes, even though Hephaestus was a key part of Athena's birth. Look, classical mythology doesn't have a "canon" the way Abrahamic religions do, so there's stuff like this that nobody has the authority to fix.

[Darkstarling]

10088097
Or, alternatively, we ALL have the authority to fix... unless we are smote from on high for our presumption of course. Such is the risk of authorship.

[fausticornrules]

10096724
Why can't I save comments?! How do you not choke the feature box dead with writing like this?!

Write something, please!! You're so eloquent!

Seriously, you remind me of Jordan179, another author on here.

[BenRG]

Hands up who was initially expecting Sunset's exhausted-sounding traditional response of: "Have they begun starting wars yet?" In this case, the answer would have been 'yes'. Internet upvote/downvote wars being just as destructive as the more physical version!

[Bookwurm666]

"Sunset," Rarity said one fine spring day at lunch, "I fear we need to do something about your worshipers."

Can we throw them into a volcano?