We pray that you enjoy today’s story as much as we did.

Part-time Goddess (and the Church of Post)
[Comedy] [Slice of Life] • 6,257 words

In this day and age, who has time to be a God? Prayers come in 24/7 and fancy dress is compulsory. Rainbow Dash certainly doesn’t have time. She’s got bills to pay and things to do. Besides, she isn’t qualified for Godhood, surely.

The ponies who say her control of the weather is divine disagree, unfortunately. They’ve given her a funny spear and a robe that doesn’t quite fit. They’ve got their own temple and they take church seriously.

And it turns out she’s not the only pony recently undergone apotheosis…

FROM THE CURATORS: While nothing about this religious romp was serious, it was seriously engaging.  “The more I think about it, the more it comes to me just how memorable the fic is,” Soge said.  “The concept itself is very appealing, with a really Pythonesque strand of humor to it.”  Present Perfect agreed, while praising the nuance with which it approached a potentially divisive topic: “This is just an enormously original piece that’s happily well executed.  It pokes fun at the concept of religion, something we’ve really never seen in the show, without being offensive.”

That approach both highlighted the story’s central comedy and its excellent character work.  “It’s a silliness borne of everypony treating Dash’s apotheosis like a perfectly un-extraordinary event, coupled with Dash’s pitch-perfect reactions to the whole shebang,” Chris said.  “She’s more or less the straight mare, and yet she still manages to steal most of the best lines in the fic.”  But Rainbow Dash was far from the only exemplary portrayal.  “It helps that all the characterizations are so memorable and accurate,” Soge said.  “Even characters with a single speaking line are portrayed true to canon, and the author has a knack for using them in comedic situations that work well with their personalities.”

And all throughout, the story kept up a crisp and consistent humor.  “‘Brandistock’ is an amazingly funny word,” Present Perfect said. “Just the fact that Dash trips over it, takes it to show Twilight, and then carries it around for the rest of the story really illustrates what makes the humor work in this piece.”  That merging of the sublime and the ridiculous sent this coasting toward a feature, as AugieDog said: “I’m a big fan of stories that employ this sort of straight-forward, matter-of-fact goofiness.  There’s none of this ‘vast cosmic power’ stuff: it’s mostly just about the costume Dash has to wear now.  The way that it’s portrayed just makes me grin every time I think about it.”

Read on for our author interview, in which HapHazred discusses peg displacement, disqualified Scotsmen, and perfect Pope ponies.
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