Reset Password
Resend Verification Email
16
59
86
Joined January 2012
161
7,283
7,283 ( 7,283 )
Princess Celestia helps to banish a hoofful of inner demons lurking deep in the heart of a troubled author. Metafiction, again, ensues. Something of a coda to "Princess Celestia Hates Tea".
<
161
7,283
Slice of Life
0
30329
93519
Groups
-
49w, 6dTwilestia is Bestia
-
13w, 18hPony Fiction Vault
-
4w, 6dProtect Celestia
-
6w, 3dCompleted Story Compendium
161
7,283
More
Less
Comments ( 161 )
Post Comment
Refresh
The kind of story I find myself appreciating more and more tends to focus on opening an image and exploring it in order to produce a metaphor, and I thought the Yixing teacup's relation to storycraft was well turned. Princess Celestia also speaks like Princess Celestia -- ever-patient, tranquil, at peace with non-peace (especially when that non-peace comes through Twilight)...
Look at me, spewing all of this pretentious garbage. I'm practically eating out of your hoof, aren't I?
So, I have to wonder, where in the process of writing Princess Celestia Hates Tea did the conception of this particular, cute little tale arrive? Before? During? After?
And would Twilight really write "heartbreakingly sculpted muzzle" in a story assignment she was going to give to Celestia to read? Oh my! She's very revealing about herself, especially in those first few paragraphs.
Next I'm going to write a story about a fictional version of Twilight Sparkle writing a story about how she wrote a fictional version of Twilight Sparkle who was obsessing about having written a story about Princess Celestia not liking tea. And so on. It will be a beautiful Jenga tower of navel-gazing.
Image: http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/i-see-what-you-did-there.png>>697253 I had a feeling there was an undertone of forwardness there. I was about to ask if this was actually the prelude to ANOTHER layer of story, which is the 3rd person comedy/romance story you write about Twilight trying to win over Princess Celestia.
Specifically when you said, "not another one of these," what were you referencing?
"I love wasabi, usually. I love saunas and cold showers. I love hot ginger beer. I love things that make me feel, because I spent so many years of my life not feeling and not even particularly caring if I felt or not, and I'm really trying to make up for lost time, here. But it hardly seemed fitting to be coughing and hacking in the presence of the Princess.
It's not even the rudeness that I'm most concerned about. The worst thing about acting like a lump of sapient clay in front of the most perfect and regal creature on the face of the planet is…"
LOVELY. i LOVE what you did there. Never seen anypony else do it before, why the hell not?
A great story.
P.S. And to think, Celestia Hates Tea hasn't even left the featured box yet.
> "There will never be a perfect cup of tea served in Yixing teaware," said the Princess, nodding. "Each cup brewed is different than the last, as the teaware itself moves through time." She looked at me, then, whimsically sly. "Through teatime, specifically. But one thing is certain: each cup, good or not-as-good, will do nothing but increase the delightful complexity of the next. There is never an end to the process, never a single perfect iteration. Eventually, after hundreds more years, I may arrive at a point where I am drinking something so close to the perfect cup that it might as well be that thing. But, until that far-off day, every cup of tea I drink has value in the essence it gives to the future. Is my parable clear, my Faithful Student?"
Woa. That was brilliant.
"For all my years, and for all the sorrowful things I have witnessed, I have seen an equal measure of joy, and I am very much at peace."
While I buy the first line about not being deeply turmoiled, I don't believe Celestia when she says she's very much at piece. Life is full of conflict that destroys that piece and unless this Celestia has shut her inner self from the world, I don't see it as possible for her not to be plagued inner demons and doubts.
Congrats on having TWO stories in the feature box!
The features have been doubled!
Image: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/shrug_Luna_apple.png
Gotta get on that.
"Contraptionology!" has Twilight as a minor side player / contributing antagonist, and "...Tea" basically has her as the principal antagonist. It was beginning to make me feel (a) like people would think I was hating on the character or (b) like I was actually hating on the character. Time for some Twilove, says the writer-brain. Hence, this.
I was referring purely to her characterization, not your motivations for said depiction.
I never assumed you didn't like her. Observatory Hill starred her. You write her too earnestly, even when slightly corrupted, to not enjoy her as a character. Even though you kinda called her fat in this fic.
It wasn't even that bad after fics like "Why didn't I stay at the farm" and "The Business Trip".
I'm not a fan of meta as a rule... but I was won over by this. What's particularly impressive is that it's a really very decent story in its own right, even for those who've never read "...Tea". Making an in-joke that's still accessible to outsiders takes quite something.
It's funny you describe Twilight as the antagonist, because I had initially put down 'Princess Celestia Hates Tea' after the first scene and the entirety of my thought process about it at the time was, I kid you not, "Oh, I don't like Tyrant!Celestia fics."
So suffice it to say I consider Twilight the sympathetic character there and Celestia at best a victim of karma. Didn't she get a friendship report about keeping secrets from her friends?
Image: http://0.tqn.com/d/webtrends/1/0/B/A/-/-/okay-meme-face.jpg
See, that's interesting, because my professors always used to teach me that, sympathetic or no, the protagonist is the character you're following, and the antagonist is that which opposes that character. I guess their take was that those words should be stripped of moral or sympathetic connotations. I don't honestly know for certain which shade of meaning is correct.
EDIT: Of course, my guilt at possibly hating on her means that, whatever my professors taught me, my gut feeling says you're correct.
LMFAO this story came dangerously close to breaking the fourth wall near the end there.
Exquisitely executed. I could totally see this as Twilight's literary voice. Makes me want to read her memoirs, thoguh of course she'd have to be an old mare near death for them to be really interesting, and I don't think any of us want that...
On a different note, if every cup poured into in a piece of Yixing earthenware covers, say, 5% of the remaining distance between the first tea poured into it and the perfect ideal of tea, then over time, the tea will asymptotically approach that perfection, but never quite get there. I guess you might call it...
Teano's Paradox.
Seems a bit indulgent, writing this, but it's a good thing it's been written, because it's still really godamn good.
Also, this kind of thing always makes me feel bad. Princess Celestia saying words to the effect of "Everyone makes all these assumptions about me" made me go all "Oh no, she KNOWS!". Internally, of course.
Wow, that was actually pretty deep and gave pretty important writing lesson. It also simplified the requirments for making a decent story. A journey is made and that is all you need to accomplish. The rest is simply tips and hints to make it better. Good descriptions, emotional explainations, semi-logical causes and effects, instilling a moral or underlaying message... It's all secondary to the journey itself. As long as there is coherent "forward" movement, there will be interest.
Granted, I'm sure I already knew it to some extent but you just simplified it and put it into words. Love the meta spin off way you did this though!
Lol, other fic right next to it in the box!
That was what I was always told. Protagonist and antagonist don't hold any moral power; they simply describe a character's place in the plot. Protagonists are those who aim to resolve the conflict in the story, while antagonists oppose them. The protagonist doesn't even need to be the main character: Watchmen is a pretty good example of this. Personally, I'd put Celly in the protagonist role (she's trying to resolve the unfortunate situation in which she must drink tea), while every other pony in the story is an antagonist, trying to stop her from doing so.
In other news, I had the happiest smile while reading this. It's so sweet :3
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I was getting lonely for Actual Twilight after Crazy Demented Twilight of "Contraptionology!" and Earnestly Mad Twilight of "...Tea". I love her dearly.
For the record, despite the fact that Applejack implies that Twilight is "chubby" in "Contraptionology!" and despite the fact that she here more-or-less goes on the record as worrying about her weight, these are not descriptors I myself would use in speaking of her.
I sure am, and am indeed happy to hear that. 
Sorry to butt in into your conversation, but do you mean him?
Image: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m27cspVHEo1r1qodgo2_1280.pngThere were several propositions for his name, but here he's temporarily listed as Snowflake. 
Quite fitting, I might add. 
> And while I have no illusions that writing a bizarrely popular story makes me a "good" writer, even by my own pragmatic standards it really wasn't even that good.
Actually, one thing that strikes me as being a bit hard-to-swallow about this scenario is trying to imagine that young Twilight Sparkle, erudite though she may be, could have produced something as polished as Celestia Hates Tea. The dialog alone -- from Celestia's relatively stilted (but eloquent!) language, to Twilight's episode-accurate speech patterns, to Poetry Slam's beatnik doubletalk -- seemed to me like the mark of someone who's hammered out a lot of prose. The story was so well written, I actually transcribed portions of it into my "Clever Turns of Phrase" notebook for future reference.
I wouldn't have expected Twilight Sparkle's literary talents to extend so far in that direction.
Yo Sky,
Both stories were awesome, but this one takes the cake, adds strawberry coulis, whipped cream icing (the REAL stuff), sprinkles and a huge dollop of green tea ice cream on top. (BTW the cake is angel-food cake spongy enough to make memory foam obsolete!)
That is to say I really enjoyed it tremendously. Well done!
And thanks.
Dafaddah
Nah. I was thinking more along the lines of trying to apply your talents to a long term not-first person not-comedy story. Just to test your own limits.
On a side note, I'm gonna write a shipfic with a pair that I don't think has been attempted before, even though they are both prominent characters with several speaking lines. It's going to be a ScootaLuna story called "The Biker and the Princess," told throught the eyes of Scootaloo. What do you think?
Aside from Princess Celestia Hates Tea, I don't really read a whole lot of fic on this site. This was, admittedly, about the fourth story I've read so far. I don't know what criteria exists for other authors on this site, what the baseline for a "Good" story is, or how others may or may not perceive one story or another.
But this.
This was masterfully written.
I had one point of contention, and that was you calling attention to another work within the story itself. When I saw that line, I very nearly stopped reading. But so intrigued was I that I had to continue.
I'm so very glad that I did.
Normally, any author who references another story of theirs would automatically be labeled as a douche and quite possibly pretentious; but the way you went about doing so was so masterful, exemplary, and quite frankly, genius. I usually confine myself to clopfics, romance, or the random quirky story that grabs my attention (As was the case with this story)
You, sir, are probably one of the greatest authors I have ever had the pleasure of reading. I will be watching you carefully and perusing your other works should you have any. Should you choose to read my own fic, I would be honored, though it is quite unnecessary.
In short: Thank you.
Anonymous comments currently disabled. Please register to make comments
Cancel
Send