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22w, 4dMy Little Over Analysis
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Two perfect streams of consciousness. It's difficult to understand exactly what each writer means, but that is perhaps the point. Twilight seeks to understand, and sees her mentor as the all-knowing, all-seeing deity with the power to move the cosmos, who therefore must have the answers she seeks. Celestia, on the other hand, has lived so long that the very concepts of meaning and understanding have no relevance to her. Her struggle to define the word love, despite the love she has for the ponies around her, makes this incredibly clear. Even her immortality offers her no solace in understanding the meaning of life.
A question... how did you make the word count zero? Because that in itself was a bit of cleverness that must be applauded.
Never mind, just read the comments, and realized that it's actually an IMAGE. Still just as clever! The idea that these words, as much as the two writers have agonized over them, ultimately have no meaning or worth of their own... it's just icing on the cake.
Faved, liked, and I'll watch you for the heck of it, too. 
I will be very honest and terribly blunt here.
The fic seems verbose and - to me - it borders on frivolous. It seems to tackle "the meaning of life", dancing beautifully around the question before concluding that it has no answer. It drags on and on and seems to repeat itself, worded carefully so it's hard to tell. Perhaps it's because the landscape of my soul is more similar to a dried-up desert of salt instead of a deep ocean which should be there, but to me, this falls flat.
Am I too dumb for this? Immature, perhaps? I'm not quite sure I understand the colours, or why the cover picture is so.. abstract. Why is the fic itself a picture instead of being actual text?
Is this fic simply too smart for me? It strikes me as a verbal equivalent of "modern art" paintings; you know, those pictures which are a blank canvas with some colours smeared onto them. People say they're beautiful and deep in meaning, yet all I see is someone's napkin after a healthy breakfast - and in the end, I'm just left thoroughly confused.
In short, I don't get it.
Icarus?
That flying to the sun and burning part says something.
But what does it mean?
My understanding... it falls short.
What are you trying to tell me?!
It's like the light within darkness of the heart is the darkness of the light that brings forth the heartness of lightness and dark hearts that fulfill the darkness that follows the light of the heart in darkness but is in fact the heart of light that sets root in the deepest darkness of the heart's light.
...
.
>>1017691 I can only offer my opinions.
It's verbose, meandering, and repetitive because it's stream-of-consciousness. It's trying to emulate Twilight's and Celestia's inner thought processes, in all their confusion and circularity.
> It seems to tackle "the meaning of life", dancing beautifully around the question before concluding that it has no answer.
I think this was exactly its intention.
The colours seem, to me, to be carefully ambiguous. A base of purple for the words Twilight writes, and a base of orange for the words Celestia writes – so far so good. But the parts highlighted in black or teal are much more brazen and emotional (like "This – this is a confession"), and often apply as descriptors of the words around them. That all suggests that they're the thoughts that Twilight and Celestia have but don't write. In some places the base text makes more sense that way: the black seems like an interruption. But in other places, the base text replies to the thoughts. We're left in doubt.
[edit to add: It's interesting to read just the black, or just the teal. I should also note the symbolism of the purple and orange in the last two paragraphs: "answers" versus "hope".]
The fic itself is a picture instead of text so that it registers as 0 words. Because these letters were never sent. Or, possibly, as a statement of the meaning and worth of the words. The chapter title is blank and the cover picture abstract for the same reasons.
It's not a question of intelligence. Just one of what you look for. This fic didn't resonate with me as strongly as it could have, because I'm skeptical of the whole meaning of life thing. But I enjoy examining how stories are crafted, and I enjoy complexities of interpretation. Which was extra fun in this case since the story itself tried to define "meaning". (If you'd shown this to me a few years ago I'd have turned my nose up at it – I'd have gotten the same "confusing modern art" impression – but my preferences happen to have changed.) So I found this quite interesting.
>>1018205 I understand that. I think I do, anyway. It is obvious that the fic was carefully crafted, I just don't see why. I don't "get it". What I do understand is, put very plainly, that Twilight seeks knowledge, and Celestia believes that too much knowledge is bad and having questions for which to find answers is good. In other words, Twilight thinks that the meaning of life is knowledge, while Celestia says that it's truly the pursuit of knowledge that matters. That much is not hard to figure out.
I am left guessing, then, whether there is something more to this, or is this really it? It seems too superfluous for it to only have this much meaning. But if that's the case, then there is something in it that I completely and utterly fail to see, and that thought frightens me.
>>1018319 There are hints at other meanings.
It could be shipping: Twilight is in love with Celestia but is wracked with too much hero worship, and Celestia is unable to return the affection because she's immortal and can't bond properly with fleeting mortal lives.
An especially dark interpretation is carried by all the references to exhaustion. Celestia is tired of life. She wants to die. But – of course – she can't.
Or it could indeed simply be about knowledge. It doesn't have to be about anything more. Sometimes people put a lot of work into very simple ideas.
This.
I wholeheartedly approve. The following is from a conversation I had with someone about this work, personal parts and names taken out, the rest that is relevant to this fiction formatted to be more readable. It's still clunky, but I'm too tired to rewrite it properly.
The reason some might not understand this is because they haven't written something so honest that they cannot express it properly. It's a state of mind that one reaches when thinking enough; the amount varies by person I guess.
This, this is long because it's true in what it says: it cannot express it. It's dense and beautifully written because it has to be, because the author cannot write it in any other way. It's like when you're in a trance, that which some might not have been in before, which is also why some might not get this.
The point cannot be expressed in a better way without misinterpreting it and changing the meaning: the meaning is only perfectly contained and transferred through the work itself. But I can give some stabs here about what it means to me. Part of the full meaning that came through for me. But it's most likely not the full story. That's half the point in works with deep meaning.
Twilight asked how is it possible to exist as a god, i.e. how can Celestia bear living as a god, through endless millenia. Only part of the question letter is about this, I think, but most of the answer really is about that. I think.
And the colours are to differentiate maybe the efforts to write the letter, i.e. it was attempted multiple times. Or maybe the smaller, the interrupting (and sometimes supplementing) parts are the unwritten thoughts of the author of the letter (Celestia or Twilight).
And, if you examine it closely, that blue-ish italics is a poem, it rhymes halfway. That is, every line is two subsentences that rhyme. Hm, at some places, they don't rhyme, but they're aesthetically beautiful, as abstract and symbolic as it gets.
The green, that which is only in Celestia's letter, is the confessional part: Celestia grew weary as a god. The last part, the Icarus bit, with the orange-coloured word "hope" (meaning, the orange is the giveaway that it's Celestia writing), that means she would like to be mortal and see an end, a conclusion to life. She yearns for death, the conclusion. Because she's tired to uphold reality, or at least the life-giving Sun.
This is what came through for me, others might interpret the work differently.
The form, the structure, the way it is written, is fundamental to its meaning. It gives it the honesty it deserves. What it means in full, I do not know. It would take several re-reads for me to get it, and even then I might not understand it fully. But it definitely deserves that kind of attention, and I will most likely give it that, when I'm able.
The full meaning, is contained within the work itself. That's why it's written as it is, to be interpreted in more than one way, because it cannot hold the full meaning in unambiguous form. Maybe because the meaning is compound and complex.
Also, inserting a picture instead of a fic is genius. Never figured the wordcount on the site doesn't count bbcode (that which I reckon the fic's source looks like: just the bbcode that inserts the picture).
>>1018384 Yeah, I guess that's right. At any rate, even those thoughts seem to be simple at their core. I simply don't understand why is this as complex as it is. But that's probably the point - to appear more complex than it really is in order to make you think. Maybe.
Ah well. 
>>1017545 The entire thing is a .png, that's how.
>>1018319 There isn't anything to get. It's stream of consciousness musings. Random thoughts on the subject entering the characters' minds. The meaning of the story is not in what is actually said - that amounts to a lot of babble - but in reflecting their emotional states.
Image: http://www.meh.ro/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/meh.ro5830a.jpgSeriously. Maybe it's my dumb southern brain, but I seriously don't know what the shit is going on. You could've put ANYBODY from any t'v show, game, movie, song and still have the same fic! The characters are drastically OOC, the meaning is more convoluted than Inception, and I just don't know what the purpose, if any, was of this story. I'm sorry, but I guess I'm either an idiot or this is a REALLY complicated trollfic.
Image: http://gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs/143332_o.gifI think. I might be wrong, and you might be dangerously insane.
Well, laying aside the strange we-need-to-go-deeper-and-more-meaningful nature of the writing, I don't get why this was submitted as an image. Everything that you did with he text in the picture could have been done with ACTUAL TEXT. Changing text colors might not be the most common thing to do, but fimfiction is perfectly capable of handing it. There is literally zero reason to have submitted this as an image, especially considering that it seems to make it harder for some people to actually read it. The only reason I can think of for doing it this way is for the possible gimmick value.
I'm not sure if the colors and formatting are pretentious or have actual value. I love experimental fiction when its done right (Chromosome's "White Box" comes to mind), but I feel that this story takes itself too seriously. But maybe my simple mind is missing the point
Really what is the point of posting this as an IMAGE instead of just plain text? Posting it as a image link with out saying so in the description feels.. pretentious. I find my self torn, unable to praise this work but unable to condemn it as well. I can't claim to like this story, and the format bugs me to no end, but I understand what your trying to express, I just prefer when it is expressed in fewer words.
I feel sad.... I can't understand exactly why... but I do.
Well written!
Image: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Vinyl_Scratch.png
You sir, are good.
This, for a lack of words( Ironic )... is brilliant. It has reached within my core and by the time I had finished reading, I felt dampness upon my cheeks. It is... This story is beautiful, and truly unique, as I have never read something so expressive in how unexpressive our minds are. I was at first completely blank, not understanding what had been happening. But slowly, as the tale progressed, I could see the pain in the Princess' letter. The tiredness. I absolutely loved this fiction, and I applaud to you, sir. I cannot even find it within myself to post blunt images describing my thoughts on how beautiful this was. Thank you for posting it here, though it is a shame that most of the others couldn't see past the image, into the story.
>>1018930 It is about... there is no real way of putting this down. Tire. That is truly what is expressed by Celestia. Twilight wants to grasp her feelings for her mentor, but it seems her endless life-span has made life dull, and the by products from her Subjects have become dull as well. Including love. More specifically, Twilight's love. That is how I interpreted the story, however, that could just be me acting like a glorified Literary Arts teacher.
>>1018913 That was extremely... I don't even know now, that story has left me quite winded. Well anyway, I would like you to address why you would downvote this. Did you not see the image?
>>1019228 At first, I was like, 'Oh, I guess this story does have a meaning!' But then you said, 'That is how -I- interpreted the story.' And I was like, 'Oh nvm.' The way I see it, this story is kinda like the movie '2001: A Space Odyssey' You can interpret it in any number of ways, but in the end, it's just one massive troll.
>>1019261 That could very well be the meaning, this story, this tale, is a work of art. Art can be interpreted in many ways, as you may know. One does not truly understand what the artist wanted to express, and can only get the tip of the iceberg from him. There are many other conclusions on what the story meant, but I just offered mine. I hope I didn't bother you.
Maybe it's supposed to confuse us? I know quite a few people who would write something like this just to screw with people's heads.
First, let me say this: I like what you're trying to convey. I like the concept of this story. I like how you're trying to make us think about the meaning of life and the implications of complete immortality. That just makes it an even bigger letdown.
This story is littered with non-sequiters. I get that this is trying to be 'artsy', but the least you could do is make your language more clear. Your diction is confusing, the fic is saturated with metaphors whose only purpose seems to be confusing the reader, and let us not forget the meaningless phrases that sound like something really deep and philosphical but are actually irrelevant or fancy-sounding gibberish.
There are a few passages that caught my eye.
"There is no veil to reality that can blanket it's very nature - that by being real there is so much that burns the back of the mind via existence."
What do you mean by 'veil to reality'? Do you mean that escapism doesn't stop the meaning of life from applying to you?
The second part is pretty clear, fortunately. The only problem is the use of the word 'via'. Why? It's like you had a thesaurus at your side while writing and decided to avoid using normal words as much as possible. Yes, almost everyone knows what via means and those that don't can use context clues, but it's a good example of an annoying trend in this story: you aren't choosing words that help convey your meaning, you choose words that make your story sound pretentious.
Which of these sentences is better? The first or the second one?
1) He authored an essay pertaining to the effects of Drosophilia Melanogaster on the enzyme activity of Polyphenol Oxidase from Malus Pumila.
2) He wrote a report about the effects of fruit flies on the browning of apples.
Immortality is a conceit of ultimate cruelty.
You're certainly getting your money's worth out of that thesaurus. I'm not sure you're even using conceit correctly. Why can't this be written in plain english that us commoners can understand?
I feel like I'm reading a legal document rather than a story. I don't see why people think that incomprehensibility makes a story good. It's the author's job to ensure that the story can be enjoyed. Though I loathe to do this, I must point out that this story suffers from a severe case of "Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness".
I... wow?
I get the cleverness of the "zero words" thing (at first, I was like, "Zero words? Is this a joke? *opens link* "Oh, I get it.") with the whole not being sent.
The colors, I get most of them. The only one I have slight issues trying to picture what it's supposed to represent, is the blue one.
This is... certainly unique, in so many ways.
Okay, so... Twilight wants to know what it's like to be a goddess, and the only thing Celestia can say is "I can't tell you because it's too big an experience to fit in your head."
And Twilight wants to confess her love to Celestia but doesn't, and Celestia knows Twilight loves her but doesn't say anything because she's grown too far apart from everyone else to love anyone.
And Celestia is too old to dream- she has so much experience that the quest for knowledge no longer holds any interest for her, like how the Doctor needs companions because he's seen so much that nothing surprises him anymore.
Those make sense. Those are good ideas. Wrapping them up together is clever, even, because it highlights just how alien Celestia is to anypony who hasn't been around for thousands of years, and how sad it is that Twilight thinks she wants that for herself, that there might be an end to the quest for knowledge and the end result is not wanting to know, and how it hurts Celestia to see that in Twilight because Twilight is the only connection to the quest for knowledge that she has anymore.
The execution, though... augh! At first it made sense to consider the different colors of text as different trains of thought, which might be going on at the same time but were meant to stand apart- but then the different colors of text start completing each other's sentences, and they stop making sense as individuals, and the story ends with sentences that have two and three different colors. And I still don't know what the fuck the teal words were or where they were supposedly coming from.
If this gets you featured, though, I suddenly have much higher hopes for my own writing.
The graphic portrayal is a fascinating conceit, but it's only a small part of what's going on here. And I'd disagree with the suggestion that the characters are out of character: Twi, as always, wants to know everything, and the Princess insists that no, she doesn't, the price of knowing everything is more than anypony can possibly pay.
That said, I admit I had to read it twice for everything to sink in, and I'm not at all sure I got it all. Which, to me, may be a good sign.
Please see external link available here; http://i.imgur.com/anYVG.png
If it's your expectation for me to curb my innate level of expression in order to further your comprehension, then I make no apologies. The story is written the way it is written for a very explicit purpose, and I'd request that you attempt to think about how it is constructed and why rather than dismissing it on the basis that it's too difficult for you to parse.
Already did. I'm not going to read the whole thing; way, way too much obvious crap to wade through. After I read ten paragraphs of pretentious nonsense, I'm not going to read another 10 in the hope that it will come together.
EDIT: I apologize for calling it nonsense. But it is very, very low in information density, of the type where someone writes things that are vague in order to sound deep, like the Sphinx on Mystery Men.
Why don't you try writing? If this is anything other than a troll, spill the beans. If it's some game with the colors, and the parallels between the two letters, drop a clue. Maybe then I'll read it. If the content you think you're communicating can be gotten by just reading the words and ignoring the colors, explain that. I was barely paying attention to the words; I was trying to figure out what the colors meant.
Yes, my puny human mind is too limited to understand the sheer transcendant beauty of this phenominal piece of art. Oh god of words, how doest thou craft such masterwork literature?
I apologize for being presumptious enough to assume that incoherent flowerly language is bad. Forgive me father, for I have sinned.
>>1019397 And as always, there's a TVTropes related link to it. The only thing missing now is to remove all punctuation and we'd have the purest stream of consciousness possible while simultaneously delving into complete non-readability. And on top of that, we have the artist accusing the audience of how wrong they all are for not realizing just how momentous, deep, and thought-provoking his work is, which is absolutely hilarious, by the way.
I like how the first part is literally purple. That's... appropriate. It's surely, at the very least, thought-provoking... but the amount of time and patience I'd have to put in to really get anything out of it is more than I'm willing to invest based solely on clever artistic affectations. And I suspect that if I did spend the time, any insight I gained would be born of my own rambling thoughts, not imparted by the story itself.
I guess what I mean to say is that it just doesn't strike a chord for me. When I read philosophical things, I prefer simple words and complex concepts, not the other way around.
okay this is what i got out of this (ill put in for each character/section)
twilight: twilight is talking about how she knows she will die before she can truly understand life and she misses celestia's wisdom and i kinda skimmed through that part
celestia: celestia has learned so much she has grown cold from lose of anything to contemplate to the point she no longer dreams and i skimmed this to
the last: it may have referenced taking over the sun and getting close to but in doing so she is punished with immortality the opposite of the boy in the myth
normally i would give a whole lot better review thing er a bob but i just got home from foot ball practice and im not exactly in shape so yaaa good night
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