BREAKING: ROYAL CANTERLOT LIBRARY LOSES ALL STANDARDS WITH ONE SIMPLE TRICK! · 4:43pm Jan 28th, 2016
Hey you!
So Analemma got mildly popular, didn't it? Thank you to everyone who read and enjoyed it—your support has been huge for me. Just look at these quotes from satisfied readers!
"Hardly anything made sense throughout the story [...]" —Present Perfect
"[...] this story [...] doesn’t [...] convince you that [...] there’s a reason for all this." —Chris
"[...] the last chapter [...] didn’t bother me that much." —AugieDog
If you recognize those names, and you read the title of the blog, and I have totally ruined the surprise already.
...Analemma is going to be in Royal Canterlot Library. I've been getting kind of conflicting information about when the interview will be posted, but I'm ~88% sure it's tomorrow.
Now... I'm hugely appreciative of the curators' support and everything, and I'm aware I may lose a few points with them for this, but... I really wish more of the interview was more about the story (and less about me). There's just so much I could still cover! So if you had any questions about the story, feel free to ask them—either in the RCL post, this blog, the story, PM, via messenger swallow, etc.
Thanks again,
M–
Congratulations, man!
RCL puts interviews up on their website before they put them up on fimfic, so that's probably the source of the confusion. And yeah, maybe they could focus on the story, but RCL in general is more about the author behind such works. It's honestly rather refreshing, imo, as there aren't many groups that do the same.
Either way, grats
RCL: Dragging worthy authors kicking and screaming into grudging acceptance of their skills for several years now.
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I've actually been told by P.P. and horizon (maybe?) that the site post is feb 5th, but... it was blog'd last week? We'll know in a few hours.
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The blog's title is facetious.
i.imgur.com/vIf0lAD.gif
I know I bloody nailed it.
Congrats! It is certainly a well deserved honor! Welcome to the RCL Club!
When this baby hits 88%, youre going to see some serious
WOOOO!!
Hey, don't forget me! D:
Granted, that's pretty underwhelming as far as out-of-context dissing goes. I'll try to offer more contortable words next time.
As to timing, you're "officially" in the RCL once the interview is posted on our website (which was last Friday), and our FIMFiction crosspost of the feature takes place a week later (that's when everyone actually notices, since like three dozen people read our website). It's up to you which date to consider The Big Day.
As for questions about the story, What's the relationship between ponies and phoenixes you envision? How is it that Philomena is Celestia's grandmother, yet a bird? Is the birding recent (as the fact she's in a house might imply, I belatedly realized) or did she shift forms some time ago?
Great news - congratulations!
3719478 My, my, that sounds like a very interesting interpretation of the story. Certainly not the one I had in mind.
I can understand why that's happened, though, considering you read version one of the story, which featured her "in a house, dot, dot, dot, which is also in a tree". I've refurbished it since to be clear right from the get go that she's in a treehouse. There was also not meant to be any "birdification" in there either... I'm curious how that would work.
img13.deviantart.net/e921/i/2012/070/4/8/twilight_sparkle__oh_you_by_un_worst-d4sg3ou.jpg
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Well, here's what I came to that conclusion from:
1) There are exactly 1-1/12 references to the name Philomena in the story, both in Chapter 6: the maid picks up the scrap of paper and asks "Who is Philomena?", to which Celestia replies in a way that makes it clear it's the phoenix. The scrap of paper, however, pretty clearly refers to the letter that we saw earlier, which is written to Luna from "Grandma Phi-" before the narration is cut off. Celestia's response also only has any impact if she's speaking about a person she previously had met; i.e. grandma. Hypothetically she could have just decided on the spur of the moment to name the bird after her grandmother, but if that's the case then her response blows off the importance of the actual grandmother in her life; if P. actually IS Grandma P. then that bookends their relationship.
2) Whether house-in-a-tree or treehouse, the story really still sounds as though it's a dwelling meant for a pony. (This was my complaint earlier, but what I missed when I complained is that it makes perfect sense if Philomena wasn't always a phoenix.) The cognitive dissonance of a bird in a pony-style house points, again, to grandma getting confused and settling in somewhere familiar.This is backed up by Philomena using pony colloquialisms, such as "hit the hay" in Chapter 1, which would be completely out of place for a phoenix (hay is flammable). Philomena also refers repeatedly to ponies and pony behaviors when thinking of friends and neighbors, but never mentions any other phoenixes (except for abstractly, as "family"): this sounds very much like the thought processes of someone used to self-identifying as a pony. Philomena also says that her mother told her "living things die", which doesn't strike me as a phoenix thing to say (Chapter 4), and quite clearly knows how to read: this isn't conclusive evidence against being an animal but is pretty telling in light of everything else.
Really, it's the cumulative effect, especially with nothing in my reading that seems to contradict the idea.
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Now I'm curious how many other people are seeing it this way. The reincarnation perspective is plausible, and you're welcome to interpret it that way (not that you need me to tell you), I'm just showing you my point of view.
Here goes.
Well I hate to disappoint you, but that's what happened. There was something that was hinted to in chapter 7 and 8 when Grandma came into play: Luna was closer to her than Celestia was. The evidence being that Celestia has trouble remembering her name (though it has a long time, in fairness), as well as Luna's call-out that she's forgotten, which doesn't seem to surprise her.
When Celestia meets the phoenix, she's treated to a fiery, fun-loving character (not seeing the amount of anger she caused it). When the maid brings up the note (featuring a line that implies her grandmother wanted her to lighten up), she realizes that her "grandmother" was a lot like this bird. Her poignant pause is because she's finally remembering the name that made her sister so angry she'd forgotten. It's not some realization that the bird is somehow the same person—only that the bird is reminiscent of her "grandmother", and that one sure-fire way to remember it for good this time is to name an immortal creature after her.
And if nobody knew about this Philomena character before, then it's probably pretty private, and I don't think a maid is on a need-to-know basis.
No, your complaints had ground. Another thing I added after you read it was that it was too big for her (Just want to reiterate: this was always the case, I just didn't draw enough attention to it). It was built by something with a little more constructive prowess than a bird (could even be ponies) but when she came over the ocean ready to pass out from exhaustion, she needed somewhere out of reach from predators—not to mention out of sight, because she knew she'd be resting awhile and didn't want to be seen by whatever might be on the island.
Speaking of flammable:
vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/5/5d/Phoenixes_looking_at_each_other_S2E21.png/revision/latest?cb=20120320215221
In the show, phoenixes aren't constantly on fire, but they can conjure it up as they please. As for "hit the hay" being a pony-centric colloquialism, that's absolutely true. In hindsight, I wouldn't have used that line if I realized it was pointing that way. But then again, I don't see why a pony's term might not be used by something else, considering how prominent the ponies are in this universe. I see it like a red, teenaged dragon who hates ponies using the term "everypony", or something weird and out-of-place like that.
Can you point to examples of these? I know she mentioned "ponies that lived in a town near her home", but if those were friends or neighbours, she probably would have specified, no?
Aw come on, you know why I couldn't do that.
It strikes me that way. "Living things die" is an important lesson for anything, but it has a different meaning for phoenixes. Mortal things have to know that they're going to die someday, end of conversation. Phoenixes meanwhile need to learn that someday they're going to die, but it'll still work out for them if they die correctly (i.e., not getting squashed, slashed, or the big one, eaten).
I'm treating phoenixes (phoenices?) as very intelligent creatures, considering in the episode that we meet this one, she is able to understand "go tickle that guard with a feather and make him laugh, it'll be so funny."
Not to mention all of the birdnames I dropped (songbird, galah, whooping crane, "sure as gull crap").
By the way, if P. is a reincarnation of Grandma P., then why doesn't she know anything about Celestia? You could claim that she's just amnesiac from being bird-ified, but then why is it that when Luna arrives, she has an immediate disdain for her? Even before she's a bit rude to Celestia, it's her voice that sets the phoenix off. Wouldn't the same person like her just as much?
And why is it that she gets angry when Celestia fools around, yet in the letter she reminded Luna to make sure her sister doesn't suck the fun out of everything?
I feel like a CIA intern who didn't know what should be censored so he just ran his highlighter dry. If you want to keep talking, I suggest moving to PM so that we can stop this spoiler nonsense.
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I don't have much more to say, but thank you for outlining your positioning and the reasoning behind it. Some elements (like the nest that's not on fire) just straight-up support your interpretation, but I still think the way I read it is at least a reasonable alternative.
Either way, well done, and a well-deserved feature. Have I mentioned that yet?