An art critic reviews the art of Canterlot Castle.
He has... opinions. One of them is more concerning to Princess Celestia than the others.
Written for the A Thousand Words Contest II, where it took an Honorable Mention in the Comedy category!
Featured 6/15/2023 - 6/19/2023!
Appearing on Equestria Daily on 6/18/2023, as well as in their 25 of the Best Fanfics for Celestia Day on 6/20/2023!
Now with an audio reading by StraightToThePointStudio!
And another one by Pony & Wolf Productions!
Chapters (1)
Ahahaha!
Glorious. Completely and utterly glorious!
11611128
This.
They almost had a bonding moment over Jument's Fountain, particularly when Noveau suggested Celestia move it to the bathroom. Almost.
This is brilliant and feels exactly like something I'd see in the show. The Warhol scene in particular.
In my head, immediately:
“The Bouqueeeet residence, the lady of the house speaking! …no not Bucket. Bouquet. …it’s French.”
My Dad is actually a painter, a fairly successful one at that, and he has things to say about Thomas Kincaid. Mostly it amounts to “good for him”, Dad also being a practical sort who completely understands and empathizes with the desire for money. Kincaid didn’t sell out, he bought in.
Are we talking Feng Shui here, or is he just pointing out that it’s a huge statue in a too-small room? Because if it’s the latter he may have a point…
To be honest it reminds me of the Simpsons episode where they find out the painting hanging in their living room is an original for some famous painter and worth tons and tons of money…and then later find out that it’s a forgery and worth nothing. This despite the fact that, as the forger himself points out, nothing has actually changed about the painting.
Some guy in marketing designs a soup can label, he gets an hourly wage and you can buy the label, can, and soup inside for a buck. Andy Warhol paints it, suddenly it’s worth tens of thousands of dollars or more for just the image of the label, even though he’s literally just copying something that someone else made. And not even giving you soup.
This may surprise you since, well, me and Discord, but I genuinely love Discord here. From Riche’s reaction to his description to Discord showing up later and repaying the compliment. It feels pretty in character for the chaos god. Pre- or post-reformation, really. And it’s a nice little use of him.
Plus ultimately it fits Riche and Discord perfectly. Riche absolutely read the statue wrong. But Discord took the compliment anyway, ‘cause he’s vain like that.
lmao! The ending was hilarious!
I kind of agree with Nouveau here. I've never understood why Barkicelli made Celestia's neck so long.
That's because she has only one on display. The paintings work better as a set. (Though I doubt even Warhorsal would have considered them high art.)
Of course, why should anyone value the opinions of an art critic who puts his hooves on the art?
0/10, no follow-up to this
Yeah, that'll teach you to call me out like that at the beginning. The nerve of this guy...
11611237
ooh, I like that differentiation. I'll have to try to remember it.
Howdy, hi~!
As someone who is very knowledgeable about high art, accurate, though significantly less money laundering. Really nice and short comedy. Very enjoyable. Thanks for the read~!
And then once Inkwell hoofs over the review to Celestia, it'll immediately go into the fireplace.
Or be teleported into the heart of an active volcano--Celestia's still making up her mind about that.
Dat ending, tho!
Well, whatever motivation I had to enter Thousand Words II just evaporated.
I think this one will do very well. And I wish you the best of luck with the judges.
11611237 Re: Kincaid: he succeeded for the same reason Disney succeeded- turning out high-quality material (well, in animation anyway- let's not discuss early Disney live-action) aimed at the lowest common denominator.
Re: Simpsons-I'm reminded of when Burns thanked the Simpsons by giving them a giant Mayan or something sculpture that ended up in the living room between the couch and the TV, to the whole family's complete bafflement.
MARGE: What I'm saying is, whatever it does, it's doing it now.
Very Bugs Bunny at the end, Discord.
A work of art, this story is, Though, I think Mr. Riche would give it 4/5, snubbing one star for not having more screen time.
he's AI generated?
11611608 Check his hooves. See how many thumbs he has.
The only art he likes and it's discord. Never expect that.
pffffft
I'm impressed that you could write something in exactly 1000 words, that seems to require exactly 1000 words.
I also liked the "that many teeth" line. The scene with him loving Discord's statue was inspired--such a plausible reason! And the follow-on scene was also inspired.
I might quibble that, although everything Riche says sounds like something an art critic might say, you'd have a hard time finding a single art critic who would say more than two of those things. The first wants art to make a statement, I think in an iconic, medieval way; the next wants to integrate art into the public space (very mid-20th-century); the next speaks of "high art" (an extinct pre-Impressionist notion). The last, wanting symbolism, is something like the first, though most artists who use icons or symbols object to the metaphysics of novel chimeras such as Discord, as the scholastics said that a chimera had no essence, which implies (to most artists who rely on symbols to communicate meaning) that unconventional ones (the unicorn gets grandfathered in, I think) could serve no purpose in art.
But OTOH, if you used a set of criticisms that might be given by any one art critic, that would give the story a pointedness that you don't want: instead of ridiculing art critics in general (a worthy goal), it would have to ridicule one specific school of art criticism (an ignoble and unfair goal, since all of the living schools of art criticism are equally ridiculous and contemptible).
Oh, the name Nouveau Riche is funny, but it directs the ridicule at the nouveau riche, which is unjust. Not that I would change it; just pointing out that it has a downside as well as an upside.
I just recommended it.
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Please. The black square is so passé. It's all about the white square now.
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The ending was perfect.
This was pretty funny, I enjoyed it, and the punchline lends itself quite well to the short format. I really like the art banter, I think the delivery was particularly precise and that's worth mentioning. The style is well regarded, and there's a sense of honest playfulness about this story that feels really at home in MLP. Good job!
Funny story is funny.
Thank goddess he didn't see the original of Celestia Among the Flowers.
(yes, it's a running gag)
I ship it. Richecord all the way.
Loved the ending.
Absolutely hilarious! I knew the punchline was coming, but Celestia's utter exhaustion at dealing with Nouveau (which is also a fantastic joke) and his opinions on debatably the most popular art to exist is great!
11611533
Well, being fair, Disney’s live-action Treasure Island is definitive to the entire genre of pirate movies. The whole “pirate accent” came from Roger Newton’s take on John Silver.
11612914 True, but the vast majority of early Disney live-action was, "Let's get nobodies and has-beens under contract for cheap, crap out whatever, and make it cheaply enough that we can't help but profit! And it doesn't matter how dumb the scripts are, because nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American consumer!"
>when the judges of this contest judge the stories
Good story though, you delivered!
For the sake of irony, the following comment was generated by AI, with instruction to be objective:
Note: There was no cherry picking. This is the first response.
I think it's a pretty funny result.)
11616336
Which AI? I want it as my pre-reader.
I agree with some of what it says qualitatively, though quantitatively, I think it's miscalibrated for short stories, holding them to a standard meant for longer works. I squint at "lacks polish"; there may have been one or two grammatical errors or typos, but I think such a harsh verdict must be relying on some idiosyncratic, probably snobbish definition of "polish". "Reliance on cliches" might refer to what Riche says, which is supposed to be cliched. And "the inclusion of Discord feels forced" is as wrong as wrong can be.
But it's true that Nouveau Riche is sometimes pretentious, and yet at least once suggests a passion for art. That's damned impressive that it figured that out. I really don't understand how an LLM could do that. Most humans couldn't.
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It's Noun-Hermes 13B specifically.
Yeah, I agree. It doesn't understand the concept of fanfiction, so it thinks that characters are not well defined.
But it can see everything at once, so it can notice what people can't.
Too bad token limit is at 2000. It barely fits into a prompt. Otherwise I would love to see what it would say about properly defined story.
That ending .
💀
It seems amusingly egotistical for Celestia to display "The Birth of Celestia" in her own palace. Though on reflection I can't see why one wouldn't keep such a piece in a place of honor. Few things could be more flattering.
Discord's reaction of course fits him perfectly.
Precise and well executed.
Discord is such a troll hehe
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That's awesome! Thank you very much!
11677367
Thanks, but it was pony and wolf who did the reading
ooh burn on all reviewers!
aww She is so good at lying cheerfully!
starting off giving the most infuriating response to Celestia’s polite greeting as possible, love it!
hehe, always love the planning-ahead Celestia
hehe, damning with faint praise
ooh, sounds absolutely majestic! also great terrible puns, as usual
so true, love this guy actually
ah that twenty percent! and honestly, what is that phenomenon where the masterpieces of a field become so influential in it that they seem cliché and banal to those who grew up in a culture that had recycled them so many times? it makes a lot of sense that Canterlot Castle would be filled with such things!
ok i don’t love this guy anymore
aww so true that is how She would react
so true bestie
ahaha love it!
and that is part of the “fun” of the contest’s constraints! excellent work with this one. thank you for writing!
Delightful! Simple but very effective, both with excellent ribbing of art criticism and a great punchline. Not much else to say but thank you for it and congrats on the honorable mention.
Oh my gosh this was so much fun and that ending was perfect. n_n