"Luna... the palace has a certain... inertia..."
Marble Whispers was the greatest sculptor of his generation. Nopony argues that. To own one of his pieces means possessing the pinnacle of an art collection, something which hardly ever comes up for sale, an item anypony would be proud to own.
Unfortunately for the sisters, there was once a time in his career when he decided to take up weaving — and gifted the first of his results to the palace.
Said result has been sitting in a certain marble alcove for over a thousand years. It could be described as ugly, but only for those who didn't want to use "hideous" (not to mention historically inaccurate). Luna, already sick of looking at the thing again and not really wanting to face the thought of how Celestia must feel about seeing it after so much time, tells her sister that she's going to kick the tapestry out. Tonight. And what's going to stop her?
Just a few issues known as tradition, heritage, and a palace which can't understand why anypony would want to get rid of art...
Read it here
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Tropes found in this story include:
- A Simple Plan: The story runs on it. In order: Luna takes the tapestry out to the trash, so ponies decide it was first kicked out by accident, then believe a thief is trying to smuggle it out of the palace. Museum donations fail after the curators learn which piece is being donated. Auctioning the tapestry off to taste-free nobles at a charity event has Fleur win (which Fancypants planned for) and immediately donate the piece back to the palace (which he didn't). Luna's own attempt to steal the thing is intercepted by Cluster, which turns into a Top Secret trip to the dry cleaners and a theft from there, leading to deep concealment behind every magic defense the sisters can bring to bear — and Cluster, under orders not to tell the palace staff that the tapestry was moved, recruits the Bearers to get it back. Celestia outright destroys the tapestry, Murdocks replaces it. And when Celestia finally just tries to give it away to the Protoceran embassy, it triggers Equivalent Exchange.
- Alien Arts Are Appreciated: The final fate of the tapestry, after Celestia learns that generations of griffon ambassadors have been using it as a meditation point and gifts it to their embassy. Unfortunately, the rather — interesting — piece of art which Ambassador Gilcrest provides as a replacement doesn't have this trope coming back from the pony direction, which ends the story on a potential Here We Go Again!.
- Answer Cut: A couple of times. Celestia wondering what chasing a path of paid bad taste will do brings us to the charity auctions. And Luna questioning what Cluster, under an order to not discuss things with anypony among the palace staff, can do against them — triggers a scene change and reveal: he can still call in the Bearers.
- Auction: One of the attempted means of tapestry disposal is putting it up for bids at a charity event.
- Black Comedy Burst: After Wordia leaves, a too-calm Celestia asks Luna if she recalls the debate they once had about using assassins, peacefully states that they're about to have it again, and this time, just for variety, Luna's going to argue the "against" side.
- Blatant Lies: Celestia & Luna, when caught by Cluster in the middle of their own attempt to steal the tapestry, quickly create one about personally smuggling it out to a dry cleaner because with a potential thief in the palace, they're the only ponies anypony can trust. Cluster is... less than accepting of this possibility, but all protests fall apart after Luna puts him under orders to assist them, and he has to wait through a scene break to get back at them.
- Also, Luna's secondary theory that the tapestry caught on fire due to "Spontaneous combustion."
- Bookends: The story both begins and ends with Celestia & Luna staring into an alcove, trying to figure out what to do about a hideous piece of supposed art.
- A more minor one in that both the original and replacement piece have Celestia noting how the artist got in a surprising amount of detail on the intestines.
- Brick Joke: A fairly epic one. Long after the events of Twilight's Escort Service, Luna has Fleur pointed out to her for the first time, eventually being told that Fancypants talked her into retiring from her original profession in order to become his student. She then asks what that former occupation was, and upon being told:"You found her in the midst of teleporting ponies about the capital?"
- Call-Forward: Celestia's general incompetence with illusion spells will come up again.
- The Cameo: After the sisters realize their solution may lie in finding overspending ponies with a total lack of taste, the first individual named as being at the charity auction is Duke Cinarest Cimarron.
- Casting a Shadow: Luna is confirmed as being able to lower the local light level enough to create absolute darkness, which she's still capable of seeing within — while Celestia cannot. (Word Of Fanfic Author is that Celestia can create enough light to nullify Luna's efforts, but it would have been too blatant for that scene.)
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject: When Cluster angrily denounces the idea that somepony might get rid of such a "historical" tapestry just because they find it hideously ugly, Luna promptly demands to know what Cluster thinks of the revolting thing. He takes a long look at it (because it's very hard to look away from), makes an obvious non-answer, and then pointedly leaves.Cluster: "I think it's art. I leave the interpretation to somepony else. Good night, Princesses."
- Equivalent Exchange: Out: One hideous tapestry. In: One Protocera-gifted kinetic sculpture showing a moving griffon repeatedly disemboweling a fallen opponent (complete with perpetually-dripping blood).
- Which becomes all the more blackly hilarious if you make the assumption that the sculpture might have been the griffon's analogue to the Marble Whispers tapestry — that is, a piece of art so hideous that nobody in Protocera wanted anything to do with it, but they couldn't officially get rid of it.
- The comments section for the story eventually figured out that the sisters had been gifted with the griffon equivalent of a drinking bird.
- Forensic Drama: Cluster brings a touch of it to the story. After the tapestry is originally moved and rehung, he checks it for magical signatures. (Luna has a viable excuse for the presence of her own). And following its destruction, he commissions the creation of seven blank tapestries of similar size and density, so he can use various methods to set them all on fire and see if any of them are brought down to a fine black powder. After totally failing to achieve that level of destruction and conducting interviews with magical researchers, chemists, and a few imprisoned arsonists, all of whom tell him that creating that level of heat at speed and having it remain relatively confined is impossible, he has backing for his belief that Celestia was responsible — but still can't do anything about it.
- Genius Bonus: One of the lines Luna hits Celestia with while talking about how difficult the elder's extremely white coat makes stealth attempts is "Cyphochilus beetles shield their eyes when you go by." They may be the single whitest species on Earth.
- High-Class Call Girl: Fleur's previous profession, which has left her with a wealth of blackmail material concerning much of Canterlot's elite: Celestia directly calls her "The third most terrifying mare in Canterlot," and when Fleur glances at ponies on the auction bidding floor, they raise their amounts to keep it from happening again. However, she personally averts Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Fleur is extremely immature, hellishly petulant, more than a little vindictive, and refuses to let any situation work against her for even a moment, no matter what kind of long-term advantage might be gained. As Fancypants' student, she has a long way to go.note
- Historical In-Joke: Cluster quotes an ancient tract from Prance's original ambassador on how all future replacements should deal with Celestia: "You must always remember that the Princess is about seventeen." It's a reference to Sir Cecil Arthur Spring-Rice, who once noted that when it came to Theodore Roosevelt, one always had to remember that the President was about six.
- Honor Before Reason: Why has a disgusting tapestry that was ugly even when it was first created, which depicts subjects that the Princesses of Equestria themseles find reprehensible and offensive, survived to the present day? Why has Celestia never simply stood up and said "This tapestry is hideous, nobody likes it, nobody has ever liked it, I personally hate it, I'm going to get rid of it — and, by the way, remember I'm your leader, so what I say, goes"? In a nutshell, it began as pragmatic — it added a certain legitimacy to the Diarchy when they received it, but now survives solely due to weight of Tradition.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: The sisters' perception of Marble Whispers, which may also be a case of Vindicated by History, as Luna notes that his descendants no longer care to track that part of the family tree. He's said to have believed in making sacrifices for his art, as long as none of them were his: the mane and tail hair woven into the tapestry was shaved from the members of his family, and when Cluster notes that the edges sort of look like clotted blood, Celestia can only repeat "Look like."
- Kill It with Fire: After failing to get past the blockades in the first part of the story, Celestia finally takes on the tapestry directly by generating enough heat to turn it into a fine black powder. (And even this doesn't work.)
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Celestia notes early on that it's as if the tapestry doesn't want to be moved, but also says she's checked it for magic and found nothing...
- Misblamed: In-Universe example: the weirdness around the tapestry is initially attributed to a phantom thief making attempts to steal it, including through writing it in on the charity auction donation list. The sisters eventually try using this to their advantage.
- Old Friend: Further establishes this as Fancypants' role in Celestia's life, along with being her Secret-Keeper.
- Only Sane Man: Cluster ends the story convinced that he may now be this for the palace, muttering about how, after including his two daughters, he now has four kids.
- Of course, since Cluster's response to the Princess' oblique confession that they wanted to get rid of the tapestry because it's hideous is to basically give them a blank stare and retort that "it's art!", he's really Not So Above It All in being crazy.
- Perp Sweating: The discussion between Cluster and Celestia post-fire comes off as this, with a side order of I Know You Know I Know: it's clear that he knows Celestia is responsible for the tapestry's destruction and she's aware he's figured it out — but everypony else is convinced the (imaginary) thief did it out of frustration, and there's nothing Cluster can say or do which will break through Celestia's carefully — and literally — practiced facade: it's mentioned that she and Luna roleplayed the scenario out before the meeting ever began.
- Power Incontinence: Following the meeting with Wordia, a quietly furious Celestia begins generating enough heat to make the Solar throne room draperies begin smoking.
- Sadly Mythtaken: In-Universe example: part of what offends the sisters so much about the tapestry is that it claims to depict their final battle against Discord and was created at a time when the true events had already been lost, with legends starting to replace them — legends which Marble Whispers then ignored while literally weaving his own version out of whole cloth.
- Shout-Out: Celestia's saying they've come too Tartarus-freed far during the theft scene is one for Midnight Run.
- Signature Scent: The tapestry starts to develop a foul one after members of the palace staff discover it placed with the trash while throwing out their own garbage. Unfortunately, one of those surprised ponies was Sizzler, and it turns out that security spells and scent-blocking enchantments just don't mix — but the former does seem to keep the scent going while the cause continues to decay.
- Stating the Simple Solution: Defied: Apparently, Celestia has tried simply ordering that the tapestry be thrown out in the past. It didn't work.Celestia:I got as far as direct orders. Orders which everypony, at least for those I didn't speak to directly, decided must have been misinterpreted, because I would surely never order the removal of art, especially not from such a renowned sculptor, forget that it's not even sculpture at all. It would come off the wall, get out of the alcove, it nearly made it all the way to the door once, but then there would always be somepony who hadn't gotten the news, or decided to make a valiant last stand in the name of art — and then it would be back in the alcove.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Or in this case, identical: after the original tapestry is destroyed, Murdocks uses the multiple pictures which had been taken of it over the years as reference material and commissions a replacement, having Wordia Spinner make the presentation in such a way that everypony knows it's been done and the new piece can't just be made to vanish, while having her note that if anything happens to this one, fresh hangings can be made over and over and over... (Word Of Fanfic Author says this also serves as Wordia's personal revenge for the events of Naked Lunch, and that Murdocks realized Celestia had personally destroyed the original tapestry.)
- Tactful Translation: Inverted. Celestia is used to dealing with Wordia and so spends their meetings playing a silent game called Translation, in which she takes what the Loyal Opposition's reporter is saying and mentally swaps in what was meant."So when he heard you'd lost an original Marble Whispers piece — and incidentally, he wanted me to say he's very sorry about the fire...""He's very sorry the two of you didn't die in it."
- Take That!:
- So the tapestry is hideous, apparently somewhat on the gory side, is mostly in the palace because it's been there for so long that ponies expect it to be occupying space — and the piece just happens to be named Breaking Dawn?
- After Cluster has denounced the idea of somebody throwing away the tapestry with all its history just because it's ugly, it's brought up that Cluster's husband runs a gallery for experimental art, with the implication that he may be used to making this sort of excuse.
- True Art Is Angsty: The titular tapestry. It was woven from pony mane & tail-hairs, the edges look like — and are obliquely implied to be — clotted blood, and features... well, exactly what it features is inferred to be grotesque. Copious amounts of corpses and luridly detailed intestines are mentioned.
- Unwanted Gift Plot: Starts over a thousand years after the first presentation (and ends on the evening after the second). Luna feels their obligation time for display has long-since run out. She just didn't consider the power of tradition, and that after so much time, some ponies treat the piece as a combination of heirloom and historical document.
- For added fun, the actual chapter title of the oneshot is On The Care And Feeding Of White Elephants — "white elephant" being an alternative title for this very trope.
- Verbal Backspace: Celestia pulls off a solo mental version on herself when she first considers that Luna may be trying to steal the tapestry.She wouldn't.Her own mind compared both words to an extensive selection of carefully-chosen memories, then sarcastically displayed the results....she would.
- With Catlike Tread: Luna sarcastically notes that Celestia, who's twice the size of any other pony and has the heavy hooffalls to match, with a brilliant white coat begging for attention, no skill with illusions, and who's also unable to see within any cloaking darkness her sister might try to provide, is something less than proficient at stealth.
