• Member Since 17th Sep, 2014
  • offline last seen Yesterday

Orbiting Kettle


I've roasted a wealth of exotic things, All torn to ribbons at the hands of kings. Polished copper how I proudly shone, stealin' the fire of the blazing sun.

T

Celestia drank a lot of tea. A wonderful beverage that could give her a moment of peace and quiet, help her teach a lesson or allow her to talk with emissaries and ambassadors in a more reserved fashion.

And now she could add trying to understand a foulmouthed, antagonistic vagrant to the long list of things she had done over tea and pastries. Or at least that's what she hoped.

Thanks to Not_A_Hat, Murmurpunk and Dubs Rewatcher for pre-reading, editing and generally helping me not making an ass out of myself.

Thanks also to Ravenstone for a first reading and suggestion and to docontra for catching stray mistakes.

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 8 )

I saw this pop up in my feed today and thought "Wow, this synopsis sounds really familiar..." Forgot for a second that I got to pre-read it a while back. Love the refinement. You have a way with storytelling, Kettle.

7360383
Thanks, and I'm glad you like the improvements.:pinkiehappy:

i like it, hell if you wanted you could probably do a medium sized story from it possibly a large one

7360827
Glad you liked it. I am working on an outline for a prequel. No idea if at the end it will amount to anything.

The philosophy/story ratio is a bit too high for my taste, and the main idea here isn't anything new. We've all seen dozens of stories that exist mainly to question Celestia's rule and perfection. But unlike almost all of them, this story does manage to present both sides of the argument in a positive light, and I applaud it for that.
While I wouldn't call this story one of my favorites, I do think that it is at least a good story.

7384631
Thank you for reading and commenting. I really appreciate the feedback.

I admit I was tad worried about the amount of political talk here, but such is the nature of this specific story and in the end I think it worked for what it is. I will try to tone down the whole philosophy thing in the next instance though, mainly because the focus will be on something else:raritywink:

I appreciate the story's none-too-subtle criticisms of Nadia's motivations and methods, while at the same time not completely discounting her as an idiot. Usually, a story like this either mocks Celestia mercilessly and twists events that aren't her fault into being her fault, or creates a strawman idiot who mocks Celestia and then tears that character down as a response to the story of the first kind. But this points out that Nadia is doing a lot of shit wrong, gives her an actual justifiable reason for hating authority, and then points out there is still merit in the idea of what she's trying to do.

Will definitely agree that it's less a story and more a philosophical dialogue attributed to hypothetical talking heads, but there's certainly enough story here that I wouldn't call it a hastily repainted blog post, which is what most criticisms of Equestria under 5k words really are.

8649147

Usually, a story like this either mocks Celestia mercilessly and twists events that aren't her fault into being her fault, or creates a strawman idiot who mocks Celestia and then tears that character down as a response to the story of the first kind.

That would have been boring, and boredom is the worst thing you can inflict with a story.

Glad you appreciated it, though:twilightsmile:

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