Ponyfic Roundup 229: There on the Stair, Right There

This may have happened quite a while ago, but I've only recently noticed: JohnPerry has disappeared from Fimfiction – account nuked, which means all his reviews have gone as well as his stories. I've featured a few of those fics on PR over the years, and I've read plenty of his own reviews, especially the "Suffers the Feature Box" series. None of my business why he chose to nuke of course, but I hope he's okay and I wish him well.

Read it Later story count: 295 (+4)

Anyway, I have no intention of doing the same, so it's time to get PR back on the road again. It's still in rather a rickety state, with one wheel buckled and some strange purple steam coming from the engine, but I'll blame that on Flim and Flam's garage. Not reading much does tend to allow my RiL list to bloat a little. Curses. Anyway, here is today's less than enormous review pile. Er, two fics, in fact:

More Than You Know by Obselescence
Flying Lessons by Ponyman

★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 0 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.

More Than You Know by Obselescence
Celestia and Twilight
Dark; 7k words; Oct 2013; Everyone

Princess Celestia has been keeping a dark secret from her subjects for a very long time. It's not an easy truth to tell, but if anyone can accept her after learning it, it will surely be her most faithful student.

Here's a classic fic I somehow haven't got round to reading before. An RCL inductee, it's set before S1 and consists of little more than Princess Celestia walking with Twilight around the Royal Canterlot Gardens. It's that fairly rare thing, E-rated darkfic, and it justifies that combination. It's a sort of Chessmaster Celestia fic, but one in which Twilight is clearly uneasy at some of the things the Princess reveals to her about how her Equestria works, but is not quite emotionally mature enough yet to know how to respond. (There's no sequel, so we don't know whether Twilight and Tia revisited the issue once the filly had become a mare.) The story is psychological horror, increasingly unsettling the more you think about it, though I suspect readers may be divided on whether they feel Celestia's approach is justified. I found myself thinking about Luna quite a bit, too, even though she does not appear. ★★★★

Flying Lessons by Ponyman
Twilight, Derpy, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie
Comedy/Slice of Life; 3k words; Feb 2013; Everyone

Twilight's new wings come with more problems than she thought.

This story opens with a rather forced para about how Twilight thinks Ditzy Doo's (as she's called here) nickname is offensive. I cringed a little at that, but thankfully the story doesn't continue in that vein. Instead, we simply get Ditzy showing Twilight the ropes as far as the pegasus part of her is concerned, ranging from how to fly to the basics of weather work. It's mildly funny, but never got a belly laugh from me, though the ending is fairly amusing. There are a few odd technical errors (describing Pinkie's confetti as "decorum" stands out) but for the most part it's fairly simple, fluffy, slice of life. Not offensive, but not especially memorable. ★★

---

Next time on Ponyfic Roundup: at this point, I have absolutely no idea!