Ponyfic Roundup 345

Read it Later story count: 139 (-5) 

I've been sitting outside to read in the nice warm weather recently. I state this merely because, as anyone who lives here will appreciate, most of this May has been pretty grotty weather for doing that. I like reading in the garden, but when it's cold and wet it's not exactly a good idea! (Well, not unless you've got a gazebo, I suppose. Which I haven't.) Anyway, today's threesome are these:

The Equestrian Opposition Party by Chessie
Relevé by Cillerenda
A Bittersweet Lesson by Nouvelle Tale

★: 0 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.

The Equestrian Opposition Party by Chessie
Celestia, OCs and Other
Comedy/Random/Slice of Life; 8k words; Nov 2016; Everyone

Politics is an illusion. Opposition politics? Doubly so.

Despite the Douglas Adams reference in the short description, this isn't a Hitchhiker's-style story. It's more of a satire on politics. With one irritatingly clunky exception (a reference to "Make Equestria Great Again") it manages to avoid being too tied to real-world events, which helps. The protagonist, a politician fed up with Celestia's constant rebuffs of his brilliant plans, discovers an underground opposition movement dedicated to the downfall of "Fat Flanks". This is populated by a weird and wonderful assortment of characters, exaggerated for effect but nevertheless recognisable archetypes. I didn't see the twist coming, though I feel I probably should have done. This isn't going to rival Jonathan Swift, but it's good to see a premise like this given a satirical treatment rather than just sticking to slapstick. ★★★

Relevé by Cillerenda
Applejack
Equestria Girls/Slice of Life; 1k words; Feb 2019; Everyone

Thanks to Rarity's dance video ideas, Applejack now has a new hobby. It's not one she ever expected.

An RCL inductee, this is a notably nice SoL scene in which AJ indulges her new-found passion for ballet in a quiet corner of Canterlot High. This is a character study of Applejack's desires and worries as much as it is anything else, and what it tells us about her is so much more satisfying than the "tomboy" label EqG AJ is sometimes saddled with. What's especially notable is that even though I never imagined Applejack as a ballet enthusiast, Cillerenda ties that into her canon character traits in such a way that it feels entirely convincing. I'm impressed by how much such a short story packs in, and I see why the RCL featured it. Make sure you read the end Author's Note for some authorial context. ★★★★

A Bittersweet Lesson by Nouvelle Tale
Scootaloo and Cheerilee
Sad/Slice of Life; 2k words; May 2021; Everyone

Teachers love it when their old students come to visit.

A grown-up Scootaloo, ready for her role as School of Friendship instructor, returns to the Ponyville Schoolhouse classroom. There she has a conversation with Cheerilee about their respective journeys in life. In the course of this, we learn something about both of them. I enjoyed the descriptive stuff in here about the classroom's ambience, too, which really helped to put me in the scene. There is a twist, which I suspect some will see coming, though I didn't. The odd mild rough patch (calling Cheerilee "the earth pony teacher") but for the most part this is exactly what it says on the tin: bittersweet. ★★★

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Next time, stories reviewed should include Winston's Rainbow Dash (and Twilight) sadfic First.