Ponyfic Roundup 490

Read it Later story count: 93 (+1)

Words read this week: 30,858

I saw the Northern Lights for the first time ever last Friday night. They weren't incredibly spectacular – let me tell you, those photos you see of the aurora blazing away above Birmingham or something as though it were bright enough to cast shadows are often very long exposures and/or enhanced within an inch of their lives. That is definitely not what I saw with the naked eye! I don't care, though: I'd never seen the Lights at all before, and the experience was magical. Talking of magic, it's ponyfic time!

Lunch with Fluttershy by iisaw
Twilight Sparkle at the Gate of Heavenly Peace by Cold in Gardez
The Runaway... Ears?... by Lulamoon-Crystal
Stone Cold Justice by Featherstroke
Doused Flame by heartlessons

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

Lunch with Fluttershy by iisaw
Fluttershy and Twilight
G4; Slice of Life; 2k words; Dec 2019; Everyone

Twilight Sparkle has a nice lunch with her friend Fluttershy.

This little fic proves that simple stories can be good stories. Princess Twilight, deciding not to be a princess for her meeting and magically reverting temporarily to unicorn form to underline this, spends a little time with Fluttershy in and around her cottage. That's more or less the entire story, and it's lovely. You know I talk about "tea-break fics" sometimes? This is a really superior example of those. A commenter on Fimfiction uses the word "delightful", and that sums this up perfectly. I smiled the whole way through. ★★★★

Twilight Sparkle at the Gate of Heavenly Peace by Cold in Gardez
Crystal Ponies, OCs and Twilight
G4; genres; 11k words; Adventure/Mystery/Thriller; Teen (Sex, Violence, Death)

On the one-year anniversary of King Sombra's destruction, Twilight Sparkle prepares to visit the Crystal Empire again. Thousands will greet her. Four want to kill her.

...or do they? One of the quartet is a traitor to the cause of Lord Sombra – and you'll be kept guessing the whole way through. I love the world-building in this story, especially the flashbacks to what life was like during Sombra's reign. They don't necessarily align with what we saw of the Crystal Empire's past in the IDW comics, so bear that in mind. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the past history and the current plotting, there's some significant violence here, but it's used judiciously and you'll note the lack of a [Gore] tag. Bar a few more very minor typos than expected from an author this good, I have very little negative to mention. Oh, and there's a certain our-world relevance to this fic as well: all I'll vouchsafe here is that the story's title is very interesting. ★★★★

The Runaway... Ears?... by Lulamoon-Crystal
Other [Jazz], Izzy and Pipp
G5; Comedy/Random/Slice of Life; 7k words; Mar 2023; Everyone

Dammit, Jazz’s ears escaped again

Inspired by Jazz's oddly earless appearance in certain official G5 media, this takes that concept and runs with it. Indeed, we discover that poor Jazz has been suffering in this way on multiple occasions. Set after the movie but before Make Your Mark, it has some amusing moments, though YMMV as the tone leans towards slapstick at times. Izzy being written as friendly but weird is nice, too. The fic is pretty uneven, however, without much of a real explanation for much of what happens. There are also quite a few typos and other technical errors ("a bee was seemly teleported"), and a proofread would certainly help. ★★

Stone Cold Justice by Featherstroke
Twilight and Starlight
G4 AU; Dark/Drama/Sad; 2k words; Dec 2015; Teen

Twilight gives Starlight her just desserts.

In this AU setting, Starlight is not forgiven for her actions in S5. Instead, Twilight uses her position at princess to enforce punishment: thinking even Tartarus is not enough for what Starlight has done, she confines her to a cell, chained and alone, to be left to starve – after Twilight visits her for the last time. This is an all-dialogue fic and is written clearly: it's always perfectly obvious who's speaking. I am giving the rating I am not on technical merit but simply because I really can't stomach the whole premise of the fic or Twilight behaving like this, even in an AU. ★

Doused Flame by heartlessons
Sunset and Flash Sentry
G4 EqG; Romance/Drama; 10k words; Apr 2023; Teen (Sex, Profanity)

No one said your first love had to be your best love.

The story of Flash's relationship with Sunset, told from his perspective. It spans pretty much their entire high school career up to the events of the first Equestria Girls movie, and so we see how Sunset changes as time goes on. The author is excellent at letting a word or a phrase mentioned without fuss carry quite some significance to the reader. As with her slightly earlier The Way It Goes Down (PR 451), the American school jargon does make it a slightly rougher read for me than it probably is for people who don't have to look up "salutatorian". A top-end three for me, but perhaps shading into the fours if you're more familiar with the ins and outs of American high school life. ★★★

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It's Spotlight time again next week! I did say I was hoping to read a few more longer fics than in the past, and while I won't always return to them as often as this – it'll be just four weeks since the last Spotlight – nor do I expect to go many months without one any more. Next week's will be an ApplePie shipfic. Not my normal fare, no, but this one apparently has a really good reputation:

Taken for Granite by Cloudy Skies