Anyway, to get back into the swing of things and to start finally fulfilling a promise to my Patreons I'm going to run a free story raffle. Usually this
Much to my surprise and delight 
I Have Been Reading: Unexpected Turbulance · 8:20pm Feb 5th, 2015
Unexpected Turbulence, Remain Calm and Don't Murder Anypony by HazardPony
Octavia and Vinyl are both, to their surprise, flying to Trottingham on the same flight. At first, this seems like a happy coincidence, but things turn sour when the engineer on board, Cogs, is killed.
With everypony on board panicking and accusing Vinyl, Octavia helps her prove her innocence and save the rest of the passengers by unveiling the real killer.
Navigating suspects such as an unhinged weather pony, two inventor brothers, and an art dealer from Prance, both ponies have their work cut out for them.
So this story had a lot going for it. Murder mystery? Awesome. Vinyl and Octavia? My favorite. An author whose other story I really liked? Good, good. Overall the story’s one I would have given a look even if I hadn’t been pointed in this direction. Which is why I’m really quite disappointed by Unexpected Turbulence.
Murder mysteries are strange stories. They tend not to have a huge amount happening in them, so they fall back on excellent characterisation and a thorough depiction of their environment. This is especially true with the locked room mysteries, like this one, where all the elements of the murder are contained within the local right from the beginning. A great murder mystery should allow you to deduce the crime, and deliver the reveal well enough that you kick yourself for not figuring it out.
Unexpected Turbulence misses on most of these scores. Description is sparse, characterisation is spotty, the murderous scheme is filled with logical errors (most notably the fact that pegasi can fly!), and no one seems to react to anything. It’s not terrible, or even hard to read, it just does grip me. Vinyl and Octavia are some of the community's most quirky and interesting characters and I can’t think of a single memorable line they had in this whole fic.
Overall, this was a good idea, but not written in the right style to properly carry things through. It needed fewer characters and more time spent on the remaining cast and the actual crime.
Written for a #FebFIMFanFicLove exchange.
...Wow.
Now there's a plot hole you could ram a whole staff of butlers through, alright.
Still, nice to see somebody try new ideas, even if their skills weren't quite up to task; don't think I've even seen many murder mysteries on this site, let alone read any.
Not my cup of tea criminal drama, but props for that much, at least.