Let's just cut to the chase:

Birthdays by Aiyonbeam

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Publish Date:11th Oct 2015
Genre(s): Sad, Slice of Life
Central Characters: Celestia, Twilight
Status: Complete

Honestly, this fic is probably the biggest disconnect I've witnessed between the short synopsis and the content within. For reference, here's the synopsis:

A drunk Princess Celestia pays Twilight a visit.

Yeah. Sounds like some generic one-shot comedy, right? Well, I was pleasantly surprised to find that that was indeed not the case. What we've got here instead is a neat little take on the admittedly overdone concept of Immortality Blues. It presents itself with maturity and handles the topic well, delivering a nice little look into Celestia and Twilight's characters and then providing an uplifting conclusion.

Constellations by Soap Box

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Publish Date:19th Aug 2015
Genre(s): Slice of Life
Central Characters: Celestia, Twilight
Status: Complete

Celestia and Twilight again. Seems to be a theme with me.

I once reviewed this for a different group (right here if you're curious) and recently I found myself coming back to this story on my own terms.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the good juju I gleaned off my initial reading remained intact. And looking at it from the perspective of a casual reader instead of reviewer made it much easier to focus on the great things that this story presented. It is more or less the deliverance of the author's headcanon involving Equestria's constellations, but it's a damn unique headcanon to begin with so I don't really mind. It explores the oft-forgotten 'stars will aid' part of the Nightmare Moon prophecy, while simultaneously exploring both Twilight Sparkle's present and future and Celestia and Luna's past. Short, sweet, and worth your time.

Zecora's Exile by KingMoriarty

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Publish Date:8th Oct 2015
Genre(s): Romance, Sad
Central Characters: Zecora, OC zebras
Status: Complete

Speaking of juju...

Zecora's backstory is one of my favourite things to ponder, but unfortunately there's not a whole lot of it out in the FimFic yonder. I guess rhyming zebras are a bit of a turnoff, but Zecora's rhyming in this fic hardly made me scoff.

Sorry. I'll stop now.

Zecora's Exile is an interpretation of Zecora's backstory, explaining the history behind her rhyming, why she is in Equestria, and why she isn't vocal about her past. All is handled very well, including the worldbuilding of zebra culture—although I've always kinda seen over-reliance on African or Haitian customs to be kinda overdone. Whatever, that's a nitpicky critique.

Either way, what really sold this fic for me was Zecora's shame regarding her mistakes. It made her story all the more tragic knowing she was basically the cause of it, and without spoiling anything I'm just going to say that the reason behind her rhyming is delightfully ironic. If I can formulate one other nitpicky gripe, it's simply that I would have preferred Zecora's past with the chieftain to be explored in a little more detail, since the Romance tag seemed to imply more than I received regarding their relationship.

Rise of the Solar Wind by Impossible Numbers

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Publish Date: 31st Jan 2016
Genre(s): Slice of Life, Alternate Universe, Fridge Sadness
Central Characters: Luna, Celestia (kinda)
Status: Complete

Celestia and Luna alicorn ascension stories are hardly anything new, but I tend to gravitate towards them anyways because it's always fun reading different interpretations of how it could've gone down.

Rise of the Solar Wind uses the AU tag to deliver an interesting twist. In this fic, Luna ascends but Celestia does not. Luna becomes a princesses and important figure to Equestria, while Celestia continues living her humble pre-alicorn life as a farmer named Solar Wind.

The emotions this conjures up are interesting ones. The idea of younger siblings moving on from their older siblings whom they once idolized is something that hits me on a personal level, and so this fic kinda shook me a little more than I was expecting. Regardless, the Fridge Connotations here are very neat to think about—for example, if Celestia indeed does not ascend, that essentially makes her the older sister right till the end in a disturbingly twisted way. I found myself thinking long and hard about this story after I had finished it. The question about Celestia's ascension is never answered but it is both implicitly denied and implied, which is enough to make any introspective reader think.

Well, that's all for now. See ya next time.

5053128 Alright then.