• Member Since 4th May, 2013
  • offline last seen 53 minutes ago

Estee


On the Sliding Scale Of Cynicism Vs. Idealism, I like to think of myself as being idyllically cynical. (Patreon, Ko-Fi.)

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There are some situations where being an Element-Bearer can help a pony in her daily life.

Getting a mailing address officially changed isn't one of them.


(Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.)

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 96 )

HA!

The gaps in the story write itself...and, the imagination of what exactly happened...

And, having had to deal with Customer Service people, just the ability to go over and have a reasoned discussion (+/- Royal Canterlotian Voice) with them, ending with explosions would have been so very therapeutic...

You know it's my job to write some letters that are scarily similar to these.

I like to think mine are a little politer

A little :scootangel:

"Firstly, please turn off and restart your library."

5210870 "Have you tried restarting your mailbox?"

5210872
"Did you check if your magic was turned off?"

Aenbr #6 · Oct 31st, 2014 · · 1 ·

Brilliant! :moustache:

Of course, what's really funny, is that as soon as she finally got her address changed, her library gets destroyed.

5210874 "Is everything properly plugged into your dragon?"

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

5210897 "Is your library on or off? If your mailbox on or off? Are both on at the same time?"

5210893

"Please note that if the dragon is objecting, you've done it wrong."

5210870

I so wish I could have done something like that, but that sort of problem is really more Ratchette's department.

Hmm...

5210893
"Do you have your dragon's serial number? No? Well, do you have the receipt from when your dragon was hatched? Do you know the model of his ignition glands?"

5210912 "Please note, we no longer support the GREEN DRAGON model. We recommend that you upgrade to the new BLUE DRAGON model, with 20% more flame power and a cup holder."

5210912

"Once the eggshell has been cracked, your dragon is no longer under warranty."

5210922
5210924
Why not take this opportunity to trade in your Dragon for an up to 8% discount on Dragon Plus? Did you know that over 60% of the materials used in Dragon can be recycled as fashion, pet food, or construction material? It's true!

5210904
I am now imagining a Ratchette-made giant dragon mech-suit made to be piloted by Spike for the purpose of destroying unhelpful office buildings.

5210960 "If you turn in your DRAGON, we will offer the market retail price trade-in on a new PHOENIX with a family sharing plan."

Oh Twilight., that's nothing that an accidental asteroid drop won't fix...

Or, on the other hoof...

5210960

I am now imagining a Ratchette-made giant dragon mech-suit made to be piloted by Spike for the purpose of destroying unhelpful office buildings.

YES.

...That is insanely infuriating. Considering your previous blog post, I imagine you might have had a source of inspiration nearby and it showed. Well done.

Please excuse me while I go release that anger on some unsuspecting piece of furniture

Glad to see your recent annoyance with customer service has resulted in such a great piece.:twilightsmile:

And this is why I don't subscribe to anything. <.<

5210892
I think I actually heard a sad trombone sound effect when I read that.

As they say, life imitates magazine subs.

Or, like, something....

It's time for some cleansing fire, Twilight, nobody will blame you for burning them down. Their building, them personally, whichever.

Imagining the circumstances behind that ending is so satisfying.

i do not think celistia will be very happy with them :trollestia:

About halfway through, I thought the following: "You know, the more I read about this Equestria, the more I wonder how Twilight has managed to keep herself from declaring it a lost cause, burning it down, and starting over from scratch."

I believe I now have my answer. Most of the time, it isn't so up-front about its ridiculousness.

Glad to see something constructive came of your frustration. Thank you for sharing it with us. :twilightsmile:

5210902
"No, ma'am. The mailbox is not a cup holder."

And no way to blame it on Derpy, either. Nicely done.

Estee, you have a wonderful talent for writing antagonists that the readers want to inflict suffering upon. I feel Twilight's pain and rage, mostly rage, even though you only wrote the responses of the magazine company.

I can imagine that Twilight will be tearing apart the entire periodical publishing industry once she gets around to using her royal authority. There will be a complete halt of all newspapers and periodicals for a few days while Twilight passes laws to clean up the system. Laws against libel come to mind. Twilight will probably force a few other laws into place specifically to destroy Murdock. I suggest a law giving her the right of search and seizure if a given individual is found passing counterfeits multiple times (and that right should be retroactive to catch him for all of those lawyers paid with counterfeits). Another law to force all businesses above a certain size to purchase those devices that check for counterfeits. A third law to punish those that still pass counterfeits despite having devices to check for them.

Counterfeits are a serious crime that can destroy a nation's economy. The punishments for passing counterfeits depends on the culture, but one punishment I have heard of was cutting off a hand and cauterizing the wound in boiling oil (use pony equivalent?). Making the things, in the numbers that Murdock appears to be making them, could be punished with execution via being boiled in oil.

:pinkiecrazy:Who supports me on boiling Murdock of the Triptych Continuum in oil? :pinkiecrazy:

Rereading this, I just realized that it sounds like Twilight, Rainbow Dash, or all six bearers may have destroyed that publishing company during one of their adventures.

"Signed and Scorched Variation" hmm? Methinks that they may soon be going out of business.

Edit. Maybe it was not the Bearers. Maybe it was all of the customers rioting against the 'customer service' branch of the company.

Or maybe the higher ups in the company destroyed that branch after realizing that they had gotten on a Princesses bad side.

One day, the Internet will come to Estee's version of Equestria.

The only question is-will the craters where certain ISP providers previously were be named or numbered?

5210856 As a computer person, I have BEEN customer support. 90% of problems are Unplugged Cord. 9% are Viruses.

For those 99%, Snark such as this story makes life worth living.

For the other 1%, well that's when Tech Support throws up their hands and goes: :raritycry: (Yes the people whose sole job it is to know all 3.9 million lines of code can occasionally have breakdowns. Sometimes we remember to mute the phone first. Sometimes we HAVE a phone to mute. Remember, if your in-home tech support starts weeping, the recommended solution is a quality beer. 30% or more alcohol. Then go to the store and buy a new one. Trust us. We have our tear ducts surgically removed so we can't weep.) :scootangel:

Well, if they are willing to slander a princess by saying she isn't who she says she is, tell them the following:

'Sue me'

Then go about and give them your location and the number of the local guards so they can collect you like the criminal scum you are. So then you can have a sequel were they try and bullshit the court into believing 'no, that isn't the real Princess Twilight Sparkle, just someone who looks like her and lives in her house and is trying to have a magazine subscription redirected to said house. No, we have no real proof, we get rid of everything after every letter. No, it shouldn't matter that she has a copy of everything and legal witnesses, one of which is Celestia herself. She is probably a fake too. Who would believe Celestia is that tall? That is obviously an anorexic elephant. We are in the right. Also super smart.'

Then Twilight becomes the nightmare and has the shortest, and most accurate tyrannical reign in history. No pony knows why she only attacked a few layers and one magazine company, they could only guess. Probably had something to do with that purple faker pretending to be her to get a magazine.

Dear Subscriber,
Recently a number of your issues of our fine magazine have been returned, marked 'Library Destroyed by Elder God.' As there presently is no such catagory within our return department, we will be forced to bill your account for both the delivery and the return mail charges until such time as the problem can be resolved on your end. We would like to encourage you to take this opportunity to renew your subscription for an additional year at only 80% of our list price, with a free signed poster of Princess Twilight Sparkle being coronated in Canterlot. This is a limited time offer, extending only to our existing stocks of posters. Regretably, the previous promotional poster of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza's wedding have been recalled, due to a misprint showing her to have green eyes, when they are actually purple.


I would like to imagine that, due to their superb routing, the notification to the Royal Guard was delivered straight to Shining Armor. Yes, in the Crystal Empire.

5211571 It pretty heavily implies that Twilight burnt down their offices. Or ordered the Royal Guard to do so. Or ordered the Customer Service Department of Thaumaturgy Review to do so on pain of [censored], and then left them to suffer whatever punishments their CEO could dream up to make the ones responsible suffer (as they obviously can't blame the Princess (and still be legally permitted to use the Postal Office)). Or led a mob of all Thaumaturgy Review subscribers who have ever written to the Thaumaturgy Review Customer Service Department. Or the burning of buildings is the appropriate legal action when one attempts to sue a Princess over... well, anything.

There are some situations where being an Element-Bearer can help a pony in her daily life.

being an Element-Bearer can

Element-Bearer

You, sir or madam, have earned a cookie and a moustache. :moustache::pinkiehappy:

5211782 I told a person once the best option for repairing their computer was to take it out back, have it shot, and buy a new computer.

But, then again, it was an eMachine...

Ha! I can just imagine right after the Elements destroy the Customer Service and Legal Department buildings.

"Do you believe I'm Princess Twilight now!":twilightangry2:

And after that last letter I think the rest of their buildings will be coming down too.

I can't see these guys to survive long after the last one...

I have a feeling this reflects a true-to-life experience....

And then the building was hit with a mysterious flaming boulder with the word "Tom" engraved into them, resulting in the immediate shutdown of the business in question.

5212652 Ouch. Then again, it was better than a Chromebook (bigger target), or a Macbook Air (too little materiel to make a satisfying target).
The worst one I've had to put out to pasture was a 12 year old Dell Desktop, back when they still made the casing out of metal. Took four .30-06 shots to break the motherboard, then we buried it.

My favorite though, that belonged to an old Macintosh (the one that was all screen and no substance). I broke a carbon fiber axe handle bashing in the CRT monitor. But Damn was it satisfying.

I was expecting it to finally get changed the day before Books and Branches got nuked by Tirek. The ending is equally satisfying, though. Good read! ^_^

Peace,
~C

This was awesome!

Emil #46 · Nov 2nd, 2014 · · ·

5210904

Instead of the "Dear criminal" letter, I could instead see something like this being the cause of the final letter:

"Dear Ms. Sparkle,

We have forwarded your letter to our legal department and they do not understand how 'sending three fillies on a field trip to [our] offices to see whether 'CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS, YAY!' is successful' constitutes a threat, legal or otherwise. In fact, we are always looking for eager new unpaid interns and would welcome such volunteers. We also do not understand why you have sent us property insurance brochures from every major Equestrian provider of such services, nor do we see why you have pointed out that 'Acts of Discord' are not covered under any circumstance..."

5210861

You know it's my job to write some letters that are scarily similar to these.

And it is my job to take those letters and forms, verify/update the address, and sort them in order, so mail ponies like Derpy and deliver them easier...
:derpytongue2:

Perhaps the Thaumaturgy Review would be interested in purchasing NCOA service? I guarantee the license and annual audits will be cheaper than having to rebuild twice a year after a Rainboom strike. NCOA also (as the name suggests) helps keep track and updates new addresses; this will vastly reduce the size and incidents of pitchfork+torch wielding mobs raiding your corporate headquarters.
:flutterrage::twilightangry2:

Bonus!

Sooner or later, someone is going to come along, see that there are zero downvotes, and click it just because they can.
That person is the worst kind of person.

5210986
5210960

I am now imagining a Ratchette-made giant dragon mech-suit made to be piloted by Spike for the purpose of destroying unhelpful office buildings.

You mean something like this?:

Twilight, here is your solution.

Take the entire sum of your correspondence with this company.

Mail it to Celestia via dragon fire.

Explain to her that the frustration they are causing you is becoming an active distraction from your studies, and your efforts to understand the magic of Friendship and the Elements of Harmony, and as such constitute a threat to national security.

Ask her to sort this out for you.

...

Alternatively, Spike, do the above, begging Celestia for help on account of Twilight going crazy over this.

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