//------------------------------//
// Episode 28: Accountability 
// Story: Last Week Tonight with Discord 
// by FrostTheWolf 
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By the time that he had come back to Ponyville, Discord had heard a lot of positive feedback from Starlight’s own segment the previous week. In his mind, he thought that it would be a good idea to have the guidance counselor come back to provide more insight on the ever-spinning crazy political circus of the events happening with the government and the nobles. But he couldn’t exactly keep his viewers entertained with segments from surprised guests for long and personally needed to make a comeback. Especially since he considered tonight’s episode as the third to last episode of his second season.

Of course, the idea for what this episode subject was about actually occurred when he was trying to do research on. At first, he was only looking into this subject just as a way to check in and see if there was any progress that was made since the last time he covered it. But when he began to look into it a bit more, he began to realize there was more of an underlying problem than he realized. A problem to the point that it was something important that he felt that needed to be addressed on his show.

Because there was one important thing that Discord had been learning throughout the course of developing episodes for his show. When you actually do the research and start to look into things or when you look back at previous subjects that were done to see if there was any progress that was made, you begin to realize… everything about it sucks. Because the particular topic he wanted to address tonight was something that was a huge part of the investigation going on into the nobles right now, but it seemed that either not a lot of creatures knew what it was or they heard it somewhere before, but didn’t pay enough attention to it.

So, as he was preparing his setup and his guests were coming in, he began to do the usual routine when it came to starting an episode. After his opening bits, a few jokes and thanking everyone for showing Starlight their support when she took over for one week, he began to focus on the main story for tonight. “Our main story tonight concerns government, otherwise known as the stationary political circus that occurs in every known city across the country,” That was followed by an image of what looked like a giant circus tent in place of the Royal Palace in Canterlot with Trapeze artists and a stallion getting shot out of a cannon. “Now, with the Royal Intelligence Organization hard at work at investigating illegal and fraudulent activity in the Royal Parliament and with my special bestie Starlight covering a lot of what was going on last week, I wanted to discuss something that many creatures have been calling for whenever some creature of rather high importance gets in trouble with the law.”



“These ponies need to be held accountable for what they’ve done.”

“If the evidence from the investigation proves that they did commit these acts, we will hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law the same way that any other creature would if they broke the law.”



“Yes, accountability is something that is vitally important to pretty much everything. If you’re a lawyer, you’re accountable for the practices in your legal firm and accountable for your clients. If you’re a teacher, you’re accountable for how you act as a teacher and also for the students that you are teaching. It’s a term that means that you are responsible for whatever actions you take and you can’t just toss them aside like no big deal,” Discord explained, before looking back at his audience and providing a handy graphic for his next comparison, “The problem is, no matter where you look, there are times where creatures are trying to basically either have another creature take the hit for their actions or use every trick in the book to avoid consequences.”

The graphic that was provided was one that had an image of a stallion that had a book that read ‘How to get away with pretty much anything (except murder) 101’ that had his audience laugh a bit. “This is an important subject no matter where you work, so tonight, let’s take a look at it. How accountability is supposed to work, how it’s applied as a legal procedure and how some creatures go to extreme lengths in order to steer clear of it and act like they said or did nothing wrong, even though some of the bad things that they’re doing is plainly obvious.”

With that in place, he then jumped to the first piece of the puzzle. “So with that in mind, let’s start with taking a look at how accountability is supposed to work. Say for example, some creature says or does something horribly. Like make a racist comment or does something that causes public outrage. In theory, what accountability is supposed to do is have that particular individual be held into account and face consequences for those actions. It’s the equivalent of the ‘getting caught stealing from the cookie jar’ scenario put into legal practice.”

That was followed by an image of a colt getting caught attempting to steal from a cookie jar by his mother, just as she walked in the door. “Of course, as we all know from any experiments with magic done by Twilight Sparkle or otherwise is that not everything always works out that way in practice,” That was followed by a picture of Twilight Sparkle looking as if a test she was conducting had exploded in her face, which got his audience laughing. “Because for certain individuals and organizations, there are systems in place where the only punishment that they would get for something that’s blatantly racist or messed up is a slap on the wrist. Take for example, the police divisions in cities like Applewood and Manehattan. If they do something that causes public outrage, you would want that officer to be held accountable for what they did. But for most cases… that does not happen and most often times, officer involved incidents mostly end up like this case from a couple of weeks ago.”



“No criminal charges will be filed against an officer that tackled a griffon to the ground in order to arrest and restrain her. However, many of the members in that community, which mostly consists of griffons and dragons, claim that they were being profiled and targeted just because of their species.”



“Now, that obviously is messed up, but unfortunately, we cannot get into since it would make our episode tonight the length of an hour long season finale,” Discord explained, “But to summarize it in a nutshell, the system that they have in place is one where there is a lack of consequences for any officer that’s involved in incidents like these, the police unions place limits on how they treat officer related incidents and it doesn’t help that since prosecutors mainly rely on the police to help them with criminal cases, in the same sense that they have your back if you have yours. That’s not the motto that should represent the police, that’s the motto of two guys going out clubbing and one of them being your drunken wing-man.”

The room erupted in laughter as it showed an image of Soarin rolling his eyes, while Thunderlane looked to be downright drunk and losing his mind while doing so. “It’s not just a problem with the police though, there are many other examples that I can list. For politicians, if they do something out of line, they’re condemned by the public so they can be held accountable if something they want to move forward with is against the law. However, many of them either go into straight out denial, act as if they don’t know anything or just pull an Iron Will and call it ‘fake news’ despite the evidence against them.”

That comment was followed by the image of Iron Will’s face when he realized that he messed up in the moments after the Iron Will episode from Season 1. Which got his audience laughing some more. “Of course, trying to hold public officials accountable is like trying to have a firm grip on a bar of soap,” That was followed by a new image of Spike trying to hold onto a soap bar, only for it to slip out of his hands every time, “No matter how many times you think you got them, they always find a way to slip away. Not to mention that in slipping away, they happen to make even more of a mess than the one that they’re trying to clean up. One such example the nobles on foreign policy with other countries. Take this example from last Thursday.”



“Many officials in Royal Parliament are in bewilderment tonight after a bizarre statement from one of Canterlot’s nobles suggesting that they will not be willing to meet with foreign officials to discuss future relations between countries. In addition, they claim that anything that’s against what they say is false and without merit.”



Many creatures in the audience were a bit puzzled about that. Puzzled to where Discord had to explain to them what it meant. “Now, there are a few things wrong there. First, when did the nobles have any merit at all? To them, Merit is something that you leave at the door to a strip club with a huge lunch buffet,” The image of a billboard that said ‘Gentlecolt’s Club. Please leave your merit at the door’ was seen next as laughter began to kick up in the room again. “Second, and this is the most important one, statements like that show how the Nobles are trying to undermine any current progress in government. Equestria only thrives when it’s allies got their back, so trying to stop these meetings is the equivalent of the nobles telling those countries that they can go buck themselves.”

He further emphasized his point by giving his middle talon at the camera as his audience laughed and cheered, before going back to what he was talking about. “Because honestly… with the Nobles being as self centered and heartless as they are, do you honestly think that anything that they say is telling the truth? Any time we try to talk to them, we should have a lie detector device that beeps every time they mess up like this.”




“It’s all that because of those Blank Flanks! They’re the reason why Diamond’s acting this way-”

“THAT’S GRADE A BULLSH*T AND YOU KNOW IT!!!”



Just the example clip alone gave the audience even more of a reason for them to laugh and go wild as they Discord wanted to see what their reaction would be. Nevertheless, he was quite impressed with it and everyone seemed to like it, especially given the context that it was used for. “Now, just from that alone, you can see why accountability is important because we, as citizens of Equestria, would not want these narcissistic and self centered jerks to make promises that they are obviously not going to keep and unravel everything that keeps our country together. But trying to apply it as a legal procedure is harder than it seems, because if you try to ask for something from they, they can just dodge and weave around it long enough to where they try to make these problems just simply ‘go away’.”

The main image changed back to the title display as Discord took in a deep breath. “Take for example, the one thing that many Equestrians hate the most other than Nobles or having to wait in line for hours on end just to get a drink at Starbuckers,” his audience laughed when a new picture of an impatient pony at the back of a long line was seen next. “Taxes. Almost every creature has to file them once they start to make a living here and a lot of us hate them. It’s like mandatory math. The thing is, when it comes to politics, many creatures that run for important positions are required to present their tax documents to show that they are in compliance with the government and paying for them. Yet, there are some who have not done so, but use the most dumbest excuses repeatedly in order to try and justify why.”



“The pony that’s helping me with that lost my records and we’re trying to find them again.”

“I’m under audit right now. Once I’m done, then you can see them.”



That had Discord lift up a talon for a moment in order to have his crowd hold off their reaction for a moment, before he continued to speak. “Here’s my problem with stuff like that. To start, the first guy is treating ‘losing his records’ like a child who said that their pet dog ate their homework,” That was followed by a picture of a colt chasing a puppy with a paper that had multiplication questions on it, “Then there’s the second excuse. Under normal circumstances, it would take only a year in order to file an audit, yet they have been saying that for two and a half years. To them, saying that they’re under audit is probably their version of ‘I forgot my wallet’ if you and a friend are going out to lunch and you don’t want to pay the bill.”

That was followed by an image of a stallion shrugging his shoulders at a mare he was sitting across from, who was facehooving himself in the process. Which got more laughs when Discord added vocals to it. “You forgot it again!? This is the fifth time, Knitty! Don’t you have something you can carry it in at all!?”

His audience was still laughing from that as Discord let out a small breath to calm himself. Retaining his focus before he began to speak again. “Seriously, at this point, you should probably just have a tab for whenever they do something stupid and when they think that they’re in the clear, you present them with the bill,” which was followed by an image of a noble staring at a clip board with wide eyes as they were looking at everything. “Now, if anything, corruption in politics is not exactly an entirely new subject. The thing that’s different these days is that because of the nobles that are running the show now, they’re just making it even more obvious. Back in the day, many would try to keep any sort of illegal activity hidden. Nowadays though, many think that they are immune to consequences.”

With that part, he presented the perfect kind of comparison, “Think about it like this… If some creature was wanting to give you a painting that was stolen from a museum, almost anyone would not want it. But for these guys, instead of refusing it, they would take that picture, mount it up on a wall where everyone can see it and have a plaque underneath that says ‘A cool painting that I got that was stolen from a museum’.”

That got several laughs from his audience, especially with the graphic that went along with that image. “If it wasn’t painfully obvious enough, one of the things that the nobles have been promising have been to try and come up with solutions and plans for big issues that work for every creature. Though, there are two problems with that. First, some of the issues that they think need to be fixed involve something that already has a working system in place… and second, many of what they’re suggesting is not something that benefits every creature, but benefits themselves and their ‘friends’. Of course… that is assuming that they have any because I don’t think this is a good way of saying hello.”



“BUY ME MORE JEWELRY!!!”



Even more of the audience was in a comical uproar as they saw Spoiled Rich’s failed slogan for her campaign for Princess as Discord used that moment to regain his thoughts. “So, if they always act like this, then it's no wonder that they’ll use any trick in the book to get out of legal trouble. But accountability is important, because the longer that you put this kind of thing off and the more that the truth and damning allegations come to life, the more trouble that they’re going to find themselves in. They’re supposed to be responsible for their own actions, yet, their actions are wild and uncontrollable like they were animals let out of their habitats at the zoo… though, to be clear, they would more likely fit as the ones running away from the animals instead.”

That was followed by a graphic of some of the nobles, including Spoiled Rich, running away from some of the animals that were at the Manehattan Zoo and let out of their enclosures on accident. Which had his audience laugh once more. “I mean… let’s be honest, can you even trust these guys when it comes to this kind of thing? Many of them are serial liars to the point that Applejack has asked me to stop running statement that they say by her because of how untruthful they are.” That had a picture of Applejack just facehooving herself when looking at a stack of papers as some more of his audience laughed from that. 

“But considering everything that you’ve seen so far, you would also think that making these figures accountable for their wild and reckless behavior. Yet, since this happens almost on a daily basis, we just end up growing numb to it and that cannot be the way that we demonstrate how we feel about clear abuses of power that are just out in the open. No creature, not even them is above the law, but saying that can only get you so far. If you really want to see change, you need to act upon this. Say something, call them out for it, make it to where they can’t just be able to simply shake something like this off. Because if this keeps going on to the point where there’s nothing that can stop creatures like the nobles from doing whatever they want, then we as a nation are, and I’m saying this nicely… completely and royally fucked,” That got a massive cheer from his audience as he pointed back at the camera. “And now, this.”



And Now… the strangest things said from a session of Canterlot Day Court

“Can we hold a national poll asking every creature who they think is the best princess?”

“Is the menu for the royal dining hall considered a public record? I’m asking for a friend who’s pursuing a career in dietary studies.”

“Is there a way that you can make my job as a public servant less emotionally draining?”

“Have the ponies in the royal guard grown a pair yet?”

“Can you help the city of Manehattan with it’s Raccoon problem? Because honestly, we have no idea what the buck is going on and we’re seeing them pop up everywhere! One pony even mistook a raccoon for a freaking tiger!!”

“Wait, this is the Day Court line? I thought this was the line for the Cafeteria!! Goddess dammit!!”

“Who do I speak too in order to ask what sort of ‘doomsday scenarios’ can be covered on my insurance policy?”

“Can you please extinguish the sun?”



Meanwhile...

“So, explain to me again as to why you’re… sticking around,” the Centaur named Tirek asked while he was sitting outside. If another creature were to notice him, then it would look like he was talking to thin air. Instead, he was talking to someone completely different.

“You mean why I’m haunting you? You know, because I can. Besides, it does get kind of boring just floating around with nobody to talk too. I mean, it wasn’t like I was lonely the whole time though.”

“You’re saying that you… talked with another ghost?” Tirek asked as he looked at Scorpan.

“Well, yeah a couple. First one was Sendak, but all he told me was that next time I saw you to say that you can go rot in Tartarus,” his brother explained, “Other than him, there was this one other guy that I met that was kind of like me.”

“What was their story?”

“Well, it kind of went along the lines of him and his best friend wanting to get some wishing balls on another world, only for that to not work out so well and for his best friend to kill him. So, afterwards, he went to haunt his friend while they tried to track down so ‘freezer’ guy or something. Though, he wasn’t dead for long. Last thing I heard him say was ‘Nappa’s going to hit the prime time, baby!’. You know, very enthusiastically.”

“Nappa?”

“Oh right, that was his name. His friend's name was Vege-”

“Hey, Tirek!! Come in here!”

The centaur was caught by surprise as he got up and walked inside, only to find Cozy and Chrysalis waiting for him.

“Sorry, I was just thinking of something. Is something the matter?”

“Well, you could say that,” Chrysalis said, floating over what looked like a scroll to Tirek. Once he began to look at it, that was when she let out a sigh, “Grogar wants for us to find this stupid bell of his and wants us to bring it back… together.”

There was a small amount of silence… followed by screams of joy that could be heard inside Tirek’s head as his brother was overjoyed by the news. “ROADTRIP! YAY!!!”