Concerned Citizens

by Chinchillax


We have concerns

Dear Mr./Mrs. Chronicle of the Gazebo Gazette,


I was fine with bat ponies in my backyard.

The changelings in my chimney.

The pegasi in my pond, quacking like a duck.

And the alicorn princess deep in conversation with the same patch of water every other Tuesday at 2 o’clock in the morning.

But I draw the line at earth ponies trying to fly.

Apparently this whole thing started when some idiot parent used that aggravating phrase: “If everypony jumped off a bridge at the same time, would you do it too?"

And the answer is most definitely yes.

Mind you, I live in a shack cabin cottage down by the river and so I see every single pony that jumps off. And you know what!? Everypony survives. I'm sick of it.

Earth pony foals jump off and land just fine, pegasi foals jump off and even if they forget to fly—they land lightly. And the unicorns are off doing something far more sensible, like giving apples sapience, and measuring the pain of existence.

So I got all these ponies jumping off a bridge and there's not even remotely a consequence for them in the form of bodily harm.

I did try putting sharp, jagged, polio riddled rocks where they would land to prevent them from getting near my shack. But then somepony complained. I spent a night in jail (AGAIN!). And I had to put away the rocks.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to add enough disease to a rock to hurt somepony? A lot!

All that effort, wasted.

And I contracted polio.

So now after 38 attempts at causing bodily harm to colts and fillies, only one has actually been hospitalized. (That would have been three nights in Jail, but nopony has caught me yet! Yippee Skippee!).



What I’m trying to get at here, is that Survival of the Fittest isn’t working and ponies should be able to take and interpret the cosmic imperative of “Survival of the Fittest” by force. Seeing as how it is a fundamental law in the Equestrian Monarchical Constitution.
–Fiddly Fit

Red Pen contacted the authorities and Fiddly spent five nights in jail and had to write a letter to several injured foals. Then another several months for domestic terrorism of a virus. This case—along with several other dozen cases—convinced Princess Celestia to finally remove “Survival of the Fittest” from one of her old legal charters.



I am very upset by the cheese factory that was put up in my neighborhood. I suffer from trypophobia and every time I see the holes in that cheese I clam up and can’t contain myself. It reminds me of that awful invasion from a few years ago and the only way I can handle moments like that is to just eat.


I ate my way through that cocoon the changelings put me in.


I ate my way out of that disastrous chocolate mousse spell epidemic. And I eat my way out of my relationships, horrifying anyone that comes near me by how much I eat.


And yet I never gain any weight. I don’t understand it.


I’ve been to doctors and they look at me and my 10,000 calories a day and they just shrug. They can’t cure what’s not a problem they say.


Well I think I have a problem. And here’s what Canterlot needs to do about it: Ban cheese factories. (Cheesecake factories are okay).


For cheese leads to holes, which leads to being scared of holes, which leads to me eating, which leads to being stuck in a doctors office for hours waiting for a diagnosis and a heavy bill with no actual solutions.


I know I should blame the terrible Equestrian healthcare system, but that is way too much for one stallion to topple overnight. But cheese factories? That can be arranged.


Preferably through a unanimous vote by the royal sisters, but vigilante terrorism is also a possibility.

–Please Don’t Say Cheese



Red Pen had thrown this letter away, but fished it out of the dumpster because one week later a stallion was arrested for filling the holes in all the cheese in the cheese factory with pop rocks.


Okay, I need the readers of the Canterlot Chronicle to settle a debate I was having with my friend.



She thinks the reason bestiality is wrong is because they can’t consent. I think it’s because, y’know—they’re ANIMALS.


But then she went into this long diatribe that every pegasi is distantly related to a goose so somepony had to be first if we were going to improve the species. A dragon is just a bat and a lizard made real big. And griffons are a lion and an eagle. So like—it’s the equestrian imperative to experiment and



The rest of the letter was unreadable through the coffee that Red Pen projectile spat onto it, causing the ink to run, and the horrific thought to never be quite finished. He had written back to the mare in question and told her that yes, bestiality is wrong. And her friend must see a therapist.


Red Pen would sometimes get single questions as if he were a librarian or something.

How do somepony get they’re name changod?

-Gleaming Snot, age 6

Red Pen’s response: Get a cutiemark and you can change your name to better match your mark.



If I murdr enuff ponys, can I gat a cutiemark in death?

–Evening Lily, age 8

Red Pen had thrown this in the box decades ago, and was very concerned that this same name had been the name of the hospice nurse for his late grandmother last month.



Dumpster Fire was a great stallion and we need to stop telling ponies that something bad was a ‘Dumpster Fire.’ If the real Dumpster Fire were here, we wouldn’t have had this mess to begin with.

–Savage Speeder

Red Pen had led some poor intern on a two-week wild goose chase to find out the origin of the term 'dumpster fire' and if it had been somepony’s actual name. The real Dumpster Fire had ran to be Princess of Equestria centuries ago and had unfortunately lost the election because being a Princess is not an electable office, nor was he a mare, nor willing to become one.


I hereby request that giggling fillies be made illegal. I’ve already got shock collars put on half the fillies at school and have noticed a 50% decrease in giggling. I’m such a good principal. Ten points to me.

–Namby Pamby

Namby Pamby was later fired by the school board. He now substitute teaches at Twilight Sparkle’s School of Friendship.


What’s the difference between a gang and a group of friends?

–Remember December

Red Pen wrote back a one word response: “Drugs.”

Unsatisfied with Red Pen’s answer, this fortunately/unfortunately led to the poor foal spending the next ten years stuck in graduate studies at the school of Friendship pursuing a PhD on this very topic. He is now apart of six friendship groups, four gangs, and works at a Burger Princess. Because he got a useless PhD in friendship.



Dear Princess Celestia,



Today I learned that no matter how much you may prepare for you wedding. It will go horribly wrong. The groom will have memory loss due to experimental “wedding night” magic his unicorn friend found in a book—that does NOT work as advertised. The wine we will get will actually be a potion of increased hilarity, which results in several ponies being taken to the hospital and the best night of at least 6 ponies lives. And a temporary cure for depression for Secluded Sadness—this mare in Accounting I didn’t even know but felt guilty for not inviting to my wedding and now she wants to be my friend but I already have at least 38 friends and I just can’t timeslot another half hour a month to cultivate that kind of friendship.


All in all, I learned that weddings are terrible and expensive and I should have eloped. Please encourage others to elope as much as equinely possible.
–Sunshine Smiles

P.S. I now understand why you never married.

Red Pen did not forward this one to the princess.


You know cilantro? Not the famous actor, but like—the food? I heard that the reason cilantro tastes like soap to some and to others it tastes delicious is because the cilantro doesn't want to be eaten. So it evolutionarily improved itself so that it would taste bad. But the jokes on it because ponies evolutionarily improved ourselves so it tasted good again. At least most of us—there are some ponies who still think it tastes like soap.

But this has been keeping me up at night for months now. CILANTRO DOESN'T WANT TO BE EATEN!?? (Again, the food, NOT the actor, we all know Cilantro has a vore fetish)

I think it's super messed up that we eat living things. Why is there no alternative!? Dragon's can eat rocks and it's totally fine for them. They aren't eating things that are alive! But ponies do! Ponies ought to be ashamed of themselves for not being able to eat minerals like dragons.

But... I have to eat, or else I'll die. But to live means to hurt innocent plants that don't want to be eaten. And I just feel really uncomfortable with the state of existence that's led to this.

I've never talked to a dragon, but I'm betting gems taste delicious and dragons don't have to lay up at night wondering if they are responsible for a silent vegetable holocaust.
-Mellow Yellow

For a few weeks, Red Pen developed the bad habit of licking gems every so often, just to check if they would taste good. They tasted like rocks.


So I visited Ponyville the other week and everypony was naked. Completely naked. I had my foals with me at the time and their eye level sees absolutely everything with nothing left to the imagination. Not a single scarf in the city. Or a vest. Or sunglasses. NOTHING. What kind of uncivilized trash lives next door to us? Even Princess Twilight wasn’t wearing so much as a crown on her head.


I went inside the original Carousel Boutique—their first shop in Ponyville and everything. The famed Rarity that loves clothes and fashion oh so much.

Not wearing so much as a horseshoe. I’m baffled, and I won’t let me or my foals near that town again. Please warn people not to visit ponyville.
-Snooty Patootie





I heard Ponyville had a dream LAN party a few weeks ago and I wasn’t invited and I’m very upset. Can you get moonbutt to link everypony in the entire world's dreams together for a grand Massively Multiplayer Dream Experience? I will start calling Celestia Best Princess if Luna doesn’t comply. I have to show the mare I love but have never talked to that I am not creepy and the best way to do that is to be stuck with her inside a nightmare. And so I’ll be a dream by comparison to all the nightmares around her. Foolproof plan.

–Salty the Bearded




Red Pen's Response: Salty, your letter was not accepted in our 'Letters to the Editor' column. And I highly recommend you see a therapist about your unhealthy perspectives, behavior and demeanor.




I think it’s a crying shame that our foals aren’t taught in school how to eat rats. Ponies evolutionarily need to keep up our omnivorous capabilities or we’ll lose it. Sure, we mostly eat plants, but every once in a while you gotta stamp on a rat or squirrel so hard it shatters beneath your hooves and you consume the flesh of what was once alive moments before. Once-a-month minimum. A little blood never hurt any pony. And when we face a bacterial disaster that wipes out all our plant supply, we’ll be ready to eat meat of all kinds.

The citizen’s of Canterlot should be prepared. That’s why I’m calling for meat-filled Mondays the first Monday of every moon. That’s our ticket to safety for the calamity’s ahead.
-McShootyface McGee


I feel the pain and pressure inside my body and I know that I am alive. I know that this life is full of nothing but pain and suffering and that will last for as long as ponies exist in this horrific land we call Equestria. This torture is everlasting, infinite, and terrible in its myriad ways of eviscerating the psyche of everypony involved. We don’t know how much we hurt each other. And why? To make a bit here or there as we scrounge for meaning and a brief respite against the pain of being alive!? What a tortuous existence we live. I have only one think I am thankful for: and that is that I am not an alicorn, for their suffering is truly eternal and every pain I endure is but a drop in the ocean compared to their endless torment.

In short: please make it illegal to have to pay for bathrooms in Canterlot. As a society we should be better than this. I just need to pee.

–Chicken Butt