To: Anon, From HRH Sunbutt.

by Snow

From HRH Celestia, RE: Letter 86.4

Author's Note:

Letter 86.4: Here.

I still think Celestia just had a thousand yard stare for the first several minutes before she could react at all.

To my most faithful student, Twilight Sparkle,

I knew you could do it, my little Twilight. I'm a little concerned with the amount of sleep you likely got and some of your methods, but I'm proud of you.

Your loving mentor,
Princess Celestia

PS. Thank you for getting the mage tower in order, I had not realized it had degenerated so severely over the past... few... generations. Oh.

---

Dear Anon,

My student continues to amaze me both for better and worse. I'll deal with the scientists myself. Don't tell my student, but it's possible to combine a temporal element to interdimensional thaumaturgy such that I'll be able to pluck them out a few seconds after they get there, relatively speaking. And then they'll actually have something to worry about.

Your friend,
Celestia

---

Dear Luna, Cadence,

Sister, niece, I'm beginning to worry about our nation as a whole. Twilight is showing... improvement at least, and there are a great many competent and effective ponies that are also empathetic, but strangely I keep finding ponies who possess at best two of those traits in positions of importance.

I cannot help but wonder if we too suffer from being only two of those three (competent, effective, empathetic) at any given time. Still, I ask your help to aid me in going through the high positions of Canterlot at least and determine which ponies should be seeking employment elsewhere. I'm even starting to wonder if we need to bite the bit and do something about the nobility too.

Love,
Celestia

PS. No matter how cathartic it would be, we are not going to execute or brutally maim any of the ponies we fire.

PPS. Unless they are intentionally evil.

---

Note to self,

• Have the water supplies checked for tampering
• Express my severe disappointment with the royally comissioned magic researchers
• Check education standards within Canterlot, last review... 380 years?
• Enchant dayplanner to change the dates of recurring tasks
• Begin research into possible repercussions of transitioning Equestria into a constitutional diarchy
• Reintroduce public shaming as a punishment.

Comments

[Level Dasher]

Reintroduce public shaming as a punishment.

Yes, I want to see ponies holding up degrading signs, too.

[Level Dasher]

9927672
...I do not like the Cone of Shame...

[Reykan]

Last review, 380 years ago. That...explains a lot actually. An SOP(standard Operating Procedure) Manual for a desk I worked at in the army was about 4 years old and half of the stuff was no longer being used on the desk, but the administrative people just never got around to changing it. I know this because I was the one walking the young lady through all the changes that had taken place while she was rewriting it. I can only imagine how bad it would have been after a decade, let alone nearly four centuries.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Twilight's actions do have a tendency to highlight Equestria's failings. Usually it's more on the diplomatic end of things, but still.

[Moonlight_Mist]

9927672
Oh god. The Cone of Shame, but actually for shaming? Now I'm just imagining that being part of the package deal punishment Twilight was so afraid she'd get from Celestia in Lesson Zero if she wound up back in Magic Kindergarten. I'm just imagining that thought scene of a full grown Twilight being laughed at by foals, but with Twilight wearing an Elizabethan collar to boot. That would have been worth a freak out.

[Raistlin]

• Express my severe disappointment with the royally comissioned magic researchers

Is she talking about Severe Disappointment?

Because they may prefer going back to the Purple Dimension, with or without air.

[SeventhBrony]

PS. No matter how cathartic it would be, we are not going to execute or brutally maim any of the ponies we fire.

Spoil sport

[Yeeticus]

9927672
Why can't I see this comment but can see the reply? TELL ME YOUR SECRETS WITCH.

[PaintedPony]

Pillories and stocks. For nobles, politicians and bureaucrats. And let ponies bid for the rotten fruit franchise stand right by them.

[Emtu]

derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/6/15/917591.jpg

[alfonso_rd_33]

9927816
I think you have a typo on the picture...

It says "Stupid Horse Box" when it should say "Purple Horse Box"

9927733
I think you missed an "And" there... Severe And Disappointment Resemble that

9927732
OF COURSE! DON'T YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT... THE SCIENCE OF FRIENDSHIP!!!???

9927716
That seems to be her CelestAI appointed Job descriptor

9927709
and Celestia's SAOP (Standard Arcane Operating Procedure) Manual is simple to write:
1) Don't hire purple horses.
2) Don't befriend Purple horses.
3) Don't be purple horses

9927669
9927673
So agree with you on that... It's so... Shamy... *shivers yer timbers*

[Pickleless]

Ah, the Teddie Roosevelt style of punishment. Good ol public shaming.

[2Merr]

we are not going to execute or brutally maim any of the ponies we fire

Found an out for Luna

[Officer Hotpants]

•Reintroduce public shaming as a punishment.

Imagine being publically shamed by your national immortal mommy. That's practically the death penalty for smallhorses anyway.

[Frankie2]

Luna: Tia, you're no fun.

[Fregith]

9927982

Explains why Sunset had rather run away to Mundane Ape Land than go through that.

[An everfree rat]

9929806
Implying anything we do is mundane. Excluding the middle class, who are, indeed, mundane.

[2Merr]

Still, I ask your help to aid me in going through the high positions of canterlot at least and determine which ponies should be seeking employment elsewhere.

found a typo
also, why would Tia be checking the water supply? Did she notice the frogs turning gay?

[Deadpool1]

Check education standards within Canterlot, last review... 380 years?

380 years? The fuck have you been doing?

[Snow]

9986925
"Did I delegate that? I can't quite remember. I don't have it scheduled... Well they'd tell me right?"

[Bronzer]

• Begin research into possible repercussions of transitioning Equestria into a constitutional diarchy

Every nation that had a constitutional monarchy became extremely successful in real life. This only changed when parliament and then the commons took more and more power until their ruler had little real authority left. Then, those nations all went down hill real quick.

[Coretz]

9927709
I bet SOPs hadn't even been invented then.

I'm not too much a fan of them though--even in updated copies, and in their post-script updates, I found errors, discrepancies, confusing or useless wording, etc., and this is in a sensitive for-profit business.

"Updated, June 2019"
We had more errata pages appended than even the errata page had room for.

[Fecyrineu]

10136338
There's a certain level of survivorship bias to that, though. Nations weren't necessarily successful because they were constitutional monarchies but rather they are constitutional monarchies because they were successful. Nations during the contemporary age that went through periods of turbulance and chaos often had regime changes which result in the overthrow of their monarchy, and after such overthrow the monarchy is rarely reestablished. The only nations that keep their monarchies are generally nations that were able to successfully reform and weather their various crisis relatively unharmed.

This only changed when parliament and then the commons took more and more power until their ruler had little real authority left. Then, those nations all went down hill real quick.

This part is also highly debatable.