Bank Scroll Exhibition
The McColtroy Brothers are not experts, and their advice should never be taken seriously. Scraps claims to be a ‘sexpert’, but if there’s a degree on his wall… well, I haven’t seen it. Also, this show isn’t for kids, which I mention only so the foals out there will know how cool they are for listening. What’s up, you cool foals?
An earth pony stallion with a sea-green coat and a dark mane grinned as he leaned in a little closer to his microphone, the last strains of the show’s familiar theme music giving him that same old familiar thrill as it had their first episode. “Welcome to My Brother, My Brother, and Me, an advice show for a harmonic era. I’m your oldest brother, Juice McColtroy!”
To his right, another stallion, whose coat was a wine-dark shade of violet, grinned. He was a little skinnier than Juice, and sported a brown beard and a pair of glasses. “I’m your middlest brother, Scraps McColtroy!”
To his right, the final stallion adjusted his glasses. His coat was a light cream color, and he wore his brown mane close-cropped. “And I’m your sweet baby brother and thirty-under-thirty media luminary Ditto McColtroy.”
“Now, boys,” Scraps said, glancing from one brother to the other. “I feel like maybe we should just jump right into this hooves first.”
Both Juice and Ditto looked at him as though he’d grown a second head. “What?” Juice asked.
“What, like… just go straight into the show?” Ditto asked, tilting his head quizzically.
“Oh, no!” Scraps said, waving his hooves frantically. “Oh, no, no, no, no! That’s the very last thing that we should do.”
“Really?” Ditto said, frowning. “‘Cause, y’know, it sounded like that was exactly what you were suggesting…”
“No. I misspoke, and I apologize.”
“We can go right in with the questions if you want, Scraps,” Juice said, holding up a thick scroll. “I got ‘em right here.”
“No, no. No.”
“This one is from Braeburn --”
Scraps cut his brother off. “Nope. No! Ugh, come on, you guys! Didn’t you get the scroll?”
Ditto tilted his head. “Scroll? What scroll? I get lots of scrolls, Scrappy.”
“Yeah, me too,” Juice agreed. “Mostly about boner pills.”
“Oh, I know!” Scraps said. “Boner pills, Neighgerian alicorns, bank notices… they just never end!”
“Hey, guys, what do you do with your scrolls?” Ditto asked. “I tear ‘em up and mulch my garden with ‘em.”
Scraps gasped in mock horror. “Ditto! That’s so rude! I respond to all my scrolls right away. I mean, not the bank ones. The bank is always so impersonal.”
“Oh, yeah,” Ditto said, nodding. “It’s always ‘To Whom It May Concern’, ‘Addressed to Occupant’, ‘Your account is one thousand bits overdrawn’. So cold.”
Juice was valiantly struggling to bite back his laughter. His voice high and tight, he asked, “So what do you do with the bank scrolls, Scraps?”
“Oh, I send them back.”
“You send them back?”
“I send them back… with a lollipop inside.”
Ditto cut in. “Now, Scraps? Why a lollipop?”
“Well, I hope it’s so maybe next time they’ll be a little more considerate when they write to me. That’s why they have lollipops at the bank, after all. Maybe it’ll be something like, ‘Dear nice lollipop stallion,’ y’know? Maybe they’ll add in a little more effort.”
“Uh-huh. And, uh, Juice? What about you?”
“Oh, I frame them.”
“You frame them?”
“Yeah. ‘Cause, y’know, like… a letter, when you really think about it, a letter is a piece of art. Right?”
“Okay…”
“Uh-huh…”
“No, but like, somepony sat down. They made a bunch of ink marks on paper. That’s art! That’s art, and they sent it to me, obviously, so I could frame it and hang it in my Letter Museum.”
“Okay now. Okay now, boys?” Scraps glanced between his two brothers again. “We’ve all had a lot of laughs here today, but what I have to tell you is serious.”
Ditto pursed his lips. “We don’t really… that’s not really what we do here, Scraps.”
“Yeah,” Juice agreed. “We’re more of a, y’know. Comedy show?”
“Yeah, but listen. Hey, everypony? Everypony out there? This is a very special episode of My Brother My Brother and Me.”
“Scraps. Please tell me this isn’t a drug PSA,” Juice said. “Please, my brother, tell me this one thing…”
“It’s not a drug PSA, and if you’ll hush for one single minute I’ll tell you what it is,” Scraps said. He waited for a long moment. “Okay. I have gotten word from Princess Celestia--”
“Bullshit,” Ditto said immediately. “I call bullshit right here, right now.”
“It’s true! She said that her former student, Princess Twilight Sparkle, has discovered a way to send messages across universes. There have been a lot of experiments with it, using Princess Twilight’s own adventures for material.”
Juice nodded slowly. “Okay… so what does that have to do with us?”
Scraps grinned. “Well. The messages have been received by an intelligent species known as… Hugh Menz? Humans. Sure, that sounds right. And now that they know about Equestria’s existence, the Princesses are trying to send along some of our media, to sort of introduce ourselves to them, culturally speaking.”
Ditto stared at his brother. “And we were picked.”
“Yes!”
“Us. The radio show that once claimed that you could commit infinite crime in Canterlot because it doesn’t have an actual police force and the guards are, quote ‘completely fuckin’ useless’.”
“Yep!”
“The radio show that debated for no fewer than twenty minutes the relative downsides and, uh, ‘merits’ of having a dog with a unicorn horn versus a cat with pegasus wings.”
“Mh-hm!”
“The radio show which has not only read aloud but actively created what is by my count no fewer than thirty-seven actual crimes against equinity.”
“That is correct.”
Ditto smiled broadly and waved at an imaginary audience. “Okay! Bye humanity! See you again, uh, never.”
“Oh, c’mon, Ditto.”
“Yeah,” Juice agreed. “You never know. Maybe the human world is just as fucked up as Equestria is!”
“Yeah, Ditto, maybe it’s even more fucked up.”
“I sincerely doubt that, just on the grounds that Discord… exists? But, fine. Let’s keep the ball going. So, if we’re broadcasting to a new audience, I guess we need to reintroduce ourselves?”
“Yes, that is where I was going with this--”
“I’m Juice McColtroy!”
Scraps sighed. “Not our names, dummy! They haven’t just tuned in. I mean the show!”
Ditto pushed his glasses up his muzzle. “Now, to be fair, Scrappy, I feel like that if they’ve been listening to the show so far, the fact that it’s taken us about ten minutes to actually get to the point of this bit is pretty much all the description of our ethos that they need.”
“...True.”
Juice cleared his throat. “Well, uh, basically, we’re an advice show, and we answer questions that are mailed into us from… all over the world, basically, plus questions sent in from the Yahooves Answers Service.”
“Except we’re idiots and all of our advice is super bad!” Ditto added. “That’s… it’s very important that you know all of this is fake and wrong and for goofs.”
“And that includes the opening part of this episode,” Scraps put in.
“Oh shit, yeah, you should… no, that was all fake stuff, I swear. Scraps, please, I’m begging you, if you’re making this ‘human’ stuff up, you do gotta tell us right now.”
“Otherwise it’s entrapment!” Juice put in.
“Look, I’ve got the scroll right here!” There was a rustling noise and then absolute silence for several seconds.
“Boy. This is great radio!” Scraps said brightly.
“Scraps…” Ditto said slowly. “This is…”
“This is an official royal document!” Juice said, his voice cracking. “Fuck! What is -- the fuck!”
“Hey, listen, I know what I just said about the whole opening being fake, but like… we are framing this, yes? Okay, you’re nodding. Good. Good good. Oh my Celestia…”
“That’s who wrote it!” Scraps said brightly.
“Oh no,” Juice said, his face going pale. “No. That means…”
“Celestia listens to our show?” Ditto asked, his voice rising several registers as the sentence went on. “Oh no no no no, how many times have we taken her name in vain on air?”
“A lot?” Juice tried.
“And she apparently still likes us enough to share our show with a whole alien race,” Scraps said with a shrug.
“Scraps, how are you not freaking out about this?” Ditto demanded.
“Oh, I did that when I first got the scroll!” Scraps assured him. “That’s why I was so surprised neither of you got one…”
“Should we explain what the Yahooves Answers Service is to the humans?” Juice asked, leaning back in his chair.
“Absolutely not,” Ditto said firmly. “If they have some kind of equivalent, they’ll understand. If they don’t, I don’t want to be responsible for spreading it to entire alien species. That… that’s not gonna sit well on my conscience.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.014 seconds
Total duration
1,060 users online
1,352,711 hits today, 1,822,946 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Always a fun spin on things, especially when it's deliberate.
I mean, we have an equivalent, but I still have numerous questions about the underlying framework of a version of Yahoo! without an Internet.
In any case, I was not at all expecting pony McElroys, but I look forward to seeing what you do with them. (Also, obligatory mention of the Oversaturated World's answer to the concept.)
10234872
They apparently have radio, so who's to say they don't have internet?
10234954
The decades between Marconi and ARPAnet? It's not exactly a direct step from one to the other.
10234969
I . . . Know that. I was simply pointing out that if this story has one non-canon piece of tech, then why not another?
10234978
Ah. Fair point.
10234969
10234978
My concept of it was basically a huge system of public message boards spread across the continent -- corkboards and trees and the like where ponies could write messages and pin them up for others to answer. Of course, sometimes messages blow away, or the original posters never really get any answers, or they get lost in the shuffle, and anyone at all can write an answer, so it's a bit of a disaster. Just like the real Yahoo Answers, really.
I am far too excited to read more of this, even if it is just a highlights of MBMBAM. I want to see unique questions from the comments here, but that sounds like it could be a huge struggle to write. However you decide to handle it, I’m looking forward to reading it!
I literally have never heard of MBMBaM until now, and I love this.
I did not know I needed pony McElroys in my life until I read this. I could picture them and hear them exactly saying this. Bravo good sir.
Come to think of it, if they’re our world’s McElroy analogues, do they send a monkey to college?