To the readers of the Ponyville Express
“I can’t be the only one who’s getting sick and tired of calamities happening so often in this town,” said Daisy, slamming her tankard of cider on the table. She was sitting at a table in the Princess’ Crown with Rose and Lily, and despite owner Berry Punch’s claims that it was currently happy hour, they were not very happy ponies.
“Yeah, as much as I love Ponyville, it would be nice if the ‘X days since last disaster’ sign ever reached double digits,” Rose said.
“I heard that there’s towns where those signs can reach triple digits!” Lily said.
Rose and Daisy stared at her for a moment. “I doubt that’s actually possible,” Rose said.
“Well, Canterlot hasn’t had any catastrophes since the disappearance of the Princesses during that horrible incident with the vines,” Lily said.
“Vines!” Daisy said, before promptly passing out.
“You really need to learn not to mention the vines in her presence,” Rose said.
“Vines!” Lily said, and she passed out as well.
Rose sighed. “Berry!” she said. “Could you lend me a hoof?”
Berry Punch made her way to the table and looked at the unconscious bodies.
“Let me guess,” Berry said, “you mentioned the vines.”
“Vines!” Rose said, and she fainted too.
“I probably shouldn’t have said that,” Berry said. “But their reactions are just too amusing for me to resist.”
Five minutes and three large buckets of water later, the Flower Trio was awake again.
“Anyway, as I was saying,” said Daisy, “we need to do something about all this!”
“What exactly is ‘all this’?” Berry asked.
“You know, all this.” Daisy made a vague gesture with her forelegs that could be interpreted as meaning either “everything around us” or “the runway is clear, you have permission to land”.
“All the disasters and calamities and chaos!” Lily said.
“The need to rebuild the town every other week!” Rose said.
“Why do we not have some decent way of separating Ponyville from the Everfree Forest?” Lily said.
“And why do we keep letting troublemakers into this town?” Daisy said. “Especially ones who have already proven themselves to be trouble!”
“Yeah, there’s no reason why we allowed Trixie to set foot in Ponyville after what happened the first time,” Lily said. “And we really should’ve barred entry to Flim and Flam too.”
“To say nothing of that horrible monster that turned Ponyville into the chaos capital of the world!” Rose said.
Berry shrugged. “Pinkie Pie really isn’t that bad. I remember having fun at that party. I think. I don’t remember a whole lot of it, to be honest.”
“I’m not talking about Pinkie Pie, I’m talking about that big monster!” Rose said.
“Cheese Sandwich?” Berry said.
“Discord!” Rose said.
Lily and Daisy let out high-pitched shrieks and fainted. It took another five minutes and two buckets of water for the conversation to continue.
“So what were you planning to do?” Berry said.
“We need to make Ponyville aware of all these problems!” Rose said.
“Then we can decide what to do about it together as a town!” Lily said.
“What if we write a strongly-worded letter to the Ponyville Express?” Daisy said.
“Yeah, that would work!” Lily said.
“Well then let’s get to it!” Rose said.
===
The next day, the citizens of Ponyville found that the letters section of the Ponyville Express contained a rather angry letter from one “Concerned, of Ponyville”. Most of Ponyville didn’t particularly care, but three ponies were excited to see their work in print.
The morning after that, they sat huddled together at the Ponyville market place with a copy of the Ponyville Express.
“I wonder if there will be a reply to our letter!” Rose said, as she flipped to the letters page. “Oh, look at this!” She cleared her throat, and began reading. “Dear Ponyville Express”
“Go on,” Lily said.
“I’m writing to complain”
“Yes, yes?” Daisy said.
“About the sub-par weather management in this town - wait, what? All this pony is complaining about is that it rained at a time that was inconvenient for her!”
“What about this next letter?” Daisy said.
“That one’s a complaint about taxes,” Lily said.
“And the next one is a complaint about today's youth,” Rose said.
Daisy pouted. “So many letters, but not a single reply to our own.”
“Maybe it’s just taking other ponies some time to respond to our letter,” Rose said.
“You think so?” Daisy said.
“I hope so. Maybe we’ll have better luck next morning.” Rose said.
===
They did not have better luck the next morning.
“I can’t believe somepony complained about my flowers being too expensive!” Rose said.
“Yeah, all these letters are really horrible!” Daisy said.
“And they only started appearing since we sent our own letter,” Rose said.
Lily was on the verge of tears. “Which means we’re the cause of all these awful letters!”
“The horror, the horror!” Daisy fainted.
===
Several days of strongly-worded letters to the Ponyville Express later, the Flower Trio was once again gathered at the Princess’ Crown.
“So what’s the problem this time?” Berry Punch asked the three ponies, whose divided their time between sobbing, drinking, and sobbing while drinking.
“The Ponyville Express is full of horrible angry letters, and it’s all our fault!” said Lily, whose turn it was to sob.
“Well yeah, they’re strongly-worded letters of complaint, of course they’re going to be angry,” Berry said.
“We have to stop it!” said Rose, whose turn it was to drink, but who fortunately had the sense not to do so in the middle of a sentence.
“Why bother? It’ll probably blow over soon enough anyway,” Berry said.
“Because all these horrible letters are glurrrgh glurble!” said Daisy, whose turn it was to sob while drinking, and who didn’t have the sense not to drink in the middle of a sentence[1].
Berry raised an eyebrow. “The letters are what now?”
“They say bad things about others and it’s making us feel bad!” Daisy said.
“Look, in a week or two, people will notice that writing strongly-worded letters doesn’t actually change anything and everypony will stop,” Berry Punch said. “You worry too much. As usual.”
“Well, I guess…” Rose said.
The Flower Trio was lost in thought for a moment.
Daisy suddenly perked up. “I think I’ve thought of a way to stop everypony from writing those letters!”
“And that is?” Berry said.
“What if we write a strongly-worded letter complaining about strongly-worded letters?” Daisy said.
“Daisy?” Berry said.
“What is it, Berry?”
Berry Punch put on her most serious expression. “There’s some big scary thorny vines right behind you.”
“Vines!” the Flower Trio yelped, and they fainted.
Berry Punch simply sighed, and poured herself a drink.
[1] The fact that she, thus far, had only been given turns in drinking and sobbing while drinking might help explain her lack of sense at the time.
