I like to think of myself as a tolerant person. Live and let live, I always say. I have friends of many races and nationalities. I name as my friends confessors of every creed and keepers of every covenant you can imagine. But never, in my wildest imagination, did I think I’d live to see the day when I found my tolerance tested by a Brony.

For the uninitiated, a Brony is a grown man who likes My Little Pony. No…scratch that. He doesn’t like My Little Pony. He LOOOOOOOOOVES My Little Pony. His female counterpart is the Pegasister, and you’ll know if you have stumbled across one by their use of the words “cutie mark” in casual conversation. They may offer you a “brohoof”.

Whatever you do, don’t accept it.

They want to make you one of them.

We simply must resist. The ponies, you see, are evil and must die.

One day, I was cutie-marked a step too far. I’d see one too many pastel ponies come across my computer monitor and I admit it: I snapped under the torture. I had been forced to endure all the profile pictures and embedded videos, and I finally decided enough was enough. I would not give into my captors. I might have to see their insipid, smiling pony faces, but I don’t have to take it.

THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS.

I have a crochet hook and a twisted sense of humor, and I set to work decimating the ponies one by one. The first to die was Pink Pony. She lost her head.

And with a decapitated pink pony, the Etsy shop Four Lights was born.

I have to admit, killing her felt good. Real good. Like leave-your-hands-shaking good. But not as good as seeing her sell almost as soon as I had her listed. I was not alone! Others like me needed to see ponies meet their doom! So I killed another one.

God, it felt so good. Seeing the crocheted entrails spilling out on the ground. Sweet mother of Picard, it was good.  Too good, almost.

A friend took me aside. “Poops,” he said. “There are four lights.”

“I know, man. Always.”

“You know what I’d like to see?”

“What’s that?”

“I’d like to see one get her face eaten off by a cat.”

“Which one?” He smiled at me.

“The rainbow one,” we said in unison.

The resistance caught on. More requests. More ponies destined to die. The blood lust was going to my head and I hooked faster and faster, honing my skills as more ponies fell before me.

“Oh, my God. She’s just a baby.” The Bronies and Pegasisters were horrified. But I don’t see age. I don’t see color. I don’t see cutie marks. I see pure evil and I crush it like you would a nest of baby rats.

But not that horrified. I asked my small cadre, my band of resistance fighters how the next pony should die, and from the crowd, I heard, “Dismembered with a chainsaw.”

It was a Pegasister. I had to oblige.

I admit that the killing spree has gone to my head. I’ve ordered more yarn and roving. My favorite Brony friend wants to see a purple pony die in a pool of vomit from alcohol poisoning, and another member of the resistance force has come up with a pony whose death is so diabolical I can’t even begin to describe it.

Keep coming back. Keep fighting the good fight. Because the only good pony is a dead pony.