Just a little something I whipped up in the middle of the night. · 4:00am Apr 11th, 2013
Think it's any good?
A Changeling Explains the System of Love
Think of it as... a set of water pipes. Each pony represents a reservoir of water, while each pipe representing a relationship. Each pony, or reservoir, has a distinct relationship with each and every other pony they know. To make it simpler, picture a sort of web where each pony has tons of pipes connecting them to different ponies, which in this case would be their friends, family, lovers, strangers, or anyone else they know. Essentially, everyone is connected to everyone else by a relationship, even if they don't even know them. If they don't know them, that relationship is set at neutral. Now, a normal individual might look at a system like this and say, “Oh, I see. The amount of water that flows through each pipe represents the amount of love each pony has for somebody else. If the two ponies are friends or lovers then more water will flow through the pipe that connects them, while if two ponies are rivals or enemies then less water will flow through. The amount of water flowing basically represents the level of that particular relationship.”, and mostly, they'd be right. However, ponies are simple beings. How would they regulate how much love flows down each individual pipe? They're already busy with taxes and jobs and money and health care and all the other inconveniences that the modern age has introduced into our life. Heck, one of the main focuses of everyday life is to maintain those very relationships and keep them in working order. There is no way that the average pony mind could handle all that and precisely measure each and every amount of love that goes down those carefully maintained pipes. That would require great concentration at all times, especially considering how many other ponies the average pony knows these days. If this were true, only a solitary hermit that lived by himself and spent his days meditating could possibly get on with his life. No, this system would never work, which is precisely why it doesn't exist. You see, the workings of exchanging love amongst ponies is actually much simpler than that. It might surprise people to know that by default, ponies are set to love each and every being they come across. Of course, this would be total disaster, so when ponies were created a little safety mechanism was added on as well. This safety mechanism essentially limits the amount of love that a pony can give to another pony. These restrictions are in fact what measures the relationship between two ponies, not the actual amount of love itself. To simplify, let's go back to our model of pipes and reservoirs. The average relationship, in which two ponies are complete strangers, would be a normal-sized pipe. If those two ponies became friends, the amount of love flowing through wouldn't necessarily change. Instead, the pipe itself would grow bigger, allowing more love to be exchanged between the two ponies. If the two ponies became enemies, the pipe would shrink, allowing less love to be exchanged. As it is, the amount of love being forced through each pipe never changes: it's the size of the pipe itself. Of course, one would ask that if a pony was constantly giving love to everyone they knew, then wouldn't they eventually run out? Actually, no. You see, one of the little known facts amongst pony kind is that technically, each pony is an unlimited source of love. They're constantly producing it at a rate that ensures they are always, in a completely literal sense, full of it. They have to be, as when love is received by another pony, it is essentially used up. Love is one of the most plentiful and the most short-lived resources on the planet. When ponies feel loved, what they're doing is basically burning the love up. Which is completely fine, as the pony they are being loved by is more than happy to provide a constant stream of it, so long as the relationship holds steady. The pipes, however, are again the limits. You have to make the pipe bigger if you want to send more love to a fellow pony. In the end, the whole system has got to be one of the funniest coincidences I've ever heard of. You ponies have all the love you could ever want, and yet you are extremely picky about who you choose it give it to. And when someone who can't produce their own love and needs it to survive comes along, you hiss at them and scorn them and call them monsters. It essence, you ponies are some of the most selfishly idiotic creatures to ever walk the face of the planet. Well, I hope you enjoyed the lesson. I'm going to bed now.
Wall of Text in this case...
I'm downloading music, so I'll read it soon.
An interesting idea, although I would have to assume that a Pony is only capable of being an infinite source of love if they are in decent health and not in danger of dying from malnourished decay. And perhaps Ponies are selfish, in one sense. But coming across as an invading parasite doesn't help when you're really looking for a symbiotic relationship. It's the give-and-take of two foreign cultures interacting.
Personally, I'm more interested about the potential Changelings have in the long run of the Equestrian "scheme" of things. If promoting harmony is a core value of Equestrian living, then the hive-mind mental-link structure Changelings potentially possess could be a solution to a problem once considered too big to tackle: conflicts from misconceptions. What would it mean to live in a world, without misconceptions or prejudices caused by outside influences and the limits of spoken languages, (all while maintaining your individuality).
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You should write a changeling fic.