Readers Who Get It · 5:11am Apr 26th, 2014
I'm gearing up here to write the next (and, I think, final) chapter of Mating Customs of Species Equus parvus. Am I allowed, as the author, to complain that I'm somewhat dismayed by the reaction the story has received? I don't mean the largely positive reception (it has fewer downvotes than most of my stories, and it has respectable traffic), but just, well . . .
I tried to go through the comments at the Equestria Daily posting and discovered that nobody wants to read the story and talk about it. Instead, EqD's readers make jokes about horse penises. You'll notice, incidentally, that the story contains no sex, no sexual innuendo, and no sex tag. Unlike some of my stories, it isn't even disguised as an exploitation fic. I'm not trying to trick you with this one.
Also, somebody at TVTropes says it's an "Author Tract" meant to preach from my personal soapbox, when in fact not a single character, including the narrator with my name, has expressed an opinion I personally hold. This story doesn't contain my opinions. It's make-believe, and it's an homage to an author whose work I appreciate but with whom I could not possibly disagree more strongly. I mean James Tiptree Jr., whose incoherent philosophy was not only false, but deadly. It literally killed her.
That being said, two readers have made comments on the story I find incisive, and I think they deserve to get passed along. I notice both comments have been downvoted, which tempts me to remind people that the comment vote buttons, as the mods explained when they added them, are there to eliminate trolls, not to express silent disapproval for others' opinions. Anyway, here they are:
It seems to me that Lovestruck is quite correct - given that the subjective experience is the same either way, romantic feelings generated through deliberate outside influence are no more or less valid than the same feelings produced through the vagaries of social interaction, physical attraction, and/or pheromone exposure.
Well, she [Lovestruck] is not wrong, except in the bit where she somehow assumes that having the talent to manipulate these things gives her the authority to. It's quite refreshing.
Ah, yes. These two understand the implications of the story's premises. If love is a feeling, what matter where the feeling comes from as long as it is present? Notice how Princess Cadance handles the dispute over money between Lucky and Wild Fire in "A Canterlot Wedding": she doesn't settle their problem by suggesting a family budget, nor does she exhort them to remember the love they had at first. She simply zaps them with good feelings, and she doesn't ask permission.
So we can ask some questions.
If love is a feeling, why should anyone care where it comes from? If someone can produce love at will by casting love spells, why not cast them on anyone and everyone? If experience is only sensation, and if all that matters is good sensation, why not bestow good sensations on everybody?
If Lovestruck creeps you out, why? If your intuition says Lovestruck is wrong, what is it exactly that she's wrong about?
No one should. Love is indeed a feeling, and there is no reason to try and condemn its origins. However, love is also an action. This can be both sexual and simple, day-to-day mannerisms that only you share with your lover. It can also just be someone staying with the other person, there to comfort them when they need it. In the end, however, the origins of the love should not fall under question.
It may seem like a double standard to say that this is wrong, but it actually isn't. Love is not produced magically. Someone cannot bestow upon someone love that is not consensual. No matter how the show wants to portray love with Cadance, it is simply impossible. You can always try and force it on to someone, but it just doesn't work. Love is something that someone must develop within themselves. So, in the case of someone using magic to make everyone fall in love, that isn't true love and wouldn't work. Society doesn't work with love being a spell cast away.
Now, if given then chance to spread love around the world, why not take it? Because of the aforementioned points: love needs to be true and pure. Nothing can compare to true love. What makes love so special then? The world would devolve into a place where someone casts a spell on you, you fall in love, and then you carry on with your life. This is a vital part of human (or, in this case, pony) interaction that defines both our races. If you take that away, you would literally do nothing but harm the people.
Here is another good one. See, this is a common question that everyone asks: why not have good things all the time? Because you have to think about what makes something "good." "Good" is defined as something pleasurable to someone, and good sensations are something that everyone strives to get to. As the saying goes, its the journey that makes the end so much more enticing. We cannot have good things all the time; otherwise, all the meaning in having "good" feelings would be lost.
Let's also be serious here. With this and the previous question, they both state an idea that would make everyone the same. There would be no diversity in the world if everyone can experience the same thing. Good feelings must first be attained through bad times. Love must first be attained by truly finding it. These things cannot be skipped.
And unfortunately, I have not read your story, so I cannot give any commentary on Lovestruck. However, if she believes in these ideas that you ask in the questions, then she is indeed delusional. It seems like she envisions a world totally equal, a uniform world where everything is placed before you. The ideas she may have are not inherently bad, but they are overall misguided and impossible to do. I mean, why do you think that Cadance hasn't gone and solved all the love problems in the world? Probably because she understands this idea as well.
I personally don't think love should be messed with much more than Cadence did in the show (I.e. reinforcing existing bonds and the like. And maybe forging strong potential bonds). The whole thing seems... Unethical. And I say this as a bitter cynic and an avid shipper.
I love your story, and I can't wait to see how it ends. You raise a very good point on the value of authenticity in love. I personally don't place a high value on authenticity/originality, so I probably wouldn't have much of a problem with Lovestruck's plan, but I think the problem with the plan is that to operate it on a massive scale, it has to be public, which means over the long term everyone has to KNOW their love is from a spell.
People (and presumably ponies) place a huge value on being unique and special, their own little snowflake. If their special somepony is assigned to them and they fall in love due to a spell, they may be happy with their partner, but they will feel dissatisfied because they feel like their love is fake, they are just cogs in a machine, insert angsty 90s grunge band lyrics.
If Lovestruck had a spell and an algorithm that could give everypony cutie markes, people would hate her plan, and for the EXACT SAME reason. It might give people the cutie marks that suit them and society, but they would hate their cutie marks because they don't feel it makes them unique.
On a more pragmatic note, I wonder about the idea of couples who are in love because of a love spell that presumably won't wear off. If over the years the two partners change as ponies, do they become incompatible? Are they forced to feel love even though their spouse is making them miserable?
Seriously DGD, you got to write an alternate ending or something set 10 years later where Lovestruck's plan was sucessfully rolled out across Equestria. I would love to see a day in the life fic set at that time. What happens to dating and courtship?
While I would debate the ethics of using a love spell AT ALL, a few other fics have pointed out cases where having a love spell used on a couple would be not only acceptable, but maybe even preferable. The main example being for a couple in an arranged marriage. However, I find that my problem with Lovestruck is in her methods.
The story mentions multiple ponies who would go to her for various love related reasons. Now, despite my personal feelings about her 'job' in general, ponies going to her for her 'help' is ok because of one thing: consent. They are willingly going to her, (presumably) knowing what that would entail, and are apparently perfectly ok with it, meaning that have given her their (hopefully informed) consent. However, when the protagonist meets her, she proves very much to not give a damn about consent. Indeed she uses her powers on him several times, and even tries to pair him up against his will. That's what REALLY scares me, that she's willing to follow her 'equations' despite the (current) feelings of others. And worse, in this case, she wasn't really doing it 'for his own good,' but more as a form of revenge because he objected to her. To put it in another perspective, you've basically got a 'shipper' who has the power to make whatever pairings she wants according to her personal shipping chart, and she doesn't ultimately care if those she pairs up want her help or not.
Now comes the final issue. She explains that she's a student of Cadance's and indeed, in Life of Brad is actually shown as such (along with the fact that Cadance apparently DOESN'T share her ethics-less views), but ultimately who is she accountable to? What kind of oversight does she have? I would HOPE that someone with access to her kind of magic would be regulated in some sense, but it's never made really clear if she actually has any oversight, other than Cadance, who lives 1000 miles away in the Crystal Empire. And what's worse, if she were to go around using her powers as she'd like to...she'd probably get away with it too, since no one's gonna report it as a crime since they're perfectly 'happy' with what she's done to them. And indeed, is there anything or anyone to stop her from using her abilities to break up an existing couple simply because it doesn't mesh with her 'equations?'
TL;DR, my problem with Lovestruck isn't so much in what she does, but in HOW she does it. And before anyone brings up the Lucky/Wild Fire thing as an example of Cadance not caring about consent, I will point out that she was a teenager at the time, and I would hope that she's more responsible with her powers now that she's an adult.
As a experienced feeling one source would be equivalent and equal to any other. But love comes in varied forms with unique nuances and means of expression. So kind, degree and expression are the real matter to consider. JustAnotherTimeLord described a portion of this in the beginning of his comment.
and
Questions of reduced relative validity: If life is always(experienced as) good, can it really be considered so without the bad to compare? Or at least if one would recognize and/or appreciate it?
At a more basic level good feelings denote something going right(which can be a faulty perception). If one felt good regardless of conditions then those conditions would never be rectified or expanded upon(nothing fixed, avoided, or even put into action). Like the rat with a "feel happy" button most would do nothing or if averted, pursue something regardless of outcome or effect(lack of meaningful feed back in both cases). In this case the generalization applies to romance and loves many other forms, i.e. familial.
Yes, very much so(...creep-ieee).
Her level of single-minded obsession, apparent disregard of others meaningful opinions and input(and therefore the ability to express a degree of self-determination, or even provide oversight and error-checking). Thus the most important fact: That she leaves others at the mercy of any mistakes she may make, which can be very damaging indeed, with no(effective) considerations made. What so ever.
P.S.: I hope you read to apologies at the end of my previous postings, I behaved in a inexcusable manner near the end.
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This is a pretty fair description of my feelings on the matter. To boil said feeling down into pretentious Latin: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchmen?
*Oh Edit: The last long answer refers to the last two questions at once. And The rather than To in the P.S.
This blog convinced me to actually finally read Mating Species.
I admit I am having trouble finding anything really wrong with Lovestruck's approach, in theory anyway. It seems to me that in a perfect world, authority would derive from competence. That being so, it seems that nopony could have a rational reason to refuse to submit his or her will to Lovestruck's will insofar as it pertained to the issue of romance, assuming that Lovestruck is perfectly trustworthy and perfectly competent to exercise her powers only and entirely for the good of the other ponies.
But to make a more primitive point. No woman ever asked my permission or consent before deciding what clothes she would wear, how she would decorate her hair, and so on. Insofar as people dress with the intention of appearing attractive to other people, they are trying to do exactly what Lovestruck does—to compel feelings of infatuation—but no one would blame anyone for this. So why should Lovestruck's art be considered any different? Indeed, I don't know "where" a lot of my feelings "come from", and I'm not entirely responsible for, or consenting to, many of them. Why should it matter if such feelings have their source in a rational agent's magic, rather than in a blind convulsion of molecular interactions? The former option actually appears more pleasant and agreeable to me than the latter, as it would give those feelings a nobler source and provide me with a proper object of gratitude for such feelings.
All of this, of course, takes for granted what is impossible in a fallen world such as ours: the perfect trustworthiness and benevolence of the "central planner".
To be fair to TV tropes, it does say
right at the very top of the first chapter.
Most people don't bother looking at blogs, or bios, they look at the stories. One of the big warning flags for stories is if the author has the same name as one of the characters, so that sticks out in their minds. You might not intend him to be an author expy, but the name is probably just too much for a lot of people. I read all your blogs about it and it still pops up in my head as DGD's self-insert fic.
Basically dude, If none of the characters are saying things you agree with and you don't want to confuse people, don't name the main character after yourself. At the very least put a disclaimer in an author's note or the description.
A thought: maybe the reason this practice is so intensely creepy is because it borders on wireheading?
Regarding the immature comments on EqD, I would not be too concerned about them. You're more likely to find informed comments right here on Fimfiction, where people are more likely to actually have read the story and be motivated to leave honest feedback.
Regarding the "creepiness" of Lovestruck, I don't think it's an issue of the veracity of the "love" that she creates. Perhaps an argument can be made that "love is love" no matter how it comes about. But I think that's another issue entirely. I actually think she would make an excellent couples counselor. If two ponies in a long-term relationship are trying to rekindle the passionate feelings they had earlier in their lives, Lovestruck could really help them out.
Rather, the problem with Lovestruck is that she is imposing her own will on the lives of other beings, without their knowledge or consent. It is an infringement on the free will choices of others.
As a counter example, if there is a lifesaving medical treatment that a patient really needs to survive, but the treatment goes against their religious beliefs, or they have some other personal reason to refuse it, then the Doctor is honor-bound NOT to apply the treatment, so as to preserve the patient's free will agency. The treatment requires informed consent, either from the patient or from the one with their power of attorney. Whether or not the treatment itself is "good" or "valid" is a side issue.
It's the same deal with Lovestruck. If she ended up pairing Twilight with Big Mac, for instance, and the two of them discovered years later that their "love" was the creation of some third party playing around with their lives, would it not leave them feeling violated? Would it not diminish the meaning of their love, to realize it was never of their own creation, of their own free will? Bear in mind, we're talking about the "meaning" of their love, and not the "veracity" or "sincerity" of their love. Maybe it's a point of contention that that makes a difference, but I think it does.
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Both of this.
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And specially this one.
So, the two problems with Lovestruck are:
a) if love or friendship can be bestowed or taken at someone whim, if the relationships between people, what define us as humans, can be connected, modified and disconnected like circuits in a computer, wouldn´t that cheap our value as persons?
b) free will is sacred. Messing it without consent is the worst kind of rape.
I wouldn't expect to find worthwhile comments on EQD, that site has gone a bit south where reader comments are concerned.
Quite simply, it's a question of autonomy and personal agency. Telling someone else how to feel isn't wrong; that's the crux of most arguments. Forcing someone to feel a specific emotion is a violation of their individuality and freedom to think for themselves, literal mind rape. Lovestruck doesn't see ponies as people, she sees them as compatibility values to be maximized. She borders on the sociopathic.
Cadance understands this. She used her magic on a couple who had already chosen to love one another, and who she (hopefully) had good reason to believe would make up in time. She expedited the process that was going to take place anyway. Lovestruck fails to understand that her magic should catalyze, not force. The final decision should lie with the lovers, not the matchmaker.
At least, that's my take on it.
To me it is a question of free will, as others have said. True, one could argue that the sometimes ridiculous lengths that people go to for attracting the person they are attracted to is a form of manipulation. But in the end, the receiver of this "manipulation" is still free to walk away.
The power these ponies use doesn't do that. It seems like they take a giant magical syringe filled with whatever emotion they want and stab it directly into the brain of the pony they want to affect.
It sorta feels like being drugged on a date. Whatever happens, the person was not in their natural state of mind.
>caring about EQD comments
>taking anything EQD commenters say seriously
>EQD comments
Well, there's your problem. :B
This reminds me of a song, specifically, Massive Attack's Teardrop:
Though it is just a song, I think it raises a valuable point, in that love is not an emotion born in a vacuum. Love is an action, and takes work to achieve. The feeling of love is one that needs, first, a foundation. Whether it is love for parents or siblings who are your close family (and even then, you have to admit, it takes time to love them fully when you're a kid) or romantic love, it takes a lot of time and effort to achieve that feeling and to keep it alive.
So, is it good to cast a love spell on anyone, that it doesn't matter where the feeling comes from? No, it's not, because that removes any and all effort from the love. It's why a love potion used on someone who didn't love you would be considered rape; giving someone an emotion without the work behind it doesn't make it real. Because, ultimately, love is not just a sensation. Sure, the base feeling of "goodness" or happy feelings toward a person is, but true love toward family or spouse is something that is constantly developing over time, and it isn't something you can fake. The current divorce rate should be evidence enough of that.
2048323 Wireheading: As found in the works of Larry Niven(his Known Space setting, i. e. the Louis Wu character)?
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Wireheading as in altering the things inside of you which feel pleasure; the term comes from a hypothetical person who decides to insert a wire in his head, connected to his pleasure centers, so he can feel as much pleasure as he wants just by pressing a button.
the way it's connected to this conversation is that a pony who has access to love magic (i.e. close friends with someone like Lovestruck, or Lovestruck herself) could decide to change whoever they're attracted to in order to serve some other part of their personality-for example, deciding to be madly in love with a horrible rich person so they can have access to more money.
Or deciding to be madly in love with a person who they think they're actually settling for (i.e. an unemployed high-school dropout) just so they can be happy.
Plus, and I cannot stress this enough, what Lovestruck is doing isn't consensual; under a certain point of view,
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it's actually rape, not just of the mind variety; if you have sex with a person a previous version of you didn't want to have sex with, and your preferences were changed unwillingly...what's the difference between having sex performed on you, again unwillingly?
I hesitate to type this, though, since I'm not sure of the strength of my argument, and we're already dealing in dangerous territory
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The thing is, what the author says that the spells Lovestruck and Cadance use do is basically skip all the "work" part of the equation; you decide who to fall into or out of love with and BAM! it's done.
On its own, this could actually be a positive thing, which I think is why the author is so ?positive?(couldn't find a better word. Pro-magic, maybe?).
Think about all the time you spent moping after your ex dumped (I know I've certainly lost an aggravatingly big chunk of time over this kind of thing). If you could to a love specialist, then you'd immediately be ready to start dating again, without being afraid of being on the rebound and thus making your next relationship that much stronger.
Or, if you keep being attracted to other people outside your relationship, but want to stop feeling guilty...just get rid of the attraction.
And then there's arranged marriages, but those are somewhat outside of the purview of modern(occidental. Sorry) society, and so I don't have experience with the,
2048894 I am familiar with the thought experiment and its implications that you're referring to (the reference to Larry Niven's works was because it was used as a setting element within his best known works, as an actual procedure).*
The rape analogy holds, I just focus on the elements that underlay it and there repercussions. Plus the dry tone(of previous comments) was just me backing off and analyzing my own visceral response.
*Note:The internet is not a good medium for expressing tone, that statement can came off as condescending, rebuking or snarky.
Neither of which holds(just frank and literal instead)
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Whooooopppsss.
Yeah, the internet is horrible at conveying tone, sarcasm, and the subtler points of communication in general
2049264 True, it can make both our commentary seem colder or more biting. But, Eh, no big deal.
*
*(The emoticon think is cute, and patently ridiculous... Only way to express some tone though without making a post/comment into a pseudo-short story...)
P.S.: I am going to stop derailing this commentary section now.
Love isn't a feeling. It's a choice.
Sorry guys, I literally don't have time to read all the other comments right now.
Lovestruck might be right from a purely utilitarian standpoint, but she's thinking one-dimensionally. She's only thinking about the feelings of love, but ignoring the meaning and accompanying feelings that make love worthwhile and desirable. It would be like someone picking you up and plopping you down on the summit of Mount Everest. You're on top of the tallest mountain on Earth, but do you feel like you accomplished anything? Some might not care, but love is only a part of a lasting relationship which is the real desired result romance.
The opposite is also true. Being rejected might hurt and wanting that pain to just disappear is natural, but without it you don't have that experience of a relationship going wrong. You don't have something that will pull you back when you're walking into a potentially toxic situation. While these situations would be eliminated if Lovestruck had her way, it only contributes to the emptiness of love.
And that's the real problem aside from the thorny moral and ethical questions of Lovestruck manipulating ponies like they were pieces of chess board. She would make love empty and cheap. In her quest to simplify romance, she would kill its soul. Romance requires those bumps and setbacks and difficult decisions. The challenge and the risk what makes falling in love desirable and the relationship from a successful romance gratifying.
I can easily see why people think MCoSEP is a sex story. 1) It has the word sex in it (mating) 2) You're putting this story up on a site that is renown for its high volume of poorly written erotica 3) The picture on the cover is of Rarity making a lovey-dovey face to the viewer
I thought the same thing tbh and didn't touch it for ages.
As for TvTropes, I don't see where people have accused you of soapboxing. Author Tract is also not a bad thing in of itself; and If you think you're not injecting your own opinion into the story (about pony/human romance) when you constantly have characters talking about how ridiculous they find it (and how ridiculous it's portrayed as being), I don't see how that works either.
I feel the fool now, but I thought the character was suppose to represent you as well, albeit an exxagerated, overly calm and analytical version. So that EQD reader wasn't just crazy (but maybe we're BOTH crazy?). Why did you decide to name this protagonist after yourself, and not in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Pageant? Oddly enough, Jack Andrews still represented a part of you, in that he got involved with the Catholic church for less than pious reasons.
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Jack Andrews is a blatant self-insert. Doctor Davidson has my name for practical reasons, because the story is posing as an academic paper, and thus I couldn't adopt a pseudonym without breaking the illusion.
The usual technique, to avoid this problem, is to present these things as "found" manuscripts, as in "Message Found in a Copy of Flatland."
Also, on the character apparently being an homage to James Tiptree Jr., I can see how the character is able to look and write about the world in a philosophical view. But you to, are a pretty philosophical dude.