Pony Waifus II

 

While many readers have no doubt considered the downsides and pitfalls of the concept of "pony waifus" (that is, characters from MLP who certain fans have grown so attatched to that they consider these characters to be their desired mates in a romantic (not neccessarily sexual) sense), I would offer instead potential helpful aspects of this concept. My first section will be adovcacy for the general concept and my second will be a rebuttal to many of the favoured specific counterpoints. First of all, we must ask ourselves, what might drive MLP fans to adopt a character as their "waifu"? The obvious answer would be lonliness, especially that of the romantic kind. I have no wish to get derailed, because this in itself is a huge topic, but we have to ask ourselves, is the "pony waifu" answer to this quandry a good one? Consider the alternatives.

 

perhaps one has simply become so disconnected from a society that has become increasingly narcassistic, obsessed with technology-assisted power, arbitrary, hypocritical and increasingly ruled by people who exemplify these traits in ways so absurd one might be tempted to call them "flanderized" examples. It must be noted that disgust with the modernisation of society and similar themes have inspired some of the greatest writers, artists and thinkers of modern times, from Lord Dunsany to Marshall McLuhan to JRR Tolkien. The "loneliness epidemic" is further being monetised in numerous other ways, such as with the rise of "AI Girlfriends", which seem to be remarkably efficient at draining bank accounts while providing little to nothing in return. And that is not even mentioning how, perhaps in the first time in human history, thanks to social media, the vast majority of humans the general public interacts with on a daily basis may never be encountered again. And thus, there are little to no consequences for the activities and communications that happen between them. As humans are, in no small part, products of the society they live in, the media and the art and the general surroundings, I have to wonder if people who look at a society like this and say "I have no wish to be influenced by this insanity, thank you very much!" are really more stable and wise than those who embrace it with open arms.

 

But now that we have dealt with the possible alternatives to the "lonliness epidemic", the time has come to ask "Does choosing a mare waifu remedy these issues?" And I would argue it does. As stated before, we are influenced by our surroundings. But we are also influenced by those we love. There are plenty of old stories, such as "Beauty and the Beast" or "The Last Unicorn", which tell the tale of a male figure who is seriously flawed in some way, such as being overly lazy, yet all this changes when he comes into contact with a pure, kind and intelligent woman who shakes him out of this stupour and encourages valiance, bravery and individuation. Of course, this assumes that the woman must have all these good qualities first and "passes them on" to their male lover, and I do have to wonder to what extent modern society seeks to instill these qualities in girls and women, but that is quite another topic. The underlying assumption of the "male indiviuation" theory can be suggested to carry on with the "mare waifu" choice. That is to say, we could argue that an otherwise lazy and unmotivated male might, when taking up a pony waifu, actually experience a similar archetypical awakening of masculinity to the aforementioned fairy stories. Perhaps Fluttershy as a waifu may encourage empathy to the weak, or Twilight encourage consciounentiousness. Celestia could encourage a greater appreciation for beauty, Luna, subtlty and mystery. If a woman can pass on her good qualities to her lover, why not a pony waifu? One might reply that a real lover has more bargining power, that a man may become lazy if he had no fear of losing her, and that a pony waifu would encourage this. I would respond that this reduction of the romantic urge to a "carrot and stick approach" is overly cynical and misses the point, and that a waifu who sticks by them and never leaves you, no matter how badly they screw up, who affirms their value till their dying breath, actually offers at least some men a much more healthy and stable relationship than a woman who does not these things. Or the words of the Havamal: "A man shall trust not | the oath of a maid, Nor the word a woman speaks; For their hearts on a whirling | wheel were fashioned, And fickle their breasts were formed." I would argue that the love of a pony waifu seems closer to the Christian idea of "divine love", that is, unconditional, eternal, patient and forigiving love, than a great many real-life relationships. Or to quote "The Last Unicorn": "Unicorn, mermaid, lamia, sorceress, Gorgon - no name you give her would surprise me, or frighten me. I love whom I love."

 

 

It must also be noted how the "pony waifu" answer is perhaps superior to the other, aforementioned answers. Because as we have stated, one of the benefits provided by a "pony waifu" is somepony who can actually be a source of positive improvement for the brony, whereas this certianly does not seem to apply to AI Girlfriends, who are characters that will always be designed mirror back the user's own personality, and therefore amplify their own flaws and foibles back at them. Or in other words, Autumn Blaze as a waifu might make an otherwise shy brony more outgoing, but an AI Girlfriend is likely to encourage an exacerbate that shyness, especially of there is a financial incentive on behalf of the developers, a problem that many have also picked up on dating apps: that is, a dating app has an incentive to keep its male users endlessly searching for a match and paying a fee to the developers. Pony waifus have no such sinister ulterior motives.

 

 

"Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling." C.S. Lewis There comes a point where one has to wonder whther the effort they put into dating, into finding the right match, into getting a job to attract the right match, into putting up with rejections and failures and humiliations after so much work was put in, is really worth it in the end. One also has to wonder how much talent, how many human created paintings, stories, games, treatises or essays, ones that could potentially alter the destiny of earth and its subjects for the better, will remain forever unwritten because the potential creator was sucked into the world of "looksmaxxing" for fear of being tarnished by the looming "incel" slur of the braying hordes amongst the algorithm-induced stupour of the masses. If one simply gave up, and turned to their "pony waifu", one could have an endless source of comfort and inspiration if they were the sort of person destined to make these things. The concept of a "fairy muse", sometimes known as a "Leanan sídhe", who acts as an elven muse, an otherworldy, beautiful, eternally young woman utterly separate, and offering escape, from the often disgustingly corrupt society many of these male poets found themselves thrust into. ("Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.").

 

If we look throughout real-world folklore, we can find uncountable examples in both Christian and Pagan tales of a man falling in love with an "animal bride",so much so that it is its very own subset, and this actually being portrayed as a far more beautiful and romantic relationship than a "normal human relationship", especially if we consider that the sexual aspect is not hugely focused on in these stories especially ones in Christian socities.

Perhaps the most obvious starting place would be the "swan brides", that is, female swans who have their swan-forms taken by men and turn them into their human brides. Such tales are found in Norse Mythology, such as the famous tale of "Weyland the Smith", and have been translated into the famous ballet "Swan Lake". "Selkies" are seals who follow a similar pattern. However, many of these stories follow a rather tragic pattern, a trait shared with their fairy-muse counterparts, for once they find their old forms, they take them and leave the man alone.

 

Yet not all of these tales end in such a way. I remember hearing a folk story of three brothers. The two elder brothers find beautiful wives, yet the only woman who will consent to marry the younger brother is a female female mouse, much to the mocking amusement of the others. However, the female mouse proves to be the most intelligent out of all of them and ends up manipulating events that lead to her becoming a Princess and marrying the brother.

 

So as we can see, neither pagan nor Chrisitian folklore seems to view falling in romantic love with an animal bride to be particularly abhorrent; even if the animal becomes a human in the end, the protaganist is rarely aware of this fact before the transformation, and so his attraction to the female animal bride is seen as quite honourable, acceptable and even romantic. It must also be noted that the famous Nikola Tesla, instead of marrying a human woman, did in fact marry a pigeon in an entirely romantic sense, withput any implication of sexual contact between them. Now, I would argue that a romantic relationship with a mute pigeon, incapable of speech, is perhaps more eyebrow-raising than a romantic longing for a "pony waifu", considering the mares both have frankly attractive designs as well as very pleasant, mellifulous voices and healthy, complex personalities, as well as long, lushious eyelashes and shapely forms and-I should probably go cool off now...