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A Rebuttal
The Top Ten Reasons Why Twilight Sparkle And Sunset Shimmer Should Not Be A Couple
By Twilight Sparkle
1. We’re best friends. Despite what Rarity says, that doesn’t mean that the two of us getting together would be “even more romantic”, because by that logic she and Fluttershy should be smooching non-stop. They aren’t; ergo, neither should we.
2. We don’t hold hands more often than any other best friends do! I spent a full week recording hand holding frequency of various pairs of best friends through the school (unsurprisingly a bimodal distribution), and we were only three standard deviations above the higher-frequency peak. In my opinion, that’s barely an outlier. Pinkie’s claims on this front are thus highly debatable.
3. Even if we did allow for the frankly ludicrous idea that we hold hands more frequently than other pairs of best friends of similar age and sex, there’s a far more reasonable explanation than romantic interest: holding hands was how we became friends in the first place. It’s natural for us! Comfortable, even! And there’s nothing wrong with two best friends being comfortable holding hands all the time, even if such an occurrence were outside the statistical norms for their demographic.
4. We’re too different! Everyone says we’d be good together because we’re similar but we just aren’t. For example, Rarity always says we’d look “cute” doing “science things” together in “a lab”, but conveniently fails to notice that we’re interested in completely different areas of research. Sure, we help each other out with experiments, because that’s what friends do, but it’s more like alternating who’s lab assistant. That’s not cute, it’s friendly. And besides, laboratories are serious places where health and safety procedures are very important, soeven if we wante there would be no opportunities to do anything romantic.
5. Sunset is cool. She’s in a band. She wears faux-leather jackets and rides motorbikes and plays guitar. She’s got a “tough girl with soft edges” look going for her. She’s confident and popular andthe hottest girl in sch widely considered to be attractive by the student body. In contrast, I My therapist says I shouldn’t dwell on my insecurities, so I won’t list my own shortcomings, but I think it’s pretty clear that she’s out of my league.
6. She’s probably not into girls anyway. Statistically speaking. She’s certainly never mentioned anything like that to me, and we’re best friends who tell each other all sorts of things, so if she were she probably would. Right?
7. I’m pretty sure it would count as bestiality.
8. Rarity might be quick to point out that there is a high incidence of us both blushing on the not-statistically-significant occasions that we do hold hands, which she claims is evidence of a barely-concealed, mutual romantic attraction, but this is why Rarity is not a scientist. Correlation is not causation, Rarity. How many times have we been through this?
9. Rainbow Dash thinks we should get together. Rainbow Dash (by her own admission) knows nothing about romance, relationships, or dating. This means that Rainbow Dash is wrong, which in turn means that we shouldn’t get together. QED.
10. If I were to ask her out (which I wouldn’t), and if she were to say yes (which she wouldn’t), the others would be intolerably smug. Can you imagine how smug Rarity would be about that? It would be awful. Besides, I would have to admit I was wrong (which I’m not, because I’m not into her). And that is the most important reason why Sunset and I shouldn’t be a couple.
By Twilight Sparkle
1. We’re best friends. Despite what Rarity says, that doesn’t mean that the two of us getting together would be “even more romantic”, because by that logic she and Fluttershy should be smooching non-stop. They aren’t; ergo, neither should we.
2. We don’t hold hands more often than any other best friends do! I spent a full week recording hand holding frequency of various pairs of best friends through the school (unsurprisingly a bimodal distribution), and we were only three standard deviations above the higher-frequency peak. In my opinion, that’s barely an outlier. Pinkie’s claims on this front are thus highly debatable.
3. Even if we did allow for the frankly ludicrous idea that we hold hands more frequently than other pairs of best friends of similar age and sex, there’s a far more reasonable explanation than romantic interest: holding hands was how we became friends in the first place. It’s natural for us! Comfortable, even! And there’s nothing wrong with two best friends being comfortable holding hands all the time, even if such an occurrence were outside the statistical norms for their demographic.
4. We’re too different! Everyone says we’d be good together because we’re similar but we just aren’t. For example, Rarity always says we’d look “cute” doing “science things” together in “a lab”, but conveniently fails to notice that we’re interested in completely different areas of research. Sure, we help each other out with experiments, because that’s what friends do, but it’s more like alternating who’s lab assistant. That’s not cute, it’s friendly. And besides, laboratories are serious places where health and safety procedures are very important, so
5. Sunset is cool. She’s in a band. She wears faux-leather jackets and rides motorbikes and plays guitar. She’s got a “tough girl with soft edges” look going for her. She’s confident and popular and
6. She’s probably not into girls anyway. Statistically speaking. She’s certainly never mentioned anything like that to me, and we’re best friends who tell each other all sorts of things, so if she were she probably would. Right?
7. I’m pretty sure it would count as bestiality.
8. Rarity might be quick to point out that there is a high incidence of us both blushing on the not-statistically-significant occasions that we do hold hands, which she claims is evidence of a barely-concealed, mutual romantic attraction, but this is why Rarity is not a scientist. Correlation is not causation, Rarity. How many times have we been through this?
9. Rainbow Dash thinks we should get together. Rainbow Dash (by her own admission) knows nothing about romance, relationships, or dating. This means that Rainbow Dash is wrong, which in turn means that we shouldn’t get together. QED.
10. If I were to ask her out (which I wouldn’t), and if she were to say yes (which she wouldn’t), the others would be intolerably smug. Can you imagine how smug Rarity would be about that? It would be awful. Besides, I would have to admit I was wrong (which I’m not, because I’m not into her). And that is the most important reason why Sunset and I shouldn’t be a couple.
Pics
This was a cute story. Twilight being completely in denial to the point of ignoring scientific rigor is very in-character for her, and funny to boot.
That being said, there's denial, and then there's writing off a result of three standard deviations above the mean. 3 s.d's is an insane quantity. That's a 0.135 percentile result, assuming a Gaussian distribution. And this is a bimodal distribution, which means that the s.d. would be even higher than the s.d. of either peak, and assuming that the peaks are differentiable, that's at least another order of magnitude more improbable.
Twilight constantly reiterating that something that can best be described as "rejecting the null hypothesis with extreme prejudice" is a little much, even if she's in denial. There's bad science, and then there's a fundamental lack of intuition about statistical quantities.
That being said, there's denial, and then there's writing off a result of three standard deviations above the mean. 3 s.d's is an insane quantity. That's a 0.135 percentile result, assuming a Gaussian distribution. And this is a bimodal distribution, which means that the s.d. would be even higher than the s.d. of either peak, and assuming that the peaks are differentiable, that's at least another order of magnitude more improbable.
Twilight constantly reiterating that something that can best be described as "rejecting the null hypothesis with extreme prejudice" is a little much, even if she's in denial. There's bad science, and then there's a fundamental lack of intuition about statistical quantities.
This was cute and clever and strongly in-character. Creative way to tell a story with a short wordcount, nice use of formatting. Good stuff.
Tbh though, I think >>UndomeTinwe 's comment might have swayed this story's position in my rankings, 'cause fucking hell Mel you made me lose my shit.
Tbh though, I think >>UndomeTinwe 's comment might have swayed this story's position in my rankings, 'cause fucking hell Mel you made me lose my shit.
7. I’m pretty sure it would count as bestiality.
so, Twilight's in denial about this one too, right? hot
this fic could've been the same joke done 10 times in a row, but the punchline at the end here makes it so much better.
I was reminded a little of a flashfic by Trick Question with a similar idea. they're written very differently so I doubt there's any influence on this one. I just felt like plugging it.
>>Monokeras
Well, there are 34 authors total, so that's roughly a 97.06% chance it's not Quill's story, yes. :P
Well, there are 34 authors total, so that's roughly a 97.06% chance it's not Quill's story, yes. :P
I don't know a lot about math, but I do know what makes me laugh wildly in the middle of Starbucks, and this was (very nearly) it. Not for lack of quality, I just have high self control. Snark aside, I did really giggle at this nonstop. It's so perfectly Twilight: We have a list, denial of reality based in strong emotion, excess testing, and pointing out really weird tidbits to support her point.
I love it.
I love it.
The Top Five Things Quill Has Wanted To Say About This Story All Week And Hasn't Been Able To
By Quill Scratch
1. Probably the most important thing to mention is that this story is a huge loveletter to a fanfic that has been my guilty pleasure for almost a decade now: The List, a HarryxHermione rom-com that is fully responsible for getting me into rom-coms as a teenager. Is it good? Eh. Is it something I still come back and re-read fondly every other year? Hell yes. I definitely recommend giving it a read over for fun, because it's cute and fluffy and contrived and full of denial.
2. So this is somehow a lesson I still haven't learned, but: living up to things you admire, even things that aren't that great, is hard. This entry was a conglomeration, tonally, of the openings of chapters one and four of The List, with a dash of chapter three thrown in for good measure. And... well, it's really hard to write something genuinely original and funny with that kind of expectation weighing on me. As a result, I loathe the punchline to this story: I spent a solid hour on point ten, and nothing I did made it work at all as I wanted it to. It packs barely any of the punch I wanted it to, and I feel the expectations I was holding for myself really got in the way there. (I do like the other nine bits though >.>)
3. (>>UndomeTinwe) Let's talk standard deviation! More importantly, let's talk about picking numbers in fiction. In all honesty, I 100% stand behind your criticism here, because I did the exact same thing with that one episode of Doctor Who where the moon was an egg: when you know stuff about a field, people saying things that are extraordinarily far off the mark, numbers-wise, is jarring and frustrating. So why did I go with three? Simple: I'm trying to cater to two very different audiences, because I also want the joke to be funny to people who have no idea what standard deviation is. The first draft of that point used two instead of three (and I wanted an integer because I expressly didn't want a tone of extreme precision and nitpicking here), and it just didn't feel big enough to be funny? It's a genuinely difficult problem, to balance accuracy and truthfulness with something that is artistically sound (I think you did a great job of that in Asymmetry, by the way); I resolved it by googling "number of standard deviations for an outlier" and the first result said three so I figured that could be funny for anyone trying to do some research.
4. (>>Haze & >>Hap) When are two jokes the same joke? It's a really interesting question, and for me while writing this it was one I was constantly grappling with (because let's face it, if every point on this list was using exactly the same kind of framing for its humour I don't think this entry would be nearly as effective as it turned out to be.) And yet I knew that I had to keep coming back to at least one theme a few times: partly to tie the piece together, structurally, but also to give the effect of Twilight obsessing on someone's off-handed comment, as I was determined that this piece should be interpreted as an overreaction and wanted to sell that as hard as I could. I guess the real question is whether or not this piece is really one joke or ten jokes, and I'm honestly convinced the only answer to that is "both". The long and the short of it is that this sort of thing is much harder to write than I'd first thought, though that doesn't say a huge amount.
5. (>>Monokeras) Monokeras is a Guessing Wizard because I wouldn't have guessed me for this piece.
And, uh, this one wasn't exactly in the plan:
6. (>>Skywriter)
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-
Thank you so much to everyone who read, commented, and/or voted on this entry! I can't quite believe the first time I've medalled in the writeoff was with a listicle of all things, but I'll take it? And hey, I beat horizon, so that's another thing off the bucket list. So many congratulations to everyone who took part this round: you're all wonderful, amazing people who make wonderful, amazing stories. Keep being awesome!
By Quill Scratch
1. Probably the most important thing to mention is that this story is a huge loveletter to a fanfic that has been my guilty pleasure for almost a decade now: The List, a HarryxHermione rom-com that is fully responsible for getting me into rom-coms as a teenager. Is it good? Eh. Is it something I still come back and re-read fondly every other year? Hell yes. I definitely recommend giving it a read over for fun, because it's cute and fluffy and contrived and full of denial.
2. So this is somehow a lesson I still haven't learned, but: living up to things you admire, even things that aren't that great, is hard. This entry was a conglomeration, tonally, of the openings of chapters one and four of The List, with a dash of chapter three thrown in for good measure. And... well, it's really hard to write something genuinely original and funny with that kind of expectation weighing on me. As a result, I loathe the punchline to this story: I spent a solid hour on point ten, and nothing I did made it work at all as I wanted it to. It packs barely any of the punch I wanted it to, and I feel the expectations I was holding for myself really got in the way there. (I do like the other nine bits though >.>)
3. (>>UndomeTinwe) Let's talk standard deviation! More importantly, let's talk about picking numbers in fiction. In all honesty, I 100% stand behind your criticism here, because I did the exact same thing with that one episode of Doctor Who where the moon was an egg: when you know stuff about a field, people saying things that are extraordinarily far off the mark, numbers-wise, is jarring and frustrating. So why did I go with three? Simple: I'm trying to cater to two very different audiences, because I also want the joke to be funny to people who have no idea what standard deviation is. The first draft of that point used two instead of three (and I wanted an integer because I expressly didn't want a tone of extreme precision and nitpicking here), and it just didn't feel big enough to be funny? It's a genuinely difficult problem, to balance accuracy and truthfulness with something that is artistically sound (I think you did a great job of that in Asymmetry, by the way); I resolved it by googling "number of standard deviations for an outlier" and the first result said three so I figured that could be funny for anyone trying to do some research.
4. (>>Haze & >>Hap) When are two jokes the same joke? It's a really interesting question, and for me while writing this it was one I was constantly grappling with (because let's face it, if every point on this list was using exactly the same kind of framing for its humour I don't think this entry would be nearly as effective as it turned out to be.) And yet I knew that I had to keep coming back to at least one theme a few times: partly to tie the piece together, structurally, but also to give the effect of Twilight obsessing on someone's off-handed comment, as I was determined that this piece should be interpreted as an overreaction and wanted to sell that as hard as I could. I guess the real question is whether or not this piece is really one joke or ten jokes, and I'm honestly convinced the only answer to that is "both". The long and the short of it is that this sort of thing is much harder to write than I'd first thought, though that doesn't say a huge amount.
5. (>>Monokeras) Monokeras is a Guessing Wizard because I wouldn't have guessed me for this piece.
And, uh, this one wasn't exactly in the plan:
6. (>>Skywriter)
Congrats on the medal finish!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-
Thank you so much to everyone who read, commented, and/or voted on this entry! I can't quite believe the first time I've medalled in the writeoff was with a listicle of all things, but I'll take it? And hey, I beat horizon, so that's another thing off the bucket list. So many congratulations to everyone who took part this round: you're all wonderful, amazing people who make wonderful, amazing stories. Keep being awesome!
And hey, I beat horizon, so that's another thing off the bucket list.
I mean, you already did that back in I Regret Nothing, but mega-congratulations on repeating it with your first ponyfic medal! :D
