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Description
The Great and Powerful Trixie returns to Ponyville to challenge her long-time rival, Twilight Sparkle, once again! This time, they chose not to use magic for the basis of their friendly contest; for this duel, its physical prowess only, and no magic allowed!
They agreed to draw out the type of contest from a pile of cards in Trixies magnificent hat. It could have been anything - hoofball, racing, tree-bucking contest, hoof wrestling - but they drew out a different sort of finesse challenge: the Underwater Breath Holding Contest. What are the odds, eh?
The rules were simple - Stay underwater longer than your opponent. No surfacing. No magic. First one to go up for air, or cast a spell of any kind, water-breathing or otherwise, loses. Oh, and loser buys lunch. Twilight accepted the challenge with gusto, and within the hour they were treading water in the local pool, counting down to the big dive.
Three… Two… One…
Two ponies took a great gasp of air. Two ponies splashed beneath the water.
Almost instantly, Twilight wanted to go back up again.
Trixie, you see, was far healthier than Twilight on numerous levels - She had years of bellowing boasts to any crowds that would gather, and walking all over Equestria with her stage-carriage. This had given her a great pair of lungs, and stamina to boot. Twilight, on the other hoof, had spent years in a library. Studying. Good for the brain, not so much for the lungs. And her magic couldnt help her this time.
Innumerable seconds passed. Twilight blinked away her discomfort and looked at her competitor; Trixie hardly seemed bothered by the situation. Either that or she was very, very good at putting on a fake expression.
More time passed; neither pony kept track. Twilight tried to ignore the strain creeping up on her, and the rising beat of her own heart that pounded in her ears. Trixie remained as motionless as ever, save for the occasional bubble or two that snuck by her tightly-shut lips.
More slow, painful seconds ticked by. And some more. And…
Oh Celestia, Ive never wanted to breathe so badly!
VOTE OFF! Let us know in the comments who you’d like to win the underwater contest! Does Twilight finally give up, knowing that Trixie has beaten her fair and square? Or is Trixie merely bluffing, and is far more desperate for air than Twilight herself? You guys decide!
They agreed to draw out the type of contest from a pile of cards in Trixies magnificent hat. It could have been anything - hoofball, racing, tree-bucking contest, hoof wrestling - but they drew out a different sort of finesse challenge: the Underwater Breath Holding Contest. What are the odds, eh?
The rules were simple - Stay underwater longer than your opponent. No surfacing. No magic. First one to go up for air, or cast a spell of any kind, water-breathing or otherwise, loses. Oh, and loser buys lunch. Twilight accepted the challenge with gusto, and within the hour they were treading water in the local pool, counting down to the big dive.
Three… Two… One…
Two ponies took a great gasp of air. Two ponies splashed beneath the water.
Almost instantly, Twilight wanted to go back up again.
Trixie, you see, was far healthier than Twilight on numerous levels - She had years of bellowing boasts to any crowds that would gather, and walking all over Equestria with her stage-carriage. This had given her a great pair of lungs, and stamina to boot. Twilight, on the other hoof, had spent years in a library. Studying. Good for the brain, not so much for the lungs. And her magic couldnt help her this time.
Innumerable seconds passed. Twilight blinked away her discomfort and looked at her competitor; Trixie hardly seemed bothered by the situation. Either that or she was very, very good at putting on a fake expression.
More time passed; neither pony kept track. Twilight tried to ignore the strain creeping up on her, and the rising beat of her own heart that pounded in her ears. Trixie remained as motionless as ever, save for the occasional bubble or two that snuck by her tightly-shut lips.
More slow, painful seconds ticked by. And some more. And…
Oh Celestia, Ive never wanted to breathe so badly!
VOTE OFF! Let us know in the comments who you’d like to win the underwater contest! Does Twilight finally give up, knowing that Trixie has beaten her fair and square? Or is Trixie merely bluffing, and is far more desperate for air than Twilight herself? You guys decide!
I hope it takes off, and causes the next fanimated episode to be Call Upon The Seaponies.
And I hope Windswept at the very least “Derpies” throughout the episode, but would rather have her as a minor talkie character, like Flower Trio level.
No, not really without a huge “COMMENT DELETED BY MODERATOR, PROBABLY SOMETHING OBSCENE” notice.
And somewhat unrelated at this point, a Batman/Superman comparison doesn’t work here. Trixie’s always going to fail, that’s her role, it’s her purpose in life to prove how pathetic she is in comparison to Twilight. Batman and Superman are both fleshed out heroes the writers want us to love, whereas Trixie is just a buttmonkey that, against the writers’ designs, people took a liking to.
Yes, I have issues with “let’s pit Trixie against a main character, it’ll be fair” type things.
(To be fair, Batman’s totally superior. Just super saiyan.)
“Well, what criteria are people meant to use to choose, then?”
There! That’s it! That’s the question I was looking for!
The answer? Anything they wanted. Whatever they felt like at the time. That was the beauty of it. “Eh, I like Twilight, I’ll pick her.” “Oh, Trixie could use a win, I’ll pick her.” “Wow, Twilight’s really struggling there, I’ll pick her because I like an underdog.” Hell, even “I feel like Trixie today”, on a pure whim, would’ve been just fine. And coin flipping, yeah! Why the heck not? A vote’s a vote! “I’ll vote for Twilight because her Cutie Mark reminds me of stars and that makes me smile!” Yeah, that’s the spirit!
I just didn’t want it to be “Well logically, Trixie’s gonna win, so let’s all vote Trixie because of that reason alone everyone”. I mean sure, I’d accept it, but if it was so that everyone would vote for that singular reason, then it wouldn’t be, as you put it, “all that fair”. And it was starting to look that way, so I tried to balance it out with some pro-Twilight. Then it kinda spiralled out of control.
It’s why there are Batman fans despite Superman being the superior. It’s why waiters ask “Soup or Salad” despite one probably being more popular than the other. You understand what I’m getting at?
Ugh. Is there a way to delete comments on this? We clearly got off on the wrong foot here.
Sorry, I feel like I started this one. Maybe I’ll just back out slowly for comedic effect. slides offscreen
He didn’t say everyone was voting wrong, he just said admitted the bias in his story and was trying to clarify that it wasn’t intentional.
Well, what criteria are people meant to use to choose, then? If you can’t select the one with the highest potential to win or the one you’d want to win, then… everyone does a random coin toss?
And I guess it became a “courtroom debate” when you told people they were “voting wrong”…
A debate about whether Twilight or Trixie would win in an underwater breathholding contest?
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
That’s not what I meant. Not what I meant at all.
We meant “choose a winner”, right? Not “choose whoever has the highest potential to win”. Nor did I mean “choose your favourite pony”. Just “choose a winner”. Nothing more.
We just wanted to make a few silly pictures of ponies. Why is it suddenly a courtroom debate?
If we leave it down to something so simple, then it’s down to a popularity contest.
And between the multiple-time winner of near every “best pony” poll since S1 and a secondary character with two episodes and a large number of detractors, well, it doesn’t seem all that fair.
Point taken there.
Still, the idea of the image was “choose a winner” rather then “choose whoever has the highest potential to win”. Could’ve had two ponies, one with a scuba kit, one without, and with enough votes the one without would still have a fair shot at winning (suddenly emptied/damaged tank, air-tube malfunction, etc) so I was just clarifying that it was equal in that regard. Nothing more than that.
BEHOLD THE MIGHTY POWER OF VOOOOTES!
You do realize that when Trixie ran from the Ursa it was because it was less than a second away from splatting or eating her, right?
And about giving up, Trixie tried to get her show back in order, and when that failed rather than do what most fanon dictated she should do (go into a depression, kill herself or become a prostitute drug addict), she took up one of the worst jobs known in canon to earn the money to make a comeback. Twilight’s been The Chosen One since day one, coddled by riches and princesses and a multitude of friends; she doesn’t know hardship. Hell, all it took for her to go full emo was one bad day with her friends being mean to her. Were it not for Princess Deus Ex Celestia to save the day she’d’ve run back to her parents.
No, in a contest of spirits, Trixie wins over Twilight any day or night of the week, easily.
Ah, but she DOES have one advantage over Trixie - Twi doesn’t give up easily. Trixie runs away from Ursa Minors and uses powerful necklaces to boost herself Twilight wins by never giving up, reading into Ursa Majors and learning from Zecora. Doesn’t that mean Trixie’s more likely to give up the match, while Twilight’s more likely to win due to her spirit?
Damn, should’ve made it clearer in the story that the odds were always equal…
Whoa, I haven’t read that one! Must’ve missed it. Time to look for it.
The image, the story and common sense.
Trixie has to be physically pretty damn well off; she’s pulled her wagon/stage from town to town and worked on a rock farm, not to mention performing her actual shows that involve high levels of stress management and yelling a whole damn lot. She’s probably as fit as Rainbow Dash or Applejack.
Meanwhile Twilight does the occasional short sprint for a few seconds every once in a while and otherwise sits in her library reading books all day.
Niice! But wouldn’t that also make “Desire and Deep Water” canon, where Twilight can hold her breath for a whole makeout session..?
Fair enough, just making sure people knew that. Maybe next “contest” - if we have one - will be more equal.
Also, I consider “Love-locked and Breathless” canon to this story, in which Trixie can hold her breath upwards of five minutes or so.
Yeah, but it totally makes sense. Besides, Trixie always loses. As much of a jerk she can be, she deserves to be thrown a bone every now and again, y’know?
You know, if enough people vote for Twi, she’ll be able to win the contest. A lot of people have voted Trixie purely because she’s “winning” on the image, but the idea was that the outcomes based entirely on those voting, not what the image looks like… :/