Friendship: Why is it Magic?
RESEARCH ARTICLE 

Dawn, Luster¹*

¹ Institute of Friendship, School of Friendship, Harmony Street, Ponyville, Equestria, 92643

*Correspondence to the author. 

This is a thesis submitted for the Final Year Friendship Project (FYFP) for LUSTER DAWN. 

How to cite this article: Dawn, Luster. (2023). Friendship: Why is it Magic? M. J. of Fr., 1(1), 1-3.

Abstract

Friendship is important. It is a key tenet of the modern Equestrian society and a virtue for all creatures to follow. However, there has yet to be a concise review on the past developments on the fundamentals of friendship and its magic. In this short research article, the axioms of these concepts would be thoroughly distilled. Then, the magic-friendship nexus will be uncovered from a systems perspective. Through this rigor, the paper hopes to add a new layer of understanding to the ideals of friendship, its propagation through network analysis, and the development of a cohesive strategy to spread the magic of friendship. 

Introduction

Upon interaction, the relationship between two or more creatures can be nurtured through social behaviors and cues. The intrinsic fulfillment of a creature’s desire to become social has been said to be crucial in that creature’s personal development, which is in turn salient in elevating the creature to a higher socio-economic position. Networks derived from the interrelating, interdependent, interacting systems of social behavior conjugating with each other would incite a new planar view of the society as a whole from an individualized position. Hence, it is pivotal to investigate this inherent gravitation to actualising social networks from a creature’s perspective. 

Friendship is the act of making friends [1], which is a mere axiom of the system dynamics of the resulting social network. However, numerous observations espied by a multitude of local and foreign sources through spatiotemporality had provided ontological evidence to a probable relationship between magic and friendship [2]. It is therefore important to uncover the reasons behind this intangible link on a metaphysical basis. In this review, the axioms of these reasons will be provided in a systematic approach through various modes of analysis, which shall be described in further detail in the methodology section. Leveraging on the findings of these modes, the distillation of the results would be facilitated with the mapping of social networks [3] (Figure 1).

Through further network analysis, key leverage points would be identified to unravel the critical junctures of propagation would friendship be most ideally spread to the betterment of society from individualized perspective. Then, Equestria would become a better place for all to live, work and play. 

Methodology

The study was conducted using a mixed method approach. Via experiential case study, qualitative research through hermeneutic phenomenology shall proceed towards the elucidation of the relationship between magic and friendship. Quantitative research through regression studies between the quantity of magical output measured against arbitrary units of friendship would be conducted in tandem. To measure the arbitrary units of friendship, a panel of experts would evaluate the hierarchy of friendship between two creatures. To measure the quantity of magical output, a MK2.567-7@78.12 Magic Dehumidifier II was employed. By plotting the results axially, the correlation coefficient was computed with numerous plots. A hypothesis test was conducted with a 20% level of significance to ensure consistency in the results. To plot the social network, calcium sulfate was used to illustrate the key findings. Policy levers were then synthesized and implemented through mental analytical modes to hypothesize and converge towards an aggregated result. 

Results and Discussion

Prior hermeneutic phenomenology between Applejack and Rainbow Dash revealed the relationship expressed in Figure 2. A co-benefiting and mutual relationship was dynamically observed through positive feedback loops. To uncover the amount of magic expressed from this relationship, the magic dehumidifier was used when the duo were kept alone in an empty room with no other distractions. This method was repeated for numerous subjects (Supporting Information, Table S1) to yield the results in Figure 3. 

It is astutely observed that the correlation coefficient between the magical output and friendship units between creatures is 0.96134, to five significant figures. Based on the standards provided by the Equestrian Standards Bureau [4], a coefficient greater than 0.95000 would be classified as “most significant” while a coefficient between 0.95000 to 0.90000 would be classified as “significant.” This “most significant” finding found in this relationship is worthy to be explored in greater nuance in a future work. The magical output was nonetheless found to exhibit a linear relationship against the normalized, arbitrary friendship units. Possible parameters for further investigation that could be varied include spatial, temporal and greater-than-friendship endeavors. The remaining datasets yielded “significant” results and more detailed graphs are provided in the Supporting Information (Figure S1). 

Introducing greater social network orders to the secondary (Figure 4) and tertiary levels (Figure 5) revealed greater magical output levels by a factor of 54.2% and 154.3% relative to primary social network orders. This justifies the exponentially growing strength of social networks with magical output. The greater the social network order, the greater the number of connections; thereby increasing the amount of magical potential within the community’s boundary set by the model behavior. To investigate further, the number of connections will be plotted against the relative magical output of each vertice of the social network. 

It is further observed that exponential behavior for less than 150 social connections was observed, before a decaying, goal-seeking behavior was reached after 150 social connections. It is therefore optimal for a creature to attain at least 150 social connections for the greatest return on investment to capitalize on the magic of friendship, though a creature with more than 150 social connections, albeit achieving diminishing returns on investment, would increasingly benefit with more powerful magic emanating from the community of friends built up among their ranks through the multitude of relationship orders. This can be represented in the following mental mode (Figure 7). 

As the number of friends a creature has increases, the number of creatures available for that creature to make friends decreases, diminishing their return on investment in trying to make more friends. With more friends, the rate of making new friends thus decreases. However, the rate of falling out is assumed to be consistent with the falling out rate. This explains the initial exponential growth towards a tipping-point of about 150 social connections at a tertiary order and the decaying growth after 150 social connections. Hence, a possible policy lever would be to ensure that every creature would have at least 150 social connections that they would know empirically and/or disparately. Friendship fairs could be organized to solidify this direction. 

Conclusion

This study has shown that the number of friends a creature has is proportional to the magical output generated by the relationships in the primary, secondary and tertiary level. 150 social connections should be optimal to maximize the magic of friendship on a resource-to-reward basis. An explanation to why this relationship was observed was showcased through the author’s mental model and linking it to the behavior-over-time graph. Hence, key efforts such as the organization of friendship fairs should become commonplace so that each creature could maximize the magic of friendship for a more harmonious society in the future for Equestria.  

References
[1] Sparkle, Twilight. Journal of Friendship, 128. 
[2] Sunburst. An ontological gateway to the planar entities of existence in logic, 39. 
[3] Sunburst. The Socio-Energy-Environment-Populace-Thaumaturgical Nexus, 4. 
[4] Equestrian Standards Bureau. Correlation and Regression Standards Workbook—A Standardized Standards Guide, 7. 

Supporting Information

The supporting information is available from the author upon reasonable request. Correspondence to Luster Dawn. 

Who submitted this thesis for Luster Dawn?

would be thoroughly distilled.

Would be? Not will be?

Abstract:
I'm trying to take this as a serious paper but there are too many buzz words and puff phrases masquerading as jargon. Thick jargon would have been bad enough. It reads like a company Public Relations statement.

Introduction:
I'm replacing axiom with 'self evidently true statement'. It's not helping.

has been said to be crucial

Citation needed.

elevating the creature to a higher socio-economic position.

Citation needed.
Figure 1 is flawed. For instance, Fluttershy is shown to be the only pony in the network to have five friends. For the Elements of Harmony to activate, all six ponies would have five friends.

Through further network analysis, key leverage points would be identified to unravel the critical junctures of propagation would friendship be most ideally spread to the betterment of society from individualized perspective.

This is a nonsense sentence, More of a string of buzz phrases than an actual sentence. I am leaning heavily toward calling this an Large Language Model generated text.

Methodology
The tenses are all over the place in this paragraph, each sentence has a different tense.
The abstract states that this paper is a review of past research. Then the methodology lists tools used to enable fresh data collection from test subjects, tools such as a magic dehumidifier and calcium sulfate.

You are wasting my time with LLM nonsense.

7875238
No, I didn't use a LLM for this. I wrote it more as a jab towards some papers which are written in a very convoluted way to describe information, or are even misleading. They often do it by using very complicated terms. You should be rightly angry as am I, because this paper is not supposed to make sense.

I apologise for not stating my intention.

I apologize for mistaking your parody for LLM drivel! Yes, excessive jargon is a plague upon research papers, I think it's a form of snobbery.

If you do have head canon insights into the mechanisms linking friendship and magic, beyond summoning a blast of rainbow reset power, that could be a fun read, even if it isn't distilled into a parody of a thesis paper.

7875328
Yeah, I could. It’s just that I’ve just started working in academia and published two papers recently, so my frustration on peer reviewers was thrown into this piece.

(P.S. Calcium sulfate is literally just chalk…the author used chalk to draw the diagram on the blackboard…)

7875364

(P.S. Calcium sulfate is literally just chalk…the author used chalk to draw the diagram on the blackboard…)

Frustration with peer reviewers... only to get peer reviewed again on a pony fan fic site! It never rains...

7875379
I mean it’s fine, because I was a reviewer for fanfics in the past, haha