Butter Pecan 9, FOTD: Dizygotic, or, Handy Twin Facts
Title: Dizygotic, or, Handy Twin Facts
Main Story: In the Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: Butter pecan 9 (bitter), FOTD (doppleganger: alter ego, double), malt (shayna's trick or treat: He lives his life vicariously through himself), caramel, rainbow sprinkles (Billy), cherry (blog post/first person).
Word Count: 818
Rating: PG.
Summary: Will Kendall has had it up to here with these questions.
Notes: Billy amuses me when he's irritated.
From the Blog of William Kendall:
It must be deeply unsettling, on some very basic level, to walk out of your room every day and see across the breakfast table a face identical to yours. It must also be very unnerving to be one half of an identical set, to the extent that people cannot distinguish between you. The life experience of identical twins must be a very strange and difficult one indeed, although I am certain that it is not without its rewards.
I wouldn't know, because although I am one half of a set of twins, my sister and I are not identical. That should be obvious, I hope, from the very phrase "my sister," although an observer would be surprised: the number-one response we get upon telling people that we're twins is "Oh, are you two identical?" No. No we are not.
Identical, or more properly monozygotic, twins are the products of a single ovum and sperm that, for whatever reason, formed two separate but identical fetuses. Most identical twins share a placenta. Molly and I are fraternal or dizygotic twins, where two sperm fertilized two ova and produced, naturally, two children. It's quite simple.
When we explain the difference, as we so often must, we are told of such a thing as "half-identical twins," in which twins inherit identical genetic material from their mother but different genetic material from their father. Out of self-defense, I have done significant research into this area. While this is possible-- either by two sperm fertilizing the same ovum, or by one sperm fertilizing an ovum and the other fertilizing a polar body within it-- it is incredibly rare. When one takes into account the three other cases of fraternal twins that have occurred in the last three generations of my mother's family alone, Molly and I become much less surprising.
So no, we (or at this point more usually I, since Molly has the attention span of a goldfish) insist. We are definitely fraternal twins. There is nothing identical about us.
"Oh," cries the well-meaning inquirer. "Then you are as opposite as night and day!"
This is even more stupid, if I may be so rude, than the first assumption. Even when not expressed in such thoroughly cliché terms, the superstition that twins are either identical or opposites is so outdated as to be laughable. Molly and I are not identical, it is true, but neither are we opposites. We both value loyalty to one's family above almost everything. We share brown hair, and a certain sharpness to our cheekbones, beyond the general family resemblance one would expect in siblings. We are both extremely intelligent, although I flatter myself to think that I apply it more. We both intend to rule the world someday-- whether we intend to rule it together or not fluctuates depending on our moods with each other.
This brings me to yet another myth: that because we are twins, we must have some strange psychic bond with each other. We do not. Molly and I know nothing more about each other than any ordinary pair of siblings does, with perhaps some small allowance made since we shared a room for the first seven years of our lives. Granted, we are (at least currently) quite close siblings, but we share no more than our father and his sisters do. We know each other very well, yes, but that is far from telepathy.
One myth, I must admit, worked to my advantage. When we entered school, the system insisted on keeping us in separate classrooms. While some twins might wilt under such a separation, Molly and I were suffering from an especially virulent case of sibling rivalry at the time. It is my belief that being in separate classes at school saved my relationship with my sister. Since we had different teachers, we were not working on the same assignments, and thus could not compete over who did better on them. We could and did compete over who finished their homework the fastest (Molly, usually) and who got better grades (me), but in time this competition phased out, and we found better things do to with our time.
A word to the wise: one myth about twins is very true, although I would argue that it can be applied to any sufficiently close set of siblings. If you hurt one, the other will defend them. If someone attacks my sister, I will take them down, and they will never see me coming. I can't speak for Molly, obviously, but I know she'd do the same for me. She's my sister, and no matter how obnoxious or irritating I find her or she finds me, she will always be my sister. That's what being a brother means.
Keep these handy facts in mind as you encounter twins, and your relationship with them will be much, much easier.
Main Story: In the Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: Butter pecan 9 (bitter), FOTD (doppleganger: alter ego, double), malt (shayna's trick or treat: He lives his life vicariously through himself), caramel, rainbow sprinkles (Billy), cherry (blog post/first person).
Word Count: 818
Rating: PG.
Summary: Will Kendall has had it up to here with these questions.
Notes: Billy amuses me when he's irritated.
From the Blog of William Kendall:
It must be deeply unsettling, on some very basic level, to walk out of your room every day and see across the breakfast table a face identical to yours. It must also be very unnerving to be one half of an identical set, to the extent that people cannot distinguish between you. The life experience of identical twins must be a very strange and difficult one indeed, although I am certain that it is not without its rewards.
I wouldn't know, because although I am one half of a set of twins, my sister and I are not identical. That should be obvious, I hope, from the very phrase "my sister," although an observer would be surprised: the number-one response we get upon telling people that we're twins is "Oh, are you two identical?" No. No we are not.
Identical, or more properly monozygotic, twins are the products of a single ovum and sperm that, for whatever reason, formed two separate but identical fetuses. Most identical twins share a placenta. Molly and I are fraternal or dizygotic twins, where two sperm fertilized two ova and produced, naturally, two children. It's quite simple.
When we explain the difference, as we so often must, we are told of such a thing as "half-identical twins," in which twins inherit identical genetic material from their mother but different genetic material from their father. Out of self-defense, I have done significant research into this area. While this is possible-- either by two sperm fertilizing the same ovum, or by one sperm fertilizing an ovum and the other fertilizing a polar body within it-- it is incredibly rare. When one takes into account the three other cases of fraternal twins that have occurred in the last three generations of my mother's family alone, Molly and I become much less surprising.
So no, we (or at this point more usually I, since Molly has the attention span of a goldfish) insist. We are definitely fraternal twins. There is nothing identical about us.
"Oh," cries the well-meaning inquirer. "Then you are as opposite as night and day!"
This is even more stupid, if I may be so rude, than the first assumption. Even when not expressed in such thoroughly cliché terms, the superstition that twins are either identical or opposites is so outdated as to be laughable. Molly and I are not identical, it is true, but neither are we opposites. We both value loyalty to one's family above almost everything. We share brown hair, and a certain sharpness to our cheekbones, beyond the general family resemblance one would expect in siblings. We are both extremely intelligent, although I flatter myself to think that I apply it more. We both intend to rule the world someday-- whether we intend to rule it together or not fluctuates depending on our moods with each other.
This brings me to yet another myth: that because we are twins, we must have some strange psychic bond with each other. We do not. Molly and I know nothing more about each other than any ordinary pair of siblings does, with perhaps some small allowance made since we shared a room for the first seven years of our lives. Granted, we are (at least currently) quite close siblings, but we share no more than our father and his sisters do. We know each other very well, yes, but that is far from telepathy.
One myth, I must admit, worked to my advantage. When we entered school, the system insisted on keeping us in separate classrooms. While some twins might wilt under such a separation, Molly and I were suffering from an especially virulent case of sibling rivalry at the time. It is my belief that being in separate classes at school saved my relationship with my sister. Since we had different teachers, we were not working on the same assignments, and thus could not compete over who did better on them. We could and did compete over who finished their homework the fastest (Molly, usually) and who got better grades (me), but in time this competition phased out, and we found better things do to with our time.
A word to the wise: one myth about twins is very true, although I would argue that it can be applied to any sufficiently close set of siblings. If you hurt one, the other will defend them. If someone attacks my sister, I will take them down, and they will never see me coming. I can't speak for Molly, obviously, but I know she'd do the same for me. She's my sister, and no matter how obnoxious or irritating I find her or she finds me, she will always be my sister. That's what being a brother means.
Keep these handy facts in mind as you encounter twins, and your relationship with them will be much, much easier.