Let's Talk How the Equestria Girls Timeline is Now Officially F**KED. · 7:58pm Jan 9th, 2019
So this dropped today...
And it's looking pretty good. I like where everything seems to be going, I like the cruise outfits, and I really like that now they're mixing and matching the various outfits of the characters instead of them wearing the same clothes or combinations of clothes all the time. (See the last shot of this trailer where Fluttershy is wearing her newest outfit from the last season, and Sunset is wearing her blue outfit with the sneakers from the "Good Vibes" short.)
But here's the thing, gang, this may also mean that the Equestria Girls timeline is now officially fucked.
Well, we already knew it was fucked from the perspective of trying to get everything to jibe seamlessly with FiM, that's never been in question. No, what I'm saying is that, as far as I can tell, if this franchise goes beyond this season, then it will be impossible to make all the events fit into any sort of 3 to 4 year1 period that covers most length of a high school career.
We see Principal Celestia welcoming everyone to a new year at CHS in the trailer, but we also know the adventure on the cruise ship, since it was teased at SDCC last year, is supposed to take place during Spring Break. Last season saw the girls having adventures during the summer. So it's not unreasonable to assume that the Spring Break cruise is happening the spring following last season.
As I've pointed out in my other attempts to work out the timeline, I've been working on the assumption that the first Equestria Girls movie takes place during the girls Sophomore year, given we see younger versions of them at the Freshman Fair. Legend of Everfree indicates that the events of that movie and the previous three all took place over the course of a year. (I figure September-April or May. I figure the Camp Everfree trip is a Spring Break event for that year.)
The school play Choose Your Ending shorts indicate that Dazzled is the fall play at CHS, While Forgotten Friendship, Rollercoaster of Friendship and the various shorts between the two are clearly taking place the summer after the Dazzled performance. (As far as the trilogy of "Magic" TV specials, I've chosen to believe those take place near the end of the same year as the movies with Movie Magic and Mirror Magic happening that summer.)
Which means, from everything I can tell, this upcoming season is set during the girls Senior Year.
You see why I say we're now approaching the point where the timeline is fucked?
If the series continues beyond this point, there will only be a small window between the Spring Break cruise and when the girls should be graduating. Now, nothing says we can't move the various shorts around if we want to make things make a little more sense. I've certainly done it in my own attempts to hash this out, but that's not really going to solve much.
And if Hasbro decides to continue anyway and not cover graduation? Well, throw your timelines out the windows, folks, because they're officially broken and unworkable, and we'll just have to resign ourselves to the fact that in the MLP multiverse, time is an illusion and time of year is based on story convenience and not any sort of actual calendar.
But honestly, I'm not really complaining about that. The timeline exercise for me was just a fun little diversion to help me hash out where I wanted my various stories to happen. I highly doubt Hasbro will ever show these girls graduating from high school. It could happen, but not while there's still money to be made on the franchise. They could reboot, but they might be a little gun shy about it. Monster High tried rebooting a couple of years ago and guess what? It's a dead franchise now.
So the most likely option then is Hasbro keeping the girls in high school forever and all us continuity nerds are just going to have to relax and accept it. Like we probably should have been doing since day one.
1 Or 5 to 6 year period if we assume CHS is a combined middle and high school.
Graduation will probably take place during the subfranchise finale, if ever. Hopefully we get a "where are they now?" montage to go with it.
Well, that worked when Archie Comics was doing for Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Reggie and the rest of the Riverdale gang from 1941 (when our favorite comic book redhead appeared for the very first time in Pep Comics) til up til the present day.
pauses to think about that
Good grief.
I just realized that our dear Archie is (technically) two years younger than my late mom (who was born in September 1939)!
So maybe Hasbro's taking a page out of Archie Comics' book on that.
I'm very much looking forward to this particular outing of the Equestria Girls series, though.
I missed that part. o_O I'll have to look through it again.
I have mostly work it out to a suitable timeline if anyone wants to know my take just ask
There's also the possibility that Canterlot High's universe is a pocket dimension where no one ever leaves High School.
EEEVVVEERRRRR.
4994163
I'm fine with that I always figured the wings were just due to her link with her counterpart. I assumed she'd still be a unicorn if turned into a pony and I'm glad I was right.
4994163
No see this actually fits with my headcanon. It never made sense to me that Sci-Twi should be an alicorn just because the Princess is.
But, between the fact that Sci-Twi and Sunset are both still unicorns in Equestria? A powered up Alicorn form is actually a quirk of Pedestria's magic rather than an indicator of your status in Equestria. Princess Twilight just happened to qualify for it independently, and so it was confusing.
Plus, Demon Sunset had wings. And she wasn't exactly acting Harmonious... I think that wings just equal power in this magic system.
Which...what does that say about Flutters and Dash? :p
4994163
Let's wait and see if it's explained in the work. For now, I headcanon that what gave her wings is tied to her ponied up state, but she's still a unicorn in her base form. Maybe they'll even explain the timeline, but I'm not holding my breath.
As for the senior year thing, if the human CMC are freshmen (that's from the novels, which are canonicity contentious), the apparent age gap in their designs put them at at least four years older (hence the old senior assumption), and if they're not... I'm assuming the traditional school years isn't applicable, and we can assume whatever fits.
I did notice this, but I'm not gonna worry about it too much. :B
4994239
THANK YOU! I'm glad someone else is taking the same approach I am.
4994163
4994226
I honestly think this kind of thing is overthinking a very minor element probably done as visual shorthand. And while I understand it's fun and all to speculate, realistically, we're probably not going to get explanations for something this minor. Much like I doubt we'll ever know what the official timeline is. (Ishi Rudell has confirmed on his Twitter that they do have an official EQG timeline, but I'm willing to bet it's not breaking things down year by year as more a "so this story happens while THIS is going on in FiM" kind of thing.)
Personally, I'm fine with "Sci-Twi gets wings when she ponies up because her Equestrian counterpart has them" as a rationale. And I don't really care that they don't translate for Sci-Twi when she goes to Equestria. Like I said, it's fun to theorize, but ultimately, it doesn't really matter in the long run.
tl,dr: Continuity is fun, but I don't expect this show to adhere to it %100 of the time. Call it a holdover from my years as an 80s kid.
Seriously why don't they just make EG a full length show on TV or if they are gonna make it a show for a streaming service? Air it on Netflix or something! The short run time is the only reason I havent really watched season 1 even as much as I want too(Also because my life is partly in shambles like Law's devil fruit move right now sooooo yeah) Though I will admit this new 'season' as they call it looks promising and hopefully I'll have time to binge it and many other things I've been missing...like ALL OF SEASON 8 of FiM xD Don't ask how I managed that but I did.
Anyway as it relates to the timeline? I would just like to see it as them playing fast and loose with the way they cut scenes but that could just be me.
On and unrelated notes...CAN WE PLEASE BRING THE DAZZLINGS BACK?! They are some of the best damn original characters in design and personality the show has given us with the exception obviously being Sunset Shimmer as the number one for most people. What I mean to say is that the Dazzlings as villains were horribly underused and while I think a redemption arc is possible for them? I'd like to see it appoarched in a different way....as to say I'd like to see it apporched period. One massive gripe I have with EG and Rainbow Rocks is the fact that they barely give us anything on Sunset Shimmer's origin in Equestria(The comics are vauge as fuck about stuff and events dont exactly line up in certain ways like they should.)
We don't see how long she's reigned over CHS or how she even really did it. We are TOLD what she did and get an example of how mean and cruel she can be when she humiliates Twilight and then of course when she turns into a giant demon bat monster that brainwashed everyone and nearly killed six girls with a KATON GOKAKKYU NO JUSTU! But then after that? We don't see her redemption process. We get to Rainbow Rocks and she's pretty much best friends or at least good friends withe the other rainbooms but no one in school likes her until she saves everyone in Rainbow Rocks.(Which is why SO many people love Long Road to Friendship and its Sequels cause its basically the literal best non canon but totally fucking should be canon fanficiton that exists)
Bring the Dazzlings back and you can dedicate entire episodes and shorts to showing how the Rainbooms meet them again, why the Dazzlings want redemption or to make friends(Perhaps they could take suggestions from us fans and our fics I dunno just sayin') and them spending time doing different slice of life, comedy and maybe even action stuff.
Example? Rainbow Dash and Sunset Shimmer along with Aria Blaze go to the arcade at the mall so that they can bond with Aria. Meanwhile in another part of the mall Rarity takes Adagio to the spa with herself and Fluttershy. Then finally Sonata is off with Pinkie causing some kind of shenanigans which likely could rope in Applejack and Sci-Twi.
It would be hilarious and a good use of characters they seem to have just thrown away which I assume is usually way they are portrayed in fics to be struggling or homeless. I want to see them back so badly...Especially Adagio because I mean well...How can I not?
Considering that EG is now a Slice-of-Life series with as many callbacks as there need to be to give the sense that this isn't a Simpsons situation (where there are no rules), I can accept that the shorts happen at various nondescript points in their lives. Even though I'm a huge continuity buff.
Ash the immortal paradox...……..here we come.
Humorously (to me at least), the more EqG content gets retroactively pushed into the past, the creepier the Timber Spruce/SciTwi relationship becomes.
He comes across to me as 19-20 (definitely graduated; somewhere in the early part of college student range). If SciTwi is a high school senior (18ish), you might look a *little* askance at the older guy taking advantage of her, but it's in the realm that he can get away with it. Making her a high school freshman (15ish) when he started hitting on her puts him in complete creep territory.
And yet Hasbro doesn't seem to wanna address the statue leaking magic that's been causing the girls all these problems from the last few specials. Is this because they have no plans for another full-on EQ movie or something?
4997291
Probably because if they do, it'll be the end of the series.