Equestrian Gals Commentary

Well, it’s finally come. Not just the chapter itself, but also this commentary, which is waaaaay overdue. As always, be sure to actually read the thing before this, because this contains spoilers for a lot of the jokes. In any case, enjoy the commentary for Equestrian Gals.

I had this in mind for a VERY long time. Some of the specifics changed in the interim, but the basic premise was in mind before I even started writing the story. And now that we’re finally here, I can discuss some of the things I wanted to mention before but couldn’t for fear of spoiling this. Let’s begin.

Now, I spent a lot of time pondering if this should be a separate story or a chapter of the main story. After all, there’s not much really preventing the latter, and a bunch of things do carry over from the main story rather than this being truly standalone. However, I decided to make it separate for several reasons. First, the original Equestria Girls was separate from the show, so I might as well do that here. But probably the biggest thing was that I wanted to put this into an Equestria Girls group, which apparently wouldn’t be allowed if it was only part of a story. Also, it’s a bit different from the rest of the story.

While this story is meant for people who have already read the main story, I knew that making it separate would mean some new people would check it out anyway, and I wanted to make it clear what was going on. So I tried to have some exposition early on as to what was up. I wanted to try to make it natural, so I put a bunch of it in Trixie deliberately repeating it back to Sunset due to her irritation in constantly hearing it. And, of course, I pointed out the nature of the exposition as a joke.

Much of this exposition covers the same ground as the start of the “[REDACTED] Sunset Shimmer” chapter of the main story. So I tried to make it so that, even if the same information was given, it was given in at least a slightly different way. For example, the mention of needing considerable paperwork in order to imitate someone. In the main story, the joke was presented more in the case of just the silliness of the situation, whereas in this story the joke was more presented in Trixie realizing “that sounds EXACTLY like something Chrysalis would do.” Sort of like how in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Cause and Effect,” whenever they showed the same scene twice they would have it be from different camera angles to try to prevent it from getting too stale.

Note that since I cover some of the same territory in this and that chapter, there’ll probably also be some redundancy in the commentaries.

Another thing I tried to stress in the early part is how messed up the universe is. For example, Chrysalis is mentioned as the current ruler, and Gilda’s usage of a sniper rifle is mentioned explicitly as well. I want any new reader to know what they’re in for.

I long knew that Sunset getting turned into a changeling would be the punchline of the Magical Mystery Cure parody, but it took me a little while to figure out a justification. So I thought “what if the ascension just turns you into the race of the current ruler of Equestria?” But that left Cadance’s ascension unclear. Luckily, in her backstory she was originally a pegasus (or at least that’s what Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell said), so I figured that she’d just get unicorn from Sombra.

Sunset mumbling about Dr. Mario in her sleep seems to be a running gag now.

The idea of, in this messed up universe, Twilight being the one to grab the crown was an idea I had from basically the start. But we’ll move onto the specifics as we get there.

A little more exposition is given by Trixie. I figured it would be in character for her to just crazily repeat everything that was known.

And now, finally, FINALLY, I’m able to unload the secret: Shining Armor and Twilight’s issues come from the fact that the human and pony Twilight swapped places. The lack of information as to what happened to the human Sunset—if one even exists—in the main films is a bit annoying, so I figured I would handle that by having the Twilights switch.

The “it’s a highly efficient language; you can fit a whole book on a napkin” line is taken from the VeggieTales episode Lord of the Beans.

One hard thing was to figure out why Shining Armor wouldn’t be the one to go through the portal. As a placeholder I had him simply trip, but that seemed weak. I thought of several other ideas, one being him trying to slam into the mirror only for it to be turned off at that moment, but that had its own set of issues (isn’t the whole point that the mirror turns on during the 3-day period? How is there an on/off switch?). Ultimately I just went with what I did; not the greatest, but it works.

I wasn’t sure about bringing in Discord, particularly considering I had to do more exposition with him, but I wanted a pressing reason for Sunset to go on the adventure. So I used him as an incentive.

A feeling I sometimes come across in writing these is the fact that the audience is going to know what I’m talking about, so what’s the purpose in really describing it? Sunset being a human could be described in detail, but the audience already knows, so what’s the purpose? Hence the whole “don’t require additional description.” I did a similar thing with Chrysalis when she was first introduced.

I alluded to it earlier, but Sunset encountering Twilight is the first time the whole backstory is fully revealed. As a side note, I actually looked up how to cure mace for this bit. Milk apparently is a good way to help out against it.

I figured that if Chrysalis was ruler of Equestria, she should be principal as well. I have no idea where the joke of her getting everything MOSTLY right came from; it just popped into mind.

The “10.8731273138362” isn’t a randomly chosen number. It’s e times 4.

Trixie’s joke from Mare Do Well is somewhat inspired by the Dexter’s Laboratory short where Dexter gives an extremely complicated sounding science joke (look up “Dexter’s Laboratory” and “my wife” to see the deal). As for “coconut ailment,” I actually got it from a random phrase generator.

At this point in the writing, I ran into something tricky: How do I get from here to the Fall Formal? There’s not really anything to do story wise, so I have to pass the time somehow. Thus, the idea of Sunset getting addicted to video games came about as a way to explain it. The specific bit about her waiting around in the closet was brought in by the Dresden Files/EQ crossover “Dresden Gets Schooled” because that’s where Michael and Harry hid. Actually, I looked at the story for inspiration on this, because I was having so much trouble figuring out how to pass the time, and I remembered that story sort of did that so I looked at it.

Incidentally, if you didn’t notice, the games that Sunset is playing are Robot Unicorn Attack and Angry Birds.

I really like the fanon idea that Discord in Equestria Girls is the janitor of the school, but I didn’t want to state that specifically in case this was contradicted by a later films. While this is an alternate universe so I don’t mind contradicting in some areas, I would’ve preferred to keep this real. So I just said the janitor was lazy; we can bring in Discord as the janitor if he’s later revealed as such.

Chrysalis’s mention of “Like the song says” is a reference to the High School Never Ends song by Bowling For Soup. Incidentally, “having sex sex” was how the line ended, hence Luna cutting her off. I wasn’t originally planning to even have Luna show up, but I wanted someone to interrupt Chrysalis and she seemed like the best choice. So I ran with it and decided to give them a little backstory that sort of matches their Equestrian counterparts.

I thought it was a neat thing to have Twilight mention the password but Sunset never to use it. I didn’t want to overly draw attention to it by Sunset asking, because if Twilight correctly says it, the simple fact I brought notice to it seems to indicate that something’s wrong. So I skipped over that but also noted that the crazy Twilight would’ve figured it out.

The part about them being blinded is a joke on the fact that, because you need your pupils to see, something that stops them makes you blind. Also, there’s a bit of a stab at the sheer ridiculousness of Sunset’s plan in the original film. Maybe the demonic transformation just made her crazier than normal in the original?

Even if it was a small thing, I have to say, I absolutely loved the ‘I threw a rock at her’ joke. For those not in the know, it’s a reference to an episode of Batman: The Animated Series. You can see the applicable scene here. I had that scene in mind for a very long time, and like the changeling joke at the end of “Magical Mystery? Sure!” it was darn relieving to finally get around to writing the darn thing. Some things changed, though. Originally, it was Twilight to throw it at the demon-Twilight, but this got changed to Sunset.

Also, originally, Twilight (alicorn amulet one) wasn’t going to get as much of a sympathetic POV. But considering she’s really not to blame for much in the story outside of picking up the alicorn amulet to begin with, I wanted to have it not be her fault.

I wanted to end on a reasonably happy note, so I did make sure the Twilights were able to reconcile with their brothers, particularly if they were ending up in the universe other than the one they were born in. I also made sure to do that all off screen because writing emotion is not my strong suit, plus this is ultimately a zany comedy story, so it’s out of place.

I spent a lot of time wondering if I wanted to include the detail of Twilight and Flash being in a relationship. I’ve always disliked it when people insert ships needlessly into a story, and it’d feel hypocritical for me to do so. I planned to use it as nothing more than a joke, but I still wasn’t sure.

The original gag was this. Midway through the story, Twilight mentions being in a relationship with him to Sunset. Sunset finds this hilarious and falls over laughing, saying she knew him from Equestria, and claims he’s someone devoid of personality, and the two argue briefly about it. I had some possible ideas on him playing some role in the story, but that got a bit disregarded early on.

However, this joke was repurposed into its present form. Why? Because I realized the obvious question, why Sunset would WANT to head back to Equestria when she has so little she actually cares for there. I decided to combine the two, making Flash Sentry the actual reason she leaves. Her reaction is exaggerated compared to the original, in this case her actually being terrified of him on the basis that she thinks he actually sucks personality out of people. Which may have a tiny basis in the film itself, considering the degree to which Twilight so abruptly has a crush on him. At any rate, this allowed me to make the joke in a way that actually had some relevance to the plot. And the joke is a joke at his expense, so the Flash Sentry haters might not hate on the story just for including FlashLight in it. As a side note, this also gave me an explanation as to why Sunset wouldn’t just try to get a job at the Crystal Empire.

Discord’s explanation of a completely chaotic world being ‘statistically uniform in composition and therefore orderly. Also boring’ is taken from 8-Bit Theater. I think I had the idea of ‘everything being chaotic makes chaos normal’ on my own, but then remembered 8-Bit Theater did something similar and liked their phrasing enough to use it.

And then we come to the ending. I thought a bit about whether I wanted to include the stuff with the Dazzlings and Shadowbolts, as I knew it could be a while before I got around to the requisite Rainbow Rocks parody. Ultimately I decided to do it, because it does show what the Shadowbolts were up to, so their appearance in “Wonderbolts Academy 2: Electric Boogaloo” is better resolved rather than being left hanging. Speaking of wondering about putting something in the sequel story, I wasn’t sure how much information to include about the Shadowbolts’ plan, particularly because I hadn’t decided myself all of it yet. I figured I should give the basics and then develop it more later on based on the needs of the story.