Let's Talk Timelines! (Part 1) · 9:19pm Feb 12th, 2018
So, as I mentioned in my last blog, I try to keep my fics within the canonicity of the show as much as possible (with the exception of AU stories which, naturally, can tell canon to take a flying leap). I still try to hold to that, which means, periodically, I work out a timeline of events for current and upcoming stories. We're gonna focus on Equestria Girls here, since that will be the majority of the stores I'll be writing for the foreseeable future.
So, as I mentioned in the notes for A Is For..., the only way I can see the timeline working and still have Sunset know who Twilight is, much less that the Elements of Harmony have been found and Twilight has become a princess, is if she left Equestria much earlier than 30 moons prior to the events of the first EG movie and came back later to discover Celestia had taken Twilight on as her personal student.
Additionally, the new "Better Together" series of EG shorts, a lot of which have already been released on the Discover Family Go app, reveal that Sunset does not have a drivers license yet. So, that also throws the question of the girls' actual ages into question. A lot of fics assume that they're seniors, but with the short where the above redacted fact is revealed, it means that most of the girls at the present time, are about 16 years old (in human ages).
Legend of Everfree revealed that the events of the first three movies, and their associated shorts all took place over the previous year. Which again, implies the girls are 15-16 during those first three movies. The first movie has a picture of the girls at the Freshman Fair, so it's reasonable to assume the girls are at least sophomores at CHS, possibly juniors at the present time.
"What about the pictures of Sunset as the Fall Formal princess? There were three of them!" I can hear you cry. Well, let's not forget that there's more than one dance with a princess at CHS. It's mentioned that Sunset had a competitor for Princess of the Spring Fling (implied to be Rarity, a fact I somehow failed to notice when I was writing "Repercussions.") , so the pictures we see are probably not just pictures of Sunset at the Fall Formal, but the Spring Fling and maybe another dance as well.
If we take the commonly accepted idea that one Equestrian "moon" is roughly equal to a human world month, that means the portal opened roughly every 2 1/2 years prior to Twilight figuring out how to open it more or less permanently. Knowing that, here's how my personal timeline of the movies, shorts, the few comic stories we've had and my own stories breaks down:
Five Years Prior to Equestria Girls(EG1): "The Fall of Sunset Shimmer." Sunset Shimmer demands Celestia make her a princess and when she's refused, she runs away through the portal, winding up in the human world. The portal closes shortly afterward, stranding her on the other side. While she appears to be 10-11 years old on this side, her intellect is much more advanced than her body suggests. Somehow, she manages to survive in the new world long enough to wait for the portal to open again.
Two Years, Six Months Prior to EG1: The portal opens again and Sunset returns to Equestria. Upon her arrival, however, she learns that Celestia has taken on a new personal student, Twilight Sparkle, and worse yet, Twilight has somehow managed to find the lost Elements of Harmony and defeat Nightmare Moon. Angered by these revelations, and feeling Twilight has taken even more of what Sunset feels is rightfully hers, Sunset spends the three days the portal is open stealing books and other information on Twilight and the Elements, along with as much gold and gems as she can carry, and returns to the human world to plot her revenge. She gets her first idea when she finds a treatise on the Elements and how they may or may not work outside of the world of Equestria in one of the scrolls she stole. This coincides with her beginning classes at Canterlot High as a freshman. Having observed most of her classmates throughout middle school, Sunset begins her reign of terror.
Five Months Prior to EG1: Spoiler for Repercussions: Sunset inadvertently outs Gardenia Glow as a lesbian in her campaign to beat her as Spring Fling Princess as seen in Repercussions.
Equestria Girls (September): With the portal open again, Sunset travels through to steal the Element of Magic. Upon initially going through she realizes the mirror has been moved to the Crystal Empire, however, overhearing the conversation of a couple of the guards reveals that Twilight and her friends are in attendance. She is also angered when she learns that Twilight is now a princess. Sunset steals the crown with the Element of Magic and dashes back through the portal. Twilight follows soon after leading to the events of EG 1.
Two Weeks After EG1: Plagued with nightmares and self-loathing, Sunset has a week long series of sleepovers with her new friends as they try to help her cope with her guilt. (A Is For...)
One Month After EG1: Rainbow Dash decides to form a band and asks her friends to join. (Rainbow Rocks prequel shorts)
Two Months After EG1: Sunset, still uneasy about her new friendships, helps support her friends as they form a band for the new musical showcase, and volunteers as a student aide for various things, including conducting tours for new students. The events of Rainbow Rocks happen here.
December (One month after Rainbow Rocks): The Anon-A-Miss social media account goes active, spilling secrets about the group that only they would know. Everyone assumes Sunset Shimmer is behind the account and is back to her old tricks, much to her dismay. She is later proven innocent. (EG Holiday Special Comic 2014.)
More to Come....
I enjoyed reading this.
The only problem I see in the timeline is that Rainbow Rocks happens in early spring. Rainbow starts putting together the Sonic Rainbooms at DJ’s suggestion shortly after the spring fair. At least according to the official prequel novel. I know the books are more or less secondary canon, but the Holiday Special doesn’t really fit the timeline according to the book or even make sense considering it was supposed to happen after the sirens. Afterall Sunset just saved their asses, I don’t think the school would have turned on her that quickly. If this took place before rainbow rocks that would have made more sense, but then you have the whole quantum entangled magic journal...so yeah Anon-a-miss doesn’t really fit. Otherwise, this timeline of yours is pretty solid.
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Normally I'd disregard Anon-A-Miss, except I made it a secondary plot element in "Repercussions."
It was just a terrible story all the way around, preachy and a thinly veiled reworking of "Ponyville Confidential" done because Ted Anderson had to Say Something Important about cyberbullying rather than give us the EG holiday story we were expecting.
Having read "Repercussions" and "In the Days That Followed", I can first say this: I enjoyed them, I intend to favorite them (and "A Is For...") sometime within the next week (I have a habit of favoriting things in batches of about ten at a time, but I don't have quite enough in the current group yet), and I look forward both to more chapters of "In the Days That Followed" and "A Is For...", and to "Consequences" when it comes out.
Second, since I don't know if you've heard this or not before, a little bit of trivia for you: while the film only hints at Rarity being the one to run against Sunset during the most recent Spring Fling, the film's novelization (which I'll admit doesn't always match up perfectly with canon) confirms it outright and actually goes into detail on what happened then, revealing that Sunset had Snips and Snails spy on Rarity when she was at the boutique where she worked. During this time, they managed to get a recording of her pretending that one of the mannequins there was a prince and asking "him" for a kiss, leading to immediate public humiliation when Sunset made the recording public.
Until next time...
Anon e Mouse Jr.
I forgot about the spring fling princess. But that still leaves on question about the first framed picture. It's human Sunset or pony Sunset? They implied that it only the fall formal princess gets that spot. I have to say I still think the first picture is the human sunset's Shimmer. So the other question is where is the human Sunset now?
She's a run-away. I think the Equestria Girls series will end once everyone is back where they belong