Let's Talk the Equestria Girls Digital Series Timeline (Part 1 of ?)

So, as I've been watching the various new EG shorts on both YouTube and the Discovery Family Go app, I've discovered something in the dialogue here and there which has convinced me of something: We're not seeing this series in chronological order.

This is a common problem in animation. Generally an episode gets written, approved, and assigned a production number, but a number of factors can mean that the production of the episode in question may get approved faster than another episode which technically happens before it. This seems to be the case with the EG Digital Series.

Fortunately, I'm an old hand at trying to untangle timelines in cartoons. (Exhibit A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRfdxCuQRIg)

So, I'm going to try to hash this out and figure out the order of events of the shorts we have so far, updating this timeline when newer episodes become available. Additionally, I do not consider the CYOE shorts to be separate from the rest of the series as others do, and will be trying to fit all of them into this timeline, but I won't commit to which ending I think is the "real" one (with one exception that I'll get into later). That said, here we go.

There's several signposts in the series so far which give us specific times of year when they take place. First off, we have "Forgotten Friendship" which clearly has to take place near the end of the school year, given the yearbook theme. Because of the events depicted in both "Queen of Clubs" and the aptly titled "Last Day of School," we know those two have to happen around the same time. We can also reasonably assume "The Finals Countdown" is referring to the finals at the end of the year, rather than the end of the fall semester.

In one of the beach themed shorts, Applejack has the line "Ah... Summer," which pretty much clues us in that the beach shorts take place during the summer following Forgotten Friendship. And finally, in the first CYOE short "Fluttershy's Butterflies" Rarity mentions that the school play is taking place in the fall, so odds are the play happens near the beginning of the school year, and "Forgotten Friendship" takes place near the end.

Now, I'm going to keep all these shorts as close to their release dates as I can, only moving an episode when it makes sense to do so to get a clearer timeline. I am also using Hasbro's YouTube channel as the source for the release, with the exception of the CYOE shorts, the reasons for which will become clear. So, to start off with, here's the remaining shorts (so far) after taking out "Queen of Clubs," "The Finals Countdown," the play-related CYOE shorts, "Last Day of School" and "Forgotten Friendship."

A Fine Line
School of Rock
Pinkie Sitting
Overpowered
Star-Crossed
My Little Shop of Horrors
A Little Birdie Told Me
Display of Affection
Super Squad Goals
Text Support (CYOE)
Driving Miss Shimmer (CYOE)
Best Trends Forever (CYOE)
Road Trippin'
Outtakes
Pinkie Pie: Snack Psychic
Five to Nine
So Much More To Me
Okay, so the list above are the ones we need to find places for in the timeline. Here's how the timeline currently looks with the signpost episodes mentioned above. The shorts involving the play do seem to already be in order, so we don't have to move those around so much. One exception: Since Applejack is building the sets in "Constructive Criticism" and and a set change is the main focus of "All the World's Off Stage," we're going to flip the order of those two.

For the beach shorts, we're going to move a few of them around, based on who is in them, what they're doing, and the fact that we see the sunset in two of them, signifying the end of the day. From what I can see, these seem to take place over three days. We see two sunsets, and Applejack appears to be working all day as a substitute lifeguard in one of them, meaning any shorts she's in must take place when she's not working.

Fall
Fluttershy's Butterflies
Stressed In Show
Rarity Investigates: The Case of the Bedazzled Boot
Constructive Criticism
All the World's Off Stage
Opening Fright
Happily Ever After Party

Late Spring/Summer

Queen of Clubs
Forgotten Friendship
The Finals Countdown
(Yearbook arrivals seen at the end of "Forgotten Friendship" and "Queen of Clubs" happen here)
The Last Day of School
X Marks the Spot
The Salty Sails
Aw... Baby Turtles (End of Day 1 at the Beach)
Too Hot to Handle
Blue Crushed
Unsolved Selfie Mysteries (Takes place at the same time as Lost and Found)
Lost and Found (End of Day 2 at the beach)
Turf War (Beginning of Day 3 at the beach. Applejack works as a substitute lifeguard in this short.)
Friendship Math

So now that we have a rough idea of where the play, beach shorts, and "Forgotten Friendship" happen, let's plug in the rest of the shorts. We have a lot of flexibility here, as it's entirely possible multiple shorts take place art the same time. But let's address one of the CYOE shorts in particular: "Best Trends Forever."

In this short we see Rarity freaking out because she doesn't have her style guide to announce what the current trend is, so she takes inspiration from one of her friends. The viewer can choose between Twilight, Rainbow, or Pinkie. This is relevant because "Forgotten Friendship" actually shows us the "correct" ending for this short. If you choose Pinkie, the trend is confetti, which more or less results in Pinkie flooding the school with it, while Rarity, Twilight and Rainbow try to clean up the mess. What does this have to do with Forgotten Friendship? Well, look at the pictures on the right hand side of this shot of the interior of Sunset's locker.

There's a picture of Sci-Twi under the group shot of Sunset's friends. More specifically, Sci-Twi has confetti in her hair, which seems to indicate a) Pinkie's ending is the "canonical" one for "Best Trends Forever," and b) that "Best Trends Forever" has to have happened before "Forgotten Friendship."

As far as the other shorts go, the only question we have to ask is "Does this short take place at any time at Canterlot High." If yes, then it takes place prior to the shorts listed in the Late Spring/Summer section above. Since we don't want to move anything around unless we have to, most of the early shorts, we can reasonably assume take place during the school year. As for the four non-beach shorts recently released, none of them take place at CHS, so we can also assume these take place during the same summer as the beach shorts.

Which means, so far, the chronological order of events of the EG Digital Series so far should look something like this...

Fall

A Fine Line
School of Rock
Pinkie Sitting
Overpowered
Star-Crossed
My Little Shop of Horrors
A Little Birdie Told Me
Display of Affection
Super Squad Goals
Text Support (CYOE)
Driving Miss Shimmer (CYOE)
Best Trends Forever (CYOE)
Road Trippin'
Fluttershy's Butterflies
Stressed In Show
Rarity Investigates: The Case of the Bedazzled Boot
Constructive Criticism
All the World's Off Stage
Opening Fright
Happily Ever After Party

Late Spring/Summer

Queen of Clubs
Forgotten Friendship
The Finals Countdown
(Yearbook arrivals seen at the end of "Forgotten Friendship" and "Queen of Clubs" happen here)
The Last Day of School
X Marks the Spot
The Salty Sails
Aw... Baby Turtles (End of Day 1 at the Beach)
Too Hot to Handle
Blue Crushed
Unsolved Selfie Mysteries (Takes place at the same time as Lost and Found)
Lost and Found (End of Day 2 at the beach)
Turf War (Beginning of Day 3 at the beach. Applejack works as a substitute lifeguard in this short.)
Friendship Math
Outtakes
So Much More to Me (The case can be made that this one happens after Applejack and Twilight show up during Futtershy's attempts to film her adoption video.)
Pinkie Pie: Snack Psychic
Five to Nine

Of course,t his timeline is extremely tenuous, because, like most of MLP, the time of year is largely only relevant if it has to do with the story. And there are more shorts coming, so I'll be posting more entries with revised positions as they're released.

In the meantime, do you guys agree? Do you think I'm way off base? Let me know!

Comments

[Punk Rock Prom Queen]

Wow, you put a lot of thought into this. I honestly gave up trying to make sense of the EQG timeline. It’s madness I tell you MADNESS! You did a good job with this though. I makes a fair amount of sense.

[shallow15]

4853404
Oh, I know, but organizing each series of shorts is easier than trying to make the whole damn thing fit into a standard 4 year high school timeline.

Personally, I'm sure the creative team doesn't really care about timelines. I doubt we'll ever see the girls graduate from high school, so it's ultimately an exercise in futility, but fun.

[howard035]

Nice work. It's great that someone is keeping track of these.