Points of Canon: Equestria Girls Holiday Special

The comic issue. This one has issues.

Because it’s the infamous Anon-a-miss issue, of course.

You know, the one that launched a thousand fix-fics. Literally, I’ve been counting: 1032 of the 169075 stories in the last Fimfarchive dump, a whopping 0.61%, if my search code doesn’t lie! Considering that most of the authors of those stories probably didn’t even see the comic, that’s a bloody lot. I suppose I can’t exactly ignore it now that I know that.

Having read DannyJ’s scathing critique of this comic, I have a fair idea what to expect, but maybe, just maybe, I can do the impossible and salvage it… I can dream, you know? Also I can temporarily forget this review and concentrate on factual statements…

• Chronology markers:

  • The events described immediately precede winter holidays and culminate in them.
  • Sunset is friends with the Humane 5, requiring Equestria Girls to happen prior.
  • Sci-Twi is not part of the proceedings, requiring this to precede the Friendship Games.
  • Sunset has never attended a slumber party before, this is her first – requiring this to happen prior to Rainbow Rocks.
  • Friendship Castle exists and Sunset is in communication with Princess Twilight, requiring this to happen after Rainbow Rocks – since we know that Sunset had no expectation that Twilight will receive her message at the time she opened the journal in Rainbow Rocks.

  As you can plainly see, purely on chronological grounds, this story is impossible, and there’s no way to reconcile it with primary canon unless we rip out a whole page. That, however, is by far not the only problem.

• 1. And I can only tell she has any because they’re a slightly different shade from her actual skin.

  It’s winter out, with obvious snow – and not very well cleaned up, at that, it’s falling right now. Canterlot City gets winter. At the same time, Applejack gets by with pantyhose or tights under a short skirt,¹ so it can’t be particularly cold and the winter can’t be particularly long.

• “I love winter! Hot cocoa, the smell of new snow…” Pedestrian Applejack admits to loving winter.
• “I haven’t been home for the holidays in a… long time.” Sunset’s claim unfortunately does not help to date this: Even as late as Forgotten Friendship, she hasn’t actually been “home” for the holidays. Notice, though, that she never refers to Equestria as her “home,” either, not that I remember.
• “Even before I came here, I wasn’t very close to my family.” Sunset claims to have had a family. Notice that Annual 2013 sidesteps the issue – while she never outright claims to be an orphan of any kind, her hypothetical parents never appear. The scenes in Friendship Games that have her mentioning her family were also cut…
• “I did sabotage friendships and manipulate people, after all.” This is a rare claim that Sunset did anything of the sort to anyone other than the Humane 5.

• 2. There is no way this can be Winter 4P, which only leaves Winter 3P.

  “So you’ve been alone on the holidays for all that time?” “Yep.” What, not even a Christmas date with Flash?… Never mind that, “all that time” is, to the best of our knowledge, not that long – at most two winter holiday seasons.²

• Applejack’s locker is conspicuously empty this time: The only thing in it is her winter coat she just took off.
• Applejack sends a text message. Which is in itself slightly strange, you’d think she of all people would prefer to call. What’s also interesting is that she sends it to multiple recipients, and while messenger software allowing one to do that is dime a dozen, I’m not sure it works with SMS anywhere. Does work with MMS, though, but that’s basically email…
• Fluttershy receives the message while watching birds outside the window. Pink birds. What the hell are they doing there in winter is anyone’s guess.
• A closeup shot indicates Pedestrians use QWERTY keyboards.

• Pinkie has a page on what is presumably a social network, called “MyStable”.

  • It has an almost-normal-looking address, www.MyStable.com Almost normal, because domain names are not case sensitive, so going to www.Google.com will still result in ending up at www.google.com and your browser will correct you. Of course, this might not be true in Pedestria, but it’s more likely the author just doesn’t know or care.
  • Pinkie’s name is listed as “Pinkamena D. Pie” by the avatar, but as “Pinkie Pie” elsewhere, implying heavy use of nicknames in Pedestria.
  • The number of friends cited is “72,480…” – which is ridiculous: There would be no ellipsis at the end if there was fewer than two digits that didn’t fit, because the ellipsis is 1em wide. Therefore, the actual number is at least 7248000, which is bloody impossible and would make Pinkie a bigger personality than Vignette Valencia. Also, most social networks using the term imply a two-way relationship and wouldn’t let you friend so many people: 7 million database records is a lot. Even 72480 is stupidly high for anything that even remotely resembles MySpace, it has never had more than 76 million active users.

  • The friends whose avatars actually did fit in the sidebar are, left to right top to bottom:

    1. Rarity.
    2. Applejack.
    3. Rainbow Dash.
    4. A bowl of vegetables who is presumably Mr. Turnip.
    5. Sunset Shimmer.
    6. Sunflower, as shown in Annual 2013
    7. Babs Seed, same.
    8. Fluttershy
    9. Something cloudy, which can only be Sir Lints-a-lot.

    What the hell are Equestrian Pinkie’s imaginary friends from Party of One doing there is anyone’s guess. Notice that while there are comments from Maud on the page, she did not make the list of friend avatars in the sidebar, but a bowl of turnips and a ball of lint did.

  • Pinkie’s picture in a new outfit is only liked by Maud, Rarity and 11 others, further suggesting the number of friends is bogus.
  • A comment by Rarity, saying “Lovely soiree you held last night!” dated to “two days ago” requires Pinkie to have held a party three days ago, not that this helps much.
• “I hope you’re not using a school computer to go to MyStable!” According to Cheerilee, this is forbidden, so why the hell isn’t it firewalled out?…
• “We should have parties at everybody’s houses, leading up to everybody coming over to Sweet Apple Acres for the holidays!” Which wouldn’t make much sense if the farm was within walking distance from school, I think, but I’ll let this slide.
• “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever met your family.” Rainbow has not met Rarity’s parents up to this point, sure. You’d think Sweetie Belle would count, though, and Rainbow has definitely met her.
• “Wow, Pinkie! You went all out!” Pinkie’s bedroom matches her bedroom from Rainbow Rocks more or less exactly.
• “Someone wanna play me in Magic Drive Racer VI Deluxe?” It’s some manner of a racing game, where one can play as a fuzzy bunny with a monster truck, and it has limit breaks. Mario Cart clone?…
• “…So is this what you do at slumber parties? Just… hang out?” Sunset has never attended a slumber party before: the entire page is devoted to explaining to her how they work. This would make it impossible for this story to happen after Rainbow Rocks, where Sunset attends such a slumber party in the very same location with no questions like these.
• “The sixteen pizzas you ordered have arrived.” Actually, there are at least 17 pizzas in the stack Maud is holding. And they’re at least 36cm caliber each. The next time we see it, only three boxes are left. Somehow.
• “Oh Maude! You’re the best sister ever!” Pinkie makes a typo in Maud’s name, even though no such typos were present on the MyStable page, wtf.
• Rarity paints Applejack’s nails. Applejack is okay with it. Compare to Make Up Shake Up, where she tricks Rarity into undoing all the makeup she just applied. Painted nails aren’t anywhere as easy to undo, it typically involves acetone.
• “Granny wanted me to call and make sure you’re doin’ all right.” Granny Smith chose not to call Applejack herself. For some reason.
• “Tell Granny Smith to quit her worrying!” Notice that it’s Pedestrian Applejack saying this when Apple Bloom just didn’t. Dunno about you, but to me, “Smith” would be redundant…
• “Have a good night… piggly wiggly.” Apple Bloom starts the whole anon-a-missing chain by calling Applejack “piggly wiggly” and prompting Applejack to tell the underlying story in Sunset’s presence. Notice, however, that this is the last phrase in the conversation, she can only hang up after that. This will become important later.
• “So she started calling me ‘piggly wiggly’ and it stuck as a family nickname.” Notice that the Equestrian Applejack appears to have had no similar episode, to the best of our knowledge.
• Sunset writes to Princess Twilight. Which is, as I already mentioned above, impossible chronologically if this is, indeed, Sunset’s first slumber party.
• “Hey, piggly wiggly!” Notice that we don’t find out who did just call Applejack that, but the very next person who addresses her is Apple Bloom, brandishing a phone with a MyStable page on it.

• Applejack’s MyStable page:

  • Has 985 friends. Really?… It’s too much to be realistic and way too few compared to absolutely every other page shown.

  • Top 9 are:

    1. Rarity.
    2. Pinkie.
    3. Rainbow.
    4. Flash Sentry. (?!)
    5. Sunset.
    6. Sunflower.
    7. Babs Seed.
    8. Fluttershy.
    9. Granny Smith.

    How the hell does Granny Smith have a MyStable page, but won’t call Applejack herself?…

  • Contains a post by “Anon-a-Miss” at the top of her feed (how?! Every other post is by Applejack herself!) retelling the “Piggly Wiggly” story. The post is liked by Diamond Tiara, Trixie, and 67 others, which is a bit too much. Notably, the post is dated to three hours ago, and the entire Humane 6 is sleepy, because they’re arriving to the CHS at this very moment after a sleepover, which, if Sunset actually was Anon-a-miss, would require her to wake up earlier than everyone else and post from her phone right next to Applejack’s sleeping body. Just sayin’.
• “It got posted a couple hours ago!” Notice that even the time Apple Bloom cites is incorrect.
• “She posted on your page, my page, all of you guys’ pages…” So MyStable actually allows someone to post on other’s publicly readable feeds?… Really?

• “Well, the only people who knew about your nickname was us an’ your friends, you sure you didn’t tell anybody else? … Well… Sunset only heard the story last night, and the colors of Anon-a-Miss page are the same as Sunset’s hair…”

  Plot hole alert: There is no way Apple Bloom can know for certain that Applejack told Sunset this story, because she calls Applejack “piggly wiggly” as the last phrase of their phone conversation, and particularly, there is no way for her to know this occurred “last night.” Were Applejack slightly more observant, she would have caught Apple Bloom then and there.

  The only way Apple Bloom could come by this piece of intel that I can see right now is a willing accomplice who told her that. And that hypothetical accomplice would have to send word to Apple Bloom – and probably, suggest the entire plan – at the same time everyone else were playing games and otherwise hanging out at the slumber party, in full view of each other in a small room. Basically the only person this could be would be Maud – and she’d have to be listening at the door to get the necessary information.

• “Get in, AJ! We’re going slumber partying!” Rarity is riding in the back seat of a car – a relatively small one – and yet we never see who’s driving it. Also note they’re using seat belts in the back seat, which people very rarely actually do, in my experience: most cars don’t beep insistently for backseat seatbelts.
• “I get oinked at in every class.” Which is a bit strange for someone who has 985 friends.
• “Ah! Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash are already here!” Rarity recognizes this by seeing two cars parked in the driveway next to her house, which would indicate that both Fluttershy and Rainbow drive their own cars – otherwise, the drivers would drop them off and leave. I wonder why Rarity doesn’t.
• “Aw, c’mon! I can be cool!” Rarity shoos Sweetie Belle out. Notice yet another potential instance of listening at the door. Just sayin’.
• “If you want to hear weird stories about beings in another world, I’ve still got the journal from Twilight Sparkle.” Err… But the journal is not from Twilight, it’s from Celestia. Notice, however, that this further reinforces that the comic wants to date itself to after Rainbow Rocks.

• “Back home, the closest thing we had to cell phones was magic burping dragons!”

  • Of which Spike, whose appearance definitely postdates Sunset leaving for Pedestria, is the only one known to associate with ponies.
  • Or, well, the journal itself, which, according to Rainbow Rocks, was originally used in Equestria. And vibrates. And glows.
  • Or Cadance’s snowflake letter from The Crystalling.
  • Or telegraph, first mentioned in Family Appreciation Day.

  Seriously…

• “We may be as different as the night is from the day!” Pinkie, Fluttershy and Rainbow are singing into hairbrushes. Sunset is filming with, presumably, her own phone.

  • Getting Fluttershy to do anything of the sort would have to have taken gargantuan effort.
  • For some reason, they’re holding their brushes brush away from face, which makes the balance entirely unlike a microphone. Huh?…

• “I think this is the sixth door you’ve broken by dancing, Pinkie.” “Nope! Twelfth!”

  • This is a walk-in closet. Where were the other eleven doors?
  • The “sixth” line is by Fluttershy, but the “twelfth!” line is delivered by Sunset. How does Sunset know better than Fluttershy how many doors did Pinkie break by dancing, anyway?
• One of the pictures taken while picking apart the closet is Applejack with a guitar. It’s an electric six-string. A green electric six string, which has never appeared otherwise. Where did they even get it? This is Rarity’s house. Never mind the large diaphragm condensor microphone Rainbow poses with, that one, Rarity could have, in theory…
• “Dear Twilight. My second slumber party with the girls, and already I feel so much closer to everyone!” This almost sounds like a reiteration that the previous slumber party was Sunset’s first slumber party with the girls, period, though it isn’t necessarily such a reiteration: It is, after all, the second slumber party from a cycle of five planned slumber parties.
• “I haven’t felt so loved, so accepted, in… well… ever!” Never mind her hypothetical experiences with Celestia, what, the ending of Rainbow Rocks doesn’t count?…
• “Have you lost your phone recently?” Actually, wouldn’t Applejack know if Sunset did? Normally, this is something you ask assistance with or complain about, especially if this is a device you commonly use to communicate to friends you also meet face to face. And looking at their MyStable pages, we’d have to conclude this is true for them.

• “Then you need to explain this.” We see Anon-a-Miss’ MyStable page.

  • Friends: “6,652…” which is just as impossible as all the other bogus numbers of friends listed so far, for the same reason as Pinkie’s.

  • Anon-a-Miss’ top nine friends are:

    1. Silver Spoon.
    2. Trixie.
    3. Snips.
    4. Snails.
    5. Sunset Shimmer.
    6. Sunflower. (?!)
    7. Babs Seed.
    8. Harshwhinny.
    9. Diamond Tiara.

    What a strange list.

  • The post of photos from the selfie binge dated to “two days ago.” Notably, one of the photos – the top one – includes all six participants, and, judging from the position of the camera, had to be taken either by Pinkie or by Rarity. For Sunset to be accused of posting this would require her to be in possession of the actual file.
• “How did she get pictures from your phone?” An accusation that only makes sense if only Sunset’s phone contained all the posted pictures. The subsequent confession implies it was in fact the case, which is actually pretty weird, when you take a lot of pictures – a lot of selfies – you use every phone…
• “You must’ve just been pretending to be our friend, when all along you were just after our secrets!” A pretty strange accusation, considering Sunset basically saved their asses in Rainbow Rocks.

• Further things posted by Anon-a-Miss over the subsequent days include:

  • A photo of an essay by Rainbow Dash marked “D,” wherein she made a typo in the word “buoyancy”.
  • A video of Fluttershy singing into the hairbrush. We know Sunset had the phone that took it in her hands, but we don’t necessarily know it was her phone. According to the subsequent confession, it had to be. Notice that the video has a comment: “Sunny Seed: Remember me??” What was that about?… Who is Sunny Seed and why would anyone remember them?…
• Sunset accuses Trixie of being Anon-a-Miss out of the blue. Notice that in Forgotten Friendship, she also pointed at Trixie initially…
• “She’s stirred up this school more than Trixie ever could! Whoever she is, I’d like to thank her!” Actually, why? How exactly could this situation possibly benefit or please Trixie, of all people?… It diverts attention from her!
• “Don’t lie to me! You took my necklace! Anon-a-Miss posted your picture with it!” “Why should you care? It didn’t look any good on you!” So Silver Spoon took Diamond Tiara’s necklace, took a picture with it, lost track of this picture somehow, and still kept hanging out with Diamond Tiara without fear of potential repercussions?…
• “…so that’s the whole story.” For some bizarre reason, Sunset is writing this at the same book-pile that Twilight spent the night on during Equestria Girls, rather than at home or, well, anywhere else. You know what students would use such a place for in a normal school, right? Right?…
• “I wish there was some way I could help you. It’s never easy to lose good friends.” Coming over for a couple hours would help, I’m pretty sure. Twilight doesn’t offer.
• “Hey! Get out!” “Yer not welcome here, Sunset!” This is Sugarcube Corner, however, and none of the Humane 6 even works there, so I’m not sure why do they think they’re entitled to shoo her out.
• “And she reminded me: You’re more than my friends – you’re my family. You know me better than anyone.” Anyone on this side of the mirror, possibly… maybe…
• “I had my phone with me the whole time after the party…” It’s not clear who says this, because the tail of the speech bubble goes out of panel – but since the only ones out of the panel are Sunset and Rainbow, it has to be one of the two.
• “Dash, Anon-a-Miss posted a science paper you wrote, right? … Did you have soccer practice the day you got that paper back? And the junior team was practicing too, right?” Since the only one of the CMC who is likely to be on the junior team is Scootaloo, that would mean that just like Apple Bloom posted about Applejack’s nickname, it was Scootaloo who rifled through Rainbow’s things in the changing room, took a photo of her “D”, and got it posted. Failing that, and assuming that all the CMC are on the junior team for some reason, Scootaloo would have to have condoned it. Unless Sunset actually had a better suspect in mind – but if she did, we never find out, because she is interrupted by the confession.
• “So at Rarity’s party, while you were asleep, I snuck in, took Sunset’s phone, and downloaded her pictures and videos.” Sunset doesn’t lock her phone. Which is, frankly, unbelievable of someone who had to have used the same trick as a tool of high school intrigue.

• 3. I’m a mad social scientist, that’s the kind of antics we get up to when bored.

  “People started sending her other secrets, new pictures… We posted everything.” Anecdote time: Back in 2008 or thereabout, when Plurk was new, I built a bot that would repost publicly anything that would be sent to it privately with a certain delay, for the express purpose of posting anonymous whining, which the community it was built for was quite prone to.³ They started out sincere, but devolved into personal attacks in about 48 hours. 48 more hours later, it was shot down for ToS violation. Anon-a-Miss somehow lasted a lot longer, and achieved much wider notoriety than my poor bot, and was, apparently, never sanctioned by the platform authorities.

• “’Course I forgive you, Apple Bloom. You’re family.” Without even a spanking.

• Rarity’s MyStable page:

  • “2,624…” friends. Same complaint about bogus numbers.
  • The full list of favorite friends is not visible, but the top row is Sweetie Belle, Pinkie and Rainbow Dash.
  • Rarity’s avatar is cropped out of a group picture with Sunset in it.
• Once again, Rarity and Sweetie Belle are riding in the back of a car and we don’t know who’s driving it.
• “…and we’ve got six months of detention.” And not a single court case.
• In the final group shot, Maud is quietly sitting right between Sunset and Rainbow Dash, as far from Pinkie as possible.

I see the aerial intercourse has been practiced among the show and comic writers long before it finally became trendy in Season 7.

Some analysis

Why would you even treat this seriously?…

But ok, whatever. Let us assume for a moment that Wallflower Blush erased Sunset’s memory of the first time she attended a slumber party in this very room, while keeping everything else intact. For example, by inviting Sunset to Netflix and chill a slumber party, failing it, and then attempting to fix the problem by wiping the memory of every slumber party Sunset has ever had, including the one she had in Rainbow Rocks. This would fix the chronology problem and at least make this comic possible.

Then, we could keep it. Ignoring the extremely uncharacteristic behavior by Sunset, Trixie, Scootaloo, Pinkie, Twilight Sparkle and multiple others, never mind the impossible behavior of the social network itself and its impossible properties.

But even if we did, that would not solve the plot hole of Apple Bloom pointing a finger at Sunset while using the information she cannot possibly have. The only thing that can solve that is positing that Maud Pie is the actual mastermind behind the Anon-a-Miss, who instigated the whole chain of events without actually doing much herself, got away squeaky clean, and never even had the finger pointed at her.

You want motivation? Easy. Maud wants more Pinkie to herself and doesn’t approve of those friends of hers.

There. Now go write an Anon-a-Miss fixfic.

Comments

[DannyJ]

Geez, Oliver, warn a guy next time you plug a blog post with a bunch of broken images. Fixing all of them before more people were likely to see it was a mad scramble. Thanks, though.

There. Now go write an Anon-a-Miss fixfic.

Except don't, because that's still asinine.

[FanOfMostEverything]

As you can plainly see, purely on chronological grounds, this story is impossible, and there’s no way to reconcile it with primary canon unless we rip out a whole page.

And that's why I made that universe collapse the moment someone pointed out the discrepancy.

Fluttershy receives the message while watching birds outside the window. Pink birds. What the hell are they doing there in winter is anyone’s guess.

To say nothing of the leaves on the snowless branches.

“I hope you’re not using a school computer to go to MyStable!” According to Cheerilee, this is forbidden, so why the hell isn’t it firewalled out?…

Given how the vice principal was fooled by literal cut-and-paste photomanipulation, CHS doesn't seem to have the most tech-literate faculty (or the most tech-literate writers, but Doylist explanations rarely satisfy.)

Pointing a finger at Wallflower is tempting, but the Fluttershy panel makes it clear that this entire comic exists in some bizarre pocket of temporal instability. I'm blaming Starlight; this is some bizarre piece of spacetime sliced off by timelines thrashing about like severed high-tension cables.

[howard035]

Oh boy, I wanted you to do everything, but even this is a bridge too far. It's 5 years later, and those of us who read it are obviously never going to read it again, so any contributions I make will be off a very fuzzy memory indeed.

As you can plainly see, purely on chronological grounds, this story is impossible, and there’s no way to reconcile it with primary canon unless we rip out a whole page. That, however, is by far not the only problem.

Yeah, I feel kind of dumb for pointing out anything else I notice, because this thing is so full of contradictions that salvaging anything of value seems really difficult. At least with JofTS, they were trying to plug in valuable canon holes, whereas here the only thing they were trying to do is see if they could write The Little Match Girl for EQG.

It has an almost-normal-looking address, www.MyStable.com

Hehe, entered that URL, tried to sell me horse-racing domains.

What the hell are Equestrian Pinkie’s imaginary friends from Party of One doing there is anyone’s guess.

I'm anyone! My guess is she created fake profiles of her imaginary friends during that period when Sunset Shimmer busted up their friendships.

• Sunset writes to Princess Twilight. Which is, as I already mentioned above, impossible chronologically if this is, indeed, Sunset’s first slumber party.

Part of me wants to mumble something about the Memory Stone, but I really don't want to open up that can of worms just for salvaging this.

The only way Apple Bloom could come by this piece of intel that I can see right now is a willing accomplice who told her that.

I guess we could say Apple Bloom was listening through the door at her older sister having a fun sleepover.

• Of which Spike, whose appearance definitely postdates Sunset leaving for Pedestria, is the onlyone known to associate with ponies.

It's comics, so maybe the enclave in Baltimare? Or maybe Sunset heard stories of earlier friendly dragons who used to do this for ponies?

Ok, let's agree that MyStables says "friends" and maybe means "suggested people who might like your post" or something.

Notice that in Forgotten Friendship, she also pointed at Trixie initially…

Theory: If Cadance has to go out and babysit ponies to learn to be a better princess, Sunset will do it too! And guess which bratty little filly she babysat and learned to distrust?

Generally I try to think of reasonable explanations for when characters seem to be holding the idiot ball, but in this comic, there are just so many egregious ones I'm going to pass on most of them.

Coming over for a couple hours would help, I’m pretty sure. Twilight doesn’t offer.

"We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"

I’m a mad social scientist, that’s the kind of antics we get up to when bored.

"Give me a thousand orphans, a hedge maze and enough cheese, and I can ..."

• Once again, Rarity and Sweetie Belle are riding in the back of a car and we don’t know who’s driving it.

Based on later shorts the Belle family has a driver.

4967966

Except don't, because that's still asinine.

Yup, don't. I've seen authors I enjoy try and fail, it's like trying to get the White Whale or take the straights at Dardanelles. Just ignore it like a bad fart in the room.

[Oliver]

4967987

I’m anyone! My guess is she created fake profiles of her imaginary friends during that period when Sunset Shimmer busted up their friendships.

So Maud lost out to a ball of lint and a bucket of turnips a year ago, tops.

I guess we could say Apple Bloom was listening through the door at her older sister having a fun sleepover.

We couldn’t, Apple Bloom was a phone call away from the events. Maud Pie was in the next room over, with shoes greasy from a stack of pizzas Pinkie ordered – none of which seems to have ended up with Maud. She was not invited to participate in the sleepover in any way, either.

This comic doesn’t add anything particularly useful to Pedestria canon, so there’s no real incentive to weld every piece of guts falling out back in. It still can be used to write a good story – but it would have to be a story about Maud secretly being jealous and engaging in a manipulation campaign that frames others even if it fails. Is this worth it to someone? Surely. Do any of these people read my blog? Unlikely, but let’s find out!

…Nightmare Maud?

It’s comics, so maybe the enclave in Baltimare?

Those guys did not use their dragonfire for communication on screen, even when this would be useful.

Ok, let’s agree that MyStables says “friends” and maybe means “suggested people who might like your post” or something.

Might work.

Theory: If Cadance has to go out and babysit ponies to learn to be a better princess, Sunset will do it too! And guess which bratty little filly she babysat and learned to distrust?

Now that is a very good and useful idea!

"Give me a thousand orphans, a hedge maze and enough cheese, and I can ..."

People often make jokes like that. They don’t understand the beauty of mad social science. One of my most famous stunts consisted simply of publishing my results.

[Oliver]

4967980

And that’s why I made that universe collapse the moment someone pointed out the discrepancy.

Memory erasure is usually dangerous in stories, if only because, given enough time, and the ability to erase memory “in general,” one can demonstrate that 1=0 – however, Wallflower has motivations, which narrow the list of potential memory changes to something which Wallflower can erase without coming into a contradiction with herself.

It can get Wallflowered back in. Not saying that it should, but it’s impossible to deny it can, much of the other nonsense is stuff we forgive the other stories. Of course, they usually don’t have it on every other page…

Given how the vice principal was fooled by literal cut-and-paste photomanipulation, CHS doesn’t seem to have the most tech-literate faculty (or the most tech-literate writers, but Doylist explanations rarely satisfy.)

Have you, perchance, seen this comment yet?

[howard035]

4968096

it would have to be a story about Maud secretly being jealous and engaging in a manipulation campaign that frames others even if it fails.

What if idiot balls are the right stone you could use to rule all of Pedestria?

They don’t understand the beauty of mad social science.

I heard the best way to find a mad social scientist was just find a regular social scientist and then ask them about reproducibility in their experiments!

[Oliver]

4968125

I heard the best way to find a mad social scientist was just find a regular social scientist and then ask them about reproducibility in their experiments!

And notice that while the experiments are notoriously difficult to reproduce, this does not prevent them from being influential, destructive, or otherwise damaging.

Which is why the above is something I definitely don’t recommend doing unless you want to increase the number of mad social scientists in the world: The consequences can be catastrophic.

[Fylifa]

Let us assume for a moment that Wallflower Blush erased Sunset’s memory of the first time she attended a slumber party in this very room, while keeping everything else intact. For example, by inviting Sunset to Netflix and chill a slumber party, failing it, and then attempting to fix the problem by wiping the memory of every slumber party Sunset has ever had, including the one she had in Rainbow Rocks.

Somehow the idea of Wallflower Groundhog Day-dating Sunset is strangely romantic. To the point where she gets so frustrated with the memory stone that she buries it and wipes her own memories of it. Thus providing a rather tragic reason of why she takes Sunset's not remembering her so personal. As she wipes her own memory of the reason why Sunset doesn't remember her, leaving her bitter, angry and her love-crush turning into wounded hate.

Maud wants more Pinkie to herself and doesn’t approve of those friends of hers.

This is chillingly psychopathic, let strangely fitting.

...

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I suppose it is telling that the only thing salvage I found in this comic was your analysis of it. (And Dannyj's hilarious Rage Review of it)

[howard035]

Been thinking about this comic. You know the idea that the comic sirens origin is basically how Sonata explained their past to Sunset?

What if this comic is a story that Sunset came up with, right after the first movie? She's still deeply afraid that her new Rainbooms friends will abandon her at the slightest opportunity, and wants to have a good story ready if she flees through the portal about how she was unfairly treated by those humans. She makes some smart guesses about Twilight having the journal and being able to use it to open the portal. She adds the ending where people apologize and forgive each other to show just how hard she wanted the friendship to work, so no one in Equestria would blame her for giving up too easily.

[Oliver]

4969271

What if this comic is a story that Sunset came up with, right after the first movie?

Not a bad one, but smart guesses about the journal and being able to open the portal are a stretch I’m not sure I would believe, if she told me.

Consider this variation instead: This is a revenge story that Wallflower imagines, curled up alone in a corner… and then she realizes it wouldn’t work, so it turns to a happy ending.