Time Stands Still, Sort of? · 6:48am Mar 15th, 2019
First, a bit of music to set the mood:
Something's been bugging me all day. Don't know how many are going to read this, but maybe someone can help with this question I have.
I was reading the synopsis for the "Schedule Swap" short at the FiM wiki, and something struck me as off. Prior materials, such as the "My Past Is Not Today" video, showed Sunset as having competed in three Fall Formals prior to the one Twilight bested her at. Given the series' American development, it's safe to conclude that CHS is in the USA (or its in-universe equivalent), right? That means it should be a four-year high school, with the movies taking place during their fourth year there.
But seeing that the start of a new school year was depicted in this one, I have to ask: do 5-year high schools even exist in the US and Canada, or is this a continuity error on the part of the series' developers?
My primary concern in asking this revolves around my only posted fanfic here, Gormless. There are comments here and there regarding how the story's timeline plays out, both in what I have posted and what I don't. Up until Thursday morning (3/14/2019) when I first found out about "Schedule Swap", I had a vague idea for the story's epilogue, depicting Sunset after her graduation from CHS briefly crossing paths with the protagonist before they part ways once and for all. At that point, said protagonist would have been 2 full years behind Sunset academically (10th and 12th grade, respectively).
On the Headscratchers page for the EG: Digital Series at TV Tropes, the suggestion was made that the photos we see in Principal Celestia's gallery that specifically show Sunset were of other events aside from the Fall Formal (the as-yet unseen Spring Fling comes to mind), and that it was more likely that Sunset and her friends were in their junior year (or 11th grade) instead of senior throughout the movies and most of the shorts. I'm not sure I buy that, if only because it raises more questions than answers in my mind. 
I mean, there's a reason that one specific event was focused on during the movie while other events were mentioned all of twice.
I seriously hope Comic Book Time isn't in effect here (as someone on the above Headscratchers page said: "As long as they're marketable, the Humane 7 are probably never going to leave high school"). Gormless' protagonist is depicted as progressing from one grade to the next (or at least he will be, once I get there) as the events of the movies draw closer. That leaves me with a problem: chronologically he's supposed to stay two years behind Sunset. If he keeps advancing grades while she-of-the-flaming-hair and her friends remain stagnant, that'll just make things look awkward once he progresses to their level. And I can't just exercise CBT myself and keep him stuck in 9th grade for the entire story; I wouldn't have wanted to be in that situation, repeating the same grade year after year and dealing with all the problems I had in that time frame, and I sure as Michigan am not going to subject my own S-I to that. You get what I'm trying to say here?
(I like to think my suspension of disbelief is set pretty high, but the concept of CBT in anime or Western cartoons that have an otherwise clear chronological order is where I draw the line. Just so we're clear. 🙀)
So, yeah: if anyone has any suggestions to offer, or even a direct answer to my above question, feel free to comment. One way or another, I guess I have some details in the story to edit at some point. ()^_^
That's it for now. Ciao mein, and I'll see you next time!
And of course, there's always the possibility that I'm just making things harder on myself by thinking this much. ()^_^