This story is a sequel to She's Awful
The original cover "art" is here for whoever might wish to see it.
After Principal Cinch reads an article about the state of things at Canterlot High (written by one of her students), she realizes that magic is spreading from the portal to Equestria. It's a sinister, mind-controlling force that must be stopped for the good of everyone.
Her goals justify being selective about honesty, but one has to be wary of believing their own lies. Especially when they tell so many.
Can Cinch figure out the truth? Can she keep control of her school? How did she become the woman she is? Why are there three strange girls trying to get into Crystal Prep in the middle of the semester?
Actually, that last one is probably entirely unimportant.
Once again thanks to Vikonaut for the incredibly in-depth, if slow, editing!
This is off to an interesting start! I can't wait to see what's to come. :)
Really liking this version of Cinch. She has actual depth. I have trouble finding stories where she is more than a target for everyone to yell at about how horrible she is.
Destroying the portal to permanently shut off all magic? I don't think the Dazzlings are going to appreciate that. And their views on people who try to stop them seem to be very... murdery.
Gotta say though, like what's going on.
Overall, it's pretty good! The one thing that bugs me is seeing the name "Trenderhoof" In the Equestria Girls universe!
Lookin' great so far!
7551850 I can understand that, but I think changing horse-related names to human versions would've been even more awkward ("Trenderfoot"?
). And I don't think they would've done so in the movies, for what it's worth. If they ever do, you can bet I'm going back and editing all the horsey names accordingly! 
7551641 Yeah, I'm not a big fan of when she's either mentioned to have gotten arrested/fired or, if she's still a principal, is made to be just irrationally evil about everything for no reason.
7551815 They don't have to know
Besides, they might not be able to use any magic anymore with their stones shattered. We'll see what happens, eh? 
7551514 7551982 Thanks!
I knew following you would eventually pay off! I love your version of Cinch and I wasn't expecting a sequel but yet here we are.
7552304 Haha thanks! Sorry for the wait
But I did mention before that I was doing a sequel. Heck, I'm probably doing more after this one, provided I can find a replacement editor (otherwise it's all going to be unreadable crap).
7552308 Well in your 2nd blog post back in January you did mention you were working on this project but after 8 months of silence I didn't know if you were still working on it or not. But either way regardless of the time we had to wait we are finally here! So thank you for your hard work.
7552316 Most of it was my editor's hard work, not mine
Guess I can understand the uncertainty, though in my defence there are stories I'm following that take almost as much time for a single chapter and don't even go into "hiatus" 
This ia an excellent start. It really captures the character of Cinch quite nicely. Looking forward to this
Oh dear. It seems that Cinch has fallen into the same trap as so many others - that other people are the problem, and not her.
7552290 Lol Trenderhoof sounds much better then Trenderfoot!
7552431 Thanks!
7552943 I don't even think it's a notable thing to happen to someone, most people tend to see their fault last.
7553048 Yep, you can probably see why I stuck with the "hoof" variant
7553370 Oh no, it's a common problem. I suffer from it myself on occasion.
That said, when something is clearly my fault, I admit to it without hesitation.
7553430 I wanna say that I do too, but unfortunately I can't really tell: I've never been at fault for anything so I can only speculate what I'd do if such a crazy thing were to happen
I imagine I'd admit it readily, the paragon of humility that I am.
7553370 Yup!
Well gee I can only imagine why!
Pettiness?! You threatened to fire her to get at Shining! As much as I like how 3D your Cinch is, hypocrisy like this makes me grind my teeth.
Oh shit.
Oh yeah, it’s her. The 3 1000+ year old Sirens who are masters of manipulation.
Oh. Ooooh. Right, they can’t use magic anyway anymore. So they have no problem denying it to others.
In other words, no.
Also, that picture in the A/N of the sirens is chilling. I love it!
7555745
One could argue that she should either quit or, if she isn't quitting, stop doing things out of spite/a grudge, especially if those things are usually done for the school's benefit (ultimately). But that would be a tough argument to make.
I figured the most irritating thing about all this would be that Cinch's problem is built on a misunderstanding that annoyed some people even back in the original story
I just want to point out so it doesn't seem especially grating later, I always thought they mostly relied on magic and couldn't actually use psychology and such on people who are not under their spell already, simply because they probably never had to.
Just wanna make sure there's no misunderstanding and you realize that at the moment they don't know of Cinch's plans for destroying magic, Adagio just did a wild guess and thought Cinch might be interested in the source (which she, unbeknownst to them, already knows anyway).
Not necessarily, she WAS looking for ways to appease the student body and encourage more competitiveness. If she figures it'll help that, she'll do it.
Thanks! Didn't quite intend it being chilling (more melancholic or something - bad weather and sad people), but I'll take it!
7555988
Eh, I don't know. They couldn't use their magic on the Humane-6 (Or however you want to call them) but they still manipulated events perfectly to get them locked understage, stressed out, and have a meltdown that let them harvest their negative energy anyway.
7556122 I wouldn't call their course of action perfect. It was pretty convoluted, and seemed just one of the many ways they could've gone that would've all worked. OR none of them would've worked had Twilight figured the song thing earlier. If anything, the delay gave Sunset the time to figure things out. Plus they were still using mind-controlled people against them, Trixie and everyone else (everyone else to crush their spirits at the very least). I would say they might be specifically alright at stirring up a fight by using magic on someone involved (many things are easier to do when you can still have people who do your bidding blindly). But I highly doubt they'd be any good at reading social cues, or controlling them on themselves. Like when they nearly revealed their evilness to Sunset at the beginning. Also, they did lose in the end by neglecting to account for something extremely obvious.
I can see this plan of hers backfiring horribly. As Cinch herself pointed out, the magic got stronger by the time it hit the Dazzlings. And, like Sunset having thought the was newly powerless, she ended up having the potential to unlock the power of the elements within her through friendship. And now, the Dazzlings, that were hit by an even more powerful Elements blast, are seeking to 'fake friendship'? ...Yeah, I can see that not working out as well as planned. ...and I find that fact delightful. XD
Huh, Fluttershy is actually a really good foil to your take on Cinch: She wants to help others but is a bit too young and naive to know when people are taking advantage of that kindness. Cinch, on the other hand, wants to help others but has been hurt so many times that she doesn't believe in basic human goodness. So she "helps" her students by conditioning them to believe that the world is terrible and they need to be cutthroat to survive.
7559068 Maybe you've read too many fanfics where the Dazzlings end up being good
Then again, maybe so have I... 
7559912 A bit exaggerated about Cinch but spot on otherwise! I'm happy when people so clearly see my intent!
7559938 All I said were facts known from the movie itself. However, the facts certainly hint towards the possibilities.
7559942 Yeah, though honestly without being used to thinking of them as very susceptible to friendship, after the movie alone I probably wouldn't expect them to "fall for it" while trying to fake-befriend the people they should hate with all their guts.
7559956 Well, I could see Sonata falling into the fake friendship easily enough. The other two... yeah, it'd be harder for them to fall into it. Possible, but less likely, I admit.
7559966 Thankfully, the sirens were vague enough characters in the movie, so I can still do pretty much what I want with them and not contradict anything
7560053 True enough.^^
Mah Lobrego
Cinch raised some good points with Fluttershy, but neither side was wrong. Well done.
7560252 Mah?
7560255 Thanks! In a perfect world, those two could learn from each other.
I can understand the temptation, but sometimes the joke is just a little too far outside of the comfort zone
7560533 Well, with me being russian, it's well within my personal comfort zone: unless I'm tragically misinformed, we're used to a somewhat reverse situation with the words.
The one describing a color is seen as derogatory and disdainful (and is actually used against other races, too), and the ne-word has always been and still remains the reasonable one (not the ni-variation, that came with the americanization and carried over its bad status). But that's just a somewhat fun linguistic fact, I don't want to open any cans of worms here and I've picked up enough cultural sensitivity to be unsure about posting even this. 
7560632 There's a similar sort of situation with the word retard, since its actual definition is to slow or impede something, but nine times out of ten people will assume it's a derogatory term for the mentally challenged.
See: Flame Retardant
Oh this is ugly. Paranoia, combined with natural cunning and a total lack of self-awareness about the consequences of what she's doing. I'm smelling psychopathy here and I strongly suspect that poor Abacus Cinch will end her days in a padded cell, screaming to her puzzled and disbelieving carers that it is all the work of 'the talking horses'.
7561233 If there is anyone in this story who would qualify for psychopathy/sociopathy it would be someone who appears in chapter 3.
Cinch just forgot how to doubt herself over the years. Plus, I mean, the talking horses ARE real 
It should be interesting to see who is the more capable manipulator. The Dazzlings (Adagio in particular) have been doing it longer but have been greatly reliant on their magic to do so whilst Cinch is on home ground in every way.
I'm pretty sure that, if Cinch bothered to check (which she won't - she's too arrogant to spend time verifying her assumptions) she'll find that the Apples are one of the oldest families continually resident in Everfree County. Indeed, their hidden wealth in commercial and landowning terms means that Jet Set and Upper Crust probably regard AJ as a peer who simply affects a country twang as a nod to her clan's history and traditions.
Abacus Cinch should be wary. If a creature like Sombra calls you his faithful student then you are close, very close indeed to losing one's soul. Of course, that would require a level of self-awareness and the ability to question her own motives and thoughts that she simply lacks, wouldn't it?
7561268 My personal take on the sirens, as I've mentioned in the comments somewhere already, is that without magic the sirens aren't all that good at manipulating people. They probably always had someone, at the root of every plan, who just did what they needed (thanks to magic), from which everything then branched out. This is a big aspect to remove.
7561282 To be fair, just like Celestia and Luna, human Sombra is much tamer than the pony counterpart. You might remember how Cinch reacted to the fact that pony Sombra had been a "tyrant king" or whatever. Back in the original story. This Sombra is just a crime boss, and he deals only in illegal goods smuggling and the like (diamonds, for example).
I... have no idea what that 'favorite line' would be. Help?
On mobile, so short comment. Good chapter!
Who would the Dazzlings list as guardians?
And if they found out Cinch wants to destroy the portal would they intervene? It's their one way home.
pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw1225_small.jpg
What if Cinch is right, and the magic of friendship is infecting the human world and spreading through the portal? Even the Dazzlings seems to have been influenced by it without her own siren magic protecting them.
I don't like Sadnata. Give us back regular bubbly Sonata.
...Yeah, that plan will totally work.
All according to keikaku
..right?
It was going swimmingly, but the last line uttered by Cinch kinda ruins the situation.. ah nevermind, Cinch still had some time to learn about playing nice herself
“That’s just friendship, Principal Cinch. Friendship isn’t magic.”
I'm guessing this line.
7561640 "Friendship isn't magic", as said by Principal Celestia of all people
7561720 I imagine they probably have some fake person listed as one guardian between the three of them. Don't ask me how CPA didn't find that out, I didn't find it necessary to think this far
As for intervening, well, Sonata definitely would try to, but I'm not sure Adagio or Aria care too much about going back to Equestria now that they have no magic. They have nothing there for them at this point. Though we'll see in the future, maybe after this story 
7561767 Funnily enough, the fact that they are susceptible to magic now that they aren't protected by their own is something briefly mentioned in an upcoming chapter, so good job calling that one
As for them actually being affected, well, it's true that they don't have their magic, but they do have something else... (That was hinted at already.)
7561979 Well, insinuating that Twilight was at fault for what happened at the games, no matter how partially true... while also insinuating that Shining was a bit dumb ("your sister is smart enough to realize that which you don't, just listen to her bro"). That's probably quite revealing of her sincerity.
7561991 Yep!
I've said this before but I'll say it again: Cinch's big disadvantage here is that she's applying her own view of relationships and human motivations as a universal constant, which it isn't. She's therefore having limited successes because she's ultimately assuming all relationships are conditional and can be undermined or dropped when convenient to do so. You have to wonder how she got that idea.
As for the Dazzlings? I'm pretty sure that they don't know what side of the fence they're sitting on themselves.
7562508
This actually fits in with my headcanon about the red light that Sunset emitted at the end of Rainbow Rocks. Because magic isn't naturally a part of the human world, friendship isn't magic but is a distinct seventh Element of Harmony. Sci-Twi is their world's Bearer of the Element of Magic but Sunset Shimmer is the Bearer of the Element of Friendship.
Oh you tease.
(There are no means to determine the canonical length of a moon as of today, and that's the way they like it.)