The Realization
“Dear Princess Twilight, our friend Pinkie Pie is planning a birthday party for our other friend, well, Twilight Sparkle. We still gotta figure out a way to talk about her that doesn’t confuse things, but I get the feeling you’ll know when I’m referring to her instead. Anyways, Pinkie figured if it was our Twilight’s Birthday, it must be yours as well!! So she wanted to see if you could come over for a bit and blow out some candles, though I’m sure your Pinkie has plans for you as well. Still, she wanted to know how old you’d be so she could get Applejack to make the candles in the right number shape. I told her you’re probably 19 like the rest of em, I know you’re a little younger than me, but she seemed skeptical. That girl always seems to know stuff she shouldn’t, but hey, that’s just Pinkie Pie, right? Write back soon, Sunset Shimmer.”
The girl in the pleather vest laid down her journal to wait for the reply, Princess Twilight tended to write back with some delay, being, well, a Princess and all. Sunset was never quite sure what “ruling over friendship” actually entailed or why Celestia would let someone so young take over such an important responsibility, but hey, she was never the best student (much as her ego used to tell her she was) in that category, so who was she to question the Alicorn that literally moved the Sun.
Before Sunset could realize the irony of the previous line, she was thrown back by a bright smile taking up all her vision. It was of course Pinkie Pie, bubbly as ever, hoping for an answer to her query.
“Did she write back SunShim? I found a fanTASTic cake recipe for her!! It’s got all her favorite horse stuff!! I figured she must not be able to eat all the stuff we do cause, y’know, she’s a horse and so I bet she can’t eat meat, I mean not that you put meat in a cake but like I remember her asking for oats in her milkshake and-”
Sunset giggled at her friend’s ramblings, a common occurrence, but a delightful one. She’d known the curly-haired girl for going on four years, but only the last year and a half had been her friend. She often wondered how much she’d missed out on fun like this while she was too busy trying to take over the school through subterfuge and strong-arming. The rest of her friend group (just as recently attained) had arrived and helped her up (Pinkie fell on her face trying to get off her friend, in a 3 Stooges kind of way), they were all used to Pinkie’s lack of personal space by now. Still, they were just as curious, Princess Twilight was the one who’d brought them all together, save Twilight Sparkle, but they got to meet with her so rarely at this point, and almost never without some disaster looming.
“I hope she’s near that book-a-her’s this time,” Applejack twanged, “Them bees are mighty impatient, even with Fluttershy here helping me out. I need to know how much wax to get for those candles, a 7 takes a smidge less than an 8 y’know.”
“Indeed, Darling,” added Rarity, tossing a quarter into the jar Fluttershy held up (she was trying to break that verbal habit, but it was a useful word after all!!) “Considering I need to know what sort of rhinestones to add to her dress I’d like to get this question answered before the big day in question.”
The human Twilight pitched in as well, “I’m looking forward to it myself, I have some theories regarding the temporal shift necessary to convert horses into humans, since the two don’t exactly line up lifespan-wise!!”
Rainbow Dash spoke up next, “Yeah that’s a morbid way of putting that Twi, besides you could always’ve asked our resident Pony here, seems easier than waiting for the other you to cross a dimension, eh?” Twilight blushed a little, seemingly embarrassed that the brash sporty girl had actually made a point she hadn’t considered.
“Hey it’s no biggie Twilight, besides, I get the feeling you’d need a larger sample size than just me to actually get a decent result,” Sunset rushed to say. She cared a lot for the glasses-wearing girl, and knew she took her experiments seriously, at least since she almost destroyed two worlds herself. “Anyways, it’s like I told you girls, Twilight was about your ages, she was Celestia’s student after me after all, and I’m just turning 20 this year, so she can’t be any older than 19. Not to mention I was 15 when I came through and that’s about how old I seemed to the faculty when they had to get my paperwork for actually joining Canterlot High.”
“Wait,” Twilight inquired, “you’re almost 20 and a senior in high school? You’re just as smart as me, I thought you’d have graduated by now if that was the case?”
Sunset winced a little at the accidental backhand she’d just been provided, but offered an explanation regardless, “Yeah... turns out when you drop into a world with no idea what hands are, a completely different base for the numbering system, and a history that has a lot of the same names and none of the same events? They kinda hold you back once or twice ‘til you get the ‘hang of things’” She added air quotes to emphasize the casual nature she was trying to broadcast, but her friends all got the feeling that it was maybe a sore spot and dropped the subject.
Making that drop a little easier was the sudden buzz of a book, and the shouting from Pinkie that accompanied it. She dove for the book, but Sunset had grabbed it up already, resulting in her friend’s second face plant of the afternoon.
“My dear friend Sunset, I would be honored to attend! As you mentioned, I will have to ensure my Pinkie schedules in some time for it, but I am sure she will be accommodating. I may have to bring her back some of your world’s cupcakes for her to try though, as she is convinced they have secret ingredients you just cannot get here. With regards to my my age though, I will be turning 24 this year. I am flattered you think I look so youthful, though I suppose the human world has that affect. How old is the other me turning? I suppose you are all in High School, so she must be 17, right?”
Sunset looked at the page astonished for a moment, Princess Twilight was older than her? That didn’t track at all. Why would Celestia take on a protegee with more experience outside her gaze. She wasn’t a controlling pony per se, but she definitely liked being able to mold her students, and Sunset had joined fairly young herself.
“Our Twilight is 17 this year, yes, but you’re joking on your age, right Princess? I’m only 20 this year and I don’t remember seeing you in any classes ahead of me back when I was Princess Celestia’s little trouble student. I was 15 when I left after all, so, like, you would have to have been out of school by that point?”
Pinkie Pie had of course already read the initial message over the confused girl’s shoulder, and was already squaring orders away at the others “DOUBLE THE BEESWAX APPLEJACK AND FLUTTERS, THE CURVE ON A 2 NEEDS EXTRA SUPPORT, AND RARITY YOU MAKE THOSE RHINESTONES SPARKLES IN A WAY THAT SAYS ‘I CAN RENT A CAR’!!”
Sunset was too focused on her own thinking, but Rainbow Dash seemed to echo the sentiments in her head.
“24? But she was so clearly in our class!! Heck, I figured she’d skipped a grade like our Twilight, makes sense since you two are the smartest girls I know. Maybe her lack of glasses kept her back?”
“That’s not how glasses work Rainbow Dash. They only make me smarter in that I can actually see the board instead of vague chalky mush. But I am perplexed, after the Friendship Games when I met her, she didn’t seem almost a decade my senior. But I had a theory the portal wasn’t just affecting physical appearance, like I mentioned with the life-spans-”
Sunset interrupted, “I don’t think that’s it though, I mean the average pony life-span over there is between 80 and 90, it went up recently when we created the tetanus vaccine, so it’s not like a horse here in terms of aging.”
The girls sat in thought for a moment, awaiting the buzz, which came quickly enough that I didn’t have to add any more activities between the fun stuff.
“Oh Sunset, nice try on the prank there, I had to message Celestia to be sure but she said you were 15 when you left, and that was almost 15 years ago!! I had only just gotten my cutie mark after all, so I remember the year fairly well”
Sunset stared at the page in horror. She knew Celestia had gotten more comfortable with jokes, but this was too much, even for her. 15 years? She’d only been in the human world for 5, and not even quite that!! But Princess Twilight (though not the Element of Honesty) wasn’t known for lying about this kind of thing. She turned to look at the other girls around her, finding her Twilight doing some clearly strenuous mental calculations. Rainbow Dash, meanwhile, had done all the math she felt she needed to do, and was laughing up a storm.
“30 years old!! Sunset is 30 years old HAHAAA~!!” her hoarse laughter seemed to fill the entire suburb, or maybe that was just ‘cause it was ringing in Sunset’s head. This made no sense!! She had only spent 5 years in this world, how could 15 have passed in Equestria? Sure there was a slight discrepancy the few times she had visited recently, after all she had been able to traverse most of the kingdom with barely 2 hours passing in the human realm, but she traveled much faster as a pony, and surely it hadn’t been 6 hours... But it’s not like she’d had a watch on her fetlock...
Unfortunately for her brain’s already overloaded status, Rainbow’s raucous laughter had brought the other girls back up, though the looks on their faces made it clear they had mis-registered it as sobs (which considering she seemed on the verge of choking, may not have been too far off.) Sunset searched for words to explain the emerging situation, but Twilight’s loading ring seemed to unfreeze at just that moment.
“SUNET’S A COUGAR!!”
The words hung in the air a little too long, but who else but Pinkie followed them.
“No, silly, Sunet’s a pony, we all know that!!”
The tension broke with some giggling from all, something Pinkie always seemed able to provide.
“Sorry Sunset, I didn’t mean it like that, but welll.”
“No, it’s okay Twilight. What she means girls is, I’m not 20. Or at least, I shouldn’t be? Apparently with the time difference in Equestria, I’m actually, like 30? But because I’ve been here for so long without returning home for more than a visit I’ve only lived 5 years instead of 15. And I couldn’t tell from anyone else cause Celestia barely ages, and I didn’t know any of the other ponies at the time...”
“So,” asked Fluttershy, realizing I hadn’t given her anything to say yet, “I get why you haven’t aged, but why does Princess Twilight not look 24 when she comes over here?”
Twilight picked up the ball on this one. “Well if my hypothesis is accurate, the portal makes anyone, er, anypony who comes to our side resemble their counterpart in this world, so as to avoid a disruption on the atomic level. Perhaps that also results in them de-aging to match what our world has stored as its ‘Base State’.”
“That makes sense for her, but then why did I come to this world as only a little older than the rest of you? I’m 6 years older than Princess Twilight, but only 3 older than Twi here, and that doesn’t match the discrepency we calcuated earlier.”
Rarity chimed in, “Well Princess Twilight had mentioned that she was surprised to see Sweetie Bell in the same school as me. It seems in her world she’s only 11, and if her Rarity is the same age as her then I would imagine she’s aging fabulously into her mid-twenties as well, so clearly the ages aren’t bound to any formula.”
“Y’say ‘aging fabulously’ like mid-twenties is some inconvceivable elderly state Rares. A mite inconsiderate since we got our very own dirty-30 here to plan.” Sunset noted the smirk forming across Applejack’s face as she said it, teasing as she tended to do. But Sunset was surprised that it didn’t sting like it would have even a few minutes ago. Sure the news was shocking, but it didn’t really effect anything about her. She was comfortable knowing it even, it was just another joke ready to form, she could already feel her ability to call the others whipper-snappers surging within her, but she figured she’d hold off to clarify what it really meant to the others.
“Look girls, I am abso-freaking-lutely gonna use this as an excuse to get you to carry stuff for me for ‘my joints’ but let’s be clear. I’m only turning 20. Sure I would be 30 if not for this whole magic portal business, but I also wouldn’t be your friends without that portal, so I gotta keep it in mind. So I’m good to joke about it now, but I’d like to not skip a decade of Pinkie Pie Parties, or have to rush em all in before my next actual one, y’get me?”
The other girls all nodded in agreement, though their smirks made it fairly clear they were taking the permission to joke heavily in mind.
“Can’t you just be 30 when its convenient though? It’d make it a lot more fun if you could get us some alchohol now instead of in a year!!” Rainbow Dash half-whined, half-snorted.
“OOOH!! I have some really good recipes for Amaretto-based cupcakes!! But my folks don’t drink, so I haven’t been able to test em out properly!!”
Sunset laughed at the suggestion, knowing that it was almost a serious one made it even funnier. “Now Rainbow Dash, what kind of example would I be setting for your generation if I let the youth partake so frivoulously?”
“Uhh, an awesome one?”
The girls all laughed, then set to work setting up for the double party to come by the week’s end, jokes abound. Sunset smiled the most, knowing that the strange time dilation meant she’d be sure to have plenty of time with those she treasured most.
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Goodness, I've wondered about the time discrepancy before. It doesn't really make sense!
Glad you tried to make it make sense!
Thank you @someoneirrelevant!! Its a wild part of the franchise and I was happy to try and work out how it worked!! Hope you enjoyed the fic!!
Always thought about this as well, this was such a fun read!!
Pretty good for your first fic. Certainly got a laugh outta me.
I'm not thirty got it?! I'm not thirty!
Careful, she might eat you for saying that.
Pinkie Pie is best girl.
Careful Sunset. You're going to wind up getting walkers and wheelchairs as gag gifts for the next six years.
Great story by the way. A little long in the tooth in some areas, but it made me laugh. Good job!
11601208
Thank you so much!! I'm glad you enjoyed it!!
SOOOOO, she's available then?
Honestly though. I've always been a little leery because of the de-aging that goes on with that portal
I always imagined that sunset was around 23 or 24 in Equestrian years and that twilight was around 17 or so. That part seemed to make a bit more sense at least to me, especially since it came out in 2013. Sunset always seemed to have the wisdom of a mid-20s person/pony post reformation despite having a much younger figure when coming to the human world. She even seems to grow to resemble more of an adult once she comes full circle in her reformation once Friendship Games and Camp Everfree came out.
But for the sake of Story humor, I’m willing to forgo all that
11601425
Oh I totally get that!! I was basing the age estimate off of one of the writer's tweets that she was "about the age of a senior who'd been held back a few times" as compared to the general "17 to 19" range they gave the rest of the girls. From there I just extrapolated based on the fact that she had been in school at least 3 years with the others!! I'm glad you got a kick out of it regardless!! Thank you!!
24 is probably not too far off all things considered depending on the point in the series.
I remember the comic for IDW's 20th anniversary hinted at a 20 year difference between the day Spike was hatched and a point just after the movie, and Twilight would've been at least 5 if not a little older on the day of her exam. So by the movie she would've been in her mid to late 20s.
Though Sunset would probably be closer to her late 30s by then. Because she was already grown up before Twilight's exam. So that's an age difference of 10 to 15 years at least.
oof
Smooth
I can see some of the girls having fun making jokes about Sunset's joints
This was a pretty good story, especially for a first one. That portal's age-changing bit could make things confusing on how and why it did it. It doesn't help either that the show never said how old the characters were thus leaving it up for debate, so trying to make portal headcanons is that much more tricky. You'd have to use a headcanon of how old Princess Twilight and Sunset are on top of a headcanon of why that portal seems to change characters' age and a headcanon of how big is the time dilation between the worlds are, given there is one. That's some serious headcanon-ception action right there
As for my guess, I would say EQG1 Princess Twilight is somewhere between 18-21 years old, 23 years max, and Sunset is about 3-5 Equestrian years older, and any time dilations between the worlds aren't wide enough to change the gap too much. Although in my series of stories that have Sunset sometimes appear in them, I generally took that time dilation idea and
beat it to a pulp, then pounded mercilessly some more while foaming at the mouth, then blew up the idea twice overdecided not to use it for my brain cells' sake. With how many I still have left, I need to protect those few11601487
I'm glad you liked that line, I was genuinely just like "oh all she's done is hold up a jar, she deserves to be a part of this"
There is no epic lore here, only fun.
11601451
Yeah, definitely, in the case of Story shock value 30 works well as a title. The age of 21 probably would’ve worked pretty well too, but some of the jokes probably would’ve had to change a little bit
That cover pic should only be used in clop fics
COUGAR... Brrrrooooowl!
That would make sense. At the beginning of Equestria Girls, it's safe to say that Twilight is in her early-to-mid 20's and Sunset is about 5-8 years older than her. When you think about it, that would make her bullying of the kids at the school a much more serious offence. Instead of it being a minor assaulting and battering minors, that would be an adult assaulting and battering minors.
I wonder if there's a fic where Sunset has to face charges of assault and battery on a minor because of her bullying and her technically being over the age of 21?
Honestly I just thought that not all characters match the same age as their counterparts. The pony CMC are in Elementary school while the pony Applejack and Rarity are working adults while the human CMC are in high school along with the human Applejack and Rarity. Pony Celestia and Luna are 1000+ years old and taught by pony Star Swirl but their human Celestia and Luna were born within the same lifetime as the human Mane 6 while the human Star Swirl lived and died long ago in the humans world history. No matter how you look at it the ages don't match regardless of any theoretical time difference between the human and pony worlds.
As for the Sunset situation I just thought the portal gave them the same age/appearance as their counterpart in the other world.
11601910
The hottest cougar ever
11601937
Yeah!! That's my way of thinking it as well, I was mainly trying to figure out how if Twilight was so young when Sunset came over to the human world then how come only like 3-5 years seemingly had passed in it!! I actually have Rarity mention the CMC specifically regarding how the age gaps don't match for every character!!
Synching clocks and calendars between worlds is always a pain!
Not a bad start, by any means!
11602066
Thank you!! I'm just hoping I get the motivation to make more soon!!
11601475
Me when I fall off a cliff on roblox
Do you want a real answer? They didn't want to use an adult human model for Sunset, because then she would have looked like Principal Celestia, Luna, or Cadence For the sake of it I will give you that pony Twilight is around 16-18 years of age during Canterlot Wedding
Laughs in german
11602487
Regardless of your age, you'd still need ID to prove it. Sunset is an illegal alien in the most literal sense, so...
11602796
This is a good point!! We have to assume Earthquestria has some fairly lenient citizenship registry, especially since in the shorts Sunset has at least enough documentation to have a learners permit/get a driver's license
11601912
I know. A youtuber I like made a joke about this and I honestly felt this was the case. That the Portal de-aged anyone coming to through it to match their in-universe counterpart. So Sunset got between five to eight years of extra lifespan out of the trip and to relive her teenage years. Which resulted in her being a horrible bully. Which as a grown-a$$ woman makes it the equivalent of adult on teen abuse of shooting fish in a barrel.
11602858
I love DWK. If you haven't yet, check out his new channel, Total Unit. I love his character Tonkatsu Sinclair, your anime waifu for laifu. I've not checked out his livestreams, but I've heard they're funny.
Well, it was funny to read, good work
11603618
Thank you so much!!
The funny thing is, I think some people realized that Sunset's age didn't make sense, because, thanks to the comics, we know that Sunset was actually Celestia's student at basically exactly the same time as Twilight (because of the age of other ponies there). This is very funny because it's clearly not what the first Equestria Girls movie intended by having Celestia say that Sunset was her student "before Twilight," and means that they were somehow both the personal student of the same pony for years and never met each other once.
11603900
That's interesting!! The comics canon is so wild to me cause it naturally has to be both reactive to the series itself and expand on its own, so it will almost certainly end up contradicting canon and itself when it runs long enough. Still, it seems like they took a decent swing at solving the same problem I did!! Even if it doesn't fully make sense for the reason you said, how could they not have met?
11603903
I solved the problem by simply doubling the age ratings...
Dungeons and Dragons have age ratings for each cycle of life. Child, adult, middle aged, old and venerable. David Silver (who is quite real and has a number of fics on this site) created Ponyfinder from Pathfinder which was spawned by Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e. Beat for beat he has ponyfolk aging at the same rate as humans.
This means ponies become 'adult sized*' at thirty, hit middle aged at seventy and (baring something killing them) hit venerable at a mere a hundred and forty. Then you roll your death dice to see how long you can go (max of one eighty). This still leaves plenty of plot holes but it does give Celestia over a decade to mentor her students while still young and impressionable. Though the comics imply overlap there is some good news; depending on how long Sunset had her attitude it would make sense for Celestia to keep them separate. Plus one comic clearly shows Twilight going to Celestia's actual school in the early days with one on one time being rare. It is perfectly possible to have Celestia with more than one little filly all to herself.
Without time divergence this does put Princess Twilight at thirty and Sunset at thirty five-ish once season one starts (assuming we consider Twilight an adult). So your fic doesn't quite hold up but it's my cannon not yours...
*while 15 does seem kinda low for adulthood for humanity they are functionally adults even with a few growth spurts left to go and much more maturity to earn. At this point they have the proper proportions and can function in all respects.
11603925
I think thats is an interesting take on it!! I suppose that's the joy of fic, everyone gets to make their own canon!!
11603903
I mean, to be clear, the comics are canon. They’re secondary canon, which means that the show wins if they contradict each other, but that, otherwise, they’re equal, which means that explanation is the canon one.
Ironically, the singular time the comics have majorly contradicted the show (Sombra’s redemption), the show was by FAR the worse of the two choices. But I’ll spare you that rambling.
11603978
Oh for sure!! I didn't mean to imply they had no bearing on canon, just that the relationship they tend to have with show canon is interesting to me!! I've read a little about the comics and some of that stuff I wish had made it into the show!! But also I love the gaps left by the show itself sometimes, cause it let's me slot stuff like this in there!!
11603988
Fair enough!
I really recommend the comics. They’re easy to find for free online (I can send a link if you want), they tend to have amazing stories, they have excellent worldbuilding, and (for the most part), they’re gorgeous. Especially the work by a particular artist everypony loves.
11603994
I may just have to!! I'd love the link if you have it handy, thank you so much!!
If the time dilation is roughly 3 times faster in the Equestria world, this leaves more questions than answers about when the human counterparts are born and when the pony counterparts are born to match up with the ages (along with accounting for x3 time dilation)
11604073
Just saying, there are already much bigger problems if you think that matters.
11603900
I can only recall one comic scene indicating when Sunset was her student relative to Twilight, and the implication I took was that Sunset left not long before Twilight applied for the school.
Twilight is seen playing in Shining and Cadance's presence, but she doesn't have a cutie mark there.
11604738
Thank you for pointing this out!
I was treating them as being students simultaneously because we see Minuette talking to Sunset, and they appear to be roughly the same age. I completely missed Twilight. In that case, Sunset probably left maybe ten years before Twilight met her... making all this nonsense not make sense again.
I won't ask why Twilight and Minuette are wildly different ages.
11604843
Regarding Minuette, blame the hourglass cutie mark. Time travel.
11604870
I just wrote a fic about Doctor Hooves; you'd think I'd be prepared for this sort of thing...
I'm surprised that Equestria Girls proper never once thought to explain if there were any age discrepancies. Granted, it might have been too difficult for them to even make an attempt. At least there are fanfic writers who go out of their way to try and explain how it works. I enjoyed reading this and it has indeed got me thinking about it.