Equestria Girls: A MLP:FiM Spin Off

First, because it's demeaning to the characters to treat them like that. Take nigh immortal demi-goddess that rule over an entire kingdom and control the very heavens themselves.... and then turn them into mundane, and incompetent, school administrators. Yeah, the former has no place in a High School setting, which is why trying to force them into that setting in the first place has the flaws it does.

The issue with the ages, is that it means there is no direct link, if one of them was born several years before the other, how the hell are they counterparts? How are they supposed to be the same? If it was a case of everyone being younger, fine time passes differently. But some older, some younger, and ones that should have died of old age millennia ago simply being middle aged. The issue isn't "Why aren't Lucy and Tina thousands of years old" it's "Why the hell do beings that are thousands of years old have counterparts that aren't either the same age, or dead of old age by now."

It makes no sense at all, there is no logic to it. No reason why they are that way. Which on it's own would be annoying, but fine AU. Until you have them connect. having the real Twi there simply draws attention to how this makes no sense. It makes it clearer this is supposed to be connected to the real Equestria.

The characters are not different enough, not unique enough to BE their own characters. They are too different from the real ones to be treated like they are, yet that is exactly what the story does. treats everyone like they are the exact same as the real version. It only highlights how they are not their own characters, but simply second rate copies of other ones. And yes I know I am not explaining this right which is the most frustrating thing. Does anyone have any idea what I'm trying to say here?

I think an appropriate analogy here would be Marvel Comics.

In the main Marvel Universe (Earth-616), Tony Stark has conquered his alcoholism. In the newer Ultimate Universe (Earth-1610), he has not. Likewise, in the main Fi M universe, Rainbow Dash is not quite as brash and arrogant as she used to be. In the EG universe, she is still considerably so.

Similarly, in the main Marvel Universe, Galactus is a world-devouring, humanoid giant. In the Ultimate Universe, Gah-Lak-Tus is a collective of sentient, world-destroying ships. Likewise, Princess Celestia is a wise, benevolent, millennia-old ruler who to be honest, isn't really much help with the big threats; Principal Celestia is a friendly but otherwise ordinary high-school principal who is ill-equipped to deal with all of the magical crap.

My point here is that this is really par for the course with alternate universes, and honestly, this really isn't that important. The exact logistics of it all really has little to do with magical ponies and friendship.

Also, clearly the two universes are destined to eventually collide and destroy each other, while Queen Chrysalis will obtain the power of a god and a create new world from the remains of the old ones, and eventually an All-New, All-Different My Little Pony will be revealed, with both ponies ''and'' humans.

Mane Six for MLP!Illuminati

edited 1st Sep '15 4:05:36 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Demeaning. Right.

Princess Celestia is a millennium old at least demigoddess magical pony who is the sovereign of what is seemingly the largest and most prosperous nation on her planet.

She does things like send her student to disturb a dragon's slumber or off to the frozen north to defeat a powerful dark sorcerer, both times without giving them their magical superweapons. She got beat by a bug high off her niece's fiancé's love. She also thought it wise to send a questionably reformed spirit of chaos to stop an emaciated magic stealing centaur. When that backfired she thought it wise to hide all the alicorn magic in the least experienced princess and hope she doesn't get caught.

Principal Celestia is middle-aged non-magical human who runs a school.

She got mind controlled twice. That's her track record so far.

Demeaning. Right.

Season 5 pony!Rainbow Dash thinks pictures of her is the perfect decoration to make her friends feel right at home and is willing to screw up the seasons for a town just so she won't have to be separated from her pet for a few months.

Just pointing that out.

edited 1st Sep '15 4:17:43 PM by Spirit

^^I agree with the Ultimate Marvel comparsion.

^So either way, it sucks to be Celestia. Poor thing.

Admittingly I do think that a high school setting isn't the best place for an AU and that the humanized versions of Celestia and Luna should have been in some kind of posistion of power as opposed to being principals at a high school, but in the end it really isn't such a huge deal.

edited 1st Sep '15 4:18:17 PM by marston

I did say "not quite". I'd like to think she's mellowed out most of the time.

Yes, Celestia has ruled over a peaceful and prosperous nation for centuries, as damn near 100% approval rating for it, and as such has the results to prove, she's doing something right. Clearly cares about all her subjects, and those two examples, both worked out perfectly fine didn't they? Oh, and with the Empire, she didn't know Sombra had returned.

Running a country for so long, that is that peaceful, that prosperous, and that all around great pretty much proves she knows what she's doing.

Tina... was to incompetent and/or not-giving-a-shit to realize that this student that showed up out of nowhere and was running for Princess yadda yadda, wasn't even enrolled in her school at all. Or that she'd had someone sleeping in the library at night. Lets the entire student body be terrorized by Sunset Shimmer, including public shaming. And Lucy.. I'm not sure what was stupider, the literal cut and paste photos, or Lucy falling for them. They have done nothing right.

As to the Marvel thing. True, but in either verse Tony is still an uber-genius that built a super high tech suit of armor that lets him be a super hero and kick major ass. And Galactus is still a world devouring force of destruction. The core of the character is still there, just some of the details altered, but altered enough so as to make them their own unique characters. With EQG they did the exact opposite, they changed the core aspect of the characters, but kept all the surface details.

As to RD, But she doesn't actively show up others, or get that damn egotistical at the expense of others yeah she has an ego and will build herself up, but she won't push others down like EQG!RD did. The Winter thing, that wasn't due to her trying to stroke her own ego.

edited 1st Sep '15 4:48:11 PM by Seraphem

Remember that time Celestia gave Twilight her her magic because Tirek didn't know she existed, but left damning evidence of her existence in the open?

Or the time Rainbow put other ponies in danger to show off?

Because I do.

Not to mention that she forgot that Discord could just tell Tirek about Twilight {He didn't until Tirek saw the glass window, but Celestia had no way of knowing that}, as well as the fact that separating a pony who's relied on {And became a princess because of} friendship from said friends isn't a bright idea.

edited 1st Sep '15 5:02:40 PM by marston

1. Still worked out. But even then one mistake does not undo the aforementioned centuries of peace and prosperity under her rule. Not saying she's perfect, but she is a damn good ruler given the results. Name one thing Tina actually does right?

2. And there is a reason that episode tends to be the most hated ep of the series. It was also pre-major RD character development.

edited 1st Sep '15 5:04:37 PM by Seraphem

...how could Celestia not have known Sombra had returned? The whole point was that they were linked, and that was the real point of Twilight having to go melt the Frozen Heartrecover the Crystal Heart.

But yeah, Celestia's not perfect, and narratively we have to focus on the times when she can't fix things on her own, but she's obviously competent and powerful enough to have shepherded her people for over a millennium into a reasonable equilibrium. With a multitude of talents including delegation. (See also Friends Forever issue 3.)

That Tirek thing... yeah, that was kind of dumb but I can imagine forgetting one of a multitude of windows you've had installed, and I figure it was mostly a desperation move/delaying tactic anyway. Which technically worked.

1. How does that make it any less of a boneheaded move?

2. By that logic, RR is pre-devlopment for EG!Rainbow. Because EG!Rainbow has had two movie, and pony!Rainbow has had 100+ episodes.

Because when a character his some kind of even vague prophetic powers, it's really hard to tell what is something a plan that just got luckily despite being stupid, and what is a result of seeing that this path, despite being stupid seeming, is the one that will work. Given it actually works of course. Yeah it still wasnt one of her best moments, but as stated several times, one stupid idea does not negate that much success.

And with RD, that is the issue. It's the exact same character, treated the same, supposed to be cared about the same, it wants the audience to treat her just like the real one to save them the trouble of having to create an actual original new character. But worse then the real one. We've seen RD go through this already, it's just hitting a rest button. If you don't want them to be compared like that, don't make them damn near identical and expect us to treat them the same.

Sombra, at no point was any mention, or hint made that he was back until Shining told them, which him and Cadance acted like it was a surprise to them he was back. Is it possible Tia knew? Yes, but not certain.

Say has it ever been confirmed what grade Sunset and the Humane 5 are in?

edited 1st Sep '15 5:21:45 PM by WorldTurtle2

This is at least Shimmy's fourth year there. So likely seniors.

...Well that would make the Anon-A-Miss comic even more flawed. If they're seniors then they would have graduated in June not be back in school by next December.

For it to work they'd have to be in 11th Grade.

Blah blah blah opinions blah blah subjective blah blah blah blah not worth it blah blah.

Seriously, Seraphem, we know you dislike the concept, but obviously a lot of people don't share your opinion, and that's not going to change, no matter how many times you try to explain it. It's not a matter of trying to get other people to understand what you're saying; they know what you're saying and they don't agree. No amount of arguing over it is going to account for personal taste.

I'm sure there's a famous quote from a dead guy that says it better, but the best way I can phrase it is "It's easy for a leader to be loved and successful in times with no hardships."

Shoot, if you really want to split hairs just replace "nation" with "school" and "centuries" with "years" and you get the same result: a Celestia being a good leader.

Is that why she sat back and watched as her citizens, one of whom was a national hero, fall to their deaths in Sonic Rainboom? Because she totally just sat back and watched as her citizens, one of whom was a national hero, fall to their deaths.

With an example like Tirek, you really don't want to start relying on hindsight to prove Celestia's competence.

And with hindsight out of the way, allow me to again hammer the point of sending her student and friends to confront a dark sorcerer she and her sister could only fight to a draw without their magic superweapons.

edited 1st Sep '15 6:26:18 PM by Spirit

And with hindsight out of the way, allow me to again hammer the point of sending her student and friends to confront a dark sorcerer she and her sister could only fight to a draw without their magic superweapons.

Once again, prove she knew Sombra had returned. Or even had any reason to know this for certain.

Yes, it's clear she much prefers to let ponies deal with things themselves rather then step in and do it for them. And so far, that approach has yet to fail. And has some pretty damn good points towards why it's a good idea. The point is, it works, and she's kept an entire nation peaceful, happy, and successful for centuries. by ANY metric, she is an incredibly successful leader.

Tina, has not done a single damn thing right. Her school has hallways with faulty lighting, open bullying and tormenting of students, she can't even notice some random girl is spending days wandering around her school, enters into a massive popularity contest in the school, all without ever being enrolled, and that some random person that has no business even being in the building in the first place is spending her night's sleeping in the library. And at not point does it come off like she gives a single fuck about what is going on.

This.

It's not a matter of trying to get other people to understand what you're saying; they know what you're saying and they don't agree.

Except given no one has actually addressed the actual thing I'm trying to say, every rebut or other example has been something kind of close, but not what I'm actually trying to say, no, I really don't think you know what I'm saying, since no one has actually addressed, or done anything to make me think anyone does understand it, because i know I am fucking up trying to explain it and not doing it right.

edited 1st Sep '15 6:50:07 PM by Seraphem

Yeah I think JT hammered the point home there Sera. All you're doing is giving reason for everyone here to think that the entire setting of Equestria Girls is your Single-Issue Wonk.

@Seraphem: I honestly don't see how. Everyone accepts that you find the High School AU concept of the series to be unappealing because you think that it feels like a knockoff and devalues the characters by futzing with their characterizations and because EQD Celestia and Luna don't appear as competent and all that. But they simply disagree. Whenever this subject comes up, you always end up sounding (whether or not you mean to) like "The setting sucks and everyone else refuses to admit it" when the reality is that the things that annoy you about the thing don't bother other people as much. There's no argument to be had here because ultimately it boils down to each person's interpretation of how things work. There's no "points" to respond to other than "Um, I disagree". Because we're not arguing an objective fact, we're "arguing" over opinions.

Either that or after literally years of starting arguments over this (seriously I remember having practically this exact same argument around the time the first movie came out) you still haven't been able to explain exactly what it is that bothers you so much.

In both cases, it's pretty clear that this is going nowhere.

edited 1st Sep '15 7:54:46 PM by JapaneseTeeth

I believe your issue is that you feel that some of the characters feel too different to be counterparts, but too similar to be different characters altogether?

If so, I understand why you feel that way. I just disagree with your conclusion - I think that "similar, yet different", is exactly what alternate versions should be like - they're close enough that my affection for them carries over, yet different enough that I'm able to recognize them as distinct entities.

As for the age thing, I think you're under the impression that it ought to work a certain way, but there really are no rules regarding that sort of thing here. It might not make a whole lot of sense, but it doesn't need to - it's a relatively inconsequential detail that doesn't effect the plot. I mean, really, rules of this sort have never really been important for the show in the past - I think "this world's just different" is a sufficient explanation.

edited 1st Sep '15 8:02:26 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Yeah but if they're supposed to be similar they need to keep/resonate with the core factors of said characters.

I understand the point he's trying to make. Going with versions of the characters with little development is in fact repetitive and boring, because its lazy writing to simply just retread lessons that we have already seen with the main version of said characters.

And you can't just say 'AU' as a justification for the lazy way they tried to use the counterpart arguments as it was obvious they didn't fully plan out the setting and ideas and that the writing is nowhere near good enough to make any intelligent observer of these kind of setting and ideas fully buy into what they were trying to do.

Let's face it, Highschool A Us are one of the blandest, most overused, and badly done of possible universe alterations as it usually results in lowering the maturity level/intelligence of characters and amping up poorly written romances and limits the potential for adventures and more often or not have cheap drama instead of well crafted drama because of how limited such settings can be.

I do understand and agree with some of his and your points {I do think that a High School AU was not a good choice for a humanized setting. Something like an Urban Fantasy would work far better}. It's just that he's been saying this stuff for years and eventually we all got tired of it.

edited 2nd Sep '15 10:49:51 AM by marston