For a large part of human history across many cultures adulthood wasn't a age, but an achievement. Once you did your first hunt, built your own fishing boat, etc. Maybe Ponies just consider you an adult as soon as you get your cutie mark and the age doesn't matter. Which does put the cutie mark crusaders in a new light.
The chronological age doesn't matter. They're adult ponies. They act like it, talk like it, look like it, are treated like it, and fulfill roles like it.
Fun fact Trixie is an alumni of CSGU and attended classes at the same time as Twilight.
Twilight is, as of the start of Episode 1 at least, still attending the same school she's been in since she was a tiny child. It's obviously set up differently from IRL schools so hard to really say if she's in a high school or college equivalent, but she's definitely not much past her early 20s.
I love this headcanon. You've got all these, like, mid-twenties small business owners and the like (we've got a veterinarian/animal sanctuary operator, a weather maintenance technician training to be a pro athlete, a fashion designer, a bulk apple farmer and a baker/party planner) who've all pretty much got their lives together, and then this genius failgirl who is just barely eighteen and graduated early from the most prestigious university in the country and has no fucking clue how to interact with people. It makes the show's initial dynamic like twenty percent funnier.
Actually, there are RL schools that will go all the way from kindergarten or first grade to the end of high school, and some of those have semesters and such! They're very unusual and are often private schools, but they exist.
I don't think I ascribe to this theory but I still think it's hilarious.
It's actually been quite gratifying to see how many readers I've been netting who aren't, really. (Welcome to SV!) That being said:
*suspicious squinting*Username said:
It always came across as more of a post-grad thing to me, since it's clear she doesn't have regular classes anymore and is just Celestia's personal student now. (Not to mention she comes across as someone who'd have skipped grades and graduated the equivalent high-school early, I'd say) Basically, she's the equivalent someone in academia, IMO. But yeah, she's definitely the equivalent of a young adult at the oldest.
I'll be honest, I didn't realize that was unusual at all. Probably a cultural thing
Yeah, honestly Celestia's kind of a shit teacher. Not because she can't teach, but because all of her students become complete trainwrecks on the emotional level.
I think it relates to how Celestia seems to rely on an indirect approach to teaching. She leaves lots of things unsaid to encourage her students to think for themselves and reach the answer on their own, but this kinda results in the student's wrong assumptions never being challenged.
In fairness, given Sunset's canon issues and the resolution of MLP:FIM I think a big part of is that Celestia has consistently been sort of aiming for the idea of training a potential replacement with her students which is an absurd goal.
And the hundred plus that are watching the scene from behind the 4th Wall...
I don't remember all the details, but didn't all the members of the Mane Six get their marks on the same day because of Rainbow Dash?
*suspicious squinting*
Are you sure that you are not a "MLP fan" because you are, in fact, a pony?
More like, Celestia is very, very competent at a lot of things, but close interpersonal relationships is her achilles heel. She fumbles literally every one we see on screen -- Luna, Sunset, Twilight, Cadance... Those are the ponies closest to her we see, and she screws the pooch with everyone.
Who are the excact people she is not trying to manipulate.
