I was trying to math out how many years mlp fim actually takes place over, because I am far too invested in things the writers definitely weren't thinking about, just by flicking through the episode order of each season and jotting down where important reoccurring seasons or holidays were prominently featured and why are is all the solid timeline information in episode 11's, 15's or 17's???
s1's episode 11 is winter wrap up, s2's is hearth's warming, s7's is that one Yak holiday (which would have been more helpful if it ever came up again), and s9's is spring break.
episodes 15s get a cider season (s2) (again not reoccurring enough to help), a nightmare night (s5), and another hearth's warming (s8)
s2's episode 17 is hearts and hooves day, s5's is a sisterhooves social, and s9's is a summer solstice
best I can figure, the show takes place across somewhere around 6 years, at least. Maybe more than that. also the sisterhooves social appears to be a late fall/early winter holiday taking place after both the running of the leaves and nightmare night, which is pretty interesting and not what I expected! Probably missed a bunch of stuff, but throwing my list under the cut if anyone's interested
