Description:
---------The Equestrian Calendar and Timekeeping---------
If you have not, it might be beneficial to look at my headcanon for how the Equestrian Solar System works before reading this. I think this is mostly understandable regardless, but some bits might be confusing.
In our world, we measure time with years, months, days, etc. But we have some issues with this; the amount of times the earth spins around itself does not align with the time it takes for the earth to spin around the sun, which really does not line up with the amount of times the moon circles the earth. So we have months which do not quite fit the moon’s phases, and years which are measured by a number of days, except for those years when we add a day, because they do not align.
Gaia, the planet Equestria is on, does not have this problem! The sun and moon are controlled by people, which means the length of a year, a moon cycle, a day... They all are decided by whomever moves the celestial bodies, rather than being extrapolated from their movements. Which means, for them, all of these can align absolutely perfectly with one another! And so, they happily divided the Year they made into Moons they also made, which was then split into Weeks; which was also made by them. Everything fitting into one another in neat and perfect boxes. Twilight loves it.
-Naming and Inconsistencies-
Equestria was, actually still is a bit, quite a hodge-podge of different people and cultures. Aside from just the fact that pegasi, earth ponies and unicorns suddenly decided to live together as one people, there were a lot of variations within those groups as well. The original founding groups (Princess Platinum’s kingdom, Chancellor Puddinghead’s country, and Commander Hurricane’s kingdom) were quickly later joined by more pony kingdoms and countries. And that is not even counting the other species moving there.
So, a lot of different systems of counting and measuring time suddenly had to be consolidated into one. It took quite a while, but nowadays all of Equestria count time using the same lengths and divisions --though, there are a lot of regional differences when it comes to names. There are official names used by the government, but it’s very likely to hear other versions just used in everyday speech. (Here, if names are mentioned, the first name is the official version, and any possible more ones after it are the most common regional ones) There are especially many weekday names because the three tribes used to have a different number of days in their weeks, not just different names for their days, so days got merged when Equestria consolidated the weeks into one.
---YEARS---
A Year in Equestria consists of 360 Days, or twelve Moons, starting and ending at the midwinter solstice. The year is divided into four Seasons --Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn-- at three Moons each.
The Seasons are not controlled by pegasi. They do control the weather, but the actual warming and cooling of the air is done by the sun moving to spin differently depending on the time of year. The sun is not always directly overhead of the equator, it’s moved up and down to warm and cool the north and south depending on the time of year.
-Holidays-
The oldest known holiday still in practise is the midwinter celebration, as it marks the New Year. It is celebrated over two days; New Year’s Eve occuring at the last day of the previous year, and New Year’s day happening at the first of the new one. When Midsummer --nowadays known as the Summer Sun Celebration-- became widely celebrated, it therefore copied this structure, with both Midsummer's Eve and Midsummer being celebrated. From there, somewhat of a precedent was set; most of the Equestrian holidays are celebrated over two days, festivities happening at both the Eve and actual Day of the holiday.
Holidays are very regional, varying greatly over the country. But there are some which almost all the citizens celebrate, and have therefore been considered official by the Equestrian government and are generally completely or partially considered non-working days. All state operations are closed or diminished in capacity, including schools.
New Year (Winter Solstice):
As mentioned, the eve of the winter solstice marks the last day of the year. It is often celebrated by a feast, sometimes featuring lighting candles at the mark of each hour during the night, and always includes not sleeping until the sunrise of the new year's first day. New Year’s day is usually town-wide, with parades, carnivals, dances, drinking heavily... and so on.
The reason for this holiday is believed to be that long ago, people thought that the darkest night of the year holds dangers one needs to keep watch of. The night existed after the death of the last year, but before the birth of the next, and was therefore without the protection of whatever deity or similar that particular culture believed in; the Crystal Empire believed that the Crystal Heart loses its powers, Celestia’s original homeland thought that the earth spirit Gaia was hidden from the world, and so on. So Spirits, tricksters and other mischievous creatures could enter one's dreams and either control your body or steal your life. Therefore, sleeping is forbidden until the sun returns and the next year has spread its wings over you.
Both New Year's eve and New Year’s day are non-working days --as well as the day after that as well usually, due to people desperately needing to sleep.
Midwinter is the only holiday that appears to be almost universal. Most countries seem to have some kind of celebration to mark the darkest night --though not all use it to mark the new year. Most feature the tradition of not sleeping, though a few actually go in the opposite direction. For dragons, sleeping is mandatory to allow the soul to be as close to the gate to death as possible without actually stepping over; it’s a proof of strength to go there and return. Griffons stay awake, but they spend the time crowing and singing throughout it; traditionally, their belief is that the song and crows bring the sun back the next year. There are many variations, which are too numerous to go over here.
Hearth’s Warming:
It is well described in the show. On the Eve, a pageant of the unification is put on, dolls are placed on a fireplace mantle or in front of a window, general feasts and merriment is had. On the Day, presents are opened and the flag is raised. Both day’s are non-working. Some of the traditions which ponies now associate with Hearth’s Warming, such as decorating evergreens, are actually taken from midwinter celebrations, and that holiday has been a bit overshadowed by this one.
It is unclear when the actual date of the unification was; most likely it actually took place during the spring or summer, since in the story, the land was green and flourishing when the winter spirits had been banished. But the actual date has been lost to time, so when the holiday was solidified by the state --it had varied from region to region when it was celebrated before then-- they picked the most commonly used date. Which happened to be towards the end of winter, to symbolically tie back to how the snow and ice is melted away after the unification.
Since this holiday celebrates the founding of Equestria, it is only celebrated there. ...And in Thorax’s hive. They are still trying to figure out what being a changeling means, what their culture is going to be and so on, and have therefore copied quite a lot of Equestria. Including their holidays; though, their ways of celebrating them tend to be a bit... scrambled.
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I placed this here for a few reasons. I thought about putting it before Midwinter (New Years) to mirror Christmas (as it already does this to an extreme degree). But I already knew ponies themselves had picked a date to celebrate it rather than actually knowing the original date --it’s summer or spring in the story, that’s the entire point, that the false “winter” was only created by the spirits feeding off their fighting. So if they placed it... I really liked the idea that they’d choose something closer to spring more, since that mimics what happens in the story. So that’s what I went with.
And the reason I didn’t place it even closer to spring is that we can see the moon during night scenes in “Hearthbreakers” --and it’s waning, only a sliver still there. This date is the only time during winter after Midwinter when that happens, so here it goes.
Spring Arrival:
The entire holiday, again two days, is known as Spring Arrival; though in this case, the Eve actually has its own name; Winter Wrap-up. So the entire holiday is “Spring Arrival”, Spring Arrival Day is “Spring Arrival” and Spring Arrival Eve is “Winter Wrap-up”. It’s confusing, but that’s tradition for you.
On Winter Wrap-up, winter is cleaned up. On Spring Arrival (Day), spring has officially started, and ponies celebrate by eating and partying a lot. Both days are non-working. Unless, of course, you count how everyone helps clean up winter. For no pay. Except the weather workers are still considered to be on the clock in some areas, much to some other ponies’ grumbling irritation.
There are three more season-changing holidays, all mimicking this one in style. But despite many countries having the same seasons at the same time as Equestria, these holidays are generally Equestria-only. The rest don’t control their weather as tightly as the ponies do, and just let the snow melt and birds fly by themselves.
Hearts and Hooves Day:
The only official holiday that’s only one day. It is actually a working day, but many businesses and offices only work a half-day. Including school. Everything closes during the afternoon and ponies spend time with their special someone(s). Giving gifts and candies, going on dates, proposing; all the good lovey-dovey stuff you can think of.
Similar holidays to this happen in most horse and pony countries, seemingly completely independently of one another. All around the same time, all with a heavy love-motif. The reason for this is unknown, but there is one very simple and persuasive theory; that’s around the time when their estrus cycles start up again after winter. It varies from individual to individual, but it’s roughly around that time. So, love holidays for the equines.
This theory is supported by the fact that love holidays exist in other countries --and when the majority population of that country have some type of fertility cycle or period, the holiday most often coincides with that.
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I placed it here because, one, it kinda almost fits with when valentine’s day happens. And two, as I said, it’s around the time estrus usually starts from what I can find.
Spring Equinox:
This isn’t really a big holiday and it doesn’t have that many traditions --in the olden days, ponies usually held a feast and maybe played games together. Nowadays, ponies just spend some time together with friends and family on the Eve and maybe cook a bit fancier dinner and lunch on the Day.
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I mainly just included this here to show when Spring and Autumn Equinox happens, but they aren't canon to the show. So, I just made it a small semi-holiday.
Summer Dawn:
There isn’t as much to do here as with the Running of the Leaves or Winter Wrap-up, so this holiday doesn't include as much work as the others. That just gives ponies more time to party! In this case though, this holiday is actually very kid-focused (i.e. less alcohol, more candy) because it has become standard that graduation takes place and schools are let out for the summer the day before Summer Dawn Eve. So the holiday has become a bit of a celebration of freedom for foals, and carnivals/markets aimed at foals are usually put up in town on the Eve. With rides, carnival games, a ton of sweets to buy; foals start their summer vacation with a bang. Then on the Day, families often go on outings together; swimming, playing, hiking, and, of course, eating a ton of food.
Summer Sun Celebration:
The mirror holiday to the New Year at midwinter, this holiday takes place at the summer equinox. It used to be celebrated in quite a lot of different ways over the various pony nations and cultures; bonfires and maypoles were danced around, as some people stayed up all night and some went to sleep to dream about their future spouses. Parades, feasts, walking over burning coals, gathering flowers, ritual bathing... Midsummer is important, and carried many many traditions over the eons.
Then, after Equestria was founded and Princess Celestia took over the movement of the sun, it quickly got consolidated into the celebration known in current times. The relatively newly formed country had its very own Sun Deity and by stars were they going to celebrate that. Maypoles and bonfires still happened, but it now quickly also became tradition all over Equestria to stay up all night and then watch their precious Sun Alicorn raise the sun for the longest day of the year. In person if possible, and any town/city hosting the celebration usually has to spend weeks cleaning up after the tourists who travel there. Aside from this, most ponies nowadays spend the Summer Sun Eve preparing, the Summer Sun Night partying, and Summer Sun day either sleeping or continuing to party.
After Luna was banished, and midwinter losing some of its importance, the midsummer celebration is now arguably the biggest celebration in Equestria --maybe just outclassed by Hearth’s Warming in some places. Both the Eve, Day, the day after, and the day after that, are non-working, and most state functions are closed.
Summer Harvest:
It’s a relatively normal harvest celebration, where ponies celebrate how much food they’ve harvested so far. On the Eve, there’s usually a parade, and then you go home and eat a huge dinner. On the Day, you spend time with your family and eat the mountain of leftovers. There’s a focus on honoring those who planted, harvested and prepared the meal, which sometimes includes some form of memorial for those who came before.
There hasn’t been much change from how old harvest celebrations were held --aside from maybe the parade, that is a fairly recent addition-- due to how, well, generic it is with just a feast. The only thing is that the different cultures of Equestria used to hold it at different dates of the year. Eventually they all kinda consolidated into this one though, most likely since it was the date used by the Princesses to celebrate.
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We don’t know much about this celebration aside from a) it’s in summer, b) there’s a parade, and c) it has something to do with harvests. So, uhh... I went with food, as that seems pretty common and logical for harvest celebrations. I put some memorial bits in though, just because I wanted to have a memorial-type holiday somewhere, and it fit here about as well as anywhere.
For the date, I just put it in late summer so that it’d coincide better with when many apples are in season, while still being in summer.
Nightmare Night:
It’s pretty much how it appears in the show; on the Eve and Night ponies play games and go from house to house and ask for candy, ending with leaving some for an offering for the Nightmare. During Nightmare Night Day (that’s a bit of an oxymoron), you usually sleep and try to clean up from the parties the day before. And eat the candy you have left until you puke.
Pre-Nightmare Moon, it used to be a holiday which focused on protecting against... well, supernatural bad things in general. Monsters, evil spirits, ghosts, etc.-- it varied a bit from place to place and culture to culture which it was they needed to hide from. This is where the costumes as offerings came from --although, it used to be far more ...sinister. Ponies would stay inside as much as they could, and wear disguises if they had to leave the house so whatever it was they feared wouldn’t find them. They’d leave food just outside their doors so anything which did try to get them in the night would eat that instead of them. Generally just trying to keep the fire going, keeping each other safe, and ignoring any scary sounds coming from outside.
Then, somehow, it got turned into the kid-friendly candy-feast we know it as now. Theories of why range from things such as; settlements got bigger and safer, artificial lighting improved, stores got bigger and wanted to sell more candy, and after Nightmare Moon was banished ponies felt the danger had been vanquished. The last is also used to explain how the holiday shifted from focusing on just general otherworldly evil, to Nightmare Moon specifically --this shift was actually fairly swift, quickly becoming norm in all of Equestria. It was actually so fast, grief-stricken Celestia didn’t realise it until it had ingrained itself too deep into the social subconscious for her to do anything about.
There is some evidence to suggest that the original pre-nightmare moon version, actually was on the Autumn Equinox. Which could explain where the fear originally came from, as it would mark the shift when the darkness is now longer than the light, and the important date could exacerbate the fear of the supernatural.
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I wanted to put this on the Autumn Equinox just because it’d be fun and would thematically make sense to me --except, during “Luna Eclipsed” and “Scare Master”, we can see the holiday takes place when there’s a full moon. I’d already decided that the Equinoxes take place during the New Moon (because then Midwinter could also be during a New Moon, and I really like midwinter being both the darkest and longest night of the year) so I just picked the earliest full moon of autumn --since it seems to be fairly warm out still, even as the leaves are orange. But to compromise, I made the original version of the holiday be on the equinox, and just had that it had moved sometime in history.
Autumn Equinox:
As mentioned, Nightmare Night kinda... took over what used to be the role of the equinox. So nowadays it’s a fairly simple holiday, mirroring the Spring Equinox in style. Food (as always), family, maybe some type of market set up in town.
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Again, not canon in the show, so just a small holiday.
Winter Beginning:
On the Eve of Winter Beginning, ponies prepare for winter. As we know, they hold The running of the Leaves, which helps remove any remaining leaves from the trees before they’re buddies in snow. They also do things such as help animals fly south and prepare to hibernate, use their magic to make any late plants go dormant, prepare the skies for snow-clouds rather than rain-clouds etc.
Then, on the Day... winter is supposed to start, and traditionally, it did. But ever since the Weather Factory was set up, ponies need Cloudsdale to come to their area to start it properly. So if you live close to the City’s current position, the holiday proceeds as it should. Otherwise, ponies just spend the Day preparing even more, maybe holding some type of town-wide spontaneous celebration if they’re already done and have nothing more to do, and just proceed with normal life and wait until the city gets there. Then winter finally, officially, starts! (Many ponies, especially foals, actually prefer to be further down on the list on Cloudsdale’s itinerary --because then they get both Winter Beginning Eve, Winter Beginning Day, and the day of Cloudsdale’s arrival free!)
I really like the fact that Cloudsdale appears to be a mobile city! So in my headcanon, it kinda slowly drifts around Equestria in a set pattern, following air-paths made and maintained by pegasi; speeding up for the Winter Beginning to cover everywhere, but moving very slowly otherwise. That also explains why it was Ponyville’s turn to supply the water, as that year, they happened to be the closest town/city to Cloudsdale. I also wanted to incorporate that here, and hence made the holiday lag a bit as ponies had to wait for the city to arrive. Aside from that, the holiday seems pretty clear in the show --albeit, it appears to take place on the same day. I just ignored that, and pretended that maybe Ponyville was first on the list this year, and Cloudsdale got an early start or something.
---MOONS---
A Moon is thirty days, or six weeks, long. It is also further divided into two; Waxing and Waning, at three weeks each.
Each Moon starts the day after the New moon. The Moon is in Waxing for three weeks, until the Full moon. Waxing ends the day before the Full moon, and Waning starts the day after. Waning then goes three weeks until the day before the New moon --the last day of the Moon. Then the next Moon starts.
Though, while that’s the cycle that is supposed to happen... Due to how difficult it is to move the moon precisely in the earth’s shadow, it isn’t always actually performed as the schedule asks. The only states which are always carefully kept are the New and Full moons; the rest may lag a few days in either direction. Actually, for a long while after Luna’s return, she just let the moon be full at all times except one night for the New moon --she was too weak to do much else. And even then, Celestia helped a lot of times by moving the Sun to cast the shadow on the moon, rather than the moon moving into the shade. Ponies grumbled, but as long as the New moon was kept to mark the end and start of the Moons, they didn’t protest.
-Names-
Most of the official names of the Moons are just the most common regional ones, which in turns are modernizations of the different old names for the Moons used by the pre-equestrian people. Though, there are two notable exemptions; Lunarmoon and Celestmoon. Quite transparently originally named after Celestia and Luna. Though they didn’t decide that; the nobles started with it as a way to curry favour, which caught on with the rest of the population, until it was the most common one used around the Capital’s wider area --which nobles then used to argue that it should be put as the official versions. Embarrassing, but the sisters eventually gave in to the pressure.
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How long a Moon is, is contentious in both the show and fandom. I went with the idea that it’s roughly equivalent to a month, since months are based on the lunar cycle, which I’d think a Moon also would be. But, that means Apple Family reunions only happen every eight years, and I don’t think it took eight years from start to the third season. Unless I make a Moon not as long as a Month? Ponies control the moon, they can make the lunar cycle as long or short as they want. But I like it if the creatures of Gaia tried their best to keep the year and lunar cycle and so on roughly the same as it was before they had to move the artificial sun. (And if that sentence makes no sense, it’s explained in my previously mentioned headcanon on their solar system). So I want to keep a Moon as a lunar cycle, and a lunar cycle as roughly thirty days. And, uh... the Apple Family Reunions are... the one in season one wasn’t a true all-family reunion, just a normal boring one. Yup.
There are other problems too. Namely calendars in the show, which are both very rare and inconsistent. So far, I’ve found two: In “Lesson Zero”, there is a book one, with each page having four by six squares. And in “It’s About Time” there is a calendar which is five by three squares.
There’s also the full-moon problem. From what I’ve counted, in season one, every time we can see the night sky (thirteen episodes), it’s full moon during nine episodes, and no moon ever seen in frame for four episodes. Never a non-full moon.
This is including “Lesson Zero”, where we also can see that it’s the fourth of something. Which, hrm. Does not align neatly with almost any model for hypothetical months I’d try. And I’d like to think they would use the moon to divide Moons up, since. It-it's Moons. Hence, I headcanoned that problem away, with Luna not really caring about the schedule for a while, as she got used to being back.
Anyway. Because of all of this, I decided that thirty days makes a Moon. It’s 1) a nice even number. It can make 12 moons at 360 days, which is close to our year. And since the system is completely artificial, I’d think they like to align everything neatly. 2) It mimics our lunar cycle very closely, just two days longer. And 3) It could match with the fifteen days calendar if we assume it is splitting a Moon in two --hence how Waxing and Waning further divides each Moon. (And I just pretend I didn’t see the Lesson Zero calendar haha)
I also decided to just make up some names for the Moons, but they are in no way set in stone. I just found it fun to do :) Oh, and I used the fanmade conlang Old Ponish a lot for this! It was based on what little Old Ponish we see in the show, and you can read more about it here. There’s a vocabulary list linked there, and there seems to be more words added in a translator here. So credit to TimeLoad on FimFiction for almost all these names, and thanks to Loryska for introding me to the fact that this conlang was a thing (via the wonderful comic Friendship Grows!) ^^
So here’s the reasoning for what I picked:
Lunarmoon: Luna! It’s a winter Moon, which has Midwinter day as its first day; hence it starts with the longest night of the year.
Frolickmoon: Both it and “to frolic'' derive from the Old Ponish word for spring (Frulik/Froulyk). Since this Moon is when Winter Wrap-up happens and spring starts.
Folamoon: Derives from the Old Ponish word for foal (Foala), because around this time is usually when the first foals of the year are starting to be born.
Poskmoon: From Old Ponish for foliage or bush (Posk). As this Moon is in late spring, when edible plants and greenery are abundant.
Somamoon: From Old Ponish for summer (Somer), as this Moon is when summer starts.
Marunmoon: From Old Ponish for dawn (Marung), as it is the moon before the midsummer sun-raising.
Celestmoon: Celestia! It’s a summer month, which has Midsummer as its first day; hence it starts with the longest day of the year.
Harvumoon: Probably a combination of the Old Ponish words for autumn (Haervest) and forest (vuht), as this Moon is when Autumn starts.
Storimoon: From Old Ponish for stars (Storrasi). It’s because the Perseids used to pass by Gaia then --but since the Moon was named, the calendar year has shifted out of alignment with the actual orbit of the earth, so the meteor shower happens at a different Moon now.
Noktmoon: From Old Ponish for night (Nokt), since Autumn Equinox happens first of this month: now nights are longer than days.
Vintamoon: From Old Ponish for Winter (Vintar), as this is when winter starts.
Endemoon: From Old Ponish for end (Ende). The last month of the year.
---WEEKS---
One Week consists of five Days. Equestria does not have as strict of a weekend as we do --most ponies are self-employed, and just decide for themselves which days they work and are off. But some structure is needed for those employed by the state; to ensure ponies work at the same time and so ponies know when services are open. Thus, a standard day-off a week was mandated, as well as new moon day and full moon day. I.e. the first day in the week, every third week. So one day off for two weeks, then two days off.
This applies to everyone --that isn’t in emergency services that is-- working for the government in any capacity. This includes schools, which follow the same schedule. Some companies, especially those working closely with the government, are starting to adopt the same schedule, but it’s nowhere near universal.
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Since I’d already decided on basing Moons on the three times five calendar we saw in “It’s About Time”, I made weeks five days long.
I wasn’t sure what to do with non-working days. I don’t think that they work all day every day, it doesn’t seem to fit with them having so much time and days to spend together, so they do take days off. But, they don’t (as far as we know) have religious reasons mandating a specific day of rest or anything like that, so maybe they just pick days of rest themselves? But-but, they do have things like postal services, road-workers, town hall does something I’m sure... so I’d imagine the crown would like to keep everyone working the same days and off the same days to keep things simple. Hence, the mix system. Some ponies just work whenever and take days off whenever, some follow a schedule set by the crown. Which at 105 days (least common denominator of 15 and 7) is 28 days off. If we here have a two-day weekend and seven day week, at 105 days that gives us 30 days off. They have less free time than we do! Except... I’m also headcanoning ponies as having a lot of holidays (in the year I just put the biggest ones, there are tons of smaller regional holidays), due to how much we see them in the show, which gives half-days off all the time. Plus, not sure how long a work-day is for them, they seem to be free whenever in the show... In the end, I’d say the majority of ponies work less than what we’d consider full time. (With exceptions of course, both ponies and work vary) (...Workaholic Georg, who works over 10,000 each day, is an outlier and should not have been counted)
Regarding names... In the show, I can remember one mention of a weekday --in “Lesson Zero”, Twilight sent her letter "last Tuesday". So I made sure to include it. But aside from that, I basically just... looked up what weekdays are called, picked some different ones, modified them, and added some Old Ponish ones just for fun.
So here’s the reasonings:
Sunday: ...S-sun. Day.
Maruday: Dawn (Old Ponish, “Marung”) day. Marudays during Marunmoon are lucky!
Tirsday: Tyr’s day
Marday: Mars’ day
Tuesday: Tyr’s day
Veladay: Separate (Old Ponish, “Velatten”) day
Mercuday: Mercury’s day
Odsday: Oden’s day
Mitday: Middle (of the week) day
Thorsday: Thor’s day
Veniday: Venus’ day
Laugday: Bath (Old norse, “Laug”) day
Wasday: Wash (Old Ponish, “Wasta”) day
Moonday: ...Moonday.
Luniday: Luna’s day
-Calendars-
There isn’t much to say here: Calendars in equestria are about as varied as they are in our world. There are books, wall-calendars, pamphlets... calendars sorted by weeks, moons, waxing/waning, just a long list of days... think of a way of showing dates, and ponies have done it.
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Fun fact! The reason the calendars (and my depiction of a Moon) here have little red moon-symbols to mark New Moons is that in my nextgen verse, the moon’s phases are created by moving the moon in and out of the earth’s shadow --that’s how they can have both phases and only have the moon visible at night, which wouldn’t work in our system of phases being made from the sunlight hitting the moon at different angles. That also means that New Moons (Which in our world are just... the moon is a sliver during the night, completely hidden during the day, and a sliver on the other side the next night. Wow) for them, are actually all lunar eclipses. I.e. very much visible, and very much red.
----DAYS & TIMEKEEPING---
The Equestrian day is split up into 16 hours, starting and ending at midnight. Each hour has sixty minutes, and each minute is sixty seconds long. This means that an equestrian hour, minute and second is one and a half the time of our equivalent.
The reason for this odd setup --where the minutes in an hour isn’t nicely divisible by the hours in a day, so it’s easy to show them on the same clock-- is once again the mess of trying to consolidate different cultures into one. Most pegasi timekeeping was split into either twelve or twenty-four hours and sixty minutes, whereas the majority of unicorns and earth ponies used sixteen hours and either eighty or fourty minutes. (Most likely since pegasi has six limbs where unicorns and earth ponies have four, so they each used multiplices of six and four respectively). So when the different systems were mashed together, there were quite a lot of different clocks for a while. That kinda worked for most of history --exact timekeeping wasn’t that important in the past, and individual ponies didn’t tend to move often enough that switching clocks was much of an issue for the few times they did.
Then trains came! And they need to run on the same clock, unless you want chaos. So, an official clock and way of keeping time was made, taking bits from the various clocks of all three pony tribes to avoid squabbling between them. Each town who wanted a train stop had to adopt and use it, so, with some grumbling, the clock quickly spread. Nowadays, even towns without train access use this clock as it has just become the norm.
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Timekeeping in mlp is interesting. I can see a lot of clocks in episodes, and from what I can find, they almost always have eight markings (Not numbers, just lines). For example; clocktower in “Putting your hoof down”, Pinkie’s pocket watch in “Too Many Pinkie Pies”, and train station clock in “Princess Twilight Sparkle Part 1”. All with eight marks on their face, which thus presumably means that the equestrian day has some multiplication of eight hours; i.e. midnight-to-midnight is either 8, 16, 24 etc hours. (Personal pet peeve I add here because I can: In english, Day is both daytime-hours and midnight-to-midnight. In swedish, the daytime-hours is called “Dag” and midnight-to-midnight is “Dygn”. Why would you people call them the same? It’s so annoying haha)
But there was one very notable exception --in “One Bad Apple” there is an apple-themed kitchen timer, which has actual numbers on it, 5,10,15, 20... all to 60. And when it counts down, it seems to be really quick; we’re talking seconds, not minutes. Not sure why you’d want a kitchen timer that only goes up to one minute though, but what do I know. Maybe it has a second and a minute mode?
Either way, I see three options. One; there are sixty seconds to a minute, but not sixty minutes to an hour. Possible, just a bit strange.
Two; sixty seconds to a minute, sixty minutes to an hour. But we also know that they like to use five intervals, from the whole 5, 10, 15, etc markings. Which doesn't make sense for an eight hour clock, if we want to show the minutes on the same face as the hours. Which, we know they do, as they have both an hour and minute hand on their clocks. So if the minute-hand points at “1”, it’s pointing at 7,5 minutes over the hour. That’s... kinda silly. But it does work if the timer can count both seconds and minutes!
Three; pretend like the timer doesn’t exist.
As you can see, I went with option two --it’s fun and somewhat realistic when things don't make any sense, because that’s often what happens in our world. Such as; our months september to december, not being the seventh to tenth months. If you know the history, you can see the explanation as to why that is, but it’s still just completely silly. So, in this case the history explanation is the whole culture mishmash that was Equestria’s origins. And now, a lot of things are silly.
-Clocks-
Most clocks in modern equestria are similar to ours in appearance, with a clock face, hour, minute and sometimes second hands. Throughout history, many different timekeeping devices have been used; sundials being the most popular, but also candles, water clocks, hourglasses, various magical things enchanted to count time, etc.
Since there are only 16 hours midnight-to-midnight, using an 8 hour system with a.m and p.m is very uncommon, the vast majority just use a 16 hour system. I.e. “I’ll see you at 12”, “The train leaves at 9:33”. But despite that, clocks usually only have 8 marks --though, 16 versions certainly exist, they just are not as common. Notably, most clocks skip having minute marks, and ponies just guess the minutes based on where the minute-hand points at the hour marks. There are of course exceptions to this too, though.
---Notes---
Oh, stars, it's finally done! Remember the Solar System headcanon I made? (Of course you do, I mention it at the very first line) Remember how I said I'd been working on it since November 2020? Yeah... this was actually started before that one. I made the sketch and wrote the majority of this text... Then realised I may need to explain how the solar system works to justify them being able to have things like, a 30 day lunar cycle and 360 day year, aaaand... put this on hold, and made the other one first. Then slowly continued this. I tend to either focus a lot on one thing, or get sidetracked immedietly; there's very little in-between. Any art you'll see from me will either have been done in a single binge-drawing session which ends at four in the morning, or it will have slowly, slowly been built up over months.
One issue with this way of working, is I tend to think of things to mention, and forget to write it down. I think I've gotten verything here I wanted to mention, but I may have forgotten something. Oh well, what're you gonna do. Either way, I'm pretty happy with how this final version turned out! :)
so
/16 = "month"
/16/16 = "day"
/16/16/16 = "hour"
/16/16/16/16 = nothing
/16/16/16/16 = "minute"
/16/16/16/16/16 = "second"
And of course 16 is 10 in base 15+1.