Amelia

I really don't think the first bit is entirely true. I don't think the Girls are identical, they have more or less the same personality transplanted into a more grounded world which changes other aspects of their characterization, which I think makes them overall very distinct characters from their originals. Sci-Twi for example, is a completely different character than Twilight and is also really adorable and funny, which makes her my favorite. Whereas Fluttershy, though she has a lot of stuff going for her (interest in photography and heavy metal music, apparently likes video games, especially violent ones and is surprisingly competitive) they never really focus on her so her unique attributes aren't really given much screentime, which makes her my least favorite.

A few things, not trying to be rude but: Rabia is a lady, not a dude. She doesn't do anything of note other than manipulate Cadance and Radiant Hope. Granted, she was the only Umbrum not to be defeated by the combined forces of Rarity's parents, a few hamsters and the Cutie Mark Crusaders throwing apples, so that's...something? But she was effortlessly taken out by Sombra. Siege of the Crystal Empire was stupid. Also. Celestia and Luna were both stated to have infinite power and were able to be capable of reshaping the entire multiverse, which is infinite in scale, and Discords mind alone is the size of infinite realms, which he and Accord could both reshape. Sombra is probably stronger than them since in the alternate timeline, Applejack remarked that even with Celestia, they couldn't stop Sombra. Gusty was explicitly implied to be nowhere as powerful as Grogar, who himself has no actual feats, as she had to defeat him by stealing his bell. Theirs nothing that puts her in the same league as even, say, Twilight Sparkle. A proper tier list would probably be: Bookworm. Was shown to be able to destroy entire universes. Starswirl the Bearded. Generally in the same power range as the Princesses, but expressed they were far and above superior than him, even when they were just teenagers. Pony of Shadows. Was sealed away by Eris and not to much more powerful than basic Stygian or Starswirl iirc. Princess Eris. Was actively scared of Luna and not to much more powerful than unicorns like Tempest Shadow. Kind of a pushover in her storyline. Princess Cadance. Probably in the same league as the other princesses, generally treated as such at least. Queen Chrysalis. Shown to be able to fight Luna, but was defeated after a beam struggle in Siege of the Crystal Empire. Princess Luna / Princess Argent / Dupluna. Reasons above. Princess Celestia / Princess Solar / Nightmare Star / Fauxlestia. Shown to be equal or a bit stronger than Luna. (it was implied during Cosmos that the Abyssinian Royal Family, King Aspen and Queen Novo may be in the same league as Celestia and Luna and have their own versions of the Elements of Harmony but otherwise have no real feats) Sombra. Reasons above.Consistently shown that Luna and Celestia can't really defeat him without artifacts Cosmos. Took all the monarchs to defeat, but was beaten by Discord. Discord / Accord. Has yet to have any real opposition and has cosmic tier feats as stated above which by themselves are higher than other characters. Tirek at full power. Has the power of Discord and the Princesses. Normal Tirek is hard to place. Other characters of note would be Empress Twilight Sparkle (siad to be the most dangerous force Equestria ever encountered), Bad Apple (had some of Luna's energy), King Anubis (implied to be the Nightmare Moon of Anugypt), King Leo (Celestia's cousin) and Storm King.

Is Equestria Daily giving false information or am I out of the loop? Their sidebar says its a series, but the information I found for it implies it's just a one-shot anthology. Regardless, I'm super stoked. I'm of the camp that Equestria Girls is far and away better than FIM but never quite got to live up to its potential with a lack of serialized content outside of the shorts, which ranged in quality from really good to pretty good.

So a few months ago, an official stage play was produced in China in about 20-21 cities (sources vary) called My Little Pony: Crown of Friendship. Equestria Daily posted an article on it recently. I tried to find a some production for it, primarily a cast/crew list, to no luck. I found its name in Mandarin (友谊的皇冠) and searched it on various engines (Google, Baidu, Chinese Wikipedia, the MLP Huiji Wiki etc), but I can't seem to find any sort of cast/crew list for it. Most sites I found for it just list press release information (some of which include weird marketing info saying stuff like "everyone from hot moms to single men will enjoy it" ??? might be a google translate error). But yeah, no info on the actual production of it. I found a page for it on EquestriaCN (which is like a Chinese news site for the show, like Equestria Daily), but aside from some fan speculation and quips, nothing aside from press info. I also searched for the name there to see if there was any followups, but nothing as far as I could tell. If theirs any Chinese user out there who kept up with the play or anyone whose more proficient in Mandarin who can better search Chinese sites, please let me know. Thanks! (P.S., first time posting a thread here, hope I didn't mess anything up)

I've only read the first one (and Rainbow Dash Rights the Ship which is basically a Daring Do book). I thought they were overall fun, better than most of the novels but kinda had that problem a lot of junior fantasy I've read where their idea of world-building is just naming tons of random places and things, which can get kinda overwhelming if you're like me. It was really wild to see the books so thoroughly referenced in Equestria Girls though. For those unaware, the film throughout Tales of Canterlot High/Magical Movie Night/The Series (why does that special have so many alternate names?) was actually a recreation of the plot of the first book. It was kinda cool, but G.M. Berrow stuff in general gets referenced in the show more than other secondary media.