Hey I was wondering if there was an order to watch tell your tale and make your mark, or if they're mostly separate?
There is kind of an order, but it's fairly complicated, especially because the release schedule for Make Your Mark was changed significantly after the release of Chapter 3. (If you'd just like to look at the order we determined, skip to the bottom of the post.)
Originally, Make Your Mark was to have been released in 7 chapters, not 6, and this change affected the whole release schedule.
Each special would have been its own chapter: "Bridlewoodstock" would have been Chapter 5 and "Secrets of Starlight" would have been Chapter 7.
Chapter 4 would have had 7 episodes and Chapter 6 would have had 8 episodes.
We don't actually know the ultimate source of this information, but it has been partially confirmed by people who worked on the shows.
We don't know the production order of the Tell Your Tale episodes or if the release order was changed in response to the Make Your Mark changes. However, we can make the following determinations:
Tell Your Tale season 1 episodes 11–13 are based on Make Your Mark Chapter 1 ("Make Your Mark"). Episodes 12–13 are set before Chapter 1 and episode 11 is set after Chapter 1.
Tell Your Tale season 1 episode 29 takes place after Make Your Mark Chapter 2.
Tell Your Tale season 1 episodes 36 and 39 are based on Make Your Mark Chapter 3 ("Winter Wishday"). Episode 36 is set before "Winter Wishday" and episode 39 is set during "Winter Wishday".
Tell Your Tale season 1 episode 54 takes place after Make Your Mark Chapter 4 episodes 2–7 and Make Your Mark Chapter 5 episode 1 ("Cutie Blossom Bash").
Make Your Mark Chapter 4 episode 1 ("Bridlewoodstock") takes place after the other episodes in Chapter 4. Originally, it would have been released after Make Your Mark Chapter 5 episode 1 ("Cutie Blossom Bash") and before Make Your Mark Chapter 5 episode 2 ("Family Trees, Pt. 1").
Tell Your Tale season 1 episodes 55–56 are based on "Bridlewoodstock", and both take place during "Bridlewoodstock".
Tell Your Tale season 1 episodes 63, 65 and 66 must take place after Make Your Mark Chapter 5 episode 4 ("Father of the Bridlewood"), and episode 63 must take place before Make Your Mark Chapter 6 episode 2 ("Roots of All Evil, Pt. 1").
Tell Your Tale season 1 episode 62 must take place after Make Your Mark Chapter 6 episode 1 ("The Isle of Scaly").
Tell Your Tale season 1 episode 67 is based on and takes place during Make Your Mark Chapter 6 episode 3 ("The Rise and Fall, Pt. 2").
Tell Your Tale season 1 episodes 68 and 70 are based on Make Your Mark Chapter 6 episode 4 ("Secrets of Starlight"). Both of them take place after "Secrets of Starlight".
Within Tell Your Tale, episode 8 was released before episode 7 and episode 26 was released before episode 25, but this doesn't really seem to matter.
Now that we have all this information, we can create a watch order:
TYTS1 E12–13 · MYMC1 E1 · TYTS1 E11
TYTS1 E36 · MYMC3 E1 · TYTS1 E39 · TYTS1 E37–38, E40
MYMC4 E2–7 · MYMC5 E1 · TYTS1 E54
MYMC5 E2–6 · TYTS1 E63–66
MYMC6 E1–3 · TYTS1 E67 · TYTS1 E62
For comparison, you can check out the episode guide on Equestria Daily, but some of this blog's admins might have helped make that, so don't treat this post as being an independent corroboration of that guide.
