Patreon Blog Takeover: How To General Equivalency Diploma Your Dragon (Brumby Run) · 10:14pm Mar 5th, 2017
Before this bit of chaos begins: as promised, I spent today working on the trope subpages for Awesome, Funny, Heartwarming, Nightmare Fuel, and Tearjerker entries. At the semi-suggestion of Remnants, I also added one new subpage: Fridge, where that first entry of 'verse Fridge Horror has been placed. If anyone has other entries or wants to try and find Fridge Brilliance or Fridge Logic in this mess, that's where to go.
And now, a few words from Brumby Run on what he's about to put everyone through.
Let's discuss Spike's education.
Before the move to Ponyville, he was note-taker for Twilight, and you've mentioned he also had private sessions with Princess Celestia. So I imagine from an educational standpoint he would be pretty advanced. I can see why he might not need to attend Cheerilee's classes.
But does he still need to take the Equestrian equivalent of standardised testing?
And what about socialisation skills? Is he welcome (expected) to visit school grounds during recess and lunch in order to learn about living with ponies?
You've mentioned he has friends outside the mane six. Who are they, and what do they do together?
Would you consider writing a fluff piece where Spike just gets to be a kid?
Thank you, and I look forward to seeing the blog.
This may take a few minutes.
* Spike's Education
In many ways, Spike has essentially slipped through the educational bureaucracy's cracks.
Such things aren't quite as bad in Equestria as they are for Earth. But where you get organizations, you get bureaucracies -- and where you get bureaucracies, you get bureaucrats, mistakes, paperwork which is ordered to substitute for reality, and the occasional burst of all-out stupidity. So what's the situation with Spike?
Well -- the Continuum's Equestria is just barely a mixed-species society. It's been noted that even for the most diverse settled zones, the percentage of non-pony residents (immigrants, long-term aliens, and citizens) will be under 2%, and for Canterlot, that includes the embassy staffs. It's also been said that Spike, while the first dragon to be raised by ponies from the hatching of his egg, is not the nation's first dragon citizen: it just happens that the prior generation didn't have any, and the most in any generation was five.
So under normal circumstances, when you get a child who isn't a pony and happens to live in Equestria, that child will attend school in the nation's school system, with ponies. Home schooling is rare and, outside of those rare circumstances where somepony lives too far away from a settled zone for proper education (rock farmers), often looked upon with suspicion: what are you teaching your kids that they can't be around other kids? (More than a few among the Loyal Opposition homeschool if they can, while others just try to rewrite the entire curriculum: neither trait endears them to most ponies.) It can mean some rather awkward adjustments: a minotaur probably has to sit at the back in order to keep the view clear and if you thought a normal new kid's first week in school was rough, try to imagine a griffon sorting out their place in that chain. But for the most part, they all go to school together, and that's included those very few dragon children who were part of Equestria's citizen population in the generations before Spike. That part of the ruleset is more than a little dusty, but it's ready to be pulled out again if it's needed.
Spike should have gone to school. The problem is that the bureaucracy is convinced he already did.
What was Spike's first mailing address? Send all your packages and correspondence care of the Gifted School...
Right. He was never admitted as a student, but as far as the educational bureaucracy is concerned, Spike attended with Twilight and graduated when she did. Little details like age and species have sort of slipped by the wayside. It's an error which is waiting to be caught. And when it does get caught, somepony is going to show up at the tree and insist he be tested and then enrolled at an appropriate grade level. Immediately.
As for what and how he's learned: essentially, he has been homeschooled. Both Twilight and her mother taught him to read. Being Twilight's research assistant and note-taker has given him an education in a wide range of subjects, mostly focused around her interests: in particular, he's better with math than you might suspect, knows quite a bit of Ancient History, and as noted in Goosed!, he can outperform a few Gifted School graduates on magical theory -- although he quickly falls apart when it hits the practical exams. But at the same time, he's lacking in many of the areas which she isn't interested in. For the sum total, you could probably put him at an overall high school sophomore level (very advanced for his age), and one who's taken a lot of summer college prep courses -- but he has a few rather basic gaps in his knowledge. For starters, he's not much for Equestrian customs: it's not as if Twilight fully celebrated a lot of holidays.
However, he's never been formally tested, not by the system. Twilight's graded him more than a few times, but Spike's never taken a formal class with other students in his life, not as a student. He spent most of her class sessions in their dorm room, waiting for her to get back. (There were a few exceptions -- but just a few.) Spike grew up in a school, but has very little personal concept of going to school. And part of him is curious -- but he also likes having his hours semi-free and has more than enough homework just from working with Twilight, thank you very much. He's mostly interested in the chance to mix with other kids more than he does, during their hours, but sitting behind a desk... Add that to the fact that neither sibling exactly has an abundance of happy memories from the Gifted School, and he's unlikely to seek out a place in the classroom on his own.
It may not prevent him from being forced to take one.
* Socialization skills
Spike, to pretty much every degree, has bounced back better than Twilight from their mutual Gifted School time: the resiliency of youth. It doesn't mean he doesn't have a few issues of his own, but he does better than she in many kinds of interactions -- if he can get the pony he's talking with to see him as truly real. In Ponyville, that's generally no longer an issue, but it still comes up when the group is traveling or somepony new enters his settled zone.
For the most part, because he's grown up with ponies, Spike thinks like one -- which isn't always the best thing for him because his dominant role model is still Twilight and every so often, he'll wind up following her example, generally just before something explodes. (However, there's a few draconic instincts lurking at the core, and he's learned to keep an eye out for them.) He has less catching up to do than she does, but his own early forced seclusion can bite him on occasion.
On the whole, however, he's capable of interacting. He just doesn't always want to: there are times when he gets truly sick of being treated as the different, and it gets worse when somepony decides he's a threat. Throw 'it' around a little too much in his presence and you may be faced with a dragon who's had a lot of time to plan his snark. He has an occasional bad habit of throwing his citizenship in somepony's face. He generally won't react unless provoked, but he decides what qualifies for provocation and he's not always right. There are times when he goes in on the defensive, looking for offense -- and those seeking something to offend them will always find it.
Celestia's taught him a lot of what he knows about getting through in pony society, but beyond that, he's never taken any classes in that either. He just has a natural curiosity about him when it comes to the world, added to a somewhat gregarious core. And if he dropped by the school and asked to sit in with a class just for the social fun of it, Cheerilee would let him -- but also be heartily confused for a few minutes because as far as she knows, he's homeschooled. He learns about being social through being social. He's a lot more naturally social than Twilight. But in her case, she has trouble opening up and with her brother, it's a case of finding those who will open up to him.
* Friends outside the Mane Cast
By this point on the timeline, most of Ponyville's children know Spike: he's a little hard to miss. And also by this point, the majority of the settled zone has come to accept and trust him (along with forgiving him after the growth spurt). There's still a few holdouts along with those worried about Water Tower Round Two, but he can freely associate with most of the kids without their parents completely freaking out. Twilight actually helps here, as many of the more secretly nervous believe she's capable of reigning him in if needed -- and it's usually the other way around.
The majority of his friendships are casual ones. He's just about always welcome in a group, especially for sports: the presence of someone with manipulating claws changes a lot of games, and Twilight's had to order a lot of mixed-species rulebooks because without them, Spike will try to get away with everything he can. He'll seek out playgrounds and attends birthday parties (in part because giving things helps keep him under control), but he doesn't really have a best friend in his own age group. This is partially due to the loss of those school hours, but it's mostly because of the Bearers: he's just used to being around adults and so socially, tends to punch above his own years. If you asked him to point out his best friend, he'd probably gesture towards Twilight first and if you told him that wasn't what you meant, he'd center on Rarity. It would take him a long time to get down to another kid, and just about everypony else would need to be excluded first. There are those who seek him out, especially if there's a big match coming up: requests to 'borrow' Spike arrive at the library during most school vacation weeks. And he likes the ponies he hangs around with, and considers them friends -- but in the end, it's not the same level of relationship he has with the other Bearers. With other kids, he's more likely to go and see who's at the sports areas than to seek out somepony specific: with adults, he knows when he wants to be at the Boutique, or the cottage, or yelling up towards that one cloud.
For the most part, he goes out to play and that's what he does: play. He also recognizes that some of the kids see him as a source of stories when it comes to the missions, but there are things he doesn't want to tell them and he can become offended when he thinks somepony's pumping him for information. (This has gotten worse in the post-ascension Murdocks era.) A lot of what he does give them for tales is sanitized for their protection. However, at the same time, he loves stories. He's also been in love with plays for just about his entire life, and if you give him the chance to perform... well, he occasionally gets a little bit carried away with recreations. As in "hang on, I'm gonna need some props. Now, you can be the timber wolf..."
And in particular, he doesn't spend a lot of time with the Crusaders: he's learned that if they're looking for him, it's probably mark-related -- and he's been in the middle of those debris fields a few too many times, thank you. (Not that he doesn't like them, but he recognizes the futility of the Crusade more than they do/did, and it's also something which tends to get Twilight about as angry as anypony ever sees her: she can't take out her frustrations over Crusader idiocy on the fillies, but her brother should know better.)
* A "Spike just being a kid" story.
It's not completely out of the question. The problem is finding a core idea (other than the 'and here's the other twenty textbooks you missed' one above) and dealing with a simple fact: he may be a kid, but he's a child who's seen and been through more than most adults. Spike's bounced back more than Twilight -- but there was something to bounce back from and since then, there's also been missions and magic and the Empire... He deals with a lot: more than most kids his age do, and that's before adding in the internal pressures of those lurking draconic instincts.
There are ways in which Twilight can be seen as a recovering addict: lost in her studies, nearly completely fallen into her mark. In such households, while that addiction is still going, the youngest often wind up taking over on the things the adult neglected.
Spike may be small, but mentally, he had to grow up in a hurry.
this reminds me of a story, it might have been one of Etsee's, where a bureaucrat was giving Fluttershy a hard time about "unlicensed pets" and considered Discord to be a pet!
What's Spikes relationship with Shining Armour?
I've seen a few stories where they have a fairly strong brotherly relationship normally a sort of relaxed Big Bro, Little Bro thing. Now that's probably not going to fit with the triptichverse. Does Shining Armour accept Spike as part of the family? He was presumably at military academy or on duty for much of Spikes life given he seemed to drift apart from his sister has he retained any connection with her brother/son/assistant/ward/caregiver?
A lot of insight, and not just into Spike. Your Twilight is truly and deeply damaged, and few people in or out of your work fully appreciate just how bad it got. That includes me. If she ever heard the title her canon analogue settled on, she might think of it as more of a cruel or at least tasteless joke than anything.
Also, seeing the Crusaders' failure to recognize futility being expressed in the past tense does give me hope. Tragic hope, given what it took for Apple Bloom to see the light, but hope.
As for the dragon of the hour himself, as I said, this offered a highly enlightening look into your take on him and his daily life. Thank you for it.
What's worse, Spike has become accustomed to being the Most Trusted Individual for the brilliant Twilight Sparkle (now Princess), and acting as sort-of the anti-Twilight, as in when she's panicked, he has to be calm, when she's overworking herself, he has to step in, etc... And some of that 'bright' has rubbed-off.
"Ah!" Measured Response gave a huff of suppressed aggravation at the sight of Spike casually strolling into the testing room. "Finally! Take your quill and be seated, please. This standardized test for the Equestrian Education Evaluation committee will take four hours, starting--"
"Just a moment, Mister Response," said Spike, looking over the top of the sealed test. "You have the wrong age category on the E3 here. This is the Twelve Year Revision B7 Stroke Q E3 test for multi-species performance evaluation."
The bureaucrat frowned, flipping through his notes. "You are twelve."
"Yes, but testing for non-pony races is based on a sliding scale," explained Spike. "Twilight was researching it a few years ago. You need the table found in 'Equestrian Educational Evaluation Average Age Adjustment' or what Twilight called the E3A3."
"Not a problem." The unicorn dipped into his briefcase and flipped through forms briefly before extracting a piece of thick cardboard festooned with numbers. "Now, your species is draconus vulgarus, which puts us on this line, average age of--" The bureaucrat stopped and looked at Spike over the top of his glasses.
"One thousand, eight hundred and fifty," confirmed Spike. "Which leaves you in the first column, Toddler Pre-School. There's only one E3 test for that age category, and the answers are triangle, house, red, blue, pegasus, unicorn, and Princess Celestia. Can I go now? I left Twilight alone in Princess Luna's library, and she's in a reshelving mood."
Is Spike ever going to pursue his own ambitions? From what you say, it sounds like Spike might one day become a writer or a director or a playwright.
I swear, at this point there's so much lore for this verse that you might as well just make a whole fic bible.
This also raises other questions
1) How much (if any) schooling is required? Reading Rawlings books (The Yearling & others (pre WWI rural Florida)) home schooling was pretty standard outside the larger towns. Reading The Great Brain books (small town Utah, late 19th century), it was the same there. Maybe the law required schools, but the towns just had too few kids + too few resources = no school. Those that could afford it sent their kids to boarding schools or hired tutors (School Marm was one of the few jobs an unmarried woman could take). Those that couldn't did without. Reading To Kill A Mockingbird (small town South, 1930s), the Ewells (poor white trash) were made to attend school the 1st day & otherwise just ignored as hopeless. (Scout's teacher (a Yankee) is appalled) & that doesn't count minorities who got less up until at least the late 1950s. I've read that in WWII, about 2/3 of US enlisted personnel had not graduated High School.
So, how much is required? I mean REALLY required & they'll bust your chops for it as opposed to what it says on paper? It is my Head Canon that the Ponyville school only goes to 8th grade & after that you are usually working/in an apprenticeship. Considering that Dash has ADD (Testing, 1,2,3...), she probably either dropped out or cheated massively, AJ & Big Mac having to work the farm (might be why they're so strict about Bloom's schooling) & Rarity's apprenticeship in fashion, it seems plausible that Twilight & maybe Fluttershy are the only ones to have even a High School education.
You want an idea? How about Twilight is the one that hasn't filled her quota & Spike has to tutor her for school credits to graduate? I can hear Dash now "You flunked RECESS? How is that even possible? How is that a thing?" "Juveniles need nonstructured interaction with their peer group to achieve optimum socialization." "Huh?" "Kids have to play with their friends to learn how to get along with folks"
A lot to take in. You really do bring that richness and depth of thought into all the characters you write, huh?
I like Spike having a place in the Ponyville kids ecosystem. It adds that other layer of complexity to his relationship to the town in addition to his otherness as a dragon. I feel like I haven't seen many fics that just have Spike running around outside playing or mentioning his extracurricular activities outside of his relationships to Rarity and Twilight in an offhand way.
It makes sense too, that hanging out with Twilight and the other Bearers would socialize Spike more with adults than his peers. I have some experience with that myself.
I have heard it said that there is no greater tragedy than a child caring for an adult. I've seen shades of that in your work. Painting Twilight as something akin to an addict makes far too much sense...
And even if the adult recovers, the child continues the role of caregiver. Often to the frustration of both.
It's not hard to see why Spike has intergrated himself with Twilight's friends. If something happens, he is going to need help. But I also wonder if he is also watching them. Those closest to you have the most power to hurt you. In their earliest days in Ponyville, how much of what the six did together was regarded with suspicion by Spike?
Abuse victims and child caregivers tend to be broken in similar ways. I wonder if Pinkie recognises that in Spike?
Anyway, here's hoping that if the bureaucracy catches up with him, both manage to survive. It often seems that those most deeply mired in the production of red tape seem incapable of recognising (or producing) snark.
4444756
I love the idea that he's got the answers memorised.
4444715
RIP, bureaucrat.
4444756
The benefits of studying.
That's one of the most insightful descriptions of Spike I've ever seen. Kudos, Estee.
4444756 He's going to regret that someday, when word gets around to the other bureaucrats, and Spike wants to attend Prom or get a balloon license or something, and he's told he needs to be at least 115 to get a learner's permit.
This might be a very interesting story if told from the bureaucrat's POV. Probably just some just hired employ who discovered this and made the mistake about pointing it out to someone in charge, so since he call attention to problem now he has to FIX it.
4446912
If Estee were to write a story along those lines, I would drop everything to read it the moment it was published. Well, the moment I found out it was published.
4447442 Yeah, it would be interesting. I would also point out that no one joins the public sector to keep the status quo, they want to change things for the better. Fix the system and help others, it takes years of exposure to make someone into a heartless bureaucrat.
Man, this one is just beyond my skills at the moment otherwise I might take a crack at it.
After he counted every blade of grass on Applejack's farm, I am not going to surprised by anything math-related.
Not that that number is possibly accurate. Not for the entirety of the farm. If he counted a specific section, yes, which is already incredible.