Diamond Tiara has a simple system for getting perfect marks in school. Silver Spoon does all the studying, and then she lets Diamond Tiara copy her answers. Unfortunately for Diamond Tiara, Cheerilee has caught on to this and has switched their seating around. Now Diamond Tiara is sitting with Snips and Snails. Faced with the unspeakable alternatives of either failing her class or actually trying to catch up on her studies in the last week before finals, Diamond Tiara is determined to coax her new "partners" into doing the studying for her instead.
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Tropes found in this story include:
- Abusive Parents: They're not physically abusive, but the emotional abuse, and their feuding, ultimately has Cheerilee sending Diamond Tiara to the police station to get the local child welfare officer to intervene between the Gastropes and Bradels, because she thinks they're that bad.
- Becoming the Mask: Debatable. Diamond comes to some degree of understanding with Snips and Snails over the course of the story, but it's difficult to judge whether she actually forms a true friendship with them. Notably, in Chapter 5, she refuses to commit to seeing them over the summer — but in the moment she was asked, she was facing the possibility of grounding, summer school, or both: it's possible that she didn't answer because she didn't know.
- Blessed with Suck: Diamond Tiara actually doesn't think very highly of the earth pony talent for geokinesis; this is because their talent requires "asking" the earth to respond, which means it has a chance to fail, and she can't tilt the odds in her favor like she can with a pony because the earth doesn't care about her tantrums, bribes, blackmail or threats.
- Calling the Old Man Out: After Diamond Tiara finally calls the Gastropes and the Bradels out on their foolish vendetta and blaming each other's son for the trouble they both get into, Snips and Snails muster the courage to do similar. Snails in particular warns that if they do force them to move to seperate settled zones, his special talent will let him find Snips and the two of them can both escape and find each other whenever they want.
- Child Prodigy: Diamond Tiara evidently came into her magic quite a bit before the norm for earth pony foals, as she's capable of carefully coaxing bugs to the surface with it in what is implied to be a rather advanced maneuver. (Essentially, she slowly and carefully collapses the microtunnels behind the insects, filling in the passage in such a way as to force its occupants to move up. As tools go, it's something which doesn't require any real raw power — but the degree of field dexterity necessary to perform manipulations that fine isn't a low one.)
- Complexity Addiction: Diamond Tiara would rather come up with an elaborate plan to secretly tutor Snips 'n' Snails and then cheat off of them than take the far faster and easier route of just studying on her own. Ultimately subverted when, after being forced to confess, Snips and Snails sit down with her and help her study for herself.
- Deliberate Underperformance: Mixed with Obfuscating Stupidity. As said in the third chapter, Snips and Snails can pass Cherrilee's classes, they just don't, so they can hang out in summer school.
- Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Every sign indicates that Diamond Tiara would probably do just fine if she studied, and in fact by tutoring the colts she's pretty much studying anyway. She just refuses to do things honestly because it's beneath her... even if it means doing more work than would actually be required to do things the honest way.
- "Fawlty Towers" Plot: Pretty much everything is being driven by Diamond Tiara lying to various ponies in order to cheat her way to victory on the exam. And, in true Fawlty Towers tradition, it all comes crashing down on her.
- Freudian Excuse: Subtle signs about just how much of a messed up little filly Diamond Tiara really is slowly build up over the course of the story.
- Friend to Bugs: Snails, obviously, is very devoted to invertebrates: it's the actual focus of his mark, including a communication ability similar to Fluttershy's. And surprisingly, Diamond Tiara becomes quite enamored with one of Snails' collection: a rare Saddle Arabian Jewel Scarab named Cameo. Her fascination with Cameo is so obvious that Snails decides Diamond Tiara would be a good choice to take care of her instead.
- Gender Scoff: From Chapter 3, with emphasis on "boys", while Diamond Tiara is insulting them:'Try to form some level of personal connection with your employees. Have a conversation with them. It doesn't have to be a deep one. Just show them you have some things in common.'
As if Diamond would ever have anything in common with the world's dumbest boys.
[...]
Talking to colts. Stupid ones. There really wasn't anything she wouldn't do to make her daddy happy again. - Gotta Pass the Class: Diamond has to find a way to pass the class when she can't cheat off of Silver Spoon anymore.
- Heads or Tails?: From Chapter 4, when needing to decide between Snips and Snails:She'd flipped a single bit shortly after leaving the schoolhouse, let the facing pick the initial target. And then she'd followed one of her employees home.
- Idiot Ball: In chapter 6, after Snails has made a present of Cameo to Diamond Tiara, he then stops her from leaving and tells her he needs to take the bug off of her tiara. Diamond immediately assumes he's suddenly changed his mind and runs away — in actual fact, he was trying to warn her that if she's spotted with an unusual bug on her head, it could give away that she's been hanging around with Snails. Sure enough, in the very next chapter, it comes to bite her, as Snips and Snails' parents realize their sons are hanging out with each other, which results in everyone being forced to "talk about it" in Cheerilee's schoolhouse.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Make no mistake, it's buried deep, deep down, but, Diamond Tiara does show small signs of caring for others. Most notably in chapter 5; not only does she allow Snips and Snails to play with her toys, even playing alongside them after coming up with a suitable "excuse" for herself, but there's what happens at recess. After hearing that Snails has to dig with his horn for bugs because differentiation prevents him using telekinesis to extract them, she secretly uses her own earth pony magic to coax some bugs to the surface for him, revealing an implicitly very rare species that he's clearly been after for a long time — but at the same time, it's possible that she just did it because she was bored with watching the slow route and thought she could get away with using the magic around the other earth pony students.
- Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: Diamond is afraid Cheerilee will invoke this after the teacher catches Diamond using truespeech around Snails. It doesn't quite work out that way: Cheerilee does tell Diamond to find an excuse why the supposed 'tap the soil to bring the bugs up' trick won't work twice, as Diamond probably doesn't want to follow Snails around for the rest of her life — but there's also a hint that the teacher isn't exactly fond of the Secret.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Mixed with Deliberate Underperformance. It turns out that Snips and Snails deliberately act up in class and flunk, so they'll be forced to do remedial work during the summer — which gives them an opportunity to hang out together, as their parents are trying to keep them separate. Under normal circumstances, they only see each other at school — and so their solution was to find a way of taking classes year-round.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Diamond Tiara's reaction in chapter 5 when she realizes Cheerilee recognized Diamond Tiara was using her "earthspeaking" skill in front of a unicorn.
- Likewise, at the chapter's end, when Cheerilee implicitly threatens her that she had better get Snips and Snails to pass after Cheerilee went along with Diamond Tiara's false claim. After all, Diamond had told the parents of both colts that she had to tutor their sons or be punished — and hadn't specified what that punishment was, giving Cheerilee a lot of leeway in creating something suitable.
- Pet the Dog:
- Diamond Tiara allowing Snips and Snails to play with her previously-unopened toys. (But just the ones which show no signs of appreciating in value on the secondary market.)
- Diamond Tiara risking exposing The Secret, or being censored for her near-exposure, to help Snails find some rare bugs. (However, this one's debatable: she was operating on very little sleep at the time, and her thoughts suggest that part of her reasoning was in simply doing something which unicorn magic couldn't: showing off to herself.)
- Snails decides to give his precious jeweled scarab, Cameo, to Diamond Tiara because he thinks she would make a good owner for her.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Cheerilee isn't sure of what Diamond Tiara's plan is, but the hope that the filly is really trying to help the two class clowns is enough to make her support Diamond Tiara's claim. Though she promptly follows up on this by confronting Diamond Tiara and making sure that she's not going to screw things up for the colts. Likewise, there's a possible implication she doesn't really support the idea of earth ponies keeping The Secret from the other tribes.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
- Diamond Tiara gets a very gentle, concerned one from her father early on. It doesn't really affect her attitude, but it does scare her with the idea that she's lost his love, which is why she's so driven to get her perfect grades.
- Diamond Tiara gets a more conventional one from Snails' father when she shows up to tutor Snails.
- And then the very last chapter puts Diamond on the unleashing end, chewing out Snails' father and Snips' mother from the elevated lecturing point of Cheerliee's desk.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Deconstructed. Yes, Diamond Tiara has been able to use her father's wealth and/or status to escape punishment or get her way... but, this has an impact on her father's reputation. It's led to her father's Ponyville business dropping as the parents of the classmates she bullies stop buying from him in silent, perfectly legal protest.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Snails doesn't just collect bugs: he can communicate with them by reading their body language and actions. He claims it's the special talent related to his mark — and then proves it by speaking about the little tunnels which Diamond collapsed, relating the event as the insects perceived it. (However, he believes those collapses were due to the vibrations from tapping hooves, and just says he won't do that again.)
- Spoiled Brat: Much of the story revolves around the concept of Diamond Tiara's father realizing he has spoiled his daughter and trying to force her to change — and her reaction to that.
- It's also a Deconstruction of the trope in that it shows how, realistically, the other ponies of Ponyville would react to Diamond for being such a brat. At one point, Snails' father gets extremely hostile when Diamond Tiara shows up, making her genuinely fearful of him.
- Take a Third Option: The entirety of the story's plot revolves around the concept of Diamond Tiara attempting to do this, in the face of either studying on her own or failing the class.
- Would Hurt a Child: From Chapter 4, Mr. Gastrope, almost attacking her with his magic, before slamming the door on her and almost charging at her with his horn.
