School Daze

---

A fanfic written by PaleoPrints

After her students release the spirit of Discord on an official field trip, Cheerilee finds herself out of a job. With no opportunities in Ponyville, the schoolmare takes a job offer in the inner city area of Canterlot's old mining town. Can even she overcome the insanities of her colleagues and apathy of her students in time to pass her next annual review? And who is the mysterious backwards-talking filly following Cheerilee around? Luna's School for Disadvantaged Youngsters will never be the same!

You can find it here

Tropes used in School Daze include:

• Absent-Minded Professor - Red Glare is this with shades of Cloudcuckoolander.
• Adults Are Useless - Since the festival goers don't believe Screwball's warnings, the students have to mount the daring rescue into the collapsed mine to save their trapped teachers and Sluice's father.
• Alpha Bitch: Bomber Jacket, Initially
• Ascended Extra: It’s a 74,000 word novel about Cheerilee, who is not a main character in the source material.
• As Himself: Running Dangerfield, who "gets no respect I tell ya."
• Break the Cutie: Screwy in the last few chapters. She suffers internal hemorrhages of increasing severity whenever she tries to communicate normally. Narrowly averted in the end.
• Buffy-Speak: "You’re… good at the thing where you mix the words and the stuff and they do things in the brain.”
• But Now I Must Go: Averted: Cheerilee stays in Old Canterlot.
• Cool Teacher - Cheerilee, Golden Ratio, Globe Trotter and Red Glare all certainly qualify.
• Dean Bitterman - Principal Prunecrop is this in spades.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Red, to Cheerilee
• The Eighties - the story itself is a Shout-Out to Stand and Deliver so this is only natural.
• Education Through Pyrotechnics - Red Glare seems to be rather fond of this trope.
• First Guy Wins - Red Glare for Cheerilee.
• Five-Man Band:
  • The Hero- Screwy
  • The Lancer- Quest
  • The Smart Guy – Crunch
  • The Big Guy- Flip
  • The Chick – Luster
  • Sixth Ranger- Bomber
• Fundraiser Carnival - The plan Cheerilee comes up with to save the school.
• High School
• High School Sweethearts: Crunch and Luster, Screwball and Quest
• Inevitable Waterfall - Screwball and her friends face one in the collapsed mine. While rafting on an underground river.
• Inner-City School - Naturally, as the school is located in Inner Canterlot.
• Les Yay: Word of God has it that the references to Lyra and Cheerilee's earlier relationship in college counts.
• Manipulative Bastard - Discord. He emotionally assaults Cheerilee during her darkest moments, creates a distraction in Ponyville which nearly holds up the element bearers and the princesses from helping the teachers when they are trapped in the mine, and tricks Celestia into believing he did it all to help Screwball, his "daughter"... who he in fact feels nothing but contempt for and is only using as a way of escaping his imprisonment, negating the elements binding of him. Clever bastard, eh?
• Noodle Incident - The Cutie Mark Crusader's escapades touched briefly on in the first chapter.
• Running Gag: The salacious pictures of Cheerilee left behind by her last class.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: In terms of the last chapter title; every chapter before that is titled with the name of an 80's song. Chapter 11 is left titleless until its end.
• Shout-Out: Dozens of lines of dialogue are lines from 80's songs, especially Men at Work and Talking Heads.
• Six-Student Clique:
  • The Head — Quest Talltale
  • The Muscle — Flip Turnpage
  • The Quirk — Screwball
  • The Pretty One — Luster Shinebrick
  • The Smart One — Crunch Tallymark
  • The Wild One- Bomber Jacket
• Speech Impediment - Screwball says the exact opposite of what she means, and she's prone to using third person. It is later revealed that Discord created her this way on purpose. She can speak normally with a great effort of concentration, but it takes an enormous toll on her body to do so.
• Sucky School - Unfortunately, Princess Luna's School For Disadvantaged Youngsters is not exactly up to scratch. The building itself being an old prison doesn't help matters much.
• Teens Are Monsters: At least initially.
• The Verse: According to the summary of the author's stand-alone prequel, Choices, this is in the same universe as another one of said author's works, The Three Whooves (or at least that starts in the same universe as this).
• Xanatos Gambit: Discord. He even calls out the trope-namer in one scene by growing a mustache, renaming a pony 'Owned,' and telling him that "Everything is going according to plan."
• Yeah! Shot: There's an ending bro-hoof done with magical aid.