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Description

From this fanfic.
 
I’ve never read it, so I can’t give a context of what’s happening here. But I have a description!
 
Spike’s life has always been one of boyish fantasy, lusting after the mare of his dreams and goofing off when not helping Twilight Sparkle. For as long as he can remember, he’s always been Twilight’s little brother first and assistant second. As an androgynous baby dragon, it’s always been assumed that he was male based on what other ponies, namely Twilight, have said. Why would anybody have any reason to say differently?
 
Following traumatic and confusing circumstances, Spike is left with an enormous question on his hands. How could he have laid eggs? Only one pony has the answer, and it will shatter the basis of his entire life. Ultimately, life is only what you make of it, and it’s up to Spike to determine where to go from there.

Comments

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Sjogre
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

@Background Pony #CBD4  
Still, we have to believe that Celestia is a total bitch uber-goddess of trolling to make the whole scenario work,
 
Celestia did use the Crystal Empire as a pop quiz for her student, after all. And didn’t realize when Cadance was replaced by a bug-queen that wasn’t exactly winning an Emmy for Best Actress.
 
And she used the egg of a species that Equestrians know next to nothing about as a test.
 
As much as I don’t like the Tyrantlestia interpretation, the show makes Celestia out to be highly fallible and fully capable of making questionable judgment calls.
Itsthinking
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@Background Pony #CBD4  
I dislike this story and that interpretation of Spike. I also don’t like calling him a “beta male,” considering he’s still sort of young and in a weird phase of his life.
 
I want to write a story about the Spike few people see.
Background Pony #9E02
Let’s not play around here and pretend like we don’t really know what the fic was about.
 
Spike is a beta male. The majority of the fandom hates him for it, or at best ignores him due to it. Spike is useless because he can’t advance the series plot. Every episode he’s starred in has been about him making mistakes and being “wrong”. Even in his “hero moments” he’s not really done anything. It was Cadence who stopped Sombra, and the team was really never in danger in “Power Ponies”.
 
Most Bronies dismiss Spike and think that he’s a waste of screen time because of this, and as a male who is subservient to a group of females they find him pathetic.
 
Seven Fates, in this fic, does to Spike what the fandom at large has been doing to Spike since the first episode. Seven Fates rips off Spikes cock(s) and balls and turns him into an ugly girl. No male who is subservient to teenaged girls deserves him masculinity, right? No wonder Bronies who hate Spike loved this fic.
 
The thing is, that’s woefully unfair. Spike isn’t useless, and he’s not immasculine. He’s a little kid! It’s not fair to castrate him of his balls if they haven’t dropped yet!
 
Spike has constantly struggled against is own limitations. In many ways, he’s the most tragic figure in the whole series. He is the only character who isn’t allowed any positive contributions, and he is fated to see the mares he loves go on to other things. The only thing Spike has waiting for him is sitting and sighing at Rarity’s wedding, getting kicked out of his house so Twilight and Flash Sentry can screw, and then eventually being forced to leave Equestria and live among dragons who will shun him and consider him a pussy.
 
This fic completely abandoned Spike central character arc in order to create artificial drama of him actually being female. This was reliant on the reader having to to suspend all disbelief in the years of Twilight’s observation of her number one assistant and his mental, physical, and emotional needs.
 
Oh, hey… Twilight ignoring Spike. Maybe it wasn’t so unbelievable!
 
Still, we have to believe that Celestia is a total bitch uber-goddess of trolling to make the whole scenario work, and throw everything we know about nature vs. nurture out the window. “I’m still Spike,” s/he protests in the story… even though Seven Fates just spent 6,000 words convincing us that everything else about the world is some bizarro funhouse.
 
In the end, this work accomplishes what it set out to do, and I have to give Seven Fates credit for that.
 
It got him on the FIMFiction Featured Bar and earned him dozens of new Followers.
 
Congratulations.
 
I hope he writes about the actual Spike some day. He does have some writing talent, and that would be nice to see.
Background Pony #E0BD
@Background Pony #817C  
Even in those rare amounts of reptiles that can undergo Parthenogenesis, such as Whiptail Lizards, the individual reptile will still almost always undergo the act of intercourse with another lizard to ensure the fertility and survival of their offspring.
Background Pony #0BD6
@Background Pony #7E7F  
Actually, mate, oviposition doesn’t require fertilization. There are quite a few species in order squamata that will lay unfertilized eggs. No intercourse necessary.
Background Pony #E0BD
@Sjogre  
Wow. Celestia is a jackass.  
So she lets Spike think he is a boy when he actually isn’t just so she doesn’t ruin Twilight’s childlike wonder. That is whole new levels of stupid!  
Secondly, Spike has been to a doctor and a vet. I think either of them would have brought something up.  
Finally, how in the nine levels of hell did Spike get pregnant to lay an egg. If we are to believe this contrived series of circumstances, this would mean that he had to have intercourse with a male dragon. Which if he thought he was a male dragon who was attracted to female ponies, would never happen.
Spiked Punch

@Sjogre  
My point is simply that this scenario seems to need to reach for too many unlikely facts about dragon biology in order to work, even if it is all fiction with them. Its far too unlikely that absolutely nothing about them can give away their gender to beings that coexist with them for a while (even moreso to members of his own race) when Equestria has medical specialists & vets, and the princess’s personal student just got herself a dragon companion of her own, and even for most reptiles a simple analysis is usually enough.
 
Basically, while the possibility “might exist” as you said, for things to work the way they need to, too many ponies would need to either ignore common sense and/or suddenly become too dumb to realize what they have to do or what they need to look for all at the same time. Even Celestia herself, who apparently realized Spike was male but for some bizarre reason seems to think that the best time for a guy to realize that he’s actually a girl, is once he/she has already built him/herself a personal identity, and prefferably during a shocking and mind-shattering physical experience that his/her mind wasn’r prepared for.
 
Even that just seems like a rather convenient and twisted excuse that an in-character Celestia would never use. Even if she was trolling.
 
That’s just my opinion though.  
Im not trying to force these ideas on anyone. I just think the whole thing its too unlikely to try and justify the possibility of such a scenario fitting in canon. Things would’ve had to have happened differently from the beginning for it to work the way its supposed to.
 
PS: Its interesting that D&D lore states dragon anatomy is closer to felines than reptiles.  
But that’s besides the point since this isn’t D&D.
Sjogre
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

@Background Pony Number 17  
Actually, the fanfic explains this.
 
Celestia never corrected Twilight, who came to the conclusion that Spike was male through bizarre little kid logic. Celestia herself acknowledged that it was setting Spike and Twilight up for bad times, but couldn’t bring herself to tell them.
 
So, not actually reliant upon ignorance, just people being fallible and shortsighted.
Background Pony Number 17
My Little Pony - 1992 Edition

Okay, this is an epic fail by the fanfic author. Caused by one simple, mistaken assumption: that ponies, like humans, consider “male” to be the default gender.
 
Let’s accept for the moment that male and female dragons (particularly baby ones) look similar, and ponies don’t know enough about dragon anatomy to tell them apart without some study. If Celestia and Twilight Sparkle honestly didn’t know whether Spike was a boy or a girl when he was hatched, why would they raise him as a boy?
 
Equestria, after all, is a female-dominated society. Pretty much every position of authority we’ve seen has been occupied by a mare. Logically, Celestia and Twilight would’ve chosen “girl” as the default gender for Spike if they weren’t sure. The fact that they raised him as a boy–even though males are the “weaker sex” in Equestria–meant that they had figured out what sex he actually was.
Sjogre
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

@Background Pony #B493  
Have the ponies seen a female dragon that they knew was a female dragon? And could you tell the difference between a male and female reptile? It’s a bit more complicated than peeking behind their rear legs, since they don’t keep their tackle on the outside.
 
Yes, it’s unlikely, but not actually arbitrary, and not impossible.
 
Ponies just aren’t familiar with dragons, and kids tend to be androgynous.
 
Also, the fact that they didn’t use Faust’s sketch in Dragonshy doesn’t mean the form itself is automatically not canon  
It hasn’t been used in the show, therefore it is not canon. It is an unused image, and as such has no impact on the show.
 
It won’t be canon unless used in the show.
Background Pony #FB26
@Sjogre  
Its still hard to believe that all of them could be fooled. Ponies go around naked all the time and there doesn’t seem to be any problem distinguishing colts from fillies. Why should dragons be any different? Because we haven’t seen a female in the show yet? That seems a bit arbitrary.  
Sure this is all speculation we’re doing here, but still arbitrary considering the odds.
 
Also, the fact that they didn’t use Faust’s sketch in Dragonshy doesn’t mean the form itself is automatically not canon. They possibly just figured a female dragon looked too gentle to fit with the position the dragon had to fill on that episode, and saved it for a later date and different approach.
Sjogre
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

@Background Pony #B493  
You’ve never looked at a little kid and been unsure what gender they are? Between the high degree of morphology that the teen dragons displayed and the fact that reptile related animals tend to lack external genitals, some mistakes are acceptable.
 
Some of Faust’s designs were changed from the story board to the show.
 
Wasn’t the feminine dragon supposed to be the one from Dragonshy?
 
@Spiked Punch  
Yeeeesssss?
 
What’s your point?
 
While Spike never being correctly identified as biologically male or female is unlikely, it still sounds like an interesting story, and dragon biology is weird enough that the confusion isn’t completely impossible.
Itsthinking
Princess Ember - Derpi Supporter
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@Sjogre  
“I knew there was something vaguely pony-ish about you! If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were part pony!”
 
“Or maybe you’re a pony in a dragon costume.”
 
“No, dude. That was awesome! No pony could live through a belly flop like that! You’re one tough little dragon.”
Sjogre
The End wasn't The End - Found a new home after the great exodus of 2012

@MeshGearFox  
@ClownDicks  
Kind of. Not exactly. There are multiple forms of hermaphrodites. Some of them actually have the organism switch genders depending on certain conditions, others have the ability to have children and impregnate others at all time, and probably other variations.
 
Regardless of how their biology works, all dragons could just identify as masculine, with dragons simply not acknowledging a feminine gender identity.
 
Garble calling Spike a pony could have been the closest a dragon comes to calling another dragon a girl.
Background Pony #FB26
@Sjogre  
If several members of your race see you, and treat you as a male, that’s a giveaway.
 
Also, even though they haven’t appeared in the show yet, Faust once showed us what female dragons look like. They’re much more slender and feminine-looking than males.