Did You Know... · 6:16am Nov 2nd, 2019
Howdy, folks! First and foremost, as always, Adorable Applejack:
Happy Appulween!
Anywho, DID YOU KNOW THAT...
There are, at the time of this blog being published, 129,247 stories on FIMFiction?
And of those 129,247 stories... only 446 have the "Diamond Dog" tag?
That's about 0.35%.
NOW YOU KNOW!!!
Now, granted, Diamond Dogs only appeared in one out of 222 episodes of the actual show. According to the internet smart people, that amounts to about 0.45% of the show. After A Dog and Pony Show, they only ever appeared in one Equestria Girlsshort. So, I guess it makes sense, but still, it makes me wonder... why?
I mean, for a long time, changelings only appeared in one episode. Well, okay, technically two, but you get what I mean. And yet, they were massively expanded upon in fan fiction. Especially in the early days in the fandom, when all we had to go on for backstory and lore was random, one-off, throwaway lines of dialogue, Dogs were largely forgotten. Now, full disclosure, I haven't gone through all the stories on the list, but when I searched for stories with the "Diamond Dogs" tag and looked at the first few pages, they were all either Human in Equestria fics, which are overwhelmingly shit, or shitty clop fics. Furthermore, the stories that didn't fit those bills, they were almost always portrayed as uncouth, stupid bandits.
Now, again, I fully realize that, in the only time they were seen in canon, they were, in fact, uncouth, stupid bandits. However, going back to the changelings, they were expanded and given more character. Before Thorax was even a glint in Megan McCarthy's eyes, we had stories about friendly changelings, and bugs who sought to break the mold. Why didn't this happen with Dogs?
The only truly popular story that I know of that dealt with them was The Ambassador's Son, a story that, if you read Under A Luminous Sky and Finding Your Place, you know I am a fan of, since I used characters from those stories in them. But even then, Dogs were again portrayed as a stupid, scattered race. It was only in the sequel, King of Diamonds, that it was hinted that they had a rich culture, and it might return. Sadly, the ever talented midnightshadow dropped of the face of the internet, and the story was abandoned.
There was, however, another story I love that expanded upon the race. It comes from a story you likely haven't read. It's on my user page, under the Even More Stories you Need to Read or You Fail At Life list. It's a fantastic story called Mines of Dragon Mountain. It's a Doctor Who crossover, with the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant's Doctor, having been turned into a pony. In it, there is a Diamond Dog character named Zeitgeist Stardust, who goes by Ziggy. Get it?
Get it?!
Get it?!
Anywho, he's portrayed as a witty, successful businessman. Which made me think: what if there were Diamond Dogs who weren't usual idiots? What if there was one who was erudite, intelligent, educated, and charming?
I think you can see where this is going.
This is why I made the character Fidelis Igneous, or Fido to his close friends. I wanted to show what a character of that race would look like if he was different, and what he would go through. I largely modeled his family after early-colonial India. That is, most children of affluent or wealthy families would be sent to England to study. This is why most notable or prominent Indian people used to speak with British accents, and why Fido speaks with a Trottingham accent. His Pack had a decent amount of money and influence, so he was allowed to attend schooling outside Canidae, the country I gave them, to further his education.
He faces trials in his life in Equestria. We see this when the frumpy mare in Chapter Five if FYP barrels into him and calls him a "troll." I stole this term from Ambassador's Son, which is what Dogs are most often called in that story. I find the term... offensive. I mean, even before internet culture, the word "troll" usually carried a connotation for being rough, crude, and uncivilized. A creature beneath your average person, the type of person you look down your nose at. One of the very few regrets I have about that story is that I didn't explore this deeper.
Another thing I did in FYP, something that earned me the eternal ire of my then pre-reader, current dear friend, and known blind zebra Pilot, is I heavily implied a blooming romance between Fido and Twilight Sparkle. I did this for two reasons: for one, I just felt that, once the character developed, he had become an intellectual equal to Twilight, and someone she would find intriguing. And two, I had never seen it. In my many years on this site, I have seen ponies shipped with dragons, griffons, changelings, hippogriffs, and even yaks, but never a Diamond Dog, except for, again, shitty clop fics.
So, if you even have an opinion on this topic... why do you think this is? Why has every other race been expanded upon and explored, but Diamond Dogs have largely been ignored by talented authors?
Also, in a completely unrelated, totally not connected, and 100% random topic, I am working on the early stages of a story...
Most likely because of a variety of reasons. The Dogs showed up early enough people didn't really know what to do with them or care to do anything. They're just dogs, which doesn't really spark the imagination of most people. They were overwhelmingly portrayed as silly comic relief, and in an episode that didn't really have the "punch" of Chrysalis' reveal, so they passed out of mind quickly. Also they were all male, and in a fandom already mostly men, that alone simply makes them less appealing to think about to most guys. If we had a cute girl diamond dog I'm sure they'd have at least stayed in the popular imagination longer, or at least had even more clopfics.
I don’t think the show’s writers knew what to do with them after their initial episode. I always saw them as kobolds; basically annoying, minor monsters for the adventurers to step on. Maybe someone might give them the Goblin Slayer treatment and make them particularly menacing. If I had to integrate them more to the universe, I would have attached them to dragons as they share living space (caves) and food (gems). They have to compete with dragons which is not exactly an enviable state. I imagine a colossal adult dragon having a tribe of diamond dogs serving it in its lair, having them act as guards and treasure scavengers in return for allowing them some choice bits from the hoard and some living space (preferably out of sight), which is typical lore for kobolds by the way.
Most of the smart dog appearances are brief cameo's in certain fics.
Still fics like https://www.fimfiction.net/story/6515/days-of-wasp-and-spider has them being extremely intelligent. Still keep the odd speech pattern but I think most people do.
Comics canon.
As for better Diamond Dog representation, beyond the aforementioned Days of Wasp and Spider, Why We Dig has a fascinating spin on the subject, and Touch the Sky is definitely going somewhere interesting. And I did recently publish one story mostly told from a Diamond Dog's perspective... and based on the reactions, it seems like a lot of the people active in the fandom at the moment came in well after Season 1, which means that "A Dog and Pony Show" was just part of the mass of data they had to process as they learned about Equestria, easily getting lost in the shuffle.
Check out Kudzuhaiku's latest works... There's some sympathetic doggy characters there, along with a little social commentary regarding their place in Equestria.
As for the Changelings, they've got the whole Goth-Bug-Queen going. Proper villains, and all.
That, and there's the fact that Changelings are shapeshifters and infiltrators. Not only does this mean that Anybody Could Be A Changeling, but also there's reason for any given changeling to interact with normal ponies. And the whole 'feeds on love' thing is pretty much written for shipping. Lotta potential there, is all I'm saying.
In comparison, Diamond Dogs are ... basically G-rated orcs. Which isn't to say people can't do stuff with 'em, but it's a little trickier, y'know?
Man, few forgotten things irk me as much as Diamond Dogs. It's not even like the buffalo, where forgetting about them was kind of a good idea.
The thing about them is that they're almost a blank slate, and what's there is purely confounding. I mean, dogs living underground, that kind of makes sense. They can make armor, that's a thing. And they hunt for gems. Why? What's the connection? I can come up with a few -- for food, like dragons, or as a source of trade, or because they're hoarders, like dragons (hm) -- but they aren't really enough to start up a whole civilization. Maybe that's just me, but I've always wanted to get Word of Faust backstory on them, since they're a purely S1 construct at this point.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Echo the Diamond Dog, though I'm not a fan of that one, myself. Me, I've got one idea for a show-style two-parter where they come back, but it's little more than an idea.
They showed up in an issue of the Friends Forever comic where Trixie ended up becoming their queen when they thought she could sense gemstones. Trixie called them stupid, but they made a point of saying they weren't like the bandits shown in the show.
Other than that... yeah, pretty much no Dogs. That is weird.
You make a really good point. There really aren't a lot of stories with the DD tag. However, that doesn't necessarily mean there aren't stories that have them as what you could call 'character parts.' Pen Stroke's The Road Home is a pretty good example. They play on both ends of the spectrum in terms of intelligence when they appear.
And I think part of the reason why are you can’t find them is because of the nature of character tags early on in this website’s history. In the early years the tags were the faces of characters. “Diamond Dogs” were represented with Rover, Fido and Spot. So maybe some people made stories exploring the species, but left out the tag because it didn’t have those three?
This would involve the writers being able to see beyond their own biases. We didn't really get a functioning, non-Equestrian culture until the later seasons.
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The Dogs also might have had more 'punch,' or appeal to the male audience, if they came from a position of power or envy. They aren't the carefree-prankster than can do anything like Discord, aren't the conquering overlord like Sombra, or the juggernaut of power that is Tirek.
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Minor mob creatures is a good abscription. I've seen them come up a lot as minor side-antagonists in stories like Rorschach in Equestria and Waking Nightmares
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I think part of the reason might have been how character tags worked early on in this website’s history. In the early years the tags were the faces of characters. “Diamond Dogs” were represented with Rover, Fido and Spot. So maybe some people made stories exploring the species, but left out the tag because it didn’t have those three?
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Are you talking about Dogged Determination? Because that's the only story with The #DiamondDogs tag. Are you mean something more recent?
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I didn't realize you had issue with the Buffalo. I liked their episode, but I kind of understand where some people come from on representation of Native Americans. But I thought they deserved to at least show their faces more than once in seasons 4 and 9 each.
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The buffalo maybe weren't a bad idea in the abstract sense, but they were handled terribly. After they show up, that whole episode became a sham, I can't blame DHX for being embarrassed by them.
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Also check out the Sunfire barrony story
Same basic portrayal, but Diamond Dogs do get used well in Estee's Triptych. There, it's implied that there are more intelligent Diamond Dogs, and in fact Rarity returned to the Dogs near Ponyville and worked out an actual deal with them that didn't result in slavery, and actually ended up learning a ton about their culture as a result (which helps to solve a minor mystery near the beginning of the story.)
I actually asked Big Jim Miller about why we never saw the Diamond Dogs again in a Twitter AMA the day after the finale. This is what he had to say:
66.media.tumblr.com/a5ff5462f1d53cfffedf17498290f670/b28784a4b7b24075-58/s1280x1920/840a1bb72583f933196d54a1a032c5a73dec6e00.png
Seems the onus is on Hasbro then.
*shakes fist at the sky*
HAAAAASSSSSSSBRRRRROOOOOOOO!!!!!!!