Concepts and Creations — The Tale of Tom · 4:27pm Nov 10th, 2019

Been a while since I did one of these, so I figured why not?

Yes, I'm serious, I had a story idea with Tom as the main character. But not, it turns out, as we normally think of him.

The idea runs like this: a bunch of Diamond Dogs learn about the greatest, most precious gem ever: the Crystal Heart! But they're just a handful of dogs, and not particularly special ones, at that. So how can they get their greedy paws on something that's guarded by some ponies with pointy heads and wings and lots of boomy-boom magic? The answer: numbers! One of them knows of this thing called a Mirror Pool that can make more dogs. They just have to get past this big rock first. Which is easy if your a Diamond Dog, just dig around it!

This leads to Tom falling through the pit and into the Mirror Pool itself. When the first dog uses said Mirror Pool to make a copy, out comes a perfectly identical and rather dull Diamond Dog... who happens to be Tom. Tom doesn't really care about these dogs. He doesn't much care about anything, really. He was a rock, and now he's a dog with no idea what to do with himself.

No idea, that is, until the dogs show him a picture of their prize, the Crystal Heart. And whoa, what a beauty that is! Now Tom will do anything to get a close look at this most precious of gems.

Half-serious and half-comedy, this story would have centered around the growth of Tom as he seeks out some sort of purpose in his new existence as a Diamond Dog. Much of that revolves around his journey to the Crystal Empire, sometimes with the other dogs and sometimes not. You see, Tom's journey wouldn't have just been about getting to the Crystal Heart, but also his development into a thinking being where he once wasn't one, and developing his sense of ethics and philosophy as he goes. I'm not sure of all the details regarding this journey, although it would have certainly involved him separating from the dogs that created him on account of disagreeing with their motivations and methods, thus making them the villains. Whether other characters, like Rarity or Maud and so on, would have come into play is entirely unknown. It's also unknown if he actually succeeds in obtaining the Crystal Heart, initiating a minor crusade to get it back by the obviously unhappy crystal pony folk and their pink princess.

What is known is that I had every intention of ending the story with Tom becoming a specialist guard in the Crystal Empire, essentially in charge of watching over the Crystal Heart at all times.

I could have had a lot of fun with this for a variety of reasons. While it was intended to have a comedic slant throughout, Tom's development as a character was meant to be taken seriously, with him developing very personal goals and morals with, at least to his mind, dire stakes. Alas, it never came to be, and my priorities are such that it probably never will. Too bad. If anyone else thinks they can do the concept justice, by all means give it a go!

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