Review: Daring Do and the Secret of the Sunken City · 4:27am May 8th, 2017
Daring Do and the Secret of the Sunken City is a good fic and you should read it.
Now.
You want more of a recommendation than that? Well, then...
Daring Do and the Secret of the Sunken City
Author: 8686
The story starts out simple: Daring Do finds a two-keyed lock in an old ruin, but abandons it after numerous fruitless attempts to open it alone. While struggling to write her next book years later, she remembers the ruin and her then-recent initial meeting with Rainbow Dash and her friends. Although she's still a bit stuck in her "I work alone" mentality even after the meeting, she's in desperate need of a story to meet a deadline; admitting that she needs some help, Daring enlists Rainbow Dash's help to open the lock. But Rainbow refuses to go if Twilight can't go, too. Daring reluctantly complies, and so the three set out on a quest, with Twilight and Rainbow Dash doing their darnedest to get Daring to come out of the shell of being a lone wolf. Character development and adventure ensue.
To call the plot "tight" would be an understatement. Nothing is only used once if it can be reused in a new context, or used in a way completely different from the obvious use, or both. Just as an example, the group needs to cross a mountain range to get to their destination. Why can't just they fly over? The sky around the mountains is teeming with huge flocks super-territorial flying monsters that attack anything that enters their airspace, forcing them to stay groundbound. Far from the monsters just padding the story out a little, one thing leads to another, and they drive the trio into a cave, where major character development happens. And not only that, but these things later return for the climax. It's all perfectly natural and flows together nicely. Even if the plot isn't particularly complicated, it executes the basics very cleverly. The adventure elements also work great, finding that sweet spot of danger at "does the universe just hate us?" without piling on so much trouble that it's "does the author just hate us?"
The characters are great. Nopony feels out of character, and there are lots of little back-and-forth moments that just make everypony feel more alive. There's bits ranging from Rainbow Dash channeling Pinkie in trying to befriend Daring ("Twilight?" "Yes, Rainbow?" "Daring Do doesn't want to be friends. Is it okay to still try to be friends with her?" "Yes, Rainbow.") to a brief discussion on the difference between Dark magic and dark magic (one's evil magic, the other's lack-of-physical-light magic) to commentary on dreams ("[Rainbow Dash] is dreaming about having to take her Wonderbolt History exams again, and she totally hasn't studied at all. And she's completely naked. ...Not sure why that last part's an issue but apparently it is."), and they all work so well. Heck, I even want to see more of Caballeron's minions based almost entirely on a lecture one stallion gives to the new guy about how to keep fights from getting too violent, because foals are going to be reading this, you know. Daring's overall character arc of learning to trust others is great; it feels like you took the optimism of Equestria, injected that with a dose of reality, and injected that with another dose of optimism. It's more complex than what the show usually handles, but never strays too far from the show's tone. It can get a bit ham-fisted at times, though, going so far as to make Daring barely understand how friendship works as opposed to just being introverted. There's one part where Rainbow guesses what Twilight's thinking, and Daring instantly assumes telepathy for no real reason. The worst of it is confined to the first third, though, so it's not like she's completely clueless the whole way through.
That being said, there are some issues. In particular, the epilogue is pretty much completely divorced from the rest of the fic; it could be removed entirely and change absolutely nothing. Not only that, it's written in a totally different style: there's a tense shift, a POV shift, a setting shift, a plot shift, and we're following a character who was only mentioned two or three times before, always in an offhand manner and never by name. It feels like it's from a different fic altogether. In fact, it technically is; it's a reference to another fic by the same author. I realize that this is, all things considered, a minor complaint. But why is the story's conclusion about something unrelated to the story? It's what I'm most likely to remember. Additionally, Caballeron is a famous archaeologist in-story, to the point that national newspapers have articles about his latest expedition. Small articles, admittedly, but the mere existence of the article outside of a dedicated archaeological publication implies Caballeron is incredibly famous within his relevant circles. This strains the suspension of disbelief even more than the whole "Daring Do is real" thing does; there's no way you can convince me that no one ever heard of both Caballeron, the character, and Caballeron, the actual archaeologist, and put two and two together. But this is a minor thing at worst, and it does lead to some pretty great jokes about the use of real ponies as fictional characters and royalties. And what the "A. K." in A. K. Yearling means is so referencey it hurts. Bad.
But those are all minor things, nothing that even comes close to breaking the story. The story grabbed me right from the get-go and kept me hooked to the last word (except for the epilogue). Basically, if you like Daring Do, adventure, character arcs, or some combination of the three, read it. Now.
So, what doe's the A.K. stand for? I'm trying to puzzle it out. Wait, don't tell me it's something like Arthur and Conan, but with a K....
I already have. It's one of my favorites.
4524249 It's Avada Kedavra. It's supposedly from another language, but come on.
4524270 Hah
Perhaps they assumed that someone writing incredibly formulaic pulp adventure stories was probably the sort of person who'd insert a shout-out to a famous archaeologist in a series ostensibly about archaeology. Heck, people probably think Daring Do is based on the IRL Caballeron.
Okay, okay, I'll go read it...