These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
Alas, Poor Scrappy: Despite her status as The Scrappy, you can't help but feel sorry for Short Stuff when she finally appears again, this time in the Expanded Universe-she pulls a Big Damn Heroes to save Daring... and is brutally beaten and stabbed within an inch of her life by Krastos. She would have died had Daring not been around to save her.
Alas, Poor Villain: When Inferno believed Ahuizotl smashed her egg, she went on a rampage forcing the fleet called in as reinforcements to shoot her down. When Daring showed that the egg was fine, she said she was sorry, and asked Daring to keep it safe before collapsing.
Though word is they're trying to get David Haye. Even if means potentially more MGI in the movies, there are those who are saying "Yeeeeeeeess..."
The departure of Bravado's original actor from the film series stirred up a lot of controversy and angst among the fandom — until it was revealed that he would be replaced by Bruce Campfire. Cue screams of excitement, especially from those who had been saying all along that Bruce should have been Bravado.
Liam Neighson as Star Swirl the Bearded. That is all.
Aaaaaand that seems to have fallen through. Wonder who they will...wait...Tom Braeker you say?
Samuel L. Mothersquawkin' Hawkson as Professor Storm Talon. Who else is looking forward to his "DOES. SHE. LOOK. LIKE. A. WITCH?" speech to Nagridge?
Awesome Ego: Bravado is very smug, but he has the skills to back it up.
Better Than Canon: Though only published recently in a few Daring Do Fanzines, Daring Do and the Elements of Harmony has quickly become the most famous and well-liked fan work out there. Published under an obvious pseudonym, rumor has it it was written by Princess Celestia herself.
Most of the collaborative fanworks by two ponies with the pen names MagicSpark and Rainboom20% are praised for this as well. Except for Rainboom20%'s infamous story "Diamonds", in which Herpy goes nuts and does horriblehorrible things to Daring in his basement*
It was the first fan fiction to receive the "Grimdark as BUCK" rating on Derring Do Daily
. Fortunately, she admits that it was just a Troll Fic and apologized after MagicSpark forced her to.
Allegedly, MagicSpark also made Rainboom20% use an alias and write a sequel revealing that it was All Just a Dream and ending in a tender, friendly hug between Herpy and Daring.
And now they have some friends online who write great fanfictions as well; SweetApple04 writes excellent action stories, Queen-Of-Fashion09 writes surprisingly good romance stories, PinkPartyPwny18 writes a plethora of different stories but specializes in fast-paced comedies and a few weirdly cute Herpy/BravadoSlash Fics, and ImmaDragon10, who writes crazy Crack Fic. StareMaster17 doesn't really write much, but she does post some marvelous fanart.
Curse You, Daring Do! The Life and Times of the Ahuizotl, a recently-published revisionist take on the Daring Do mythos. YMMV on whether it's this or Canon Defilement, though.
Well known cosplayer BerryshinePuncher has gotten a lot of praise for her well written shipping fanfics, though once she typed up an entire Bravado/Herpy ficwhile drunk and shared it on Dochan for a good laugh with the fandom, typos and all!
HandStringsGirl, despite some of her self-inserts with her and Ahuizotl, is easily one of the finest writers of crossovers between My Small Human, and the Daring Do series, to the point where she was recently given a Con Panel at Darrincon 1002.
BloodyBlueCompassRose is by no means a great fanfic writer. He is really full of himself and his OC is a blatant Mary Sue, a dashing prince with a Cutie Mark similar to Daring's. However, his works are VERY popular fodder for MST readings, and lots of writers like including his OC as a conflict-driving royal jerkass, a full-on villain, or just a plain old bucking bag.
Temple of Nightmare Moon is considered by most fans to be either the best or worst book in the series due to it's Darker and Edgier nature. Either the reduced comedy and added drama make it more mature, realistic, and focused, or the reduced reliance on Rule Of Cool and Rule of Funny robs the story of the charm that the other books have.
The Shipping Wars: Daring/Herpy vs. Daring/Bravado and in at least one case Bravado/Herpy.
There's a fanfiction by Rainboom20% (see above) that parodies this; Daring finds herself caught in the middle of a love triangle which eventually comes to blows... and then she smacks both boys, tells them that she's Married to the Job and flies off in a huff.
For the few that care enough, the correct way to spell Mahavir's/Mahiavar's name. At a Daring Do Convention, one of the rooms erupted into a full-on brawl over this.
Whether or not the Young Adventure novels are canon.
Some fans are more than a little irritated that such a dark character exists in the books with overtly stated evil actions, rather than leaving the horrifying actions to reader interpretation.
The announced Ultimate Universe comic books are causing claims of Ruined Forever on one side, but the other side is interested in how they'll handle the mythos.
Crazy Awesome: Krastos. Among other moments, he rides a teleporting tricycle to Chineigh and then uses magic glue to turn into a minotaur. No, really.
How about his cannon that shoots other cannons?
Complete Monster: Ahuizotl, both literally and figuratively: he's perfectly willing to kill both innocent bystanders and accomplices if it furthers his plans and he's a Hayan demon.
Mareton in Alicorn's Shadow. To put this into perspective: The remnants of Nightmare Moon's power corrupts anyone who isn't "pure of heart or intention". It doesn't do anything to him. Quite the contrary, he considers it a "warm breeze". This seems to imply that he may be pure evil...maybe.
Creator's Pet: Digg is seen as such, to the extent that he's appeared in the Young Daring Do series, and would have gotten lines if the draft for Children of Primus was ever completed.
There's even a subset of the Daring Do fandom that call themselves "Ahuizotl's kittens". They're his fangirls and one of them (with the username Handstringsgirl) that claims to be his bride on an astral plane. Whatever that means...
Even more disturbing, there are actually Krastos fangirls. Let that sink in. Krastos, the Eldritch Abomination who tortures ponies to death and steals their souls... has fangirls!
Commandant Rex gets a fair bit of love. It helps that unlike Krastos and Ahuiztol, there actually is a twistedsenseof nobilityin him. And being voiced by Pony Jay also helped increase his popularity. But some ponies forget he's still a cruel slaver who eats live animals and is intensely loyal to a war criminal.
The Wooden Mask, despite never speaking (aside from radio adaptations) or being confirmed to be sentient, managed to become popular in the fandom for the mysteries behind it. Also because of Evil Is Sexy, see below.
Evil Is Sexy: Daring's slow but gradual corruption in "The Wooden Mask" is described in... Interesting detail. There are some fanfic writers who make her evil again to get her back into this look.
Zuri has quite a few fans, let's just say that.
Fan Dumb: One of the worst, bordering on the insane. There's even been an incident of a crazed fan breaking into a hospital so she could finish reading a specific copy of The Sapphire Stone.
Reports conflict that she was actually trying to steal some slippers. Not that it's any better, mind you.
Did we mention that in both cases she was stealing from a cancer patient?
It supposedly happened in the injuries ward. The patient may simply have had his head shaved earlier on in a series of escalating dares that landed him in the hospital in the first place.
Which still doesn't excuse that the crazy idiot broke into a hospital to get at one of the books! But get this, I have this friend who lives in Ponyville, and get this, the fan who broke in? Yeah, one of her (the fan's) best friends runs the library, which had all the books. Sometimes, I just don't get other ponies...
Fan Nickname: The first book in the series is more often referred to as Daring Do and the Sapphire Statue, than its actual name of Daring Do and the Sapphire Stone.
There is also the renaming of Koloktos to "Tauroktos" in "Daring-Do and the Redhorn Cult".
Fan Preferred Couple: Daring/Herpy has a large following, it is teased rather heavily in Ring Of The Marengeti
Fandom Rivalry: With the Hairy Trotter and Sherclop Pones fans. Also fans of the Silver Sword series, which doesn't make much sense since its author is also a fan of Daring Do.
Fanon Discontinuity: The recent book Daring Do and the Legacy of Nightmare Moon has suffered this treatment for straying from the core principles of the franchise, including neither Ahuizotl or ancient artifacts. Instead the book focused on thwarting the plot of the draconic Inti to use the magic of the stars to conquer Equestria.
It is still considered an excellent story by some though.
Friendly Fandoms: Somehow it managed to gain this with the fans of the surprisingly popular foal book series 'My Short Human', with its inclusion of a woman side character with the likeness of our favorite Action Mare,there's even fanart of her to boot.◊
Gannon-Banned: It's widely considered a major faux-hoof among fans to bring up the spelling error of Ahuisotl in the first-print run of the Wooden Mask.
Ironically, the first-print runs themselves are collector's items and sell well at auctions specifically because of the spelling error.
Genius Bonus: Ahuizotl's design is based on an actual creature from ancient Hayan mythology.
Harsher in Hindsight: In Daring Do and the Alicorn's Shadow a old griffon healer mentions the Great Beasts of Chaos and Destruction will arrive to reclaim their land. Of course, Chaos is Discord and Destruction is Tirac. Then you-know-who escaped his stone prison and tried to take over. The other hasn't happened yet, but hey it's just a story right?
Don't forget Ahuizotl's threats of eternal night in The Temple of Nightmare Moon. Then the Summer Sun Celebration happened. This is starting to get a little creepy...
And at the end of Return of the Fire of Friendship, a dying King Mayhem said that the Changelings would take Equestria. Three years later...
In The Temple of Nightmare Moon the words: "To serve in the Pageant of the Night is Life Eternal." are interpreted by Daring to be a glorious afterlife for the followers of Nightmare Moon. However in The Legacy of Nightmare Moon it is clear that Nightmare Moon has something else in mind.
Hotter and Sexier: The rather infamous erotic comic series by John Poniesco.
In Name Only : The second radio adaption of "Quest for The Sapphire Stone". Among other things, Ahuizotl is now a griffon, and the Sapphire Stone is a sword. The only things it seems to share in common with the actual book is the protagonist.
Magnificent Bastard: Hoo boy Ahuizotl he figures out early on that Daring will eventually grab all the artifacts he is searching for, so he starts to put up only enough of a struggle to where she thinks he is giving it his all, while secretly instilling various moles and spies in the University. He also uses a proxy to get Daring to sign off an exhibit that is a reconstruction the Temple Of Nightmare Moon, the fortress from where the Goddess launched her war on the Sun and one of the components necessary to to the ritual he intends to use the artifacts in. This way, when Daring destroys the original temple and brings the final artifact home, he is already waiting there to take and start the ritual.
Memetic Badass: In Trident of the Seaponies, there's a crusty old sailor pony who saves Daring Do during a Bar Brawl by smacking a frying pan on the head of a Mook, all without looking up from his lunch. The fans have dubbed him 'Sea-Shanty,' and speculation on his identity have ranged from him being Daring's hired protection to being Celestia's long-lost brother in disguise, with a list of 'facts' as long as your leg. Many of his fans petition endlessly for him to show up in future stories.
Calypso, Daring's pet macaw, gets a similar treatment. Claims range from being Daring's boss to being The bird behind Ahuizotl.
Moral Event Horizon: In Mystery of Flutter Valley, we meet the Flutterponies, a sweet and innocent species. However, soon after Daring meets them, they all mysteriously disappear, which is the titular mystery that Daring must solve. It eventually turns out that Krastos was the cause of the disappearance. And by disappearance, we mean genocide.
Narm Charm: The live stage play features many such moments according to many fans due to the careful balance of Camp and dramatic delivery from the leading ponies.
The Scrappy: A little filly named Short Stuff was introduced in Daring Do and the Cove of Candles...she hasn't been well liked by fans.
That said, fans who, while not particularly fond of her, but don't harbor the seething hatred most of the fandom seems to have, have made a small series of Expanded Universe short stories focusing on her life and adventures in Shanghay. Only haters so stuck in their hatred that other haters roll their eyes at them claim the attempts to be anything less than impressive. There have been rumors of her appearing in a future book that uses their characterization, but so far nothing has come about. But, if the author(s) do use the ideas the fans have generated, it is almost unanimously agreed that Short Stuff would indeed become Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
So Okay It's Average: Aside from Lord Bullrush's haminess and Koloktos' return, this has been the general response for "Daring-Do and the Redhorn Cult".
They Changed It, Now It Sucks: This has been the reaction from some fans after reading how Koloktos was resurrected and given a minotaur head in the Expanded Universe story, "Daring-Do and the Redhorn Cult".
Villain Decay: Ahuizotl's competence started to decrease before his "death" in "Temple Of Nightmare Moon". When he finally came back, this trope was turned on its head, with him going back to the threat level he originally had.
What the Moon, Casting Agency: Okay, we knew we wouldn't be getting anyone of the late Pony Jay's caliber any time soon playing Commandant Rex for the movies, and having an actual Diamond Dog actor helps cut down on the excessive Magic Generated effects that ponies have been complaining about lately but... David Bowwow?
What Do You Mean, It's For Foals?: Times change and public concepts of what is acceptable for little fillies and colts to read shifts. At the time the books were apparently written, many of the things that would make the series cringe-worthy if it were introduced in modern times didn't cause much concern. Many current adaptations to other media meant for our youth soften or edit out the questionable bits.
Recently, the return of Princess Luna has caused fresh interest in Temple of Nightmare Moon and Legacy of Nightmare Moon.
Canterlot (meaning Princess Luna) has not, yet, given any official response.
Some Daring Do analysts theorize Hawkwings was a metaphor for the growing distance between griffon and pony (and indeed the growing isolationism of Equestria in general. Nowadays there are towns where the residents wouldn't even recognize most of the foreign populations that are commonly found in these books).
