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Rainbow Dash and the Daring Do Double Dare (Novel, January 7th 2014)

I'm continuing to do these novels, as the prior ones each did have something interesting in them that was picked up by the show in some way. I'm not sure if that's going to continue to be true, but we'll see.

Summary: Yet again, Rainbow Dash has to prove she is the Daring-ist Daring Do fan.

Heh. Big Mac is also a Daring Do fan. And dabbles a bit in cosplay.

This author really like the idea of Mythica, Neigh York. I wonder if the author is from Ithica?

I... okay. Bookworm. Sentient. Fine. It's Fluttershy, so ... fine.

Yeah, this one is going to annoy me a little, isn't it? It's parodying what I do in a way. Here, the ponies are talking about the realism of Daring Do, where I talk about how Equestria might work realistically.

Okay, that's subtle. This is indicating that this is taking place after Daring Don't, but isn't doing so flat out.

We get the Ghastly Gorge again, with the Quarray Eels. In this, the distance from Ponyville to the Gorge is a brisk walk but no more.

Froggy Bottom Bog again.

Interesting. Rainbow Dash doesn't like hot peppers at all.

The peppers in question come from South Amareica, past the San Palomino Desert. Cute.

Zecora had in her possession yet another artifact. This time the 'half-gilded horseshoe' which is a key to a Spirit Circle... Half-gilding is a real art technique, using the gilding basically as a pigment, and the bare base material usually being polished to provide a contrasting color. Spirit Circles are vaguely like group meditation, usually treated as a séance-like event, but not always. And the ponies have the concept of generic malevolent spirits.

Colossa-gators, about the size of the Ursa Minor. Pity the author wasn't in-the-know of current series events, or it likely would have been Rockadiles.

Given the way this thing is set up, I was expecting this all to be a con of some sort to re-teach Rainbow a lesson. But they don't follow through with a reveal, oddly enough. If Braze was just a recolored Zecora it would be a lot easier to write off as all a set up, which would make sense. But the only pony Braze could really be if this was a con, is Big Mac under a *lot* of makeup, as the description Rainbow Dash gives of Braze is way too male for Zecora. Which they have done before in the show, again with Zecora involved so it kind of hangs together. But he would have had to do all that rhyming as well, which he... might be able to do, but you'd think they would have stuck a reveal in there at the end just for the reader if nothing else. We seem to be being asked to take this one straight. So I'm a bit confused.

If we are to take this straight, then the Castle of the Pony Sisters has a lot of other odd things going on, including a gateway to a spiritual realm secured by a key that *Zecora* has possession of. So... the shadow figure shown at the end of Castle-Mania would reasonably have been Zecora... or this Braze if they do in fact bring him into canon some time later. Hrm.