TDiamond of Darkness

• MLP: FiM
• RWBY
• Random
• Slice of Life

My name is Diamond Tiara, and this is the story of how I became a Succubus Royal in another universe...

• Profanity
• Fetish
• Anthro
• Crossover
• Alt. Universe
• Diamond Tiara
• Silver Spoon
• OC
• Other

alfonso_rd_33 · 40k words  ·  20  14 · 855 views

I read: 4 chapters at 3,094 words
I rate: 4/10
I recommend: Skip even if you like Darkstalkers.

Well, I can compliment the author on having seen Totally Legit Recap. However, I cannot compliment him on showing me how the heck Darkstalkers is. This is a crossover with said video game, by the way - in case you were wondering. I sure was, namely because the tag gets buried under a blurb.

So, what happens here? Well, a particularly snarky and self-aware Diamond Tiara winds up getting sucked into the world of Darkstalkers. And then? Nothing, really. She meets the big names, schmoozes around the palace and that’s about it for the first four chapters I’m obliged to read as per my contract. I didn’t read the rest because, frankly, Diamond is written well enough here to carry a story and everyone else (the Darkstalker crew) isn’t shown to have enough personality to carry a scene. And that’s a shame because, from what I understand, the franchise’s characters do have personality, it just really isn’t carried through here at all due to stilted dialogue.

Otherwise, the writing itself is mostly passable. The author understands how perspective is supposed to work better than I myself do and the exposition goes down fairly well. However, I must note that dialogue doesn’t get its own line until somebody new starts talking.

‘To which the little one just fell into her buttocks, her face taking a comical thinking expression before smugly muttering...

"Damon Tara."

Then Belial just laughed loudly as he took the little one, carrying her gently as he said...

"Then your name is Diamond Tiara, is it not, little one?"’

As shown above, that gets hard to read fast - especially in a fairly dialogue-heavy story, like this one. Furthermore, it isn’t consistently done either so I can’t really mark it up to a stylistic choice, just a random annoyance.

My next point is the “Slice of Life” issue. Ideally, SoL is supposed to dramatise the mundane lives people have into interesting spectator sports. Sure, baking a cake or going to school isn’t the most exciting thing in the world - the stakes are low and the conflict small - however, SoL is intended to make this relatively unimportant and trivial vignettes into relevant and relatable things. The problem here is that such is not the case. Diamond doesn’t explore the Darkstalkers universe so much as sit on her ass and get pampered by Belial’s minions - instead of having minor conflicts blown up or explored, there is no conflict for the first three chapters. She doesn’t even want to go home or figure out how she wound up in a different reality.

Plot: 2/5. It is slow at best.
Characters: 2/5. Diamond is likeable but the Darkstalkers characters are really underwhelming.
Style: 2/5. The style is inconsistent and could use some more editing than what its already received.
Execution: 2/5. SoL is supposed to be calm, not boring.
Overall Rating: 8/20 = 4/10

To alfonso_rd_33: My advice to you would be to actually rewrite this. Either amp up the SoL elements and give Diamond more to do, maybe keep the narration in first-person as well so the reader can see her snark more, or make it into an adventure with her trying to escape or explore this new universe.

For something like this:

• Outsider's Game: Night King is similar in that its a crossover with a game franchise with vaguely similar themes - a dude from Vampire: The Masquerade winds up in Equestria and has a really bad time there.

As always, if you enjoyed this review, please check out more of my writing here.

Thanks for the honest review!