Welcome! Today I will be reviewing I Adore You Darling by daOtterguy.  Tagged as both romance and thriller, this promises to be a fascinating one, especially given what all I know about the author’s style. This was originally written for the May Pairings contest back in May, 2021. Let’s find out what it’s about, shall we?

EI Adore You Darling

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Thriller

Rarity is in love with Double Diamond. Double Diamond is not in love with Rarity.

• Rarity
• Double Diamond

daOtterGuy · 4k words  ·  27  5 · 601 views

Rarity is visiting the Crystal Empire to woo Double Diamond while he is participating in the Winter Games.

Nothing will stop her from being with her beloved Prince.

That feels a little… ominous. As a warning, spoilers abound, so only read on once you’ve read the story yourself!

I went into this not really knowing what to expect, save for the fact that some people had analyzed it in the comments--analyses which I have avoided reading until after this review is finished. And I’m glad I did because this story did not go the direction I expected. Rarity’s perspective felt perfectly in tune with her character, save for a small detail I thought a little odd, that being her reaction to the title of Ms. It’s explained away in the narration as being an insult because it makes clear she’s single, but that doesn’t feel quite right to me, not with how much she insisted on being called a lady and how “Ms. Rarity” was specifically named by her as an appropriate title when she was fending off the Diamond Dogs.

Season one musings aside, I was floored by the ending. I shouldn’t have been, not really, but the story had baffled me so much up to that point it caught me off guard. By which I mean the difference in perspectives left me feeling very different about the characters. At first Rarity’s suggested a mere interest, albeit a bit of an obsessive one akin to her interest in Blueblood, but then we get to Double Diamond’s perspective where he’s all but convinced she’s trying to kill him. And even if he wasn’t, the level of detail which she knew about him was far beyond what I would consider acceptable, to the point of stalking and frankly gross behavior that left me with a sour taste towards a character I usually love. I found it wholly appropriate he tried to defend himself from her with a knife. I would too if I were him.

And then we switch to Rarity again and everything seems easily explained away. The knowledge is from Starlight Glimmer, the bad cupcakes just more of the Belle family terrible cooking, etc, and all seems like it’s going to be well. Rarity even invites Double Diamond for what was at the very least suggested to be seven minutes in heaven, if not quite a bit more given they’re adults. But then there’s this line:

The knife stayed floating next to Rarity.

And chills ran throughout me. The next scene thereafter is one of the stadium calling repeatedly for Double Diamond while Rarity is putting on makeup and tucking away unknown objects. I had to reread the ending several times to make sure I didn’t misunderstand this next part: as the final call comes, she goes towards the starting line.

When I first read the ending I misunderstood this sequence as her simply sitting in the stadium seats, putting on makeup as a way of recovering after a seeming murder. And it still feels that way, but she… takes his place?

The ending is thus so open it’s hard to tell what happened. I intend to speculate, but let’s move on to the other sections first.

Unsurprisingly for Otter, who is very thorough at editing, there were nigh any mistakes, save for a couple with the messages that Rarity left for Double Diamond, where were a few misplaced periods or lack of commas/periods.

A terrified victim is stalked by a potential lover, only to be seemingly slain. It’s a story idea all too frequent in mainstream media… in the sense of a woman being stalked by a man. Reverse that and you have the reason this earned an extra point. It’s not common in literature for the reverse to occur, because of various power dynamics across various societies, the patriarchy we’re all forced to live under, etc. It’s also one I’m very tired of when it comes to men stalking women because it always ends up the same way: she gets killed or tortured while he’s jolly.

Yet somehow seeing that reversed was exciting. Terrifying even, when it comes to what poor Double Diamond went through. It’s much more like a black widow spider chasing after her potential mate, only to rip his head off after they consummate. Were it not for the ending, I would have suggested exactly such a thing occurred, that she murdered him after they copulated. But with her taking his place in a very public sphere, well, that belongs...

...In execution. By reversing the main central idea and giving a suggestion of something different going on--is she pretending to be him? Is she some kind of Siren or Changeling? Is she a spider pony after all that manages to hide her form? We don’t know, and we’re not going to know just from the story, and that says this was done right.

Thriller is not an easy genre to write for. You have to give them a thrill, the scares and excitement and leaps of joy that come with that concept, and you have to do it right, or else everything falls flat. It requires a rising sense of tension and a steady pace, which only belong in the hands of a skilled author like daOtterGuy.

The only reason this isn’t raised even higher is that it feels like it slightly jumps in a couple of places, where things skip forward ever just so slightly too much. Like there was room to give us a little bit more, to dial up the tension just that much faster. But then, this is short for a reason: too, as the greater the length the harder it is to keep the tension going.

And the short length greatly benefits the ambiguity of the ending too.

Plus did anyone else catch the number of the hotel room? 404. Error not found. What a brilliant little detail.

Otter’s prose is wonderful for many reasons, not the least of which is how much characterization you can derive simply from whom the scene is focusing on. When Rarity is in the spotlight, description abounds and leaps off the page, every bit of it sounding like something she would say spilling forth from her mouth in an endless stream.

By comparison Double Diamond’s is straight, to the point, and with few to no frills. It’s so refreshing it’s actually almost preferable at times to the more flowery flair that so often decorates the writing of others. One can enjoy rich cheesecake and caviar and beef wellington once in a while, but often something as plain and simple as white rice with soy sauce is just as satisfying and just as delicious. And that’s what we have here, the difference between the two, and yet they weave together without feeling like they ruin the feel of the other. Swapping back and forth is a pleasure, not a burden, as is sometimes the case for some stories.

Oh I enjoyed this story alright… at first it was merely exciting, a bit scary, and a bit gross--in terms of Rarity’s actions--but the deeper you went the more you uncovered, if subtly, what was really going on. Double Diamond’s fears seemed perfectly legitimate.

Or were they? After all, it’s always possible she didn’t harm him with the knife. It could be that in the ending she’s simply taking his place because she wore him out. Yes, that’s it… wore him out… a prime athlete...right before a major competition.

...she castrated him, didn’t she? That’s what the unknown object was. It was either that or his heart… except that makes little sense either because she was carrying it out in public and only stuffing it in her bag when she reached the stadium. Here I am speculating in the middle of the review and I still can’t tell what she did to him.

Perhaps she was a vampire and she left his drained corpse, keeping only a small trophy. Or she’s some kind of skinwalker, and what we think is Rarity was never actually Rarity at all, but something that took over her body and drove her around like a vehicle. And like any such vehicle, she was wearing out, dying over time, being used up. So it needed to switch to a new victim… and given how much knowledge Rarity learned about him, it would make sense that she could use that for the sake of pretending to be him.

Though there’s one other thought… his name, Double Diamond. Her cutie mark. How those connect, I’m not sure, but it felt like they did.

But this speculation right here, this leaving me wondering, that’s what’s got me enjoying this so much.

Whatever Rarity really did to Double Diamond, whether he’s alive--highly unlikely--or dead in some manner or another, the story leaves you guessing. It leaves you wondering in a good way, a way that makes you care about what you’d just gone through, enough to leave your brain scrambling to figure out the solution.

Is there a real one? With a story like this, you never know. Some authors have an intended interpretation but are happy to leave it open to others. Other authors never bother to think too hard about what might've actually happened, leaving it up entirely to the reader. Still others have only one possible interpretation and if you think anything else, you “weren’t paying enough attention.”

Which one this is, I don’t know, though I can always ask. Thus consider the question poised by these closing thoughts, daOtterGuy: what really happened to Double Diamond?

Whatever it was, I highly recommend reading this one. It’s short, to the point, and will carry you and scare you right up to the end. Well done, daOtterGuy. Well done.