Title: Do Unto Others
Author: Lady Salazar
Rating: M
Genre: Adventure/Humor
DLP-Category: The Alternates
Chapters: 10
Words: 54,460
Finished: Mar 4, 2015
Published: Feb 23, 2015
Summary:
James made a mistake. Lily got even. In the wake of Voldemort's resurrection, the consequences catch up to Harry, and from there it's demons, dark wizards, and devil hunters. Let's rock! HP/DMC crossover, fifth year AU.

FF.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11069458/1/Do-Unto-Others

I'm not at all familiar with DMC source material, except that it's a video-game about a demon hunter, but this felt perfectly readable to me and I didn't get lost anywhere. Basically 50k words of action with a smattering of interpersonal conflict. Pacing is a bit rushed and it hits a few tropes that some people may not enjoy. Very vivid action scenes. Worth the couple hours.

Good read; not quite up to the author's usual quality, but still far better than most of the drivel being posted on FFN these days.

 

Starts a bit weak, but definitely finishes strong.

This is quite a blend of HP and DMC. You should enjoy DMC's action scenes and taunts if you want to like this fic. Also expect basically a bastardization of HP's magic system.

In the beginning, it's a bit ehh, with angsting Harry going through teenage drama, but once the demon stuff really starts happening, it gets better. I found Harry's bitter and resentful attitude justified. The trio dynamic's a bit... not there, really. Harry and Ron become so different from their canon counterparts it just doesn't hold together very well. The differences and possible future conflict between Harry and Ron was done rather subtly and realistically.

Like the author tells us in the beginning, as this was written over a long period of time, it's just basically better in everything in later chapters.

While this is the two universes blended together, Dante is the only DMC character to show up, and he's a minor side character at the moment. That might possibly change in the future, but right now, it's all about Harry Potter and his world being assaulted by demons while Harry himself is turning into a DMC main character.

All in all, I found it fairly fun and enjoyable. A little shaky, but 4/5.

 

All of the characters change their personalities way too much and way too quickly. The plot was just there -- the whole thing felt like an excuse to get the trio to fight some demons and nothing more.

3/5, because the action scenes are decent enough.

 

1/5 because I detest adultery in all forms, more so when it comes to bastard children.

 

Dude I haven't read this but... A story where people never do anything we disaprove of morally would be boring. A land of sunshine, rainbows and perfect fairy-tale romances where everyone meets their soulmates as children then lives happily ever after. I'd like living there but hate reading about it. So A character who commits adultery, especially when such an act is pivotal to the rest of the plot- that's not a reason to vote that this is bad. A one out of five means it literally could not be worse.

It means it is tied with My Immortal in rating- that their was absolutely nothing redeemable about it. And you handed that out, interfering with everyone who tried to judge based on it merits- because of your own hang ups over a single character doing something you disapprove of morally.

What. The. Hell.

 

It may be pivotal to the plot, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Notice I said 'I' here. I'm not telling anyone else what to think about this fic, whether to like it or not. I've read the whole thing, don't misunderstand, I didn't simply glance at the summary or skim through it, no matter that I am heavily biased towards disliking it, I wouldn't give it a 1/5 without, at least, the courtesy of reading through it.

Let's start with said pivotal thing: we don't know shit, save what the summary says. James made mistake and Lily got even? Fine. Where's James' bastard child? Oh? Nowhere? Well then, how is it even to begin with? There is only that Dumbledore's statement to go by, that no one knows anything, save that James apparently adopted Harry. How? Why? No, seriously, I want to know the mind process behind adopting a child that your wife conceived while she had a revenge fuck with a, I presume, complete stranger. Don't get me wrong, I'm not being a hypocrite here, James fucking around is no better, but actually bringing a kid into the whole mess? Ugh.

Look, I've read TLIL and it's fairly known that the Lily Potter in that story was a fairly flawed person and did some things that pretty much wrecked a friendship as well as James' opinion of her, to say the least. Yet that aside, I loved the fic. I could look past it because it was dealt with properly.

Here? Nope, nothing.

Hence the 1/5.

And yes, it wouldn't change my rating of the fic by much if the author had actually gone a bit more into detail about James' reaction to finding out Lily being pregnant with another man's child, because I would still loathe it. Do you think this is the first fic I saw with this kind of premise? Fuck no. I hate those other fics where James strayed, Lily fucked around, got pregnant and had Harry and I hate this one at all.

Yes, yes, it's all heavily biased, but ultimately all this is just my opinion, just one opinion among the possible many. I sincerely doubt it will have an impact on anyone's reading, save my own.

 

The idea of the crossover is interesting, but it wasn't executed well here. Dante serves no purpose, and I think the Half-demon!Harry plot point only came about because the author needed a plot to loosely tie together the action scenes, which were admittedly well done.

Actually, the entire story is like that. Everything seems to be there for the sole purpose of prompting action or stringing along a half-assed plot that only exists to justify the action. Rather like a DMC game, come to think of it, but they usually manage to do something interesting along the way, where this... Didn't.

It's not terrible, if you want to blow a couple hours, but I can't actually call it good.
3/5

 

Pretty sure that in the first A/N they stated that the story came about for exactly that purpose.

As for the story itself, I'd give it a 2/5 - 3/5 based on how bored you are. It's serviceable if you feel like watching things explode, but if action without content bugs you then try something else.

 

I'll go 3/5. It's fun, and I like fun.

 

It's written competently enough, and the action scenes are entertaining, but there's not much substance to it. Everything just sort of...happens.

3/5