''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/5553836 The Rise of Darth Vulcan]]'' is a ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fan fiction written by [[http://archiveofourown.org/users/RHJunior/works Reality]][[Creator/RalphHayesJr Check]] on Platform/ArchiveOfOurOwn (formerly on Platform/FimfictionDotNet).

Ted is just your regular brony-hater: He's heard a LOT about the show, even the basic plot, but he hates both the show and its fandom with a passion.

One fateful Halloween night, he decided to go to a party dressed as a medieval Darth Vader. To complete the outfit, he bought a strange trinket from a shop. He decided it looked kickass.

Problem? It turned out to be a replica of the Alicorn Amulet from the show. Even bigger problem? It actually WAS the Alicorn Amulet from the show. Ted gets sucked up in a portal and sent to Equestria after everyone accuses him of being a closet brony, and because he makes a terrible first impression on the ponies, Rainbow Dash immediately attacks him. This leads him to discover that he's gained dark powers from the amulet.

Thus, with nothing but magical powers, [[GenreSavvy savviness]], [[MagnificentBastard a cunning mind]], and a [[ManipulativeBastard silver tongue]] so began the legend of Darth Vulcan...

A fic based on a premise of another, the story explores the consequences of power (and pointing out what the writer considers problems with the show and other fanworks).

The fic got ambiguous reception. What was later revealed by WordOfGod to be signs of the protagonist's cruelty and stupidity was often interpreted as clever pragmatism and deconstruction, causing some frustration in the author and other readers. As of Jan. 2018, the possibility of alternative interpretation remains, though later chapters may change it.

----
!!Tropes:

* AccentuateTheNegative: The darker aspects of the canon universe are explored, details that cause FridgeHorror in the original work are discussed in the fic, clichés common for a child show are extensively deconstructed, and the background for many things that were cute in the show proves to be ugly.
** Life for the average Diamond Dog is bad. They live on fringes of civilized societies at best, are bullied by dragons into servitude and are not liked by anyone. They lack magic, live in small and divided tribes and are just above an average caveman in culture.
** Prince Blueblood was shown to be a {{jerkass}} in the canon. In the fic, nobles are said to be corrupt and greedy, and flagrantly abuse the law.
* AccusationFic: The author put a lot of his issues with the show into the fic. See AccentuateTheNegative entry above.
* {{Acrofatic}}: In an effort to counter Ted, [=AKA=] Darth Vulcan, Princess Celestia and the Mane Six summon Leo, a Scociety for Creative Anacronism larper who specializes in mock medievil era combat (padded plate armor and wooden swords) and roll playing games. Leo looks quite overweight, but has the strength and speed to go toe-to-toe with an enraged manticore.
* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Discord's bothering of Rainbow Dash while impersonating the "Cragodile Hunter" gets a laugh from the rest of the Mane Six.
* AdaptationalDumbass: [[spoiler: Lord Tirek]], who in canon [[spoiler: played Discord like a fiddle to regain his strength, ''only'' turned on him once he was strong enough that Discord couldn't do anything about it, and actively avoided drawing any attention until he was strong enough to defend himself]]. Here? [[spoiler: He walks into Vulcan's lair and just tries to brute force steal Vulcan's strength, getting himself killed.]]
* AdaptationalVillainy: While not straight up villainous by any stretch, this story's versions of Celestia and Luna are a lot more morally questionable than their canon counterparts, particularly when it comes to Celestia's manipulative traits and their actions involving the Thestrals.
* AdultsAreUseless: During Vulcan's first spying on Ponyville, he takes much notice of how utterly oblivious Cheerilee is to the bad/lazy behavior of students.
* AFatherToHisMen
** Played straight with the protagonist: Darth Vulcan takes good care of his dogs, and even joins them in mourning the deaths of their comrades under his command. It isn't explored much with his other crew.
** Deconstructed with Celestia. She tries to run a country as a mother would run a family. Needless to say, she cannot oversee every pony in Equestria and a lot of clever ponies are not above using various social support programs and loopholes in the system for personal benefits.
* AGlassInTheHand: After Vulcan hears the tale of the Cirrus/Hilltop remedial pegasi, he didn't even notice that he'd crushed a coin he was holding.
* AllForNothing: By WordOfGod Ted spent years 'cosplaying a cool kid', which required giving up things he actually enjoyed. All of that effort went down the drain after he wore the Alicorn Amulet to a Halloween party and everyone accused him of being a closet brony.
* AllWomenAreLustful: Played straight by Chrysalis, who clings to Ted quite a bit.
* AlternateUniverseFic: Vulcan arrives in Equestria at some point between Seasons 3 and 4, and his involvement ends up derailing the major events of the latter.
* AlwaysABiggerFish: [[spoiler:Vulcan and Chrysalis are bigger fished by Sombra. Then all three are bigger fished by Celestia and Luna.]]
** You would expect [[spoiler: Discord]] to bigger-fish Vulcan with ease. [[spoiler: You'd be not so right. He does, but has no desire to find what would be the (implied unacceptably high) cost.]]
* AMindIsATerribleThingToRead: Ted, who wanted to [[spoiler: get revenge on Luna for using dream-magic to spy on him and to discourage similar actions in the future]], took a pill he knew would give him dreams similar to a bad narcotic trip and would call up every dirty thing the Internet has ever produced. [[spoiler: Luna]] was subjected to an entire night of NauseaFuel and couldn't even eat her favourite flavour of ice-cream because of an infamous meme drilled into her skull.
* AmuletOfDependency: The Alicorn Amulet's powers give Ted an edge, but it also [[spoiler:puts ideas into his head]] and it's stuck to his body. Ted's cynicism and pragmatism help him to overcome it most of the time, if he has time to think before he reacts.
* {{Angrish}}: Ted, after being hit by Rainbow Dash a second time.
-->'''Ted''': Sonuva fraggin monkey buckin' ramjammin' frickin jock she-male pegasus frickin clocked me AGAIN...
* AnOfferYouCantRefuse: Vulcan gives one to Remedial Class Pegasi. They got their revenge on the city they hated and people that wronged them, but in the process they became enemies of the state and pretty literally have no reasonable ideas how to make a living in the situation. Vulcan offered them a job, a place to live and a community to fit in... and then explained that they plainly have no reasonable alternative.
%% to be expanded later: Dodger gives one to Flim and Flam to get them to come to Vulcan.
%% * AntiVillain: "How will you understand my deeper motivations and make me a sympathetic character?"
%% ** DefiedTrope: Ted has some standards and heartwarming moments... but he's not trying to achieve greater good by questionable means. He is a pragmatic egoist who doesn't care much about fear, civil unrest and property damage he caused and has zero desire to give up his comfortable position and ambitions.
* ArtifactOfDoom: The protagonist is stuck with the Alicorn Amulet, which is implied to be one. [[spoiler: It also seems to be sentient and malicious.]]
* TheArtfulDodger: It's in the name. Artful Dodger is a teen pony the protagonist adopted as a personal disciple and second in command. The pony grew up on the roughest streets of Canterlot...
* AscendedFanboy: Leo, the first Champion that Celestia summons to deal with Vulcan, happens to be a huge brony.
* AssholeVictim:
** Ted. Everything started going downhill for him in Equestria because he decided to bully some ponies into helping him by playing the part of the bad guy.
** AndThereWasMuchRejoicing after Ted's brutal slaying of Big Boss (see BadBoss below).
** Pretty much all the PowersThatBe in Eiderdown and co.'s community (see MiscarriageOfJustice below), once Ted decides to PayEvilUntoEvil. Even Celestia and co. are disgusted by the former -- to the point of actually refusing to financially aid them afterward.
** Lord Tirek eventually shows up and tries to ManaDrain Ted... and gets a BoomHeadshot death for it.
** How Darth sees his kidnapping and treatment of Diamond Tiara, and how Diamond Tiara ends up seeing it due to an illusion cast by Twilight making her think no one loved her. It's actually averted. Filthy Rich and Silver Spoon spent weeks worrying about what happened to her, and the Crusaders themselves are the ones who help Diamond Tiara recover in the end. Rather than rejoice, the school was closed for weeks since ponies feared another kidnapping.
** The destruction of Cirrus and Hilltop. The communities were both run by crooked and incompetent officials. And they also allowed the horrible injustice that was done to the remedial class pegasi just to cover it up even after having saved their lives. After learning of how immoral and racist these communities were, not only will Twilight indict the terrible community leaders, but she denied sending Crown money to rebuild the towns.
*** As for Sundae Sprinkles, the corrupt corrections official put in charge of the remedial class' punishment, and who ruined their lives for being "worthless delinquents," Artful Dodger stops just short of killing him, leaving him crippled in addition to having to face his own criminal charges.
* AsskickingLeadsToLeadership: How Vulcan takes control of the Diamond Dogs, which is standard practice for their society.
** [[spoiler: This is also at play in Changeling society, even playing a part in how Queens select mates.]]
* AuthorTract: Vulcan and the fic largely are devoted to pointing out problems the writer has with the setting and other fanfics and also promotes his political views
* AxisMundi: Vulcan's first reaction to the Tree of Harmony is stark terror, because he feels like he's standing underneath a pillar of the universe and one good shove will send the world off its axis. He resolves that A) none of the other supervillains are getting it, and B) the Elements of Harmony need to be returned to it ''tute suite''. He only barely succeeds in both goals.
%%* BadassBoast: Vulcan takes to introducing himself with these,
%% even if so, there isn't much of them
* BadBoss: Big Boss was a powerful dragon who enslaved the Diamond Dogs, forcing them to dig for gems with little food or breaks, and eating anyone for complaining.
* BatmanGambit: Quite a few, mostly pulled off by Vulcan.
** When the Mane Six and the Royal Guard show up to free Diamond Tiara from Vulcan, he leads them into the middle of nowhere, leaving Ponyville vulnerable to a raid by his forces.
** [[spoiler:Luna knows that Vulcan will see through her attempt to have members of the Night Guard infiltrate his forces, so she sends them along with a group of escaped prisoners, one of whom (Artful Dodger) sells them out in order to earn Vulcan's trust; Dodger, unbeknownst even to himself, has a rune hidden on his body that allows Luna to spy on his dreams.]]
** Vulcan pulls off a double fake [[spoiler: by tricking everyone into thinking that he ignored juicy volumes of books on display in favor of easier targets, and then having the books copied to a magical SD card anyway.]]
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Ted's in Equestria because the Amulet responded to his expressed desire to burn it to the ground.
* BecameTheirOwnAntithesis: From a nerdy geek that was into tabletop games and had a talent for making good cosplay costumes to a jerk and a bully that derides those that follow the same interests openly, this basically defines Ted.
* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: The reason the Dogs are so loyal to Ted. Compared to their previous life or life of an average Dog, they practically live in paradise. A lot of things below detailing their relationship can be distilled into this one trope.
* BecomingTheMask: Darth Vulcan has indicated that he has, or had, many nerdy interests in his past, particularly cosplaying... which he shucked aside to avoid being relegated to bottom-feeder status in his local high school. WordOfGod is that he literally chose to ''cosplay being a cool kid,'' and did it so well that the entire school, himself included, all but forgot his old self. Now, he's tumbled into a world of magical ponies while garbed in a stereotypical villain's outfit, but he can quote the EvilOverlordList...
%% * BelievingTheirOwnLies: WordOfGod is that the "Ted the Jerk" personality that we were introduced to is a fabrication that Ted himself forgot was fake.
%% Covered by BecomingTheMask
* BeneathNotice: Vulcan takes to recruiting agents among commoner ponies dissatisfied with the rule of Celestia and Luna as his spies within Canterlot, figuring that no one will ever suspect such low-rung individuals as being suspect.
%%* BenevolentBoss: See BecauseYouWereNiceToMe entry above.
* BerserkButton: Ted hates slavery and racism, all connected to his absolute belief in free will and sanctity of mind. So when the ponies blast him with the Elements and bring in mind-altering spells, he protests. Loudly and rudely. His [[AndIMustScream experience with the Elements]] didn't help.
** Don't insinuate to Princess Luna that she is second banana to Princess Celestia. Celestia also doesn't like it when it's pointed that Luna actually IS second to her, mostly thanks to Celestia's actions.
** Artful Dodger is ''pissed'' when he discovers that [[spoiler: Luna has been using his mind to spy on Vulcan]].
** Celestia and Twilight are furious when they find out what happened to Eiderdown and her friends. In fact, Celestia is ''so'' angry that she does ''not'' try find out what happened herself, (instead getting Twilight to do it) because she wants to keep her self-control.
** Ted doesn't take betrayal well.
* {{BFS}}: Ted's sword is "the size of an ironing board".
** Deconstructed in that it's too unwieldy to use properly, turning Vulcan's battle with Sombra, who is equally inexperienced at swordfighting, into something more comical than epic.
** Justified as due to having enhanced strength thanks to the Alicorn Amulet, Ted actually can swing it around in a somewhat controlled fashion.
%%* BigBad: Ted/Darth Vulcan currently serves this role to the ponies.
* BigNo: Filthy Rich, when, after all of the worrying he has done, he is led [[OutlivingOnesOffspring to believe]] that [[DespairEventHorizon Diamond Tiara is dead]].
* BlackAndGreyMorality: Darth Vulcan is a {{Jerkass}} and a thief, but some of his opponents like [[BadBoss Big Boss]], [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Chrysalis]], and [[spoiler:[[EvilOverlord Sombra]]]] make him look like a hero.
* BlessedWithSuck[=/=]CursedWithAwesome: The Thestrals' mutations gifted them with a variety of abilities normal ponies don't have. However, since Luna gave them these gifts by incorporating the genes of various bats, including ''vampire'' bats, they also need and want blood and meat as a part of healthy diet, and this is viewed by most other ponies as HorrorHunger. Consequently, general population view them with fear and suspicion at best. Generations and generations of Thestrals abandoned healthy diets in an attempt to integrate into pony society. Those that didn't, however, enjoyed impressive SuperSenses and SuperSpeed.
* BloodMagic: Thestral innate powers are fueled by the blood they drink.
* BolivianArmyEnding: [[spoiler:Chapter 18.]]
* BookcasePassage: Encountered in the castle in the Everfree.
* BoomHeadshot: How Vulcan handles [[spoiler: Tirek]] while being drained of his magic.
* BrainwashingForTheGreaterGood: Mind-altering magic is apparently reserved for qualified professionals in psychiatry, but is present in the universe. Vulcan assumes this to be the way the Elements of Harmony operate and uses this view in his BreakingSpeech to Luna. [[spoiler: With great success.]] He also assumes that the 'help' Celestia and co. repeatedly offer him to be this and protests loudly. Celestia is unable to convince him otherwise and make Vulcan rethink the matter.
* BreakingOutTheBoss: Chapter 20. [[spoiler: Vulcan's forces break into Canterlot to rescue him, resulting in a fighting retreat.]]
* BreakTheCutie: An unintentional example with Pinkie Pie. Vulcan's aura makes earth ponies' inherent WildMagic behave oddly -- in this case, turning her party cannon into a shotgun, which messes up his face really bad. Vulcan [[WouldHitAGirl punching out all her front teeth]] hurts less than [[FriendToAllLivingThings knowing she actually hurt him]], rather than get him tied up in streamers or slimed with cake batter like what usually happens when she shoots someone with it.
%% someone should compress these two somehow
* BreakTheHaughty: Diamond Tiara. Kidnapped and handed to a Diamond Dog who has no idea how to threat ponies, she goes through several unpleasant hours. Vulcan initially feels some sympathy... but then Tiara pisses him off by showing her normal attitude. She is told repeatedly that no one cares for her, gets a confirmation to that thanks to Twilight's anti-spy illusion, is faced with the realization that her daddy can't save her, is abused by the Diamond Dogs and Ted himself, and in a final act of humiliation, is put on a dog leash, given a doggy bowl, and is found by ponies she repeatedly humiliated.
** Filthy Rich undergoes this too. He attempts to cheat Vulcan out of his money and sell him out to the authorities. His actions lead to his daughter being kidnapped, forcing him to spend sleepless nights worrying about her, Ponyville being looted by Vulcan's army (with Vulcan ordering his army to explicitly leave Filthy Rich's store alone), and then Vulcan calling him out on this in front of the entire town, destroying his reputation. He is misled into thinking Diamond Tiara is dead, and when he finds her, he breaks down realizing he couldn't save her.
*** Both of them, however, get better later on.
** Ted is subjected to this early in the story when he is mistaken for a brony due to wearing the Amulet to a party. He doesn't take the complete implosion of his social status well.
* BreakThemByTalking: Vulcan is good at this. He even admits that it's his one real talent. He does this to [[spoiler:Princess Luna]] (twice, one of them unintentionally), a curious [[spoiler:Royal Guard soldier]], [[spoiler:Chrysalis]], and even left scratches on [[spoiler:Celestia's]] self-confidence. Yeah, he's ''that'' good.
* BrokenBird: Pinkie Pie has become this as of the last attempt to capture Vulcan during his KansasCityShuffle.
* BrokenPedestal: Celestia is gettting hit by this in multiple fronts; her subjects no longer see her as an infallible figure, her sister Luna no longer trusts in her due to the fallout of the discovery of the abuse the Thestrals were suffering under her watch, and even Twilight can't stomach her scheming anymore; she summoned Leo as a stopgap measure while they could figure out a way to beat him for good instead of to help solve the problem, and has been leading Leo on as he makes wrong conclusions regarding the super empowering he's been undergoing since he arrived in Equestria seemingly for her own amusement.
* TheBully: As someone who enjoys putting people down for not living up to his standards and rub it in their faces to make them feel like idiots, Ted/Vulcan is this. The whole mess started because he chose to act like a bully and have fun at the expense of others, instead of politely asking for help. Even before he ended up in Equestria he went along with the bullying of people more open with their geeky interests and thought they brought it on themselves.
* BunniesForCuteness: The changelings need love to survive, but the dogs don't really care much about them. The solution?
--> '''Darth Vulcan:''' This is a bunny rabbit. ''[holds up [[SilentSnarker Angel Bunny]] for all to see]'' It is a device for [[PetTheDog turning carrots into love]].
* CaptainErsatz: Ted's persona of Darth Vulcan started out as "Darth Vader if he came from a StandardFantasySetting". He ends up as [[VideoGame/{{Overlord}} the Overlord]], complete with kobold {{Mooks}}.
* CasanovaWannabe: Dodger acts like a cocky, suave, over-the-top lady's man around Eiderdown, but actually has zero experience with mares. As such, he suffers a panic attack the first time they're alone together, due to having no idea what he's supposed to be doing.
%%* TheCavalry: [[spoiler: Celestia, Luna, the Royal Guard, and the Mane Six.]]
* CavalryBetrayal: [[spoiler:The Changeling!Main Six. Fortunately, they're [[VillainProtagonist Vulcan's]].]]
* CelibateHero: Well, villain. Ted repeatedly turns Chrysalis' advances down (with reasonable justification) despite being a teenage virgin. In addition, Artful Dodger shows some delicacy despite also being a teenage virgin.
* CerebusRetcon: Luna being purified by the Elements of Harmony is subjected to this, when we find out how painful an experience being exposed to the Elements is. In fact much of the material from the show is portrayed a lot more negatively than it is in canon.
** More FridgeHorror than any sort of retcon; as she pointed out, she ''was'' screaming while the Elements cleansed her.
* CharacterDevelopment: Vulcan grows from an irascible macho jerk to a [[TheChessmaster crafty]], [[ManipulativeBastard manipulative]] warlord.
* ClingyMacGuffin: While Trixie's mind was being manipulated by the Amulet, she was still able to remove it. Ted has the opposite problem: the Amulet seems to be leaving his mind alone [[spoiler:at first anyway]], but he can't take it off.
* CombatPragmatist: Vulcan, as befitting his {{Genre Savvy}}-ness. He goes for collateral targets, distracts, fights dirty, forces a SadisticChoice or two, and exploits any possible advantage and/or {{Loophole|Abuse}}.
** Facing the Royal Guard ''and'' the princesses? Toss the ground-bound troops off the mountain, knowing that the good guys will do anything to save them, even if it means letting him escape.
* CoDragons: [[spoiler: Chrysalis]] and Artful Dodger; the former pretty much forces her way into a key position, while the latter earns it after being made Vulcan's apprentice and [[TookALevelInBadass taking a few levels in badass]].
* ComplexityAddiction:
** Vulcan won't go for a simple smash-and-grab when he can make everyone else look dumb while he does it, according to Diamond Tiara. He's only pragmatic when engaging in direct combat.
** Celestia is shown to willingly try to invoke being a [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]] for her plans, outright stating in her mind that being a Queen is too little power when she can be the player controlling the pieces instead.
* CoolPeopleRebelAgainstAuthority: Ted hints that he had such problems, but has not been forthcoming about pertinent details. It's possible he lied outright to fit with the in-crowd, another fabrication alongside his current persona.
* CorruptPolitician: Pretty much all of the nobility is made up of these. About the only ones that we know for sure AREN'T corrupt are the Princesses, and even they have to exploit loopholes to get around the House Of Nobles just to be able to undo some of the damage they've done.
* CrapsaccharineWorld: How Vulcan feels about Equestria. Of course, his opinions are colored by his cynicism, and he sees things worse then they are... but things are not very plush either, something the Equestrians admit.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Leo seems like your average, socially awkward geek, who the ponies don't get a good impression from. But then he destroys a manticore in a melee fight and, thanks to Pinkie's wish, shows an immunity to its venom, which is implied to be ''very'' lethal. [[spoiler:He demolishes Vulcan and only loses due to one mistake on his part.]]
* CurbStompBattle:
** Vulcan vs. Runt, Mange, and Skank. They were lucky he was so forgiving.
** Vulcan's fight with [[spoiler: Tirek]] lasts about a few seconds. [[spoiler: Tirek immediately begins draining his magic, only to get his head shot off by Vulcan's gun.]]
** [[spoiler:Most of Vulcan's fight with Leo consists of the StrongAndSkilled Leo completely demolishing the UnskilledButStrong Vulcan, more or less exactly the outcome one would expect when a person who only pretends he knows what he's doing faces someone who actually ''does'' on even terms. Vulcan ultimately wins, but more due to dumb luck and a single mistake on Leo's part than anything he himself did.]]
* CutenessProximity: TheDreaded Dark Sorcerer Darth Vulcan allows [[spoiler: [[InterspeciesAdoption a diamond dog to adopt a foal]]]] after getting double-teamed by their PuppyDogEyes.
* CutLexLuthorACheck: {{Zigzagged|Trope}} when Vulcan recruits the Flim Flam brothers -- he goes into one of his trademarke [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech "Reason You Suck" speeches]] on how they've been wasting their innovations on cons instead of revolutionizing Equestrian society, only for them to reveal that they ''tried'' that, but were stymied by Equestria's dedication to MedievalStasis. Half the reason they join Vulcan is because he offers them a chance to cause social upheaval with their inventions (the other half being money).
* DeadpanSnarker: Vulcan has his moments, like when he refers to Diamond Tiara's attitude as "Princess-like".
-->'''Celestia''': I'm appalled on behalf of your world, if that is what you think Princesses are like.\\
'''Vulcan''': Oh no. My opinion of them has improved vastly since a couple of them '''chained me to a wall'''.
* DealWithTheDevil: Vulcan recruits commoner ponies to his cause by promising to give them everything they want that Celestia's regime has denied them in exchange for their service.
** The rant he performed in the party before he got taken to Equestria sounded just like a vow to destroy Equestria... [[OhCrap and then the Alicorn Amulet activated.]]
---> '''Ted''': !#$^#$% your stupid pony crap! #$^% your stupid ponies! If I could I'd burn that stupid airy-fairy ponyland to the ground and pee on the ashes just to see the looks on your stupid faces!
** Eiderdown and her friends make one with Ted to get some justice in their lives. Deep down, however, Eiderdown wants revenge...
* DeconstructionFic: Vulcan tears into quite a few things about the show AND the fandom, from the ways ponies live, Diamond Tiara's continued behavior as a bully and the many, many stupid decisions by the Princesses, and many a fanfic plot that makes no sense even within the confines of what is shown in the show. And he's not afraid to [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech tell the Princesses about his observations.]] The story itself deconstructs quite a few other tropes:
** TheMainCharactersDoEverything: Deconstructed on the side of the Equestrians. The Mane Six are just six gifted civilian ponies who lack the training or mindset to deal with someone like Ted, and their lack of preparation ends with Pinkie Pie being hurt emotionally and physically when her method of capturing him (using the Party Cannon) doesn't work right at a critical moment.
** TheChessmaster is deconstructed through Celestia primarily. The Celestia of this story seems to be addicted to her scheming, always going for the convoluted clever plot to do things when more direct action might be more appropriate instead. Disturbingly, she outright tries to invoke being a chessmaster, buying into her own hype.
** MurderIsTheBestSolution: Vulcan makes a point to avoid it (and to avoid extreme measures in general) because it would make his opposition come after him with much more enthusiasm.
** TrappedInAnotherWorld: Chapter 21 features a discussion of just how freaky magic would be to a human from the real world. The mane six and the princesses note that the Elements of Harmony, Luna's DreamWalker abilities, and mind-altering spells in particular must be terrifying to Darth Vulcan. It's noted that from Ted's perspective that the latter two were comparable to someone breaking into his room to rifle through his things and having his brain operated on without his consent.
* DefeatMeansFriendship: A twisted variation occurs when Crysalis loses her fight to Vulcan. This display of power turns her on....
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: There are a couple of examples between Diamond Dogs and ponies. Dogs have no problem with slavery, don't quite seem to grasp ponies are herbivores, and see burying the dead as weird and disgusting (they burn their dead). That last one is mostly pragmatism, however -- as Runt explains to Vulcan, graves take up room that could be used to dig for gems.
* DemotedToDragon: [[spoiler: Chrysalis.]] But when this happens (between a case of MadLove and being constantly impressed by Ted), she really doesn't mind.
* DestinationDefenestration: Happens to Sundae Sprinkles, the officer who ruined the Broken Birds' lives. Artful Dodger [[PayEvilUntoEvil plucks his wings]] and Sprinkles runs out the window in terror, only to plummet to the ground and break all four of his legs.
* DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu: Vulcan is not afraid to tell the Princesses exactly what he thinks of them.
** He does this literally to [[spoiler: Sombra]] at one point.
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: As it turns out, [[spoiler: Discord's]] own Lovecraftian nature makes [[spoiler: him]] magic - as in, literally made of magic. This makes anything capable of inflicting ManaDrain or ManaBurn on [[spoiler: him]] highly dangerous, possibly even ''fatal''. [[spoiler: [[YinYangClash Guess what happens when Discord and the powers of the Amulet clash?]]]] A tactical retreat was a sensible choice.
** [[spoiler: Darth [[CombatPragmatist shoots Tirek dead]] when he tries to steal Vulcan's magic.]]
** Pinkie ''accidentally'' does this to Ted (who has become pretty eldritch himself thanks to being fused to the Amulet) when the Amulet interferes with the magic that renders her attacks relatively harmless, though it takes a while for him to finally go down.
* DidntSeeThatComing:
** Ted expected to have the ponies eating out of his hand by acting menacing to make them do what he wanted. Needless to say, it didn't work out that way.
** Princess Celestia never expected her own pony executives and bureaucrats to twist the laws underneath her nose to benefit themselves at the expense of others, nor did she expect that some of her reforms meant to help less fortunate towns could be abused in different ways.
** Ted didn't expect the Amulet's magic to work against him when it interfered with Pinkie's magic. His face got shredded as a result.
* DidntThinkThisThrough:
** The Remedial Class Pegasi from Cirrus and Hilltop wanted to recover the baby belonging to one of their own, went to Vulcan for help, got revenge against their old Hometown who abandoned them and destroyed their futures... only to then find themselves to be enemies of the state and thus with no other options except to serve Darth Vulcan. To be fair, though, Eiderdown and co. did originally ask for a less extreme solution before [[ManipulativeBitch Chrysalis]] played their (completely justified) anger.
** Even if the prohibition to drink blood is lifted, and even if they can silence the quacks propagating the lies about the batponies, their detractors have a new means to paint them as dangerous threats by accusing them of being untrustworthy and mercenary, only loyal to whomever provides blood for them. The basis for the thestrals who work for Vulcan siding with him was because he provided them blood when they legally couldn't consume it yet, which could potentially tarnish their species' reputation in the long run in the manner described.
** Ted thought it was a good idea to terrorize a village of colorful pastel ponies... just to get access to their library. The beat down the Mane Six gave him was entirely deserved.
* DisneyDeath: [[spoiler: Sombra. Ted [[NeverFoundTheBody doesn't buy it]], but he hasn't been back for 30 chapters...]]
* DracoInLeatherPants:
** In-Universe, it's lampshaded and subverted with the Changelings, who are stated not to be forgotten creatures, but predators who feed off of the emotions of others.
** [[DoubleSubversion Subverted again]], {{discussed|Trope}}, and served with a big side of TheReasonYouSuckSpeech aimed towards Chrysalis (par for the course for [[DeconstructorFleet a guy like Ted]]). He lampshades humanity's tendency to throw affection at [[NightmareFetishist anything]]; speculating that, with the proper [[PuppyDogEyes presentation]], ponies could have possibly loved them too, anyways. Then Chrysalis blows it with the (unnecessary) invasion.
** Darth Vulcan is the favorite character of many, to the author's frustration.
* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: When Pinkie tells Leo about how she was traumatized when she accidentally shredded Vulcan's face with her party cannon, Leo sees her physical and emotional wounds and [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming places all the blame on Vulcan]], despite the fact that she was the one who shot him.
%%* TheDreaded: Vulcan becomes this in Equestria.
* DreamSpying: [[spoiler: Luna spies on Vulcan's forces via a psychic backdoor in Dodger's mind. Vulcan and Dodger are pissed when they discover this, but Vulcan figures out a way to reverse it and use it to his advantage.]]
%%* DressingAsTheEnemy: The changelings, naturally.
* DrunkWithPower: Ted definitely likes the perks of being an EvilOverlord, and part of the problems he has are because he won't give up the power it gives him.
* DurableDeathtrap: The Everfree Castle. Justified, as there were many enchantments placed on it. Ted questions why the hell everything inside was left behind.
* DueToTheDead: The first half of Chapter 24 covers the Diamond Dogs mourning the lost. Though half died under [[BadBoss Big Boss]], the others died under Vulcan. [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Wracked with guilt]], Ted lets the dogs howl and drink the night away to mourn them, [[PetTheDog and even joins in.]]
* EarthShatteringKaboom: [[spoiler: What ''could'' have been the result of Discord and Vulcan's magic coming into contact, rather than just cancelling each other out]].
* EliteMooks: [[spoiler: The Changelings who Vulcan recruits from Chrysalis, whom he dubs the Crimson Guard.]] Later on, we get Pumpkin Patch and the thestrals.
* EnemyMine: The towns that Vulcan's forces [[CurbStompBattle raze?]] The princesses won't lift a hoof to fix anything Darth Vulcan did. They agree wholeheartedly with having the place burnt to the ground.
* EqualOpportunityEvil: Darth Vulcan started out with diamond dogs. He soon expands to include [[spoiler: Changelings]], escaped pony convicts, minotaurs, and [[spoiler: a tribe of Tooth Breezies]].
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: The second chapter is one for Ted. His love of things dark and black, and his demeaning behavior toward a brony is explained.
* EvenEvilHasStandards:
** Vulcan, while enjoying being an EvilOverlord, still has a code of ethics, however, questionable said code is.
** Dodger and [[spoiler: Chrysalis]] were both disgusted by what was done to Eiderdown and her classmates in the remedial class. Dodger cripples the crooked Pegasus supervisor who helped ruin their lives, and [[spoiler: Chrysalis]] thinks that not rebuilding the town was very wise.
** [[spoiler: Chrysalis is also angry at Vulcan for kidnapping the town's foals]].
* EvilIsNotWellLit: Vulcan admits this about his cavern lairs, and considers doing something about it.
* EvilIsPetty: Ted's a ''very'' petty individual. Everything he's done so far is more or less him lashing out over being humiliated at a party. Heck, it's the reason he's even ''in'' Equestria in the first place, since the Amulet was simply granting his wish to be sent to Equestria so he could wreck it.
%%* EvilSorcerer: Darth Vulcan. Gaining the [[ArtifactOfDoom Alicorn Amulet]] certainly helped.
* EvilSoundsDeep: Vulcan, thanks to a voice changer in his helmet. Though he eventually learns how to do it without aid.
* {{Expy}}: Sawbones is one of Redbrand from [[http://www.fimfiction.net/index.php?view=category&user=12834 the Upheaval series.]] He is nicer than Redbrand, even if it is easy to be nicer than Redbrand.
* FailureHero: Practically ''nothing'' Celestia has tried in the story to stop Ted has actually succeeded. Contrast with her canon portrayal, whose plans have a way of ultimately working out. Or the author's ''other'' works, where they also get some actual success every once in a while. This is likely a result of the [[DeconstructionFic deconstructive]] nature of the fic. It probably doesn't help that the show's writers [[InMysteriousWays deliberately make it vague]] whether or not she is [[TheChessmaster a chessmaster]] or [[GambitRoulette just really lucky]].
* TheFairFolk: In chapter 38, Dodger runs into ([[spoiler:and recruits]]) a tribe of Breezies who got run out of fairyland because they use Tooth Magic rather than Flower Magic-basically LighterAndSofter Unseelie Fey. They also go by the "we call them 'fair' to mean 'pretty'; not 'just'" model of pixie.
* FeedTheMole: Vulcan does this to flush out a mole in his forces. [[spoiler: It technically works, though he discovers that said mole wasn't voluntary.]] And then, he puts this to work to mislead his enemies.
* FightMagnet: Vulcan/Ted.
* FirstNameUltimatum: Chrysalis yells out Ted's name to keep him from [[spoiler: killing Dodger, whom it turns out was an unwitting spy]].
* FriendlessBackground: Considering he spent his high school years pretending to be someone he wasn't to fit in and avoid being labeled a geek, Ted arguably didn't have a single real friend. He didn't seem to have anyone coming to his defense at the Halloween party.
* ForegoneConclusion: Ted is a VillainProtagonist... in a Reality Check story. Which are known for the massive ownage delivered upon asshole ne'er-do-wells like Ted. The "Dread Lord Darth Vulcan" will ''not'' come out of this story fresh as daisies.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Ted was just a {{Jerkass}} who inadvertently discovered the Alicorn Amulet and wore it. He's become the ruler of the Diamond Dogs [[spoiler: and a band of changelings]], and the self-proclaimed lord of the Everfree, who can battle the Princesses and the Elements of Harmony on equal footing.
* FromTheMouthsOfBabes: It's Diamond Tiara who figures out Vulcan's KansasCityShuffle (detailed below), before even ''he'' plans it out. And then, she's the first one to realize, and explain to the Princesses, that they can't simply beat Vulcan the same way they have all the other villains, with a straightforward and direct fight; they'll have to have a drawn out struggle and dismantle his power base piece by piece.
* GambitRoulette: Vulcan engages in this once he discovers Luna's mole. [[spoiler: He tells everyone, including Dodger, his next big plan, then wipes Dodger's memories of it, before telling him a decoy plan. ''Then'', knowing that Dodger's memories will start to come back before they can carry out either the decoy or the real plan, comes up with a ''real'' real plan, which Dodger is not aware of.]]
* GenreBlind: While normally genre savvy, Ted seems oblivious to the fact that relying on an ArtifactOfDoom for power doesn't end well in most stories. Arguably semi-justified, though, as he'd be powerless against his enemies without it -- which he even lampshades.
* GenreSavvy: Vulcan has read the EvilOverlordList, the [[http://web.archive.org/web/20130626062520/http://cgt411.tech.purdue.edu/covey/48_laws_of_power.htm 48 Laws of Power]], and various other guides to {{Genre Savvy}}ness, and puts them all to good work.
* GodzillaThreshold: After [[spoiler: Leo's defeat, the Princesses are desperate enough to try ''killing'' Ted as opposed to simply capturing him as they did before, to the point that when they summon another person from his world, they end up summoning a mercenary sniper to do the job]].
* GogglesDoSomethingUnusual: All of Vulcan's helmet, really.
* GoneHorriblyRight: A meta version of this trope. The author made use of Vulcan to point out the FridgeLogic and contradictory nature of certain things that don't make sense even within the parameters of the show and deconstruct certain issues he believes are important to analyze because of the negative repercussions they could lead to if just ignored. It worked, but so much so he's been left disturbed by audience reaction to him being positive when WordOfGod states he's decidedly ''not'' meant to be seen as a good guy and is flat out insane.
* GoodCopBadCop: Vulcan accuses Celestia and Luna of it. It is not clarified if it was true.
* GoodIsNotSoft: Celestia discusses this trope with Spike. Basically Spike says that the world outside of Equestria is a dangerous place, with Celestia saying that the reason Equestria has been so peaceful is because of this trope.
* GuileHero: Filthy Rich attempted to do this by taking Ted's shopping order and then contacting the guard so they could apprehend him while keeping the gold for himself. It backfired SPECTACULARLY.
* GrailInTheGarbage: Ted finds the Alicorn Amulet in a pawnshop. Thinking it was a fake gem, he added to his costume.
* TheGreatWall: In chapter 39 we see that a fifteen foot high steel chain-link fence has been built around the Everfree, with runes protecting it against rust, wear and tear, and chewing, as well as being magically electrified, with lookout towers and armored guards patrolling the perimeter, and an alarm system that will set off if anything flies over, digs under or tries to squeezes through the fence. Twilight admits that it is more to give Equestria a last minute warning than to keep Vulcan and his horde in.
** And then Vulcan creates [[spoiler: a MagicMirror PortalNetwork that allows his forces to sneak in and out of the Everfree to various points throughout Equestria]], rendering the fence utterly pointless.
* GroinAttack: Vulcan nails Mange right in the nads in their first meeting.
* HamToHamCombat: Chrysalis vs. Sombra starts like this, and devolves into VolleyingInsults. Vulcan snaps them out of it with his own salvo of IncomingHam.
* HandicappedBadass: The remedial class pegasi had serious deformities, but that didn't stop them from improvising an explosive and using it to destroy a rogue tornado when their town's weather team wasn't present, even if it did bite them HARD. This is why Vulcan convinces them to join his forces, so he can put them to work in demolitions.
* HannibalLecture: When Princess Luna comes to rough up Vulcan in his jail cell, Vulcan's response is telling her that all Celestia does is treat her like a minion, that she wouldn't have anything without Celestia's permission, and wouldn't even be beating him if Celestia forbade it, and that her control of the moon isn't important since Celestia was able to move it for 1000 years. Luna's response is to hide in her room. Vulcan lampshades how much he is like Hannibal Lecter, and has to restrain himself from calling Celestia [[Film/SilenceoftheLambs "Clarice"]].
** Ted himself says that this is the only thing he'd say is his special talent: To look at a person, find their weakness, and [[BreakingSpeech tell it to their faces]]. Notably, since all of his deconstructions come straight from show canon, none of the main cast rebut his arguments. Perhaps even more pitifully, they don't seem particularly willing to listen.
** Given the way he acts and the fact that he is never telling them such things out of kindness, it is hardly surprising. It doesn't help that he himself isn't particularly inclined to listen to others about his own flaws or do anything to improve them.
** The fact that he takes pride in breaking people by talking should tell you all you need to know about how big a douchebag Ted really is. He's just telling them all those things to gain a psychological edge or to insult them and feel superior to the ponies.
*** He explicitly narrates the first time we see him do this that he's not proud of it. Whether you believe him is up to you, but he certainly isn't shy about taking advantage of it.
* HeavyWorlder: Leo calls it "The Superman Effect". It lets him wield a hammer the size of an anvil on a stick and a shield the size of a door with little effort. Subverted, however: it's not low gravity that gives him SuperStrength, it's his body's reaction to magic. Celestia just lets him ''think'' it's low gravity.
* HellishPupils: As part of his [[TookALevelInBadass badass upgrade package]], Vulcan and [[spoiler: Chrysalis]] enhance Artful Dodger's eyes to give him enhanced sight and night vision, with a side effect being his eyes are now slit-pupiled and glow.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard:
** Big Boss, a dragon who obtained a massive hoard of gems by enslaving the Diamond Dogs, is defeated when Vulcan uses his magic to form talons ''from the gems and metals of that very hoard'' and smashes him around repeatedly with them. And ''then'', Vulcan seals his mouth and nostrils shut with that treasure, causing the backfire that [[YourHeadASplode blows Big Boss' head off.]]
** Nearly happens to Ted when the Amulet's tendency to screw up magic screws up the magic that renders Pinkie's cannon relatively harmless, making it not so harmless.
* HorrorHunger: Thestrals are obligate omnivores, because they have a mix of various bats; they need meat and blood, and crave it. This is not considered acceptable by general Equestrian culture.
* AHouseDivided: Vulcan's {{Breaking Lecture}}s seem to have successfully driven a bit of a wedge between Celestia and Luna. And it's slowly but steadily growing due to the pressure of trying to deal with all the problems being caused by Vulcan's presence in Equestria.
** Vulcan has trouble keeping the various groups under his command working together peacefully.
** As of Chapter 36, Luna no longer trusts Celestia's word or actions. ''At all''. She only stays her hoof from acting because Twilight Sparkle asked her to, and because she knows that she couldn't win if it came down to another fight with Celestia.
* HowDoIShotWeb: The Alicorn Amulet doesn't come with an instruction manual.[[spoiler:..or does it?]]
* HowWeGotHere: The story opens with Vulcan imprisoned in Canterlot and interrogated by the Princesses, with him telling them his story. It takes about twenty chapters for the narrative to catch up.
* HumansAreCthulhu: Vulcan's natural appearance horrifies the Diamond Dogs, and tales of the darker side of human history traumatize a Royal Guard who asked about Earth.
** Chapter 20 points out that since Ted comes from a CrapsackWorld, all the quote-unquote "evil" he does in Equestria (Saturday morning nyaah-curse-you-He-Man shennanigans) is small potatoes compared to what people on Earth do on a daily basis.
** Ted's not exactly a mundane human anymore either, since an ArtifactOfDoom is fused to him and giving him power [[spoiler:and advice]].
* HumblePie: [[ExaggeratedTrope Exaggerated]] with Diamond Tiara's captivity.
* HumiliationConga: Good golly gosh does Diamond Tiara get one. [[HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood Diamond Dog parenting is hilarious.]]
* {{Hypocrite}}: Despite believing very strongly in free will, Ted still maintains [[spoiler:the geas on the Changelings]], effectively depriving them of free will. He probably isn't too bothered because of how they reacted without any control at all [[spoiler: very bad]]. In retrospect, his claims that Celestia was wrong to impose dietary changes on the Thestrals are also rather hypocritical, since he earlier did something similar by making the Changelings take care of pets to get their love fix instead of draining the love of sentient beings. The Changelings don't seem to be suffering any problems yet, but not much time has passed in the fic. The problems with the Thestrals' blood substitute weren't immediately obvious either.
** Ted's Diamond Dog horde wanted to make slaves out of passing ponies despite the fact that they had recently been suffering and dying as the slaves of Big Boss. Ted is VERY quick to call them out on it.
** Luna is accused of being one in chapter 44. [[spoiler: When she finds Vulcan in Artful's mind she [[MoralMyopia immediately accuses him of using forbidden magic and called him a vandal and an invader... even though she has been doing the exact same thing for weeks]]. When Vulcan calls her on this she starts a speech saying that it was her duty to protect ponies' dreams, but Artful was having problem in sleeping because she, the defender of dreams, was spying on his mind. ]]
** Ted mocks geeks despite being one himself. The main difference is that he's too afraid of being bullied and mocked by his peers to be open about it.
* IJustWantToBeSpecial: Luna made the Thestrals specifically because she wanted ponies that were as home in the night as she was and she didn't think existing ponies were suitable for the Night Guard, and also wanted her guard to be unique to her to stand out from her sister's guards.
* INeedAFreakingDrink: Vulcan gets completely smashed at the Diamond Dog wake, when it hits home that people have been dying for him.
** Mayor Mare has this reaction to having to tell her brother that Ponyville doesn't really need to rent his snowplows.
* ImAManICantHelpIt: Discussed along with TeensAreMonsters by Darth Vulcan after Artful Dodger realizes that Eiderdown is afraid of him and has no interest in his affections.
* InferioritySuperiorityComplex: Ted's a self-hating geek who suppressed his real interests for years in a vain attempt to be popular while mocking other geeks who didn't prioritize popularity over doing things they actually liked with people they liked. He also engages in overly complex schemes just so he can mock his enemies and feel superior to them. Beneath the whole "Darth Vulcan" facade and the "Ted the jerk" facade, he's a deeply insecure and unhappy person. The evil magical amulet isn't helping either.
* InsanityImmunity: Ted [[spoiler:at first]] is immune to the SanitySlippage inducing effects of the Alicorn Amulet [[spoiler:because he's already pretty unstable thanks to ''years'' of living a lie.]]
* InterspeciesAdoption: A diamond dog adopts an earth pony foal as her own. Curiously enough, the foal even barks like a dog to [[spoiler: get Ted to allow it on sheer [[CutenessProximity cuteness value]]]].
* InterspeciesRomance: Averted. Vulcan is ''not'' interested in [[spoiler: Chrysalis']] offer whatsoever. She does, however, develop a working relationship with Vulcan that evolves into great admiration.
* ItsAllAboutMe: Vulcan doesn't seem to have much time for any view of the world besides his own.
** How bad is it? Every single "good thing" he's done has always had [[PragmaticVillainy the end goal of getting more minions/resources]] rather than out of basic decency and kindness. Even his ThouShallNotKill schtick is done not because he's against killing fully, but because he doesn't want the ponies to play hardball on him if he crosses that line.
* {{Irony}}: Ted refuses to let Chrysalis work with him. [[spoiler: Guess what happens a few chapters later...]] Although to be fair he didn't really have a choice.
* {{Jerkass}}: Whatever else can be said about him, Ted's one of the least pleasant characters in the story.
* JerkassHasAPoint[=/=]VillainHasAPoint: Ted/Darth Vulcan. He kidnaps, he plunders, and he spits on everything in Equestria. But he's critical of many of the things that many who watch to show find fault with, and even the Princesses can't contest these points. Luna herself agrees that getting blasted by the Elements of Harmony is far from a pleasant experience, for example.
** However, Ted doesn't make any observations to help the ponies improve, but to make them feel stupid and basically rub in their faces how much superior he is to them, going out of his way to humiliate them without need, even going as far as form up overly complex plans to do so just so that he can have the chance to point and laugh at them later.
* JerkassRealization: Diamond Tiara's BreakTheHaughty experience does this to her, which was Vulcan's point.
** By the time Luna realized that she was dealing with a teenager with trust, authority, and anger issues instead of a bloodthirsty warlock [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique she could beat up]], it was too late to make amends or explain their actions. [[BreakHerByTalking She got a brutal retort in turn]].
* JustifiedCriminal: Artful Dodger is an orphan petty thief who stole to survive. And whenever he was caught, rather than the proper authorities trying to rehabilitate him in order to become a productive member of society, it's all but stated that every time they caught him, they'd cut off his horn so he couldn't use his magic to commit robberies for a while, which also left him defenseless against rowdier criminals until it grew back. This treatment is one of the reasons why he tossed in his lot with Ted. As a matter of fact... way too many of Ted's willing minions might count in one way or another.
* JustDesserts: After Big Boss is [[YourHeadAsplode defeated]], the Diamond Dogs eat the remains. Princess Celestia was horrified when Vulcan told her, and couldn't seem to get it into her head that the Diamond Dogs were in a precarious situation... or that [[BadBoss Big Boss]] had a habit of eating ''them''.
* JustShootHim: Vulcan doesn't do any faffing about when [[spoiler: Tirek tries to steal his magic]]. He whips out a double-barreled shotgun and blows his head open midway through.
* KansasCityShuffle: Vulcan pulls this in chapter 42: [[spoiler: after discovering that Luna has been DreamSpying on Dodger, he comes up with a plan to hit several targets across Equestria, avoiding the obvious bait of numerous grimoires being held in the royal library. Then he wipes Dodger's memories of this, and tells him a plan to go after the grimoires. While the Royal Guard are concentrated there, his forces go after the other targets... and when they're divided and in disarray, he has Dodger's minion Wolftooth infiltrate the library anyway, and use an enchanted SD chip to copy the grimoires and ''the entire library''.]]
* KillerRabbit: Tooth breezies look as harmless as the pollen ones, but can easily overpower a full grown stallion and remove their teeth, with whether or not their victim feels pain entirely dependent on them.
** A more literal example, Vulcan wasn't taking any chances with Angel Bunny.
** How Vulcan views the pony race in general due to their cute nature, most especially the thestrals.
* KnightOfCerebus: Vulcan, of course.
-->''This guy isn't like you think. He's not clowny like Discord or loud and noisy like Nightmare Moon or wacky crazy like the Mane-iac or Ahuizotl. He's ''smart''. and ''cold''. and ''hard''. He's always thinking, always making plans. And he's scarier than anything I've ever seen.''
* LampshadeHanging: [[DeconstructorFleet Ubiquitous]]. Vulcan likes to point out all the [[FridgeLogic strange, illogical things]] that happen in the show. Many of them have [[PlotHole no real answer]], or it is a really stupid answer... however, handles on things and non-hoof-friendly tools are explained as being minotaur-made, given that most species ''do'' have hands or claws - that makes it a near-literal HandWave. Vulcan is simultaneously amazed and underwhelmed, somehow.
--> '''Darth Vulcan:''' That's both [[MundaneSolution surprisingly sensible]] and [[BoringButPractical vaguely disappointing]].
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Changelings produce a substance that can cause they victims to lose select memories, which aids in the changelings' disguises. It's called "Milk of Amnesia"; Ted face plants at the pun.
* LaserGuidedKarma: Big Boss enslaved the Diamond Dogs and ate any that disobeyed. After Vulcan kills him, the dogs eat his corpse.
** Eiderdown and the Remidials hometowns get torn to shreds, complete with a "You must have been wicked indeed" speech from Vulcan because the group got screwed by government corruption.
** After getting deeper and deeper into outright villainy, Ted ends up receiving a face full of confetti fired from a party cannon that shreds his face. [[GoodScarsEvilScars He's left with a nasty bunch of scars as a result. Fits well with the whole Darth Vader getup.]]
* LegionOfDoom: Ted has pretty much assembled himself one.
* LeeroyJenkins: Rainbow Dash's first reaction to Darth entering Ponyville was to clock him on the head. Darth did start a riot by entering Ponyville, and had all the makings of an evil villain, but Rainbow Dash caused a lot more problems with her actions.
* LethalHarmlessPowers: Ordinarily, Pinkie's [[WildMagic Earth pony Strange Magic]] makes her party cannon completely harmless. But when Vulcan's magic interferes with hers, it means that the cannon now acts like a ''cannon'', so a blast of confetti ends up [[FacialHorror ''shredding Vulcan's face''.]] Luckily, his eyes are undamaged.
** It's due to the cannon being powered by Pinkie's innate magic, which clashes with the amulet's power like Discord's magic did. Pinkie Pie [[BreakTheCutie doesn't take it well.]]
* LiteralGenie: {{Lampshaded}} and then {{Subverted}}. When the Princesses and Elements summoned Leo they each had to name a characteristic to allow their spell to select a proper Champion. At first it seems that the magic interpreted the choices they made ("big", "good with weapons: swords and shields and stuff", "well-versed in battlefield strategy and tactics", etc), to give them a 400-pound overweight nerd who fights with foam swords and enjoys wargames. Celestia even mentions the "Literal Genie Boundary". It isn't until later that they learn that Leo's fat conceals enough StoutStrength that he throws ''tree trunks'' around for fun, his devotion to SCA and LARP means that he's probably the best swordsman anywhere within several hundred miles, and there's probably nobody more willing to fight for the Princesses anywhere on Earth.
** This is even {{Deconstructed}} when it shows how such a thing can be an ADVANTAGE: Pinkie wished for someone with "absolutely no allergies", and Leo just so happened to be resistant to even MANTICORE POISON. By WordOfGod, Leo's basically immune to poisons and toxins.
* MageKiller: Celestia, Luna, and Twilight equip Leo with armor and weapons with intent to make him this to counter Vulcan's magic. In addition to protecting him, the armor is designed to [[EnergyAbsorption absorb any magic thrown at him]] and turn it into power for his magically enhanced mace.
* MagicMirror: The one from ''Equestria Girls'' shows up. Vulcan destroys it so that it can't be used against him, but keeps a shard and experiments with it to create a PortalNetwork that enables his forces to travel in and out of the Everfree without detection, via a hub on the Moon.
* {{Magitek}}: Ted had several SD chips on him the night he was brought to Equestria. After some experimenting, he manages to enchant one with a transcription spell the ponies normally use for copying books, and uses it to [[spoiler: absorb the ''entire royal library'']].
** He also has Flim and Flam inventing things under his supervision. As they're both unicorns, their inventions are likely also examples.
* TheManBehindTheMan: [[spoiler:The Alicorn Amulet is sapient and is trying to coax Ted into greater levels of evil.]]
* ManipulativeBastard: Ted, which fully disqualifies him from being a proper Noble Demon. It's how he keeps his most useful pony minions under control, pandering to their desires for retribution at a disgrace they suffered and using half truths and misinformations to convince them working with him is the only way they can go. He's so good at this, he's even managed to convince large swaths of the reader base he is always in the right through his incredibly biased narration, [[SarcasmMode and ignore the aforementioned half-truths and misinformations!]]
* ManOfKryptonite: The reason why Ted/Vulcan is dangerous to even [[spoiler:Discord]] is because [[spoiler:the Amulet makes the former this trope against the latter.]]
* MaskOfSanity: [[spoiler: Ted. His is so good he doesn't even know he has it. See ThroughTheEyesOfMadness below for details.]]
* MedievalStasis: Vulcan lampshades this as being in effect in Equestria, and ultimately realizes that it's a side effect of being ruled by immortal near-goddesses -- Celestia and Luna would be hesitant to change things from what they remember when they were young, and due to their (intentional and unintentional) influence on society, all it takes is the slightest hint of dissatisfaction or boredom with an idea for the general populace to discard or outright ignore it.
* MeleeATrois: [[spoiler: The battle in the Everfree Castle is fought between Vulcan's forces, Chrysalis' changelings, and Sombra's mind controlled minions.]] And that's before the Princesses and Royal Guard show up.
* MindRape: What Darth Vulcan believes is the way the Princesses maintain peace. Getting hit with the Elements of Harmony, Luna's dream-walking, and learning about Twilight's mind changing spells only confirm this to him, and prevent the Mane 6 from earning his trust. However, it is later stated that magic can't actually alter a mind permanently.
** After Luna's conversation with Vulcan, she's left doubting whether the Elements only purged her demonic influence or altered her personality as well.
** Vulcan pulls this on a guard. He describes human atrocities, starting with the Holocaust and gets to a [[BodyHorror description of an abortive surgery]] before the guard is a screaming wreck.
** This is also how Vulcan gets back at Luna for her method of spying on him: [[spoiler: he lures Luna into his dream instead of Dodger's, traps her there while he has a deep, drug-induced sleep, and bombards her with ''every disturbing Internet meme he knows AND HIS DRUGGED NIGHTMARES''.]]
** [[spoiler:It's implied that years of pretending to be someone he wasn't did this to Ted, making him a ''self-inflicted'' case.]]
* MiscarriageOfJustice: A group of handicapped pegasi endured a terrible one: a rogue tornado from the Everfree forest was about to destroy an Earth pony town so they flew into the storm and destroyed it. They did do some minor damage to an upper class Pegasus town, but the town's officials, rather than thank them, threw charges at them to cover up for their own incompetence, gave them no legal representation or help from their families, and forced them into ''5 years'' of community service in exchange for dropping the fallacious charges, when the maximum time should have been ''1 year''. Their supervisor was a SocialDarwinist pegasus who constantly abused them and lorded over their lives, and any complaints against him were ignored. And after the sentence was fulfilled, the supervisor revealed their criminal charges at their ''graduation'', blacklisting them from any decent career, and causing one of the pegasi to have their filly taken away by the courts.
* MisplacedRetribution: Ted blames his humiliation at the Halloween party on the existence of the show and its fanbase and expresses a desire to destroy the setting of the show in his rant. It would be more appropriate for him to blame the negative environment (to which he contributed) at his school that makes people into pariahs for trivial reasons.
* MistakenForBadass: Believe it or not, TED. Everything started because they mistook him for an actual evil overlord and then everything went downhill when he started to actually try to be one. And because of how he's ran circles across them, at least one character ponders if Ted comes from a world of criminal masterminds. They don't seem to grasp that their enemy, who has made them all look like fools, only has grounding in tactics due to real time strategy computer games and tabletop rpg campaigns without any actual education in real life battlefield tactics. While he does have talent for putting together plans and tactics, part of the reason for his successes has to do with the fact that the ponies don't have the experience in dealing with the sort of plans he makes, much less with prolonged situations instead of one-hit-wins, and don't have access to concepts and ideas that have not taken root in their world, but have on Earth.
* TheMole: [[spoiler: Artful Dodger is an unwitting one, as Luna plants a psychic backdoor in his mind before he escapes prison and uses that to spy on Vulcan's forces. Dodger is horrified and angry when he realizes this.]]
* MonumentalBattle: In-universe, [[spoiler: the Everfree Castle]].
* MonumentalDamage: [[spoiler: Canterlot Castle is undermined due to the damage done by Vulcan's escape in the old caves, and falls off the mountain into the lake below.]]
* MookLieutenant: Runt, Mange, and Skank become leaders of Vulcan's Diamond Dog {{Mooks}}.
** [[spoiler: Black Fang is the commander of the Changelings who change loyalties to Vulcan.]]
** Artful Dodger is recruited from Vulcan's new con pony minions to serve as his NumberTwo. Following a few magical upgrades, he's now arguably TheDragon.
** Dodger gets his own lieutenant in the form of Wolftooth, the leader of the Tooth Breezies who pledge themselves to Dodger's service.
** There's also Pumpkin Patch, who acts as the chief representative of the thestrals who pledge themselves to Vulcan.
** Ironside is the leader of the Minotaurs loyal to him.
** Charcoal is in charge of the ex-con ponies.
** Eiderdown is the leader of remedial pegasi, or at the very least the closest they have to one.
* MoralMyopia: Ted acts like he's justified in everything he does to the ponies just because they beat the crap out of him in their official first contact, ignoring the fact that he was trying to act the part of an over-the-top Evil Villain out to coerce and terrorize the ponies, thinking they wouldn't fight back, for not other reason than [[ItAmusedMe his own amusement]], but instead they reacted to the presented threat like the real deal as might happen in real life. Also Artful Dodger; [[spoiler: he is angry at Luna because of her using him as a mole against his will, while ignoring the fact that she wouldn't have picked him if he wasn't the kind of bitter jerk that would have willingly sold out to an enemy of the country for a cut of the pie.]]
* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: Averted with Doctor Sawbones. Yeah, he works for Vulcan and helps the Diamond Dogs, but only because of his dedication in treating any sick or wounded creature, and is disgusted with how superstition has prevented thestrals from being adequately nourished with the blood they need to ''survive''.
* MoreThanMindControl: Some of the changelings serve Chrysalis not because of the geas, but because they think she's hot.
** Possibly Ted and the Alicorn Amulet itself, with us wondering if "Ted the Jerk" is really the actual Ted.
* MuggingTheMonster: When Ted visits Port Royal to recruit a pirate crew, a pony pirate tries to rob him. This, in spite of the fact that Ted towers over him and looks like a Ringwraith. Both Ted and Dodger lampshade the stupidity of this.
* MundaneUtility: The Alicorn Amulet has spells for fireballs, weather control, form manipulation, teleportation... as well as spells for transcribing books and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking cleaning up hangovers]].
-->'''Darth Vulcan''': [[NoodleIncident Whoever made this thing had an interesting life]].
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: When Ted realizes that Diamond Dogs have died under his watch, he finally realizes just how serious things have gotten for him. He then joins them in mourning the dead.
** Pinkie is horrified when her party cannon [[ScarsAreForever actually hurts Vulcan.]]
* MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: The Breezies we see in the show are this to the Tooth Breezies. They found the use of teeth for their magic distasteful and left the tribe, choosing to use pollen magic instead. The result is they are far weaker than the tooth using tribe. The Tooth Breezies consider them to be 'wussies' and weak, even spitting in disgust when being compared to them.
* NerdInEvilsHelmet: Ted, though he spent years pretending that side of him didn't exist.
* NeverFoundTheBody: Vulcan lampshades this when the Princesses reveal that they didn't find [[spoiler: Chrysalis, Sombra]] or his chief minions after [[spoiler: the battle in the old castle]]. Two out of three so far, he's been proven right.
** Not that it was ever stated in universe that either was gone forever.
** When he first learns of the changelings and their defeat, he asks if Chrysalis died; since the response was this trope, he assumes she was still at large and prepared for the worst. Then the [[spoiler: battle at the Everfree Castle]] happened, proving him right.
* NeverMyFault:
** Luna suffers from this to some degree. While Celestia might have dropped the ball in regards to how the thestrals were treated by the rest of the populace and the prohibition to them drinking blood under any circumstances, it was Luna's decision to insert vampire bat DNA into the Thestral Genome for the sake of "robustness" that that led to them craving blood in the first place, which gave an excuse for others to reject them and led to them being ostracized like they were. Considering that Ponies have been seen fishing, ostensibly to feed their carnivorous pets, the possibility exists that no one would have batted an eye if their craving was for fish if Luna had stuck to Fishing Bats, instead of adding Vampire Bats to the mix, as the blood drinking aspect of the thestrals in this continuity is the biggest reason for their ostracization. The author himself clarified that Luna did not stick to fishing bats because she didn't want her thestrals to be "fish eating pansies", and seeing as feeding on blood actually enhances their physical capabilities due to the magic involved, rather than being an accidental side effect, it was deliberate.
** Ted is, by far, the worst offender in the story. He's so eager to paint the ponies in the wrong and himself in the right, that he can't grasp that it was his decision to play the part of the scary villain in order to gather information to get home, complete with some "harmless" arson in order to bully them into full compliance by terrorizing what he perceived to be wussies that would be afraid of HarmlessVillain type characters simply because it amused him to do things that way, instead of taking off the scary helmet, leaving the minions away, and trying to ASK for help like a sensible person, that caused him to get on everypony's bad side. No one has yet [[ShutUpHannibal pointed out this fact to him.]] Also, it never occurs to him that the Tree of Harmony wouldn't have been in immediate danger if he hadn't been poking around in the Castle of the Sisters, as the Changelings [[spoiler:and King Sombra]] wouldn't have gone there if they hadn't followed him there.
** Celestia is also in on the mayhem. A lot of the mistakes and corruptions she's allowed to fester and grow have been blowing up in her face ever since Ted came to her nation. Rather than acknowledge she messed up, she tried finding a way to blame Darth Vulcan of causing things to fall apart like they are on purpose.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Twilight throwing the Alicorn Amulet into the Void is how it found its way to Ted, leading it to bringing him to Equestria and him becoming Darth Vulcan.
** The Mane Six and the Princesses act less than cordially to Vulcan on their first meetings, leading to him viewing them as {{Mind Rap|e}}ing monsters.
*** Ted presented himself as a villainous overlord from the first act for his own amusement and the ponies reacted like he was the real thing, which he later became out of pure spite when it would have been more practical to stop being an asshole and let the ponies help him. He was also using a dangerous magical artifact known to warp minds, so they had good reason to believe the Alicorn Amulet was twisting his mind. They are also concerned for his sanity, something that tellingly, he isn't, [[spoiler: even after being told outright that his mind was split in half with his true self being buried beneath the asshole personality he presents to the world.]]
** Filthy Rich's betrayal of Darth Vulcan when he wanted to purchase supplies resulted in Diamond Tiara being kidnapped, and Ponyville being looted.
** Luna attacks Vulcan in a frenzy while he escapes from Canterlot. She ends up collapsing some of the tunnels the Diamond Dogs dug to get Vulcan out, and the loss of foundation causes Canterlot Castle to fall from the mountain.
*** It should be noted, however, that Ted deliberately sent a power pulse to finish toppling the castle.
** Vulcan is quick to point out all the times that the heroes have made mistakes.
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Diamond Tiara's time as Vulcan's captive gave her insights into his tendency to plan around belittling his enemies, which coupled with her [[TheStrategist knack for organization]] [[spoiler:and [[TookALevelInKindness newfound humility]] leads to her [[TheDogBitesBack advising the Princesses with near perfect accuracy on what Darth Vulcan's next move may be]].]]
* NightmareWeaver: Thanks to a book Twilight wrote on Sombra's reign, Vulcan is able to teach Dodger how to create "Nightmare Mists" that take on the form of the worst fears of whoever is exposed to them, which he keeps stored in his top hat (which Vulcan nicknames the Hat Full of Nightmare).
* NobleDemon: Darth Vulcan/Ted tries to play at this, but falls short. A true NobleDemon wouldn't bother with petty revenge and trying to show up the ponies like he does, and he actively tries not to be a good person, and attempts to excuse even honestly kind acts as pragmatism because he'd rather seem like a tough guy rather than be a moral person.
** Him ordering his dogs not to kill when they plunder Ponyville, makes the claim of not wanting to inspire the ponies to get rough and kill him in retaliation, instead of because he finds killing to be wrong, and while he orders the dogs not to enslave ponies he doesn't explain why slavery is wrong to try and curb the habit/tradition.
** The hostage he returns, Diamond Tiara, is not unharmed, but has suffered through systemic abuse, leaving her a broken shell of what she used to be.
** Although Ted believes strongly in keeping one's word, it's only when he's on the receiving end of a double cross that he cares, as he has no qualms about turning ponies into traitors against Equestria, several of whom were in the armed forces and had taken an oath of loyalty to the crown.
*** He does point this out to Jetstream and his fellow defectors; they respond that their oath to Celestia was worthless, as it was given under duress.
** When he finds the Tree of Harmony, his first reaction is not to take control of it but run away and try to find a way to keep it secure from Chrysalis [[spoiler: and Sombra]]. Arguably his only truly selfless act... but the Tree of Harmony wouldn't have been in danger in the first place if he hadn't been poking around the Castle of the sisters, as his presence is what drew the dangers there.
** When the Diamond Dogs mourn their dead, he is horrified by the deaths under his command, and joins them in mourning. Up until the Diamond Dog Wake, [[WrongGenreSavvy he thought the universe he was in would bend over backwards in order to keep the inhabitants of the world from dying and keep it's 'Y7 child friendly nature' intact.]]
*** [[WordOfGod According to the author,]] the destruction of Cirrus/Hilltop was done mostly out of sympathy for the Remedial Class Pegasi. That being said, he also stated that the injustice they suffered could have been cleared without any bit of property damage or even directly involving himself like he did.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Eiderdown and her friends suffered greatly for an act of heroism. See MiscarriageOfJustice
* NoJustNoReaction: Vulcan's reaction to [[spoiler: Chrysalis propositioning him.]]
* NoNonsenseNemesis: Ted, has far more of his shit together than all the baddies Equestria faced before he showed up. He's not LaughablyEvil like Discord, and he doesn't care for posturing like Nightmare Moon. Unlike both of them, he knows when to cut and run as well.
* NoodleIncident: Ponies being irresponsible with portals to the Void is something that has happened before, much to Luna's annoyance. Apparently, somebody used the Void as ''[[MundaneUtility garbage disposal]]'' because ''supposedly'' the [[MillionToOneChance odds of anything hitting something are infinitesimal]]. Either [[EldritchLocation the Void plays by other rules]], or the unicorn was just unlucky enough for his garbage to piss off a Shoggoth.
* NoSell: The Elements of Harmony have no effect on Vulcan, because as Luna points out, he's not corrupted.
** Vulcan and Discord's powers cancel each other out.
** [[spoiler: Tirek]] absorbs any magic attack thrown at him. [[spoiler: Firearms, however, work very well against him.]]
* NotBrainwashed: The Mane 6 blast Darth Vulcan with the Elements of Harmony, believing him to be corrupted by the Alicorn Amulet. Not only is he not corrupted, he believes the ''Mane 6'' were trying to brainwash him. [[spoiler:Later chapters hint that the Amulet ''is'' starting to corrupt him. Unfortunately for him, he already dealt with the Elements.]]
** [[spoiler: Even worse, it's hinted that his mind was already warped to the point his original non-asshole personality was buried within after the effort to fit in with the in-crowd, meaning that Ted had already corrupted HIMSELF before putting on the dread piece of jewelry.]]
* NotSoWeak: Tooth Breezies might appear as frail and puny to their pollen gathering counterparts, but are about ten to twenty times stronger than they are.
* OhCrap: [[spoiler: Tirek]] gets one when he sees a two barrel shotgun pressed on his face.
* OnceDoneNeverForgotten: Rainbow Dash is a little touchy about anypony bringing up that she provoked Darth Vulcan by [[LeeroyJenkins assaulting him]] when he walked into Ponyville and demanded to know where he could find Twilight.
* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Zecora in this story turns out to be from West Fillydelphia. She played to the mystic shaman stereotype to be taken seriously as a herbalist/healer in spite of being the bona fide thing. She stops her rhyming completely and returns to her natural accent after the first accidental encounter with Ted blows her cover.
* OpenMouthInsertFoot: Artful Dodger is discussing showering with Eiderdown and starts speaking before thinking.
--> You could literally see the words travelling from his mouth, to his own ears, and from thence to his brain. His eyes went round for a second. "Once. One. At a time, that is. Not that there isn't enough room for two. Heh. I mean--- I'll go first, that way you kin take your time. Afterward. By yourself." He literally shoved his own hoof in his mouth to shut himself up. He bit down on his hoof for a second then spoke around it. "G-g-give you time to, uh, pretty yourself up afterward...."
* OutOfSightOutOfMind: Averted and deconstructed. One of Ted's many criticisms of Equestria is that this is how the cast (though, mostly Princess Celestia) treats everything important: [[SealedEvilInACan Villains]], [[MacGuffin important artifacts]], ''[[HiddenElfVillage ENTIRE NATIONS]]''...
** To start with, the Alicorn Amulet comes back and bites everyone in Equestria back a big way.
** Likewise with the Changelings. As Twilight notes, ponies pretty much forgot about them after the Canterlot Wedding, [[spoiler:and now they're working for Vulcan]].
** Vulcan points out how this is a terrible idea ([[DeadpanSnarker in his usual way]]) while asking if [[SealedEvilInACan he's going to get the same treatment]].
* OutsideContextProblem:
** This is one of the reasons why the ponies have had so much trouble with Ted. They are used to villains they can just deal with in one strike and usually don't plan much beyond throwing power around to deal with the heroes, so when they encounter someone who actually plans ahead and has picked up basic tactics from different entertainment media that can be applied to real life situations, and can actually make good guesses regarding how the heroes will react and plan accordingly... they are completely ineffective because they just don't have the experience of dealing with prolonged situations or of someone that isn't consumed by their own ego to the point they make stupid mistakes that the heroes can exploit and use to win the day.
** Celestia hopes that by summoning heroes from Earth, they can find a way to beat Ted/Vulcan, as they hope that someone from the same world will be familiar enough with Ted's mindset to be able to at least help them understand and make their own counter-tactics themselves to deal with him.
* PainfulPersona: Ted ([[TomTheDarkLord who becomes the emponymous]] EvilOverlord) spent the years between starting high school and present pretending to be a stereotypical JerkJock, despite being as nerdy as they come. He lets this other side come out strictly on Halloween since it's "socially acceptable" to spend hundreds of dollars on a Halloween costume, but not cosplay. A single bad night ousts him as a nerd (and worse, everyone thinks he likes [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic a certain little girl's cartoon]]), which sparks the plot.
* PaletteSwap: [[spoiler: To tell his own Changelings apart from Chysalis', Vulcan changes their appearance to shades of red.]]
* ParentalSubstitute: [[spoiler: Chrysalis]], at least, jokingly sees Vulcan as becoming this to Artful Dodger.
* PassThePopcorn: When Vulcan assigns Eiderdown to serve Dodger, as her way of paying off her debt to Vulcan, he and [[spoiler: Chrysalis]] decide to enjoy some nachos while watching Dodger's attempts at dealing with his crush on her.
* PayEvilUntoEvil: Darth Vulcan fully believes in doing this. Case in point: destroying the towns of Cirrus and Hilltop for ruining the lives of the pegasi who stopped a tornado from blowing them all away.
** [[WordOfGod The author, however]], was clear in saying that all the paying evil unto evil he does is largely unnecessary and overly excessive.
* PetTheDog:
** Literally, whenever Vulcan acts kindly to the Diamond Dogs.
** He suggests that the changelings under his command learn to pet [[BunniesForCuteness rabbits]] and other creatures to get the affection they need to survive.
** Although going the PayEvilUntoEvil route over the remedial pegasi getting screwed over was going too far, Ted still acts out of legitimate sympathy for their plight.
* PityTheKidnapper: Attempted by Diamond Tiara while she's held hostage by Vulcan. [[HilarityEnsues The typical result]] of this trope is averted when Vulcan's response is to escalate D.T.'s humiliation and mistreatment until she couldn't take it anymore. [[LampshadeHanging Vulcan later says that this trope doesn't really work in real life, for the reasons he had just demonstrated]].
* PlayingWithFire: Vulcan [[SimpleYetAwesome likes to resort to]] KillItWithFire several times (even if it [[NoSell didn't pan out]] against [[AntiMagic Big Boss]]), he also fireproofed himself; Shining Armor's shield is a confined space, Shining Armor [[OhCrap is not fireproof]]. Do the math. Shining only survived because [[EvenEvilHasStandards Vulcan]] is a pragmatic villain that didn't want to kill him to prevent extreme retaliation against him.
* PokeInTheThirdEye: Ted discovers that Luna has put some kind of tracking spell glyph on Dodger and is using it to spy on Ted and his minions. He transfers the spell to himself and, knowing they will cause him to have some vivid nightmare hallucinations, partakes of certain mind-altering substances.
* PragmaticVillainy: Vulcan is ''scared'' of the Tree of Harmony's power, and not only avoids messing with it, but is quick to take steps to stop anyone else from doing so. He also avoids murder to not motivate his opponents to play hardball with him.
* PrecociousCrush: ''All'' the fillies in Ponyville have a crush on Shining Armor. When Spike points out that he's married, they reply that they know, they just like to ''[[FemaleGaze look]]''.
* PrimalFear: Being eaten alive. [[spoiler: Chrysalis]] was on the verge of being eaten, and [[spoiler: her]] scream of utter terror, along with Vulcan acknowledging the horror of the situation, manages to get him to interfere - despite freely admitting that he would be the first one in line to ''cause'' that to happen if the circumstances were different. {{Discussed|Trope}} later when he's recounting the event to Celestia; he remembers it's one of the most frequent nightmares on Earth, and Luna confirms the same for Equestria.
* PsychicStrangle: While first testing his new powers, Vulcan can't help but channel Darth Vader and uses this to hunt.
* PunchClockVillain: Discussed. When the heroes discuss how Darth Vulcan has the loyalty of his dogs, Rarity points out it's ''only'' because he keeps them well fed. However, Shining rightly points out that ''only'' taking care of a pack that size is no small feat, and that until he came along nobody had ever cared about their well-being before.
* PunctuatedPounding: Vulcan does this to the Everfree Castle's traps.
--> '''Vulcan''': All this--" explosion "--crap I have to deal with--" detonation-- " 'I say, Princess Sparkle [=McFluffypoo=], we have a small mountain of weapons and magic tomes and super-special ancient artifacts---" disintegrate "-- perhaps we should lock them up in a vault someplace safe?" fireball "Why no, don't be ridiculous! Let's take them and--" bigger explosion "--- stick them in a collapsing condemned building--" eruption "-- out in the middle of a wilderness--" defenestration "-- and fill it full of booby traps!
* PurpleIsTheNewBlack: Vulcan's Magic Aura is dark purple.
* PuzzlingPlatypus: After Luna and Celestia reveal that Thestrals actually benefit from drinking blood, the panel of scientists chew them out for manipulating the experiment to have NoControlGroup (the test group was fed blood with blue food coloring in to make it purple, and the control got straight blood), rendering their findings unacceptable. Celestia brings up that it took bringing a platypus cadaver to their predecessors to change their minds on whether or not they existed, and one guy swore up and down he could see stitches on it.
* RapePillageAndBurn: Done to Ponyville, or at least the pillage part.
** Vulcan's forces later do parts two and three to an upper class Pegasus town and an Earth pony village, to avenge a group of pegasi who saved these towns from a rogue tornado years prior and had lost everything because of the corrupt nature of the town government. Ted was much more thorough this time, too - the enchantments holding the cloud town fell apart, and the earth village fell in a sink hole after mining teams destroyed its foundations.
* RedShirtArmy: The tribe of Diamond Dogs Ted [[YouKillItYouBoughtIt takes over.]]
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Darth Vulcan seems to be this as it tends to work a lot better than being a BadBoss. However, a lot of it is a ruse to keep his minions under control and pure pragmatism rather than actually being reasonable. [[SubvertedTrope He didn't escalate the situation to its current form by actually BEING truly reasonable.]]
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech
** Vulcan delivers these to Celestia and the Mane Six like nobody's business.
** Vulcan gives one to Chrysalis, explaining just how flawed her invasion plan was.
** Vulcan unleashes a nasty one on Luna when she decides to rough him up. Despite Vulcan being chained to a wall and imprisoned, Luna is the one who comes out more rattled.
--->'''Luna''': My sister is too kind and soft for her own good. She would parlay with thee, let thee prattle on. I have no such compunctions. Thou hast brought evil upon our ponies, and thou shalt answer us humbly and swiftly, and give us all the truth we ask-- or feel our wrath!\\
''[Vulcan laughs]''\\
'''Luna''': Wh-what art thou laughing at?\\
'''Vulcan''': You. So Celestia sent you in to play 'bad cop,' did she?\\
'''Luna''': Bad.. cop?\\
'''Vulcan''': It means she plays nice, then you get to come in and play all mean and hard... and do the dirty work for her. Like always.\\
'''Luna''': Watch thy tongue, creature. I care not for what thou art implying.\\
'''Vulcan''': And what am I implying? The truth? Things get nasty, she leaves, you come in to rough me up. Pardon me for trusting the evidence of my own eyes.\\
'''Luna''': Celestia, did not need to ASK me to put hoof, horn or wing to thee, wretch. I would have done the same on mine own.\\
'''Vulcan''': If she let you.\\
'''Luna''': Thou shalt show respect, prisoner. ''[shoves horn at his face]''\\
'''Vulcan''': Celestia already did the horn-in-your-face thing. She did it better, too. Forget it. I don't speak to Celestia's underling.\\
'''Luna''': I AM NOPONY'S UNDERLING!\\
'''Vulcan''': Oh get over yourself. She rules the sun, the thing that keeps everything on the planet ALIVE. You rule the moon-- a fricking night light. You were so unimportant that she did your job and hers for a thousand years without help.\\
'''Luna''': ''[hesitant]'' My sister and I share the throne. I rule with her...\\
'''Vulcan''': Rule with her? You can't even match her. You tried to stand up for yourself and she spanked your fanny and sent you to your room, and only let you back out when you promised to be a good little filly and obey her. The only reason you're a princess at all is with her permission. And she could take that away any time she wanted. Look at this place. Hell, she built Canterlot while you were gone. It's ALL hers! This is HER castle, HER kingdom, and it has been for a thousand years! You're just the unemployed kid sister she lets sleep on the sofa--\\
'''Luna''': SILENCE! ''[zaps him]''\\
'''Vulcan''': Whatsamatter, honey? Truth hurt? Oh hey, y'not c'mpletely useless, after all... she lets you do all the stuff that would make her look bad. She gets to be the pretty princess everyone loves... an'... an' you get to skulk around inna dark wi' your batponies, scarin' the naughty ponies straight for her. Thousan' years an nuthin's changed, hazzit?
** Twilight ends up giving one to the Cirrus/Hilltop officials after she and the other princesses find out what happened to the remedial pegasi.
* RescueRomance: Mixed with AsskickingLeadsToLeadership and played for laughs -- [[spoiler: as per changeling society, since Vulcan not only dominated Chrysalis in battle but saved her from some plunder vines conjured by Sombra, she's now fixated on him as a potential mate]].
* {{Revenge}}: While Eiderdown goes to Vulcan mostly for help for everything she and her friends went through, she's goaded into admitting that this is what she ''really'' wants. And when Vulcan delivers, she admits that while she feels bad for any of the innocents who got caught in the crossfire, she mostly just feels vindicated.
* RhymesOnADime: Subverted. Turns out Zecora actually speaks in a West Fillydelphia accent; the rhyming and DarkestAfrica routine are just an act designed so that ponies take her and her skills seriously.
* RightHandAttackDog: Deadwood, Vulcan's timberwarg mount.
* RightUnderTheirNoses: Chrysalis tries this with Vulcan.
** [[spoiler:Vulcan gets the Elements of Harmony by sending Changelings that look like the Mane Six to Ponyville to take them.]]
* RuleOfThree: The summoning magic Celestia uses to bring a Champion to Equestria to deal with Vulcan is so complex, she can only pull it off three times in a Solar Year.
* SanitySlippage: The Alicorn Amulet should be doing this to Ted. The fact that it seemingly isn't is a cause for concern in-universe. [[spoiler: It's implied by certain statements by the author and a few hints in the narrative that this already happened before Ted came to Equestria.]]
* ScarsAreForever: Ted is left heavily scarred after taking a blast in the face from Pinkie's party cannon. [[SubvertedTrope Though he notes that he can probably fix the cosmetic damage with magic if he needs to.]]
* ScaryImpracticalArmor: Ted's outfit. The official artwork makes him look more like a Chaos Space Marine rather than Darth Vader.
* SchizoTech: Vulcan is rather confused by the varying levels of technology in Equestria.
* [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl Screams Like A Filly]]: Apparently, Shining Armor - or so Vulcan said - after getting caught inside a fireball inside his own shield.
** Vulcan admits he screamed when he saw a [[spoiler: changeling for the first time,]] and on a number of other occasions.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: When Discord realizes that his powers don't work on Vulcan, he runs away.
* SeaMonster: While on the water Vulcan briefly encounters the Draco, a constellation monster like the Ursas that takes the form of a serpent travelling the oceans.
* SeriesContinuityError: A small one, but when Cadence is listing all the reasons why teenagers like Ted are so full of anger, she mentions the loss of innocence, including finding out that Santa Hooves and the Tooth Breezy aren't real. Flashforward about twenty chapters or so, and we find out that tooth breezies are an entire ''subspecies'' of the breezy race.
** AvertedTrope: The Tooth Breezies pretty much state that they were left for dead and forgotten 1000 years ago ''[[WhatTheHellHero by Celestia]]'' following her victory against Nightmare Moon; [[ToothFairy both of whom had employed their clan in the first place]]. Cadence not thinking the Tooth Breezies were real means that they were relegated to nothing but myth after several centuries due to their survival/existence being unknown.
* ShoutOut: [[ShoutOut/TheRiseOfDarthVulcan Now with its own page]]
* SinisterSurveillance: Early on Vulcan creates a spell (in the form of floating eyes) that allows him to spy on events in and around his territory.
* SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil: One of the ''very'' few moral rules Ted recognizes: He will kill, steal, and destroy without a qualm, but he will ''not'' take slaves, or tolerate others doing so. The ponies find this baffling, since they can't understand why he objects to this one specific sin while having no scruples elsewhere.
* SnakeOilSalesman: Flim and Flam, of course; however, what's interesting is that they deliberately invoke this. They started out with honest intentions of revolutionizing Equestria with their amazing inventions, but became so frustrated by [[MedievalStasis everyone treating their marvelous works like junk]], [[ThenLetMeBeEvil they decided to just peddle junk.]]
* SoldierVersusWarrior: Vulcan and Leo respectively during their brief fight with Vulcan being a CombatPragmatist that is willing to avert MookChivalry if it means getting an advantage over his opponents, while Leo is a WarriorPoet that adheres to HonorBeforeReason and sought to fight Vulcan [[DuelToTheDeath one-on-one]] thinking he wouldn't allow for his minions to interfere. [[spoiler:Naturally, Leo loses the battle; though not before getting a few good licks in on Vulcan in the process.]]
%%* SorcerousOverlord: Ted/Vulcan
* SpidersAreScary: The aptly-named Nope Spiders play this as straight as possible by being hand-sized with glowing red eyes and skull patterns on their backs.
* SpiderSwarm: Artful Dodger punishes a stallion for molesting Eiderdown with a dose of Nightmare Mist. The stallion's worst fear is a horde of spiders crawling all over him. Dodger later saves the tooth breezies from a real spider swarm, earning their loyalty.
* StoryBreakerPower: [[spoiler: Discord]] has the power to solve any problem. [[spoiler: Making Vulcan immune to Discord's power makes the story go on longer]].
* StoutStrength: Leo looks like a fat, stereotypical {{LARP}} nerd, but he's strong enough to fight a Manticore by tackling it and wielding a fallen log as a cudgel. He mentioned that he was going to enter the Caber Toss (a Highland Game that boils down to "shot-put with telephone poles") at the Renaissance Faire he got summoned from.
* StrawVegetarian: Vulcan tells stories about an overly-righteous vegetarian as a parallel for the problems of carnivores like Thestrals trying to live as herbivores. The first had the vegetarian's cat die because she only fed it vegetables and ignored the vet's advice that it needed meat. Then second had the same girl switching out the sugar water in a hummingbird feeder for a calorie-free substitute, and since the birds weren't getting the calories they needed to live, they ended up starving with full stomachs. Vulcan then reveals that this vegetarian was in fact his cousin. Subverted by the fact that [[TruthInTelevision these are real life stories]]. The hummingbird incident was only reported once, but cases of cats and kittens dying of malnutrition on vegan diets are a regular occurrence.
* StupidEvil: Darth Vulcan might have some intelligence (and perceives himself as having far more), but he's ultimately this. The ''entire'' reason he's even in the mess he is to begin with is he decided to terrorize the ponies for no reason, as all he needed was the use the library. He continues to do overly elaborate plans to try and make his enemies look stupid, when simpler plans would not only be more practical, but would have a lower risk to everyone involved (including his own). Ultimately, Vulcan would be causing himself and everyone else ''way'' less trouble if he stopped being a {{Jerkass}}.
* SummonBiggerFish: The current plan (as of chapter 46) for dealing with Vulcan is to try to Summon a Hero from Earth. [[TooDumbToLive A plan cooked up immediately after being told that Vulcan can't be taken out with One Swift Stroke tactics by Diamond Tiara]], [[JustifiedTrope in the hopes of at least distracting Darth from other measures.]]
* SummonEverymanHero: Their first champion is a fat LARP nerd. "A big feller", "someone good with swords and shields", "a veteran of many campaigns" indeed. Subverted to hell in that although he may not look it, it turns out that fat LARP nerd, named [[MeaningfulName Leo Hart]], is trained in actual medieval weaponry (best man-of-arms in the tri-state area, according to him) and has StoutStrength, to the point he had considered signing up for the Caber toss at the [=RenFaire=] he was at before being summoned and, per Pinkie's request, is immune to all sorts of poisons and toxins.
* SuperSoldier: Luna created the Thestrals for this purpose. Well-fed Thestrals are far can outstrip the capabilities of Earth Ponies and normal pegasi by a wide margin.
* SurvivalMantra: Diamond Tiara develops one while being kept as Darth's hostage.
-->'''Diamond Tiara''': My Daddy's coming to get me...
* SurroundedByIdiots: How Vulcan clearly felt with the Diamond Dogs.
-->'''Vulcan''': Skank, I swear, one of these days you're going to pick your nose and your head's gonna cave in.
* SwordFight: Vulcan has one with Sombra [[spoiler: in the ruins of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters]]. However, it's somewhat played for laughs, given that Vulcan has no skill or experience with swordplay and his blade is far too heavy to wield properly, while Sombra is a miniature horse with little experience in physical combat who has to wield his sword in his mouth. Vulcan even lampshades that the fight must look more ridiculous than epic.
--> We ran around waving our pointy sticks at each other like two men trying to kill a snake in a phone booth.
* SympatheticPOV: Ted's mostly sympathetic because he's the POV character in a good number of chapters. Without that look into his mind, he's basically a city-wrecking, kidnapping, filly-drowning, house-burning jerk wielding a dangerous ArtifactOfDoom who keeps insulting everyone not on his side. The company he keeps isn't helping matters: the Diamond Dogs (slavers), the Changelings (emotion eaters who recently attacked the capital), and the outcasts and criminals of Equestrian society. It gets worse when you put together the clue told by Cadence back when he was captured regarding his actual mental state and the specific wording regarding his origin story used by the author. Much worse.
* SympathyForTheDevil: One of the reasons the good guys are having so much trouble with Ted is because they have come to realize that he's a sad, screwed up kid. They want to stop him, but they also want to [[SaveTheVillain save him]].
* TakeOverTheWorld: Subverted. Vulcan has no desire to rule Equestria's world, and he knows that while his magic might give him a temporary edge on Earth if he ever got back, human military technology would ultimately overwhelm him.
* TakeThat: Everything about Cirrus/Hilltop and the Remedial pegasi is a '''massive''' one to Fluttershy's alternate origin in ''Fanfic/AMinorVariation''.
* TastesLikeFriendship: On a national scale. One of the reasons the Diamond Dogs are loyal to Ted/Vulcan is that he provides for them when they've been going to bed hungry for as long as they can remember.
** Vulcan's plan to recruit thestrals is to feed them well too - specifically, the blood they need to live, but everyone else tells them is a mental illness to want. It's likened to telling someone they're addicted to vitamin C and they're a monster for eating an orange.
* TeensAreMonsters: Ted was a pretty troubled teenager even before he ended up in Equestria. Being trapped in a setting he already hated, getting on the wrong side of just about everybody [[spoiler:and the Alicorn Amulet's own increasingly strong influence on him]] aren't improving matters.
* TelephonePolearm: Leo has little to no problem lifting a tree trunk and using it to clobber a hallucinating manticore bigger than himself.
* ThenLetMeBeEvil: Flim and Flam started out as honest businessponies, but when nobody wanted to use their inventions they became con men because, in their words "why NOT sell them junk, if that's how they're going to treat everything we invent?"
* TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget: Ted. Should be noted this happened in his backstory BEFORE the amulet and might tie in with why the Amulet doesn't affect him normally, and no magic was involved at all.
* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: [[spoiler: Ted. The amulet HAS in fact been affecting him by guiding his thoughts without him noticing which thoughts actually come from the amulet aside from a few moments when he can tell what the amulet is feeling. His sanity is implied to not have been all there with his revealed backstory, and it may or many not be deteriorating even further, seeing as how he keeps upping the ante on the sort of things he does and all but nearly killed Artful Dodger for a perceived betrayal. Considering that Ted is against killing, this means he's close to really going over the edge. Heck, the amulet has been shown actively suppressing his memories to prevent Ted from LEARNING ANYTHING ABOUT IT IN THE FORBIDDEN SPELL BOOKS.]]
* TomTheDarkLord: Lampshaded by Vulcan, who upon revealing his true name to Celestia, tells her that he used an alias because no one would be scared of "the Dread Sorcerer Ted".
* TooCleverByHalf: One of Ted's [[FatalFlaw Fatal Flaws]]. All of his plans bank on his belief in his own superiority over the ponies to come ahead of them. However, the Ponies are stepping up their game slowly and during his latest scheme they nearly got him. The author is clearly setting him up for a big fall if you know how he feels about villain protagonists or villains in general, [[MisaimedFandom no matter what some fans believe.]]
* TookALevelInBadass: Vulcan, with some help from [[spoiler: Chrysalis]] enables one of these for his undersized and underpowered apprentice Artful Dodger, equipping him with various charms, artifacts, and spells in order to make himself, if not a powerhouse, a more formidable opponent.
* TokenGoodTeammate: Eiderdown and her friends seem to be the least evil members of Darth Vulcan's crew, and even Eiderdown is more motivated by a desire for revenge than for justice (granted, she initially tries to go for a "justice" solution anyway... at least until Chrysalis adds fuel to the fire).
** Played straight with the Wolftooth Clan of Tooth Breezies who work for Artful Dodger (and by-extension, Darth Vulcan), the Wolftooth Clan unlike the rest of Darth Vulcans' minions aren't motivated into working with Darth Vulcan to seek revenge against Equestria for forgetting them or Celestia for abandoning them 1000 years ago. Instead, their clan only joined for protection from the larger predators of the Everfree Forest. [[FelonyMisdemeanor And aside from their stint directed towards their "wussy" Pollen-Breezy cousins who kicked them out of their realm for practicing "creepy" Tooth Magic]], the Wolftooth Clan is simply friendly and cordial to everyone else.
* TruthInTelevision: Darth Vulcan describes an incident where a vegan killed her cat feeding it a vegan diet, and another where she killed a flock of hummingbirds feeding them Nutrasweet. These are based on real life events. The vegan cat food incident actually occurs depressingly regularly in real life.
** Leo being {{Acrofatic}} actually refers to real life power lifters.
* TranquilFury: When Artful Dodger steals [[spoiler: Chrysalis's]] underwear, she remains calm. She also tells him that if he does it again she'll pull his reproductive system out through his nose.
** When Celestia finds out what happened to the Cirrus/Hilltop remedial pegasi, the only indication of her rage is her face darkening and her saying Twilight should handle this because she thinks she won't be able to control herself if she dealt with them herself.
* UngratefulTownsfolk: The remedial class pegasi save Hilltop/Cirrus from a rogue tornado by using a makeshift bomb to disperse it. The town thanks them by making their lives absolute hell for it because it caused minor damages throughout town. When Vulcan's raid on the town reveals all this, not only are all of the town's politicians indicted, but Twilight cuts off crown funding to the towns altogether.
* UnderestimatingBadassery: This happens to Cadence and Shining Armor a lot. But as is pointed out, Cadence is still an [[PhysicalGod alicorn]], Shining Armor is one of the two most powerful unicorns of his generation, each is capable of shielding a city for days on end (in Shining's case, while Chrysalis was ''sucking him dry''), and combined, even the dregs of their power was able to repel an entire Changeling invasion from Canterlot.
** Ted is underestimating the Ponies' badassery in general, as he arrogantly believes nothing they do can touch him. They're slowly stepping up their game instead.
* UndyingLoyalty: Vulcan's Diamond Dog troops, due to him freeing them from Big Boss and treating them better than any leader they've ever had.
** Dodger later gains this from the tooth breezies, after saving them from a SpiderSwarm.
* UnreliableNarrator: Ted says that Rainbow Dash has a squeaky voice, instead of the rough, scratchy voice that tends to crack she actually has. WordOfGod says to Ted it sounds squeaky.
** In a later chapter, he says normal changelings are "murky green" instead of blue and dark grey.
** He is very unreliable by default due to the fact that he will never admit his own fault in his own problems and would instead try to pin his misfortunes solely on the ponies.
* UnskilledButStrong: Vulcan, at least before he starts studying magic. Diamond Tiara is rather surprised that he doesn't know basic lessons she learned long ago, yet he's too powerful for the Mane Six to take on.
* VegetarianVampire: Subverted. Thestrals need to drink blood but the House of Lords forced them to subsist on an alchemic substitute that just barely keeps them alive. [[spoiler: Ted offers real blood to recruit Thestrals, comparing their treatment to a vegan feeding a kitten tofu. Twilight responds by replacing the Night Guards' fake blood ration with a "new formula" that's secretly real blood and food coloring. Luna takes her personal guard down to the royal chicken coop and tells them to chow down.]]
** Ironically, he suggests that the Changelings become this by suggesting that they pet bunnies to satiate their appetite for love.
* VillainKiller: [[spoiler:The fate of Lord Tirek when he tries to drain the Magic from Ted was [[BoomHeadshot a face-full of buckshot.]]]]
* VillainProtagonist: Darth Vulcan/Ted.
* WantsAPrizeForBasicDecency: When Celestia calls Ted out on setting fire to Ponyville homes, he dismisses it by saying they were only little fires and that it's not like he blew up the houses.
* WeWantOurJerkBack: After Diamond Tiara is kidnapped, even the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who she had bullied near-constantly before, want to help look for her.
* WhatTheHellHero: Vulcan hands these out alongside his [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech "The Reason You Suck" Speeches]].
* WhatMeasureIsAMook: Subverted: The Diamond Dogs mourn the loss of their comrades who were killed either by Big Boss, or in many of Darth Vulcan's activities with a massive ceremony. Darth himself feels guilty about not recognizing how many dogs died under his command, [[PetTheDog and joins the dogs in their mourning.]]
* WhatMeasureIsANonCute: Subverted. While Vulcan does admit that the changelings look like monsters, upon closer inspection he finds it to be in an [[UglyCute infantile, goofy sort of way]] right at home in a childrens' show; he also {{Lampshade|Hanging}}s humanity's tendency to throw affection at anything. ''[[NightmareFetishist Anything.]]'' (So long as you can reach the right audience.) He also suspects that a quivering lip, a sad plea, and [[PuppyDogEyes "big dewy foal eyes"]] would have been enough to win the Equestrians over, making them love (and thus [[EmotionEater feed]] and help) the changelings, even ''without'' using VoluntaryShapeshifting.
* WhiteAndGreyMorality: A brutal subversion. The Princesses and the Mane 6 vs an empowered {{Jerkass}} teenager who ''thinks'' he's, while undoubtedly a criminal, a NobleDemon with a code of ethics who consciously avoids lines like murder and mind control. However, his code of ethics is a flimsy laundry list he doesn't understand himself, he avoids taking life not out of basic decency, but [[PragmaticVillainy to avoid enraging the ponies enough to make them attempt killing him in retribution]], and while he doesn't do mind control, he instead manipulates useful pony minions by making them believe that serving him is the only way, by giving them his own twisted assumptions about what the authorities will do to them for dealing with him in the first place (the remedial class pegasi, whom he told Celestia would use as scapegoats to pacify the populace), or witholding information from them to prevent them from making a truly informed choice regarding whether to serve him or leave and inflaming their anger at past misdeeds to make them not consider any other alternatives (Ted knew the new blood supplement was actually real blood with food coloring, and implied it was another attempt at making fake blood again while tossing a few reminders regarding how they were hurt before, all to get them to NOT leave him). He's closer to the black spectrum than he is gray, and getting even closer the more he stays a villain, [[spoiler: as shown when he nearly strangled Artful Dodger, arguably his only friend in Equestria, over a perceived betrayal. While the Alicorn Amulet did have some influence, the way the amulet does things is by coaxing Ted into doing things he feels he wants to do and giving a little push...]].
* WhoNamesTheirKidDude: Even by My Little Pony standards, Eiderdown stands out as an unusual name.
** Eiderdown is the soft, fluffy feathers from the breast of a bird, or baby bird/duck feathers-- [[MeaningfulName a reference to her malformed, overly fluffy wing feathers]], and referenced by Artful Dodger's nickname for her, "Little Ducklin'."
* TheWildHunt: A thestral custom rather than a Fey one. The entire tribe plus Luna chase down a large creature and exsanguinate it. They once mummified a Hydra doing so. The custom was stopped when Luna was sent to the moon and the thestrals exiled.
* WishFulfillment: In a weird way, being sent to Equestria is this for Ted. On Earth, he spent years suppressing his real interests and faked being "cool" just to fit in at high school. On Equestria, he gets to live out all of his D&D geeky interests and has awesome magical powers to boot. "Darth Vulcan" is arguably a lot closer to his true self than the persona he adopted in high school. Tellingly, he doesn't spare much thought to the life he left behind on Earth.
* AWizardDidIt: Vulcan ultimately comes to the conclusion that if he doesn't understand anything in Equestria, it's because of magic.
* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Averted. Darth Vulcan references the Evil Overlord Rule "Shooting is not too good for my enemies", and uses it to [[spoiler: [[BoomHeadshot kill]] Tirek]].
* WildMagic: Earth pony Strange Magic is best defined as this, as it's not an active thing, but lets them pull off things that otherwise make no sense. Pinkie is speculated to actually be relative to Twilight in this regard.
* WorthlessYellowRocks: One of the tooth breezies that pulled out a gangsters teeth is disgusted to find itself holding a gold tooth, rather than a real one it can use as a power source.
** One of Vulcan's complaints is that, with all the gold and jewels at his disposal, on Earth he'd be a billionaire. But the ponies use it for ''pocket change''.
* WouldHurtAChild: Despite the WhiteAndGreyMorality of the fic and the good job it does of making [[RootingForTheEmpire Vulcan sympathetic]], it also shows how he's STILL a villain by making him nearly DROWN Diamond Tiara.
* WorthyOpponent: Shining Armor begrudgingly admits that Darth Vulcan earned the loyalty of the Diamond Dogs.
* WriterOnBoard: Over the course of the story, the Princesses (especially Celestia) have been reduced to object lessons of how ''not'' to run a government. The story also brings attention to bullying and the practice of imposing vegan diets on creatures whose biology is not suited for them. Vulcan also bluntly states there's a huge difference between unauthorized copying of data and [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil "stealing" data.]] Chapter 47 has a jab against government spending on frivolous scientific research, inspired by the Golden Fleece Awards.
* WrongGenreSavvy: When Darth Vulcan first enters Ponyville, Rainbow Dash immediately goes on the offensive and attacks him. She presumed with his hostile nature and [[ObviouslyEvil malevolent]]-looking [[DarkIsEvil dark outfit]] that he was like other villains. She was right, but attacking him without letting him get a word in resulted in him hating the ponies. Then again, he ''already'' hated them even before he ever met them, and wasn't interested in civil conversation at all.
** Ted himself started as this and hasn't really stopped for some things. He expected the ponies to be such wussies that they'd think an ineffective villain like Gargamel from ComicBook/TheSmurfs was an epic level villain, and so would fold if he scared them. Among the Epic Level Villains in the world where Equestria is are a MadeOfEvil [[EvilOverlord Dark Unicorn Overlord]] that enslaved his own people, an [[EldritchAbomination Avatar of Chaos]], and a possibly OmnicidalManiac [[MadGod Mad Moon Goddess]]... Let's just list several other ways in which he is wrong genre savvy...
*** 1. When he tries to buy supplies from Filthy Rich's store. Instead of the bare essentials, he padded his order with things he didn't need or even know what they were for in order to make the offer more attractive. Turned out he ordered unicorn horn shavings, a common use magical reagent. The ponies thought he was up to no good because of that instead of trying to get some food, toilet paper, and other necessities.
*** 2. Equestrian Society as a whole. Because of his cynicism and the bad first impressions going all around (which are mostly his fault), he believes Equestria is secretly a [[CrapsaccharineWorld cesspit of corruption hidden behind a veneer of niceness]], instead of a society where things are fine for the most part except for a few things and rough spots that passed under Celestia's notice. It doesn't help that he's convinced himself of that because he found ONE township where corruption was the order of the day, and the Princesses didn't notice anything wrong until Ted brought the issues to light, that things are as horrible as he thinks they are.
*** 3. One of Ted's arguments to convince the Remedial Class Pegasi into joining him is that Celestia will attempt to save face by using them as scapegoats to blame them for the destruction of their old hometown. He was completely wrong, as all Celestia did was send Twilight on the case, and then she completely took the dual township government to task for their sins. When the story makes its way into the news, the focus is on the corruption that was unearthed and Twilight's decision to leave the townships to dry without help from the royal coffers. Tellingly, he keeps this information from Eiderdown's group.
*** 4. The worst sample of wrong genre savvy is TRUSTING THE POWERS OF THE ALICORN AMULET IN THE FIRST PLACE. Any really savvy Tabletop Gamer could tell you that trusting the evil cursed amulet that was so dangerous that tossing it through a dimensional fissure was considered an acceptable way of getting rid of it is a bad idea three days to Sunday. In D&D terms, [[TooDumbToLive he's the idiot that would put on the Hand of Vecna.]]
*** While he does have a justification for this (the Amulet is the only thing keeping the Elements and/or the Princesses from [[BrainwashingForTheGreaterGood scooping his brains out like a Nightmare Night pumpkin]]), the justification is itself an example of WrongGenreSavvy (The Elements don't do that, and the Princesses wouldn't).
** It doesn't help that Ted clearly falls into InsaneTrollLogic and IRejectYourReality tropes, As he will always assume that the worst thing is the truth while any evidence to the contrary is ignored or rationalized away to fit his warped worldview.
** Celestia's failings in the story are due to this. She's been trying to deal with Ted like she would the other threats to Equestria and comes up short every time because he plays by different rules. She's also shown to be a bit out of touch regarding things, which lead to the mess with the Tax System and later on the debacle with the Thestrals. She couldn't conceive that her little ponies would do things to screw one another that badly, and then when Ted started making waves things started coming apart because she stopped seeming infallible to her subjects.
** Leo expected to have a [[DuelToTheDeath honorable duel]] with Darth Vulcan due to the villain's ego not allowing anyone to interfere with him defeating the hero. Ted has no such problem with his ego, can and will exploit every dirty and cowardly trick in the book to get an advantage, and has exactly zero problem with his underlings coming to his aid in this supposed one on one duel.
* XanatosGambit:
** Celestia's summoning of a Champion to deal with Vulcan -- either it works directly, or at least buys the Princesses and Mane Six time to find another way to defeat him.
** Also, Celestia sending Leo to engage Darth Vulcan at the Cauldron. She had equipped, trained, and supported Leo as best she could and thought he had a decent chance of taking down Darth Vulcan, but she simultaneously used his attack as a diversion to cover her forces establishing base camps in the Everfree.
* YinYangClash: The power of the Alicorn Amulet is ''an'' opposite to [[spoiler: Discord's]]. They (thankfully) neatly cancel each other out without much more consequence than draining both. [[spoiler: Discord's [[EldritchAbomination nature]] means that he wouldn't survive it either way, however, and thus retreats.]]
** A much less destructive example happens when Pinkie Pie blasts Vulcan in the face with her party cannon during the train heist. Instead of a cloud of confetti shooting out in a cloud, it instead gives him paper cuts all over his face. This is due to the amulet's magic clashing with Pinkie Pie's powers, which are driven by a type of magic called Earth Pony Strange Magic. This type of magic is unique to Earth Ponies and causes things to act in ways they otherwise wouldn't--- such as the cartoon physics antics Pinkie Pie is famous for. Proximity to the amulet cancelled it out, causing the cannon to act like a regular cannon, ejecting the confetti with enough force to cause lacerations similar to how tornadoes can embed straw in wooden structures.
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Ted, of all people, reassures Dodger when the latter has a small crisis after Eiderdown's discomfort with his advances reminds him of his own mother and the sleazeballs she had to put up with. Ted tells him that any animal can say they claimed a female whenever the opportunity presented itself, but it takes a real man to treat a lady with respect. It ''does'' help.
* YouAreWhatYouHate:
** For all the contempt he has on bronies and cosplayers who go to conventions, Ted/Darth Vulcan is very much a closet geek who is into real time strategy games and plays old school NES games (even if not quite by choice due to his allegedly cheapskate parents) and admits to being a cosplayer himself in his own mind/first person narrative, with the weak justification that he only dresses in costume for Halloween because it's "socially acceptable". The moniker of Darth Vulcan was inspired by the scene in the original ''Film/BackToTheFuture1'' where Marty freaks out the 1955 version of his dad by putting on his radiation suit and claims to be [[ShoutOut "Darth Vader from the Planet Vulcan"]] in his attempt to set history straight again and get his parents together to secure his future. It goes well into hypocrite levels when some of Ted's narrative hints at being at a ''Dungeons and Dragons'' player, a geekdom sub-group who have suffered from even worse criticism, prejudice AND persecution than bronies due to lies perpetrated by MoralGuardians about players of the game being devil worshipers years ago IRL.
** Artful Dodger has no good memories of his mother's sleazebag lovers who basically just used her and then abandoned her constantly. It's implied they were all criminals of some sort due to how often the guard came to Dodger's childhood home due to implicating his mother as an accomplice; Dodger, JustifiedCriminal that he may be or believe himself to be, ''is'' an unrepentant petty thief and repeat offender, and there has been no indication that he ever tried going legit, while some of their sexist attitude might have affected him seeing as he went and called Eiderdown a concubine when she wasn't really supposed to be more than just his personal attendant by his own words.
* YouCalledMeXItMustBeSerious: [[spoiler: Chrysalis]] usually calls Vulcan "my lord". However, she refers to him as Ted to snap him out of his UnstoppableRage when [[spoiler: she realizes that Dodger ''isn't'' a traitor]].
* YouMonster: Cadence calls Vulcan one when he [[spoiler: refuses to help them keep Canterlot from falling off the mountain]]. He disagrees.
* YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: The Flim-Flam Brothers, con artists that they are, aren't actually happy that they are good at leading others on and tricking them, and resent Vulcan for praising them for having the talent to pull the wool over their audience/customers/marks twice over, even after said marks have already been tricked by them before. Because they honestly wanted to revolutionize Equestria with their inventions, being considered good at tricking the ponies they honestly wanted to help at one point is a sour point for them.
* YourHeadAsplode: Big Boss, upon trying to incinerate Vulcan with his fire breath, only for Vulcan to seal his mouth and nostrils, causing a backfire.
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