This story is not very good. The writer clearly has talent, but ultimately the problem can be summed up in one thing:
The story bends over backwards for the title character so much that it's to the detriment of the author's own intention.
Vulcan is MEANT to be the bad guy who is morally in the wrong and delusional...and yet the fic is so focused on ripping the show apart it makes him look SANE.
You know there's something wrong when the author's EXPRESSED INTENT is for the main character to be wrong and hated, and it's easier to agree with them.
The author is frustrated by this, but seems very adverse to actually doing anything ABOUT this problem.
The problem is, you can't have a character supposed to be insane see Equestria as not being as good as it appears to be being their insanity, and them be RIGHT. Because by definition, an insane person is WRONG about how the world works. The Joker in the Dark Knight is insane because he sees the world as being as rotten as himself...and is proven WRONG. He's insane because his worldview is out of touch with reality.
Vulcan's worldview IS reality, and thus he comes off as sane.
This leads into the second problem: this is not a deconstruction. A deconstruction does not deconstruct things which are the AUTHOR'S INVENTION. Very little of what actually WAS deconstructed is from the show itself.
And yet, the fic refuses to actually deconstruct things from the show that are practically GIFT WRAPPED to be deconstructed. The story deconstructs Celestia's guard dog of Tartarus leaving it unprotected...then promptly kills off Tirek before he can even DO anything in an anticlimatic way when he being a major threat would've proved this point organically from something from the show itself.
Worse yet, it feels Vulcan is never allowed to suffer a GENUINE defeat. Oh, he can get roughed up, things can go bad for him, but SOMEHOW in the end he always wins. It feels like the story is bending over backwards to make an angsty teenaged bully a legitimate threat.
Elements of Harmony? Don't work because he's 'not corrupted', even though they worked perfectly fine on Discord and Tirek who also were evil of their own accord.
Discord? He and the Amulet cancel each other out so he won't dare fight.
Tirek? Gun to the head because 'he was only in his first form' even though the description describes him as in one of his higher forms which logically shouldn't have been so easily killed.
The Princesses who have defeated COUNTLESS villains throughout history? Easily manipulated and make bad decisions.
It feels like Vulcan never gets anything more than a bloody nose and the story has to make everyone idiots just to permit it.
There's potential here, the writer clearly has talent, but when they fail to meaningfully convey every stated goal they have, I can't call the story good.
Not very good
This story is not very good. The writer clearly has talent, but ultimately the problem can be summed up in one thing:
The story bends over backwards for the title character so much that it's to the detriment of the author's own intention.
Vulcan is MEANT to be the bad guy who is morally in the wrong and delusional...and yet the fic is so focused on ripping the show apart it makes him look SANE.
You know there's something wrong when the author's EXPRESSED INTENT is for the main character to be wrong and hated, and it's easier to agree with them.
The author is frustrated by this, but seems very adverse to actually doing anything ABOUT this problem.
The problem is, you can't have a character supposed to be insane see Equestria as not being as good as it appears to be being their insanity, and them be RIGHT. Because by definition, an insane person is WRONG about how the world works. The Joker in the Dark Knight is insane because he sees the world as being as rotten as himself...and is proven WRONG. He's insane because his worldview is out of touch with reality.
Vulcan's worldview IS reality, and thus he comes off as sane.
This leads into the second problem: this is not a deconstruction. A deconstruction does not deconstruct things which are the AUTHOR'S INVENTION. Very little of what actually WAS deconstructed is from the show itself.
And yet, the fic refuses to actually deconstruct things from the show that are practically GIFT WRAPPED to be deconstructed. The story deconstructs Celestia's guard dog of Tartarus leaving it unprotected...then promptly kills off Tirek before he can even DO anything in an anticlimatic way when he being a major threat would've proved this point organically from something from the show itself.
Worse yet, it feels Vulcan is never allowed to suffer a GENUINE defeat. Oh, he can get roughed up, things can go bad for him, but SOMEHOW in the end he always wins. It feels like the story is bending over backwards to make an angsty teenaged bully a legitimate threat.
Elements of Harmony? Don't work because he's 'not corrupted', even though they worked perfectly fine on Discord and Tirek who also were evil of their own accord.
Discord? He and the Amulet cancel each other out so he won't dare fight.
Tirek? Gun to the head because 'he was only in his first form' even though the description describes him as in one of his higher forms which logically shouldn't have been so easily killed.
The Princesses who have defeated COUNTLESS villains throughout history? Easily manipulated and make bad decisions.
It feels like Vulcan never gets anything more than a bloody nose and the story has to make everyone idiots just to permit it.
There's potential here, the writer clearly has talent, but when they fail to meaningfully convey every stated goal they have, I can't call the story good.