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Does it do well despite the time travelling? Complete thoughts after the break.
I'll start first and foremost with that this story is incomplete. That said I expect my opinions to remain unchanged after completion, because boy it felt like the story wasn't changing much after about 100,000 words in. And considering there were 400,000 words when I read it to get through, that's an awful long time for the story to feel like it's moved so very little.
Seriously, so much is going on at once that the story can't move at anything but a snail's pace. Between Hard Boiled's investigations, Calumn's spying, Mad Cash's machinations, and Twinkle Shine's...whatever stupid thing she's doing, there's barely any time to focus on Dash, where the plot actually is. Though I have a large suspicion that the author really just wanted to tell the story of Hard Boiled, as it feels much more effort went into his parts than any of the others.
Hard Boiled was frankly the only truly likable OC in this story, and really the only other character I liked in it was Dash. Every other character is bland at best (Astrid, Fallen Star (or is it Star Fall? Author seemed to arbitrarilly switch it up, my guess being Star Fall supposed to be more casual)) and grating at worst (Trail Blazer, Charisma). Actually let me build on that, Trail Blazer and Charisma are the worst parts of the story. Trail Blazer is Pinkie Pie if she had absolutely no emotion other than lolsorandum, and that's terrible. And every time the focus shifted to Charisma you couldn't go two paragraphs without reading about how much she was resisting killing something.
Which to be fair you also couldn't go two paragraphs without reading how much Hard Boiled's head/horn hurt. Yet I liked him so much more. Probably the grizzled detective bit he has, or the fact that he's a by-the-books cop digging into extremely magical matters.
I feel strongly the story lost almost all its potential when Applejack was introduced. It suddenly became incredibly obvious that the villain was going to find the Elements of Harmony, thwart everybody at every turn until he had all of them except maybe magic, and then...something's going to happen just before/after getting magic to turn things around. But all the main six are going to be there before he's stopped, except maybe Twilight because she's busy being in Deep Magic doing...nothing I guess. Except possibly being Twinkle Shine or Nightmare Umbra. And by possibly I mean almost definitely and it's going to be treated like it's a super big surprise when it's revealed.
I'm also bothered by the fact that the author is trying to adhere to canon after planning his story. Especially the Twilicorn bit. Especially considering he made Twilicorn fit into the story, but refuses to let Discord be anything but overwhelmingly evil. Bullshit he 'tricked' everyone into thinking he was reformed - you can have that opinion if you reject Twilicorn. But I will not accept it from someone who clearly rethought his story to include the worst thing that happened to canon.
I do want to say that despite the story moving so slowly, a lot has happened, and a lot has been learned. This author has proven to me in the past that he can build an interesting world, and he continues to impress here. But he's been stringing along not one but two villains' grand schemes, and neither of them have dropped a hint at what their actual goal is. After 400,000 words, that's just stupid. Maybe a subtle hint has been dropped and I missed it, but I doubt it. Oh yeah they've both done some horrible things, but...why? Especially in Nightmare Umbra's case. I get she especially doesn't like the main six, but why? I get that she gains power from war, but she seems to be actively instigating and voicing disdain for it. Why? It's fantastic to have mysteries like this, but not for 400,000 words. (For reference since I keep bringing the number up, Fallout Equestria clocks in at nearly 700,000.)
I have guesses - Umbra somehow wants Twilight and/or the Elements of Harmony...brought back or eliminated, and Cash wants the opposite of what she wants. It's also likely one or both of them don't care about that, and that they want...something with Discord. These vague, generalized conclusions leave me in an infuriating state - it's obvious that when the villains' finally reveal their motivations it'll be treated as a grand revelation, but you'd have to be completely ignorant to not see something like either of what I'm saying from miles away. Admittedly, if the author surprises me and Umbra's / Cash's motivations wind up not having to do with bringing back or destroying Discord/Twilight/Elements I'll be extremely surprised...and admittedly I can think of a new possible motivation that would be believable having written these thoughts. One/Both of them could be after bringing back Celestia and Luna, which feels far less obvious, with much more interesting motivations, than my previous theories. And of course the author may yet surprise me, given I believe the story is roughly half done.
As you may have guessed I intend to finish this story. You know, 10 years from now when the author finally finishes it. It will bring me peace of mind to see it finished. But this is very close to Crisis: Equestria levels of frustration I'm feeling, kept in check by the lack of terrible shipping. But after the halfway point it always seemed to veer ever closer to something truly disappointing happening. Still, the story had me utterly and completely gripped for the first 10 or so chapters, and that is far more than most can say.
Applejack ruined everything I guess.
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