Drops of Silver: Analyzing Moonlight Brighter than the Dark

Hey y'all!

There is new user here (among many) and said user (fire_fly808) also has a first story. In order to help him/her out, I am going to analyze the story, Moonlight Brighter than the Dark. Again, I'm going to tear this story apart and do the best I can to give an honest, meaningful review. If you are the author reading this, don't be discouraged by anything negative said about your story. It's not hate. It's constructive criticism. Don't read this review if you haven't read the story as it contains massive spoiler alerts.
Now, here is my two cents on Moonlight Brighter than the Dark.

1.
So first lets look to see if the story makes sense, meaning that I can understand what it's trying to say without wondering if the author left out something, or maybe just forgot.
Well, the story was hard for me to know what was going on. While reading through the whole thing, it didn't click until the very end of the story that Luna was having nightmares, as well a Celestia. I couldn't tell what time the story was taking place at first: in the past, present, or future. As I read, I kind of had to make up my own assumptions as to why the events that were happening happened, and fortunately, I was correct in most cases.
That aside, I did find it hard to believe that after all these years, Luna still has a bit a evil inside her, or jealousy, but upon further consideration, I concluded that this was possible only if Luna still felt rejected. Now there are a few reasons why this would be inaccurate. For instance, at the beginning of the story, it states that when Luna entered the Nightmare Night festival, she had fun, her subjects loved her, etc. But later on, in her nightmares, Celestia tells her no one loves her. You could try to justify this by saying she was having a nightmare, and in most cases you’d be correct, but in this case, it just doesn't work for me. Luna was obviously shown a lot of love and affection during her appearances in the episodes following her change in the first two episodes. Nightmares are a manifestation of your fears. I personally think there was no shortage of care and love shown to Luna, so why would she fear not being loved? Maybe it was just her evil side trying to trick her, in which case it would sort of make sense, but that wasn't exactly my first thoughts.
Why would Celestia write her own, personal thoughts in a private journal, something no one else is really supposed to see, when Luna has a key to it? Does she trust her not to read it? If so, then Luna just betrayed her own sisters trust, I just don't see Luna doing that after she became good. It seems uncharacteristic of somepony who is trying to gain the trust of her sister because she loves her and did turn evil for a while to betray it just like that. Then Celestia doesn't seem to mind that Luna was snooping around her room. If that was me, I'd be pissed off.
Another thing, why, if Luna is dealing with nightmares about being Nightmare Moon, would she go back to the place where she had been evil and been defeated. Surly, her thoughts would be stronger here? I can't think of something to explain this other than she was driven by the evil inside herself. If she wanted to escape the evil, why not go somewhere soothing and peaceful, like the Canterlot Royal Garden? A dark, evil castle might not be a great place to deal with evil.
Why did Luna suddenly understand what Celestia was talking about when she mentioned her dreams? It was like she went from ignorance to enlightenment in one sentence, and the sentence didn't exactly explain it at all. I understand feeling bad for shouting at her sister, but other than that, why would she feel bad about accusing her when she doesn't even know what Celestia is thinking? Was she so willing to accept the truth that Celestia did love her she felt bad as soon as Celestia started to cry? If that were true in real life, then hell, I'd do that a lot.
If Luna is the Princess of the Night, and she can travel into dreams, why is she plagued with them? And why wouldn't Celestia ask for help when she knows of Luna's powers. Unless... Luna never told Luna, but think about it. Not once in the any of the episodes does Luna tell Celestia about her gift, nor does Celestia tell us she knows about it. There are many reasons this might work and one of them, I believe, is that Luna doesn't want to feel useless, she she doesn't Celestia what she does. After all, Celestia was able to raise the sun AND the moon when Luna was banished. So, she should be able to travel into dreams, right? If she doesn't, and doesn't know Luna does, Luna can feel useful, even in a small sense.
Of course, I've pointed out all the bad in this story line, but no story is without it's good. For starters, the whole idea of having an evil side still, once you accept it, is actually really intriguing. The idea that it was causing nightmares is a great idea, as it builds up tension, not knowing how either sister will react. The little things as well, like Luna liking to fly just because, and Celestia with her little comment that Luna's night was beautiful when Luna was unsure about Celestia, these are all good parts of the story that make it come alive.

2.
So what about the characters themselves? Do they stick true to what they are in the show? While I can honestly say Celestia seemed pretty spot on, Luna didn't.
Her attitude, for one. I never once thought of Luna as a scared, alone princess, especially after her first real episode in Nightmare Night. If anything, she is brash, loud, and commanding, but can be gentle if she wants. Scary, sure. But not being scared. Of course, this is a fictional writing, and as such, the authors of stories like these will explore areas of the MLP characters that we have yet to ourselves. So if that is the case, and the author was going for Luna being scared, then Luna was very well done. I can't say I like her being scared, but that is just my opinion. This isn't my story, and it wasn't written for me.

3.
Now lets see if the story delivers what it claims to. I can say that while this fic is sad, it isn't really sad. I mean, sure, it's a story about two sisters plagued with nightmares, each one scared of what they are doing in those nightmares, and as such, acting differently in real life. Add to this the fact that Luna sees the journal entry, and you get a sad story. But knowing it's going to resolve itself in the end makes it... well... not really sad anymore. I feel for them and the pain they go through, but it's happy at the end. For it being a slice of life, I don't really think so. That's not something that would just happen in regular life, not unless your an alicorn princess with a sister who used to be evil. Of course, the pain an their actions can be very real, so it does redeem itself in that way.

4.
Finally, grammar. Unfortunately, I spotted A LOT of spelling errors and misplaced words. That really made it hard for me to read it and I had to do a double or even triple take t understand what was trying to be said. I don't think the author spent much (if any) time proof reading this story, which kind of sucks because if you fix the spelling errors, the story would improve a lot. That being said, I know this is the authors first book, and I made the same mistake with my first story, so this isn't the most valid argument I'm making here.

All in all, I'd say while there was a lot I thought to be wrong about this story, I really did enjoy reading it, I just wish there had been a little proof reading before the author published it. For being a first story, it is actually pretty good, so on a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 7 for good idea and execution of the idea, but some big flaws along the way. Plus, some of what I said was just nitpicking.

Don't be discouraged, fire_fly808. You did a good job for a first and with hard work you'll get better, so don't stop! I'll be following you and waiting for your next story! Also, to all you reading this, did I do a good job on this review? Did I exaggerate? Leave something out? What do you all think of my analyzing skills? Please excuse any bad spelling. you find.