EThe Ring That She Wanted

• MLP: FiM
• Comedy

Trixie has finally gathered enough courage to ask Starlight to marry her, so she asks Sunburst to choose a ring for her proposal. However, Starlight has other plans in mind.

• Trixie
• Starlight Glimmer
• Sunburst

The Sleepless Beholder · 2.5k words  ·  67  4 · 1.3k views

The Ring That She Wanted

by The Sleepless Beholder

Summary:

After years building up her courage, Trixie is ready to confess her feelings to Starlight and ask for her hoof in marriage, so she asks Sunburst to choose the perfect ring for her proposal.
However, Starlight has other plans in mind.

Initial Thoughts: Well now! Trixie? Starlight? Sunburst? I’ve always liked seeing stories grappling with this interesting 3-way character dynamic. Shipping, not shipping… it’s got a lot of story potential, and Sleepless Beholder is tossing in a proposal? Alright. I’m excited.

My Reaction: So, the basic setup is that Trixie Lulamoon wants to propose to Starlight, and she gets Sunburst involved to help her pick out the right ring. It’s a simple idea, and Beholder does some good stuff with it. Admittedly, the “twist” can be seen coming from a mile away, but it’s still fine, as far as such things go.

Overall, however, this story is a mixed bag. And what I mean by that is, for everything done right by Beholder, there’s something holding the story as a whole back.

While the plot is simple, and serviceable, it also doesn’t do anything necessarily unique. Again, cliches and tropes are cliches and tropes for a reason, so simply doing what’s expected isn’t wrong. But the story doesn’t really do anything new with those either. Perhaps a more surprising twist isn’t necessary, but it could improve what is an otherwise by the numbers plot.

The most problematic part of the story, however, is the grammar. There weren’t any fouled-up spellings, or missing punctuation within the text, thankfully. But it’s almost a constant that multiple paragraphs will be stuck together, which is incredibly unsightly, and breaks the readers’ flow. And, far worse, in my opinion, is the story’s complete disregard for Tense. Future, present, and past all vie with one another for supremacy, and it makes the actually reading of the story a chore.

But… then there are the characters. The characters are all very well done, and mostly in-character. Sunburst is a bit of a dork, Starlight is happy-but-with-a-raging-volcano-inside, and Trixie provides just… fantastic narration, whenever she’s the focus. I will say that Trixie has a pretty strong out-of-character moment near the end, and that does harm the overall piece a little bit, but describing it more would be spoiler territory.

Grammar: 5/10. Ugly blocking makes this a lot slower read than it should be, and the tenses hardly match up even within their own sentences.

Story: 8/10. It’s cliched. But, it’s not a bad story, on its own. It’s competently told, and is even entertaining, even if we can all tell what’s going to happen.

Characters: 8/10. The characters are mostly solid here. Starlight and Sunburst, in particular, work very well. But, as much as I enjoyed Trixie’s bonus to the narration, her OOC moments do make things a little stale and predictable when they don’t feel like they should.

Final Word and Rating

5+8+8 = 21/30 = 7/10 = 70%

The Ring She Wanted is not a perfect romance tale. It’s predictable, and plagued with excessive grammatical mistakes that stain an otherwise very fine story. The charm of this piece comes in its characters, and how they both interact with each other and how their viewpoints affect the narrative itself. It’s still a good story, and one that I would honestly recommend to anyone who is interested in a ship combining one or more of the main characters.

To the Author: I want to emphasize that this is a good story. But, in the future, more editing passes, and finding an editor or prereader, would do you a lot of good. Right now, your greatest enemy is those tense-shifts. They are a tricky thing to get right, so don’t feel discouraged! Just keep them in mind, and make sure to clean up your paragraph spacing before publishing.

If you have any other questions or concerns about this review, please comment below!

7330227
I'm honestly glad that the big problem of the story is what it is.
Truth is, English is not my main language, and started writing in English a few months ago, so that kind of error is welcomed and expected, especially in a tale so old.

I did get an editor later down the line and has helped me a lot to fix those issues so if I write a sequel to this with my improved skills I will send it your way.

The out of character Trixie did surprise me, but I guess is one of those sacrifices for the joke kind of things.

Speaking of which, I truly didn't go for something unexpected, (I have a series that specifically focus on unexpected twists) but I was more banking on the extreme confusion between the three at the end and their discussion.

Overall, it was just a thing for fun, so the rating that you gave is pretty high for it in my opinion.

I hope I can give you something better in the future and thanks for the review.

Good luck!

Future, present, and past all vie with one another for supremacy

This got me laughing more than it should

7330243
Hey, like I said, I still enjoyed the story itself! You nailed the characters, and had a really flavorful narration style I liked. Sure, the OOC moment was... eh. They happen. And it did service the plot. But the technical issues are something that can be overcome with practice.

I'd definitely say 'yes' to reading more of your stuff, down the line. This was a very good start!

7330255
I'm happy to hear it! I will ceirtanly send something your way in the future. Specially since I love writing these kind of shenanigans.