Every since 2005, when I found one of these little equines in my Happy Meal, I've been drawn to My Little Pony.
Although I had lots of "fakies" as a kid, I got my first real, Hasbro My Little Pony sometime later in the year when my parents took me to Toys R Us and let me pick out one toy. I chose November Nights because she was my birthstone pony. From the box, I found out about the My Little Pony website and became obsessed with staring at the other ponies available (that was actually how I found out what my parents' birthstones were) and playing the games. I particularly liked the scene creation game and the dance studio one. My mom's inbox was probably full of little videos of routines I made Desert Rose do.
I remember loving A Very Minty Christmas and being hyped to see the Princess Promenade and being disappointed that Wysteria — a pony I wasn't familiar with — was the princess I was supposed to be so excited for. In retrospect, that was really silly of me. But since when are children very rational?
By the time that the series was soft-rebooted into the Core Seven line, I thought I was too old for it and had dropped the franchise. I blame middle school. I remember being very put off by the G3.5 proportions, too.
Even though I wasn't really invested in the series anymore, when The Hub was announced, I went to their website and found out that the series was rebooted. I was mostly disappointed that I was losing Trading Spaces Boys vs. Girls for a series that didn't even feature Minty or Star Catcher (my two favorites).
Eventually, when the series got popular online, I wanted to be all big and tough and to hate the series. So to prove to everyone who said that you just needed to give the series a chance, I watched an episode. I didn't want to admit it at the time, but I was hooked. I still didn't buy any of the brushable toys, though. Partially because my parents thought I was too old for them. Partially because I believed them.
It's only been recently that I've started collecting ponies, though. Before 2021, my collection was limited to three Beanie Babies, a blind bag Pinkie Pie, a Pinkie shaped piggy bank, two G3 ponies, and a nightlight. Unaccounted for were approximately 4 G3 ponies, a McDonalds Star Swirl, and a Minty plush. And the aforementioned fakies, if you want to count them. Unfortunately, I still am unsure how many of those I still have, since after moving a couple times, things could have gotten lost.
Whenever I saw some Hershey's Kisses blind boxes at a discount store, though, I decided impulsively to try my luck at collecting them. At a different discount store, I decided to get some discount ponies, too. While fixing up the hair of my G3s, I got interested in watching videos of ponies being repaired and decided "hey, I should try that!"
And thus began my adventures in serious collecting.
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