Okay, need an opinion here.
Feb. 6th, 2004 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mandolin(x-posted to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
my_little_pony)
Those of you who never had or never cared about My Little Ponies in the 80's, feel free to roll your eyes at me and skip this one.
As for the rest of you, I'm looking for some input here.
For years, I've had my old collection of My Little Ponies set aside, largely for sentimental value. Not for display or for collecting, but because they had special meaning.
Since I was four years old, my next door neighbor was my babysitter; she was about 8 years my senior and would watch me when I got home from school every day. (We were later informed that my parents helped pay for her car.)
This arrangement went on for a good four years; both of my parents worked until well after I got home from school, and my babysitter was always home before me. We had one fairly consistent activity to pass the time: playing with My Little Ponies. Inside, outside, in my backyard, in her bedroom, you name it. Clean rooms would be destroyed to make way for miniature villages and neighborhoods of plastic ponies.
Dad would come home and enter the den with "What on earth happened to the floor?"
"It's Ponyland!" was her reply. "I made it for Mandi!"
The arrangement largely ended when my parents divorced and she became a high school senior. Mom and I moved, but I still saw her from time to time. Before she went to college, she gave me the rest of her Ponies that hadn't fallen victim to the hazards of outdoor adventures.
I didn't see much of her for about seven years, and then her parents moved a couple states away.
Two years ago, I was invited to her wedding. :)
She did inspire me to continue drawing, although not as a career for me. And I swear our constant adventures with the Ponies kept my brain working. (I vaguely remember she'd constructed a scenario where the "bad guys" were winning and I couldn't think my way out of it. I complained that it was "too hard" and forget how it was resolved.) She really had a good effect on me growing up, and I might not be where I am today. I certainly wouldn't still be drawing. So, yes, she was an important person in my life, one who I'd liked to have kept in better touch with. And the Ponies left over from those afternoons are kind of a reminder of that.
Mom's remarried since then, and her place is so full of all our stuff (even AFTER the massive cleanout we did) that the Ponies, up until now, have been relegated to a box in a closet, cleaned and protected but largely unseen. Between my habit of tossing stuff on open surfaces and tendency to packrat, displaying them wouldn't be safe - and I don't have the space. So I decided that rather than let them molder in a closet, I'd sell them off on eBay to collectors who WOULD display them, clean them, and enjoy them. Better than sticking them back in a closet.
Thing is... I can't bear to let them all go. I'd like to keep one or two - just to remind me. That's where I'd like a second opinion.
The ones I've narrowed it down to are:
Moondancer, Sparkler, Cotton Candy, Tex, Sundance, Heart Throb, Baby Surprise, Baby Cuddles
While this may or may not affect my ultimate decision, I'd like some input...
Which one would YOU keep?
my_little_pony)Those of you who never had or never cared about My Little Ponies in the 80's, feel free to roll your eyes at me and skip this one.
As for the rest of you, I'm looking for some input here.
For years, I've had my old collection of My Little Ponies set aside, largely for sentimental value. Not for display or for collecting, but because they had special meaning.
Since I was four years old, my next door neighbor was my babysitter; she was about 8 years my senior and would watch me when I got home from school every day. (We were later informed that my parents helped pay for her car.)
This arrangement went on for a good four years; both of my parents worked until well after I got home from school, and my babysitter was always home before me. We had one fairly consistent activity to pass the time: playing with My Little Ponies. Inside, outside, in my backyard, in her bedroom, you name it. Clean rooms would be destroyed to make way for miniature villages and neighborhoods of plastic ponies.
Dad would come home and enter the den with "What on earth happened to the floor?"
"It's Ponyland!" was her reply. "I made it for Mandi!"
The arrangement largely ended when my parents divorced and she became a high school senior. Mom and I moved, but I still saw her from time to time. Before she went to college, she gave me the rest of her Ponies that hadn't fallen victim to the hazards of outdoor adventures.
I didn't see much of her for about seven years, and then her parents moved a couple states away.
Two years ago, I was invited to her wedding. :)
She did inspire me to continue drawing, although not as a career for me. And I swear our constant adventures with the Ponies kept my brain working. (I vaguely remember she'd constructed a scenario where the "bad guys" were winning and I couldn't think my way out of it. I complained that it was "too hard" and forget how it was resolved.) She really had a good effect on me growing up, and I might not be where I am today. I certainly wouldn't still be drawing. So, yes, she was an important person in my life, one who I'd liked to have kept in better touch with. And the Ponies left over from those afternoons are kind of a reminder of that.
Mom's remarried since then, and her place is so full of all our stuff (even AFTER the massive cleanout we did) that the Ponies, up until now, have been relegated to a box in a closet, cleaned and protected but largely unseen. Between my habit of tossing stuff on open surfaces and tendency to packrat, displaying them wouldn't be safe - and I don't have the space. So I decided that rather than let them molder in a closet, I'd sell them off on eBay to collectors who WOULD display them, clean them, and enjoy them. Better than sticking them back in a closet.
Thing is... I can't bear to let them all go. I'd like to keep one or two - just to remind me. That's where I'd like a second opinion.
The ones I've narrowed it down to are:
Moondancer, Sparkler, Cotton Candy, Tex, Sundance, Heart Throb, Baby Surprise, Baby Cuddles
While this may or may not affect my ultimate decision, I'd like some input...
Which one would YOU keep?
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-06 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-06 07:56 pm (UTC)Hmm...that's a lot of baby ponies, now I think about it. I've sold off most of the adults and sweetheart sisters (and summerwings), b/c they took up too much room. The babies are smaller, which makes them easier to keep.
I've also got Baby Tiddly-Winks and Baby Cuddles (and the Nursury and Carriage they came with) in storage, on the off-chance that I someday wish to bestow them upon a small child that for some strange reason refers to me as "Mommy."
I loved my Ponies. Though they never truly recovered from the Great Flutter Massacre (a.k.a. the day my little brother discovered just where I'd been hiding my Flutter Ponies' wings), they were great War Ponies. ;) I lost count of the times my dad had to get out the ladder and retrieve baby paratroopers Glory and Sundance from the roof gutters...
Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 07:57 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 08:04 pm (UTC)How one gets Sundancer mixed up with Moonstar is beyond me. I point to exhibit A, which is that until I was 9 or 10, I didn't know what her name was at all.
As you can imagine, this led to all sorts of SNAFUs during gutter-recovery operations. Oftentimes, two or even three DadRescues were called in to search for a pony that was never actually there, while Moonstar wandered around with a bad case of amnesia....
Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 10:55 pm (UTC)Amazing, this ability of mine to completely and totally miss not only the obvious, but the entire point of the exercise in the first place.
Okay, so the amnesiac pony's name was Moondancer. Suddenly, my initial name mix-up makes sense.
On the actual *advice* front (see? I learn. eventually...)...hm. I'd say hang onto Cuddles if you've still got her baby buggy, because one day, you will want something to hawk for a new car, and that setup's as good as any other. Or if you just want one or two for your collection...Tex. Yes. If he's got his kerchief an' hat. He always was one of my fav Big Brother ponies, and the hardest to find.
(What? I liked the concept of a pony cowboy.)
Off hand, I'd pick
Date: 2004-02-06 08:11 pm (UTC)Moondancer was my first ever pony and I'm biased. And Heart Throb is a fuzzy one, fun! :)
(Ok, I picked the three I have.... :)
*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2004-02-07 01:41 pm (UTC)