Ponies

As a horse-mad child, I scorned My Little Pony. I liked my toy horses to have some verisimilitude, and purple ponies with long pink manes had nothing to do with the animals I adored. For me, there were no pink ponies, only strawberry roans. Commercials for the toys annoyed me, and I never discovered the TV series.

Now I am less horse-mad, and three of my four brothers watch My Little Pony. In my defense, it's not quite the same as the MLP I despised. The theme song has changed, and the ponies are even less realistic. I still twitch occasionally, I admit. The characters are just a little too dextrous with those hooves, and some of the poses bother me a bit. For the most part, though, I can relax and enjoy it. It's become so unrealistic that I can dismiss most standards of reality while watching it, doing my best to suspend all disbelief while Pinkie Pie and Apple Blossom make cupcakes, or Rainbow Dash herds clouds to shape the weather.