Crystal Shine My Little Pony

I went to my local big box retailer and picked up 2 "blind bag" My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic figurines; to parents, these are bluish foil bags about 4 inches x 5 inches with a single pony figurine inside.  The previous line featured pinkish foil bags.

I'm not so fond of these Crystal Shine ponies.  These are made of a sturdy-yet-flexible vinyl material similar to the pink-foil-bag ponies, but whereas the pink bags featured opaque ponies, the blue bags have translucent ponies.

I suspect these translucent colors are intended to look very glasslike, but to me the matte surface makes them look gelatinous; your toy looks like a Gummy Pony.  You can also see where the head is attached (glued?) to the neck stalk through the figurine's translucent head, which is somewhat interesting, and reduces my desire to take them apart.

I am somewhat reminded of the tragic disabled sister in Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie," who has little glass toy animals.  Somehow, the glass unicorns get bumped and lose their horns, and having lost their magical features, they are mere horses.  This reflects (glass--reflects--Ah almost had a joke there, son) the sister's status; she is a young woman in her prime and she should be considered as radiantly beautiful as her Southern Belle peers, but her deformity (like a unicorn losing its horn) relegates her to ordinary, plain, non-magical status.  Of course, her self-image as unlovably flawed is largely imagined; there, I spoiled the play for you.

Of course, the flip side of this is that these sturdy ponies are flexible enough to survive any number of reasonable bumps and not lose their fine appendages; if only that sad sister had Rarity or Twilight for unicorns!  Those horns aren't breaking off any time soon!  On a similar note, if there are any teen girls out there, you are way prettier than you think you are; bug your folks to sign you up for Karate practice and your instructor can teach you special moves wherein you develop deep inner reserves of self-esteem.

Regardless, if the maudlin "Glass Menagerie" comparison is not enough to sour you, the gelatinous appearance might remind you that much of the gelatin in gelatin-based treats comes from boiling the flesh and bones of hooved animals ("Soylent Gummy Bears are made of PONIES!  Maybe.").  Oh, did I mention that I'm a vegetarian?

But besides that, they're just plain weird-looking: you can see right through their skin and any skeleton and organs and muscles they should logically have.  It makes me wish I could actually see a nice, healthy skeleton inside the figurine, with healthy eyeballs and organs and blood vessels and so forth.  In fact, maybe you could see how the pegasus wings attach to the equine body's skeletons, which would answer a lot of questions.  Unfortunately, their all-gelatinous appearance just emphasises the fact that these toys are dead.

What?  You just bought a bunch of these for your daughter?  Ah, don't worry about it; she probably won't think about that.