A Pony Relationship Guide Pt. 2 - Literary Appeal Update.

Scroll to the bottom for TLA update. Spoiler: It's good news.

Next Time: Secondary Characters/Side characters!

Cheerilee? Trixie? Zecora? What about Big Mac himself? Who knows who'll come up then.

Cheerilee
If you've read The Literary Appeal itself, you'll know the Cheerilee is a raging lesbian. At least, she is, isn't she? Short answer is yes, long one is hell yes. There are a lot of reasons why a loving, charismatic, attractive young teacher like Miss Cheerilee is not only unmarried, but single as well. It's life choices, she don't need no man, etc. However, when confronted with the issue of love, she... rolls her eyes. She's so tired of ponies asking about her love life. Well, it's probably because it's storied, or, more suitably, in that she's done trying to deal with romance. And tired of hearing about it. And tired of being fed love poison and well it's a damn miracle she's not aromantic and asexual at this point. To be fair, TLA was started... years ago... as a fun little game between myself and my partner, then known as THE D. Er, Wanderer D. We wrote stories and posted them on each other's accounts, along with a great many other writers, to see if a good story is only popular when it comes from a popular writer. The thing is, TLA sort of hard a hard time getting everything sorted - my original partner was Gravekeeper, but due to issues before the deadline he hadn't finished his part of the deal, and we had to scramble something together. The details are lost to me but the general idea is I had to ship Twilight with Cheerilee and thus a pony I originally wrote as aromantic and straight had to be 100% lesbian, at least to rebuke Big Mac.

Honestly this became less of an explanation about Cheerilee than a little insiders info about TLA, but in writing TLA, for whatever reason I chose to continue it, I wrote Scarlet Letter. Scarlet Letter is my own little character who, honestly, explains Cheerilee's reactions in Hearts and Hooves Day in a new light. In my head, Cheerilee exists in two forms, much like a teach leads two lives. When dealing with her in general, she's generally aromantic, career-driven, and devoted to her students. When dealing with her personal life, she's actually thinking about her more party-driven college years and wishing for an avenue to express her pent up frustrations that are... unbecoming, of a schoolteacher.

Miss Cheerilee is only mildly older than the Mane Six by only a year or two at most, and she's got a lot of life and love to give. For a pony to rebuke Big Mac when given the opportunity, well, who knows.

Big Mac
Big Apple Macintosh is, amusing, probably the most straightforward, no frills pony there is. He's streetwise, honor-bound, and basically the heart throb of Ponyville. Not that he cares much, the stallion's got a farm to run. Quietly devoted to family and farm, Big Macintosh is, by all means, a straight pony. He works in the fields with some hired help, from time to time, glistening in sweat like morning dew, flanked on either side by attractive, hard-working stallions...

And the next free moment he's at home with Applebloom. The pony doesn't have a homosexual thought in him. It doesn't cross his mind, but mares do, from time to time. He gets nervous around them, to the point when he's around some pretty mares he might not say a whole lot. He does say a bit around his family when they're alone, though, and isn't shy enough to sugarcoat a life lesson when he needs to. He's busy, he's talented, and he might have joined the Ponytones to make his mouth move around a certain pretty unicorn.

Zecora
Zecora left her home awhile back, to seek new fortunes from outside her shack. The zebra from abroad may seem straight to some, but to no one's surprise they aren't the only one. Needing not the touch of a stallion's hoof, our foreign mare lives alone under a forest roof. An aromantic zebra she might be, but only if you're too blind to see. She simply prefers to be alone, not that she has some slight to atone. Zecora lives on her own for the benefit of some personal time, a luxury she didn't quite have in her tribe of rhyme.

F'serious, she's not looking right now. She's straight, just like Mac, but she's in her early thirties and has gotten this far without having to rely on another. A hermit she'll be for a little while longer, but she does expect she'll find a kindred spirit within the next twenty years, but don't expect any foals from her. She lives with far too many fragile things, and it's bad enough living as close as she does to Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash.

Trixie
Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie. Trixie Trixie Trixie. Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie. Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie. Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie. Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie Trixie. Trixie.

Trixie-sexual.

As of Season T(rixie)hree, Trixie has been doing better to think of other ponies who aren't Trixie. It's been slow going, for sure, but she is capable of seeing what is generally accepted around her and making it not about Trixie, but mimic it and, as they say, fake it until you make it. And while she is greatly experienced in making it and faking it, Trixie's capable of learning. Somehow. I'm not sure, but I guess when you spend two years of your life in pursuit of finding a way to best a mare rather than impress a mare, I'm going to go with whatever she ends up being, it won't be Twilight-sexual. She'll probably go with the first stallion that shows her attention again after her two big mistakes, which will be a mistake in and of itself, and she'll eventually even-out but stay with a stallion, albeit much harder to express romantic emotions.

Trixie is het(rixie)erosexual and aromantic, with the ability to conceive romantic feelings, albeit forcefully at times. She's getting better at it. I think.

---For the next bit, we have a little headcanon for where these ponies are going with their life, some of which is definitely tied to their sexuality.

The Crusaders
Gonna bundle these three up as I'm just going to touch on them real quick. Applebloom sees her brother go for mares, her sister go for mares, and she herself is going to... ask her Granny before she passes how in the world she's expected to go for a stallion in this family. Granny'll laugh it off and ask her about her classmates who aren't the crusaders, and she'll speak about her friend Twist, those brats Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, and maybe touch on one or two of her male classmates, like Featherweight and Snips. In the end, she'll walk away more confused than ever and bring it up to her older siblings, who'll say she needs to follow her heart. Fast Forward and she tried to look at mares like her sister did, but she'll have a part of her that wants to raise a family of her own. She'll be a late bloomer and have her heart broken by some Hipster pony like Trender Hoof, but eventually she'll meet a normal, nice stallion. She's classically straight because even though Big Mac exists the same way for her that he did for Applejack, Applebloom has AJ to look up to as well. It balances out nicely.

Scootaloo will try very hard to be a lesbian, even going so far as to attempt many games of Truth or Dare or Never Have I Ever with her fellow Crusaders and classmates. It will be a general trend with her until Middle School, when she finally starts going out with Sweetie Belle. Amusingly, this is the relationship that shocks Applebloom because she thought Sweetie was straight, and it will eventually turn out that Scootaloo is straight as a whistle, unlike her hero Rainbow Dash, who is going to have to spell it out for her when she witnesses how much more romantic and natural Sweetie is with her, while Scootaloo is much more stiff and belts out word for word things she's heard Dash say. It harms her relationship with Sweetie for a short time, but Sweetie moves on quickly and thanks Scootaloo for the opportunity to see what she herself likes.

Sweetie will eventually find herself in many dates while she's young, mostly due to an easy-going nature and saying yes to nearly every mare or stallion who asks while she's single, but will be much happier when she's with mares. When stardom hits for the little filly-turned mare, she'll have a hometown Sweetheart who blossomed very well in her later years, and Sweetie will have her own Twist on life when she returns from doing a tour.

Snips and Snails
Snips is straight, and when he gets his act together and tries out for the hoofball team, he finds himself a natural at it, becoming one of the most impressive defensive linemen in the history of Ponyville. It's at this time he dates Scootaloo for a time, although they part on amicable terms at the end of their High School years. Snails, however, plays Tennis instead, and struggles a lot with his conflicting emotions. Snails is bi-sexual, a fact he'll never really come to terms with despite a couple of encounters he has with other stallions. He'll always be bitter about the other side of him, causing a slight hesitation whenever he speaks or does nearly anything. However, he does find love in the form of a younger mare when he's become a professor at Hoofington in Biology, and eventually starts his own family. Snips never does, but he doesn't care, living a life alone except for the constant presence of his friend Snails at the local barbarshop.

Princess Celestia
Is there anything she hasn't tried? Well, no, not really. Celestia has, more or less, looked different from century to century. She's often adopted a form similar to the one she has now, but she hasn't always done so. In fact, she's had a 'butch' phase when Equestria was at war, and was quite a beefcake during those wartorn years. Keep in mind she'd had children, many times, notable offspring include the line that would eventually produce Prince Blueblood, and Clover the Clever, who is a direct daughter to Celestia. It's notable, however, that Celestia is much more at home taking on female companions to male ones, especially on the off-chance at pregnancy. It's one thing to lose a lover and a friend, it's much more to lose them, and eventually, a child as well, to the cruel passage of time.

Princess Luna
Struggling to even consider the fact that she's blood-relative with that idiotic Prince Blueblood, Princess Luna is trying to get with the times a bit more. When ponykind struggled to start off, and when she was still new to this world, she was accustomed to finding a stallion and help the species survive, her first son Starswirl saw to it that the magic of unicorns was something not only to uphold the balance of nature, but bolster it. However, dealing with the fact she would continue on for many years with the loss of her son and a couple of other menial things, that whole Nightmare Moon fiasco happened. With centuries of wisdom at her hooftips in the form of her sister, Luna isn't looking for companionship at the moment, but she's curious to know what it wold be like to lay with another mare, although her mind stretches for the memory of the last time she lay with a stallion. Right now, she could be a ticking sexual timebomb, ordering the formation of a new royal harem.

But honestly she's much too concerned with catching up and making friends than finding a pony to love. She's bi-curious, leaning toward stallions, and her sister mirrors her, leaning toward mares. When you have so much power, though, it's hard to see a difference sometimes.

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I finished a chapter of The Literary Appeal over a week ago now, almost in conjunction with Patchwork Poltergeist finishing her Last Human, and Saddlesoap Opera's History Repeats. It's been fun watching those two's antics over the past year, trying to get those finished up, and here I am just finishing a chapter.

Still, I'm editing slowly and, more importantly, starting the next chapter. I'm looking to be nearly through with this one before I post the one I finished, just in case some of the rust falls off and I need to fix some things. So never fret, it's almost here!