It says something about fandom that, when presented with an episode with the not at all subtle message that pairing people (or ponies) together according to your own opinions is wrong and bad and not to be done, the main thing many took away from it was "they go together so well"! Still, the framing didn't help, and it would take years for any official rivals to appear. So what's your take on these two?

Just remember I wrote this between the eighth and ninth seasons, and with particular reference to the most recent Big Mac ep, Break-Up Breakdown.

Obviously not right now, what with Sugar Belle and all. But if Big Mac had been one to go on the rebound, he would probably have gone to Cheerilee over Skellinore - at which point she would have sat him down and first a) reminded him that after the love poison incident they promised to definitely not try again unless they were both still single at thirty-three, and then b) provided the dose of common sense that Spike and Discord failed to. Not because she really ships Big Mac and Sugar Belle (such a very nice pony!) but because she's his friend, and helping out after breakups is a friend's job - he's done it for her in the past. (Granted, that help took the form of explaining why her ex didn't deserve her - but Sugar Belle is a lovely pony, so returning the favour that literally would be wrong. Very wrong. So she won't do it. Even if she doesn't have anypony on Hearts and Hooves Day. Again. And thirty-three is getting closer.)

There is some long background here, if you're interested; Cheerilee had quite the crush on Big Mac for a few years, and around the time of Where the Apple Lies he was starting to reciprocate, at least on a physical level (see how he looks as she walks by) - soon after the hospital incident, they went out on a date. Unfortunately that turned out to be the first of many instances of Cheerilee being drawn to unsuitable ponies; teenage Mac was hardly a catch. A highlight was him blaming Applejack's recent misbehaviour on "too much schooling" (the fact that he and her had had the same amount notwithstanding) while being totally unaware that Cheerilee had recently sent off her application to a teaching college. Or perhaps the actual highlight was the stirring defense of rural education Cheerilee mounted that sent him scurrying back to Sweet Apple Acres feeling he would never accomplish anything in life; she wished she could remember it, but she spent the rest of the night at Cousin Berry's and it was all kind of a blur.

So Cheerilee went off to college and had far more terrible, short-lived relationships than her parents ever found out about, and when she came back a teacher she went to rub her education in Big Mac's face. What she found was a mature, quiet stallion who read and even took corrospondence courses - it turned out he'd even covered some of the same subjects she had. So she had the idea that maybe the end of her string of terrible dates could be found back at the beginning. So this time she asked him out, one more date at the same place, and while a bit surprised he accepted.

The opening parts of the date went well - well enough for Cheerilee to bring in college talking points like politics and philosophy, even though she worried they might go over Big Mac's head. What she didn't expect was for him to have an informed opinion on every topic in complete opposition to her own. Of course such things work ponies up quickly, and Cheerilee was in the middle of questioning whether it was just him or all stallions who looked at everything backwards when Big Mac (who'd presented all his points in that infuriatingly stolid new style of his so far) yelled that if she didn't want him to have his own opinions she shouldn't have told him to go get educated. And at that point she just fell on the floor laughing, and then the next minute he was down there too (and the rest of the restaurant patrons were looking at them very strangely).

So in the end the second date went little better than the first, but concluded with a few promises:
1) They would not try dating again until they were at least thirty (as mentioned earlier, this was later extended.)
2) They would remain friends at least that long.
3) They would mostly avoid their topics of disagreement, but every now and again get together and hold a debate on one and one only.

So the two of them went about their normal lives, Big Mac single and Cheerilee with the occasional disastrous coltfriend. Over time their busy jobs wore at their friendship, but after the love poison incident they made a deliberate attempt to rekindle it. And despite the extension, Cheerilee found herself thinking more and more about thirty-three, and stopped even looking for other stallions. And then suddenly Big Mac was dating Sugar Belle, and you couldn't even hate her. (Actually meeting her made Cheerilee even more ashamed than she already was of her tribalist fantasies that the unicorn had simply bewitched the stallion and he would awake with the kiss of his true love...)

So yeah, a lot going on there but no relationship, not now and maybe not ever. And Cheerilee is learning to live with that. (Funny how I managed to arrive almost by accident at the lesson everyone wants Spike to learn.)

No, fuck no, hell no, never, never, never, never!

Look, the fact is they could have been, but after the CMCs fucked them over with mind-control juice? No way would they even be able to look at each other for a long, long time. Literally no one ever considers the trauma they went through, they always jump straight to "but they so qt 2gether uwu", and that's bullshit. Cheerilee wasn't carrying a torch for Big Macintosh, or vice versa, and if they were, Hearts and Hooves Day blew it out.

7038954
Didn't they remember none of it? Not that that would stop them feeling creeped out, but I doubt they'd be traumatised.

And just saying, Big Mac's last reaction to being magically forced to love something was, well, to take it home with him. (Picture is after the spell was broken).

No, but Big Mac and the male Caramel Apple from “Winter Wrap-Up” are.

7030289

Once again, I love your version.

Personally, I don't think they are, or ever were. I think Big Mac is quite a sight to behold for many mares and by that reasoning, gets a lot of attention. Most of it probably goes straight over his head. (I imagine him being a bit clumsy when it comes to romance. He's not all that perceptive when it comes to picking up on flirting, glances and smiles.) At one point or another, over the course of years, dozens of mares had fantasies about him, crushes on him, and so on. A few might even have pursued those feelings. And ran into a brick wall. It's not the obliviousness-wall, though that one certainly didn't help. It's the whole 'family'- and 'work ethics'-thing. An Apple is an Apple before he is a pony. And with his parents gone, the farm needed his strength. So many chores, day in, day out. Financial troubles. A troublesome sister in the midst of her own identity crisis. An even smaller sister to raise and look out for. Granny's declining health.

Family means all to him. And there's always so much work to be done with this family. And the farm.

A mare wants attention. She wants to be loved, cherished. She wants to know her place in one's heart. And many saw the state of things in Big Mac's life and just nope'd the hell out of there. They weren't ready to live life on the sidelines, surviving on the scraps of love he could give after his family and the farm had taken their share first.

A good part of this head-canon exists due to my earlier reading habits. So many good romance stories involving him. I still can't shake the feeling that Fluttershy and him would be a very cute couple. I actually think she had a thing for him as well, for quite some time. Like many others.

In my version, he's slowly coming to terms with the realization that he's passing by many of his 'good years', and that life has more to offer. All those mares, for all those years, were just... unlucky. There at the right place, but the wrong time.

Marble isn't, though. Admittedly, there are several factors working to her benefit. Both families are large, so they can share common ground when complaining about siblings, or laughing at their antics. Both families celebrate together and exchange traditions, so there's a lot more 'enforced' contact area than there would be with a stray mare deciding to make a move. They slowly get to know each other without dating. They can grow closer together with a lot less pressure.

And just now, in the middle of it all, do I realize that I should have opened with: My head-canon has some major deviations from the show's progression, including that there's no Sugar Belle. She just came out of freaking nowhere. I didn't like that much, so I rejected it. (Sorry, Sugar Belle.)

7030287 No. Although that begs the question of why Big Mac went on at least one date with Cheerilee even after the love poison incident. Seems kind of cruel for him to keep stringing her along until she inevitably learned about Sugar Belle.

7689301
Which date are you talking about?

7689345 We saw them going on a picnic together in the background of "Just For Sidekicks", which seems unusual for them to do if they were just friends. And then there's the whole Cheerilee swooning and fainting over what she thinks is Big Mac's voice in "Filli Vanilli". They can't tease us with stuff like that and then turn around and say it didn't count.