Let's Talk About Cheese Sandwich: This is Why He Rocks My Socks! · 8:48pm Mar 6th, 2014
(Sorry, Ponyess. I know I already bored you to death with this once. You can ignore it. Also, sorry for walls of text, Sexy Assistant. You can blame Scoots2 for inspiring me to get off my butt and write a whole blog post.) 
I think Cheese Sandwich is intensely helped, not hindered, by the fact he is very similar to Pinkie Pie. He is not a Rule 63 clone of her, but their similarities help us understand how he may interact with Equestria overall. On the flip side, the fact that we know a fair bit about his history and how he lives his life also shows us how different he is.
Cheese Sandwich is for all intents and purposes living the life of a Mustang without a herd (and given the various spaghetti reference jokes, I don't think that's too out of line.) He's a lone wolf among ponies and he has bonded with an inanimate object as a method for alleviating his loneliness, when no one else is around. Whether he genuinely thinks Boneless and Boneless Two are alive is debatable, but he treats these rubber chickens as if they were his pet and clearly they comfort him in the same way that a pet would. Or a teddy bear, more accurately. It's up to you, but I can easily see him cuddling with his rubber chicken while he falls asleep and just having one with him may ease his anxiety about sleeping alone.
Horses in real life, and even people sometimes, can be anxious when they feel unprotected. Cheese Sandwich may or may not sleep out in the wilderness, with or without a tent, but it's pretty clear that he is the main pony that he's been relying on for some time now, no matter where he spends the night. If a mare was doing this, especially when you consider that she left home as a filly, people would be astonished by the implication or at least concerned. So I worry about him. There's not much that would outright attack him, even other ponies seem to be less aggressive (Dr. Caballeron and his crew have so far been presented as outliers), but that doesn't mean he's completely safe.
And even humans in a relatively peaceful area have this sort of nervousness, because there is safety in numbers. In real life, horses have trouble getting a deep enough sleep when kept completely apart from any other horse. They sleep standing up for a nap and lie down for a nice, deep, REM sleep, but they don't do the latter if they're alone. In a herd, some sleep while others keep watch. It's not necessary now, but it's ingrained in them and quite frankly it's somewhat ingrained in a portion of humanity, since it's a very real anxiety that some people feel.
Discord could easily be implied to live alone as well, but it's harder to be as worried about someone who is capable of altering reality itself (at least on the initial glance. Clearly as a child that can alter things, especially depending on how one decides when he gained his magical capacity, but it's a point to consider.) Cheese has magic similar to Pinkie and she does have anxiety at times. Obviously Pinkie feels the need to be in a house with other ponies and Cheese may not, but I can't help considering his potential vulnerablity. He clearly has personal issues and even though his story would suggest that he's gotten over a large part of his shyness, I don't see him as an extrovert. Cheese even says that he's been alone for a long time. That may mean in his capacity to plan amazing parties (and it's a reference anyway), but considering how his life is presented to us, he may also be referring to his ability to take care of himself and be viewed as not only a responsible adult, but a strong, capable stallion.
That's one of the key points that Pinkie and Cheese differ on. Pinkie needs to be surrounded by other ponies. Not always or forever, but her social needs are a much stronger priority to her. She wouldn't do what she does if she didn't get some benefit out of her outgoing nature and her desire for friendly interaction with others. And everyone needs socialization. Some need it less than others. I'd wager that Cheese is an introvert who prefers being alone a lot of the time, or he would have integrated himself into the most promising position available and as soon as possible. Instead, he wanders Equestria willingly. One might suggest this is all he has known since he left Manehattan, but I'd venture that leaving the entire city isn't the act of someone who wants to be surrounded by a lot of other ponies. Cheese Sandwich feeds on praise and shared happiness, just like Pinkie Pie, but where she has decided to get to know everyone in her small town and dedicated herself to being a positive emotional experience for them to partake of, Cheese seems to be content with getting his fix when he can and then moving on to enjoy some well-deserved peace and quiet.
I would also say it's very telling that the only pony he made a strong connection with was the one who inspired him. Even though he grabbed Rainbow Dash quite a bit, Pinkie was the only one that he really hugged. Cheese wants to be affectionate towards Pinkie, whether it is romantic or platonic, and he took a pretty big risk in being rejected when he touched her. I honestly think if she had balked at his sudden show of tenderness, he would have stopped talking and been deeply hurt by such a reaction. Not necessarily angry, just disconcerted and sad that he reached out to her and she didn't accept him. Luckily, Pinkie didn't, but it's not impossible she could have. Touching her like that is a sign of potential romance, which is where the shipping inclination stems from. It can be read as platonic, but touching the face and hugging the opposite gender tends to imply this. It's also why Discord does this often. He knows all about personal space and how it could anger the ponies that he's grabbing and getting uncomfortably close to. Whether Discord is attracted to any of them is up for debate, since it's also a sign of potential dominance or superiority. I can't imagine that Cheese touched her in an attempt to be anything but soothing, so it's pretty clear that he cares about Pinkie in some regard. He was deliberately trying to show her that, in the hopes that she'd understand he didn't mean for things to turn out the way that they did.
I'm not suggesting that means they have to be in a relationship, although I think that means that he definitely values her as a person and he wants to be close to her. She is the most likely candidate to be his best friend, if he continues making contact with her, but I think that idea also intimidated him greatly. He took several years before he went back to Ponyville. I think he wanted to show her how good he'd become and to share the joy of what they both do so well, but he was nervous about disappointing her and himself by being less than par. That's why he accepted the Goof Off so readily, though he didn't initially understand why she'd gotten so irritable about his presence. He was showing off and I think he knew that he was, but he didn't think she'd feel threatened by it, because he just didn't know what party planning meant to her. For Cheese, party planning is a way to be social, have a great time, and be praised for what he's good at. It's also the likely source of his income. For Pinkie Pie, party planning is a way of life, even after she learns that she may have taken that too far, and more than likely it's not her source of income. (Even if one ignores her assistance as a baker at Sugarcube Corner, or the one-off joke in Twilight Time, which might not have been a job so much as her assisting a friend in need, Pinkie has never been concerned about the monetary aspect as much as the emotional rapport this brings her.)
Ironically, Cheese probably should have considered that she might feel threatened, but I think he got so caught up in being adored that he simply didn't allow it to stick in his mind. But that's possibly another reason he was anxious about showing up. He wanted to please Pinkie, not anger her. He wouldn't have apologized and told her the truth otherwise.
Now, even after having said all of this, I think that Cheese's Cutie Mark story illustrates two important world-building aspects.
First, he proves that beyond Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom, it's not uncommon for ponies to unintentionally inspire the destiny of another pony by helping them get their Cutie Mark. I think this may also explain how ponies name their children. The parents know the name itself could have some impact, but not always. This could be a reason why some ponies seem to have really predictive names. It's not necessarily that the parents knew, but the name may have some impact on the foal's life. It could also imply that the parents were hoping to groom their child in a certain direction. I'm not saying that's why he's named the way that he is, but while Pinkie was surprised, she accepted his story readily when he told her the truth. This makes sense, given The Cutie Mark Chronicles and the way that the CMC sticking together to search for their destiny isn't viewed as abnormal (presumably the CMC could inspire one another to find their destinies, even though they've been unsuccessful.) Therefore, ponies can not only share the same destiny and embark on it, while being different from one another (an obvious notion), but one pony can assist another willing pony, though it's completely random as to whether or not it will actually help (and more often than not it's by happenstance, not done with intention.)
Second, while your head canon may differ, I believe this shows that although ponies are skittish about new things that seem scary and gravitate towards novelty that seems fun, they do tend towards helping one another out. Rarity isn't a complete outlier. She is generous and is paying it forward. In Manehattan this isn't as common, because the sheer amount of ponies desensitizes some to the plight of others (which may be part of why Cheese left and was able to leave), but overall they seem to be helpful. Given Cheese Sandwich's response to his entrance into Ponyville, I think it's plausible that the cute foal had assistance during his travels, when he did come across other ponies. He didn't seem shocked that they had welcomed him, so much as he was amazed at the merriment and wasn't expecting to stumble into a party. One could say that's just how it had to be to make the story brief and workable within a short time frame, and it's still plausible that he didn't meet very many ponies on his meandering way towards Ponyville, but he seemed to be in good condition when he got there.
Even if he went straight to Ponyville, more or less, it's a shorter trip by train than by hoof. He had to be on the road for a couple of days at least, and depending on how long he was actually roaming (it's possible it was years or months rather than days), the poor foal needed nourishment. He didn't chow down on that sandwich like he was starving, so it's plausible that he'd been eating wild grass and other plants, but his relative calm leads me to believe that he was either good at caring for himself or he had some help. At the time Cheese didn't have Boneless or any other comfort, so I'm personally inclined to think that he found a few adults along the way who offered him a temporary place to stay, but didn't insist on keeping him there. Foals seem to be able to travel safely, if one considers that Pinkie Pie moved away from the rock farm and Applejack was allowed to travel alone when she went to and came back from living with the Oranges. While I imagine they tend to be watched over, I can believe that strangers are encouraged to assist a lone foal and that foals have nothing to fear from that. Your head canon may differ, there is plenty of room for other ideas, ones that are much sadder, more horrifying, or just downright fetish fuel, but I can't help being reminded of Pokemon in this respect (in a good way.)
Which brings me to another key difference. Pinkie Pie has a large family and a plausible pseudo-family if you count the Cakes. Whether family is important or not, they're a core part of what has made her who she is. We don't know anything about Cheese's family, but there are a couple of options and they provide a different outcome with similar results. Cheese may have been an orphan, he may have had an abusive or neglectful family, or he may have been abandoned. It's also possible that he had a good family, but felt so distant from them and everyone else that he ran away because they didn't understand how to help him or that he was allowed to leave, with them assuming that he'd come back after awhile. Regardless, all of this still feeds into an unhappy childhood that resulted in a pony who doesn't have an easy time relating with others on a deeper level. It's clear that Cheese can now bring himself to talk to complete strangers and carry a conversation easily, but that doesn't mean he makes friends very well. His nomadic life style and reliance on Boneless would suggest as much, although the reasons for why could vary a great deal.
It's also fascinating to consider his ties to the Spaghetti Western tropes. This, and his playful use of seriousness on the initial meeting of viewers and ponies alike, is a beautiful juxtaposition. Pinkie is secure in her position and doesn't concern herself with appearing serious except when she is. Cheese pretends to be more serious than he is so that others will take him seriously at first, then he allows them to see who he truly is. Both he and Pinkie hide their pain in different ways, partly based on gender expectations. Cheese isn't allowed to show his suffering as deeply as Pinkie is and for that matter is never shown to cry, where as Pinkie is but still has to hide it when trying to appear brave and unmarked. They both have an inner sadness that gets hidden and while I don't think that means they're necessarily unhealthy or traumatized, I think it shows that both of them are deeper than they let on.
We the audience know that Pinkie is more than just a joke machine, when one really looks at her closely, and I believe that this episode shows the same thing for Cheese. He understands her, or he wouldn't have exposed himself so deeply. I highly doubt that he tells everyone that he was a shy little foal. The fib that he told in the beginning is the story that he tells anyone else who asks. It technically may be true and he is only making a lie by omission (he's only telling them what happened after he met Pinkie and it's plausible that he was always weird, which is why he was so shy about letting other ponies get to know him... he may have even been ashamed of his name), but it still shows that he's trying to cultivate a masculine, self-assured image in general. He won't let anyone know his more vulnerable side unless he is certain they won't laugh or treat him differently. I think that, and simply liking the West, is part of why he takes on this persona. It's likely that he has his serious moments, everyone does, and he's simply intensifying them to prove a point.
In general, Cheese Sandwich is fascinating to me. I think he has a lot of room for exploration and story telling, just as Pinkie Pie does. Although they have the same abilities and similar inclinations, that doesn't make them the same pony. Cheese Sandwich isn't lying about who he is, in the strictest sense. He's just putting on a mask that he's comfortable with. This presentation is also part of his personality and while he might let it drop more often around someone he knows, that doesn't mean it's a pure facade. Given how the Appleloosa ponies handled the battle with the buffalo, it's not even that much of a stretch. The West is already wacky in Equestria. Cheese Sandwich fits right in and I wouldn't be surprised if that was his favorite area in general. He's a city slicker who turned cowboy, more or less. I respect if some people don't really like westerns or they don't like Pinkie or they don't like Weird Al, so they don't like Cheese. But it's really missing a lot of potential by dismissing him. Cheese Sandwich is one of the most deeply developed stallions in FiM. I think he actually beats out Shining Armor in that respect. Feel free to disagree, but that's my opinion.
I can see a lot of great ideas coming from Cheese Sandwich meeting other backgrounds characters. Iron Will, Trixie Lulamoon, Gilda, Flim and Flam, Ms. Harshwhinny, Ms. Peachbottom, the spa ponies, Donut Joe, and of course his interaction with anyone in Appleloosa, Dodge Junction, and Mustangia really stir my imagination. Cheese visiting Las Pegasus and returning to Manehattan could have a lot of potential too. He doesn't have to be in love with Pinkie Pie to be great, although I confess that I'm a sucker for them as a couple. Then again, I'm a sucker for anyone as a realistically portrayed, loving couple. I strongly support Cheese and Pinkie being paired with other characters as well and it's not really limited by species or gender in my mind.
Oddly enough, I'm not sure that Cheese meeting Discord would be inherently intriguing, but I can see it being amazing regardless. It just depends on what the writer does with them together.
That's really all there is to it. Cheese Sandwich is only limited by what you decide to do with him. 
He's a beautiful, wonderful personality all on his own and I adore him. But then again, I've always loved sympathetic comic relief characters done right. That's why I love Discord and Pinkie Pie. 
This is really close to what I think about Cheese, too. He really isn't Rule 63 Pinkie. Hmm--I don't really worry about ponies being like real life horses. If they were, there would be so much more shit on the show, quite literally. Weirdly enough, I think the Rainbow Dash Presents version of Somewhere Only We Know shows what this would look like, probably because it's a parody of a MLP riff off of Black Beauty. Rainbow Dash sees Rarity pulling a carriage:
RD: Hey, Rarity, Rarity, I really like your carriage, hey Raritttyy (Rarity turns corner) Aw, she's gone. I'll probably never see her again. (Rarity turns the corner, having trotted around the block). Hey, Rarity, Rarity! Rarity!
That's how short their memories and attention spans are.
I also don't worry too much about the supply problem, since evidently as a fully fledged Party Pony, he can pull a tank out of, um, nowhere, as long as it's loaded with streamers and confetti.
My reading on Cheese is that he is definitely an introvert. He gets the party going and revs off it, and then kicks back to chow down on something on the sidelines. I probably wouldn't do too much with the Western element myself as a writer, simply because it's not something I would do very well. Someone suggested that an EG Cheese might be a military brat, and I thought, "I have no idea what that would look like. I'd only screw it up." Of course, everyone's got different ways of approaching stuff, and I think of Cutie Marks as being pretty darned insistent on being carried out, especially his. He travels Equestria and gives parties because he can't not. He is driven to do it. He want to Make Em Laugh as much or more than Pinkie does. It's not exactly a choice. Of course, when a pony is in that Zen zone of doing what he or she is supposed to, they feel happy, so that part is fine, but that means that he goes to Ponyville when he's told to.
Cheese Sandwich is a pretty weird name, and I briefly toyed with the idea of making it a problem for him, but it's nothing like as weird as the family name they changed it from (thank gosh they didn't name him after great-great uncle Schmear.) I don't think he gets back to Manehattan all that often. His mom is still trying to tell him that maybe that's really a pair of lungs or something, or maybe you can just throw parties on the weekends, have you thought of this? She is kidding herself. Pinks and he have families who spectacularly do not get them.
I can't remember who mentioned this to me, but it's a cool thought. Equestria vrooms off of kindness and harmony and stuff. Friendship is Magic. You simply can't have stuff get too horrible and disharmonious or the entire country is asking for Windigos to move in. That's a really good incentive to take care of ponies who need help. To me, the idea that kids would be taken care of more or less automatically is a given.
And in some ways, he acts like a pretty young and immature guy. He acts cool. He gives no real indication that he's met Pinkie. The "I will impress her!" thing reels out of control until he is one-upping her, and then it occurs to him that, oh, yes--this may not have been tactful, and he has blown it in a big way.
Hoo, boy: Cheese Sandwich and Trixie on the same bill with Iron Will. Battle of the Attention Seekers! Which Will Win?
Anyhoo--yeah, I think he's Best Guest Stallion for sure. Best Stallion next to Big Mac. Shiny isn't bad, but he's unused potential. The comics did something great with him, but unfortunately, it doesn't line up very well with the show. I could say more about him, but I'll burn myself out!--plus I'm holding a bit back for more Cheese writing.
Too many words....
*Crawls away*
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Sorry, babe. It's what I do. My Cutie Mark is just an open scroll with a huge block of text.
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This is my favorite video regarding anything like that ever. It has some surreal fun with just their language, but I find this hilarious.
Sorry, I didn't explain my argument very well. My point wasn't that Cheese has been sleeping standing up. I meant to emphasize that both horses and humans can be uncomfortable living alone, because they feel vulnerable, and it has nothing to do with being an extrovert or an introvert. It's tied to our social animal instincts. I'm not suggesting that he must have that feeling, but Cheese is living a life that could leave him vulnerable, depending on how the writer decides to look at it. Obviously Equestria is mostly safe, with only a few areas of real danger, outside of pony civilization mostly and tucked away in pockets, so it's highly unlikely that he's truly got any reason to worry. I think people take the humor and the cartoonishness at face value, without realizing that isn't going to be enough to protect him or Pinkie Pie in every circumstance.
I actually wouldn't be surprised if having Boneless and Boneless Two gave him more confidence in living alone. He was doing that for some indeterminate amount of time before he wandered into Ponyville, but he was a foal and that might have been scary. Just as Pinkie gave him the notion of what he was destined to do and the confidence to interact with other ponies, I think her accidental gift of Boneless also gave him the strength to carry on as a nomad. But this is pure speculation on my part. I try to avoid too much speculation in my blogs, if I can, but provide some evidence to back up my theories.
But that said, the first season had them doing slightly more horse-like things with good comedic effect and even as of Keep Calm and Flutter On they used a realistic sounding horse noise for good effect when Fluttershy was surprised. I think the video I linked to illustrates how horsey sounds and horsey behavior could enhance things sometimes. There is enough variety beyond crapping in the street. Also, most animals have better memory than people give them credit for. It's not really attention span or memory, it's about their level of abstract thinking. Most animals only reach a child's level of understanding and it varies from species to species. I don't know where IRL horses are in that regard, but the simple fact they can be trained to ride and other things shows some considerable competence in learning.
I'm sure what you're referring to is all exaggeration for the sake of comedy (your example sounded great), but I feel the need to address this since I don't like the idea of people misconstruing animal intelligence. Animals understand a lot more than we typically give them credit for. They just aren't concerned with everything that we are, nor would they be, and they don't see the world exactly how we do.
But back to my reasons for mentioning anything about him being vulnerable. I think it opens up a lot of story-telling if people consider what his life is like. This is something that occurred to me, so I mentioned it, in the hopes of inspiring others. I just did a bad job of that.
Pinkie and Cheese definitely use Hammer Space. I was mostly referring to Cheese having to deal with a need for food before he found out his destiny. Does a Party Pony have their signature magic even before they learn what they need to do? I think it's possible, I have a feeling that ponies are born with all of their capabilities but the Cutie Mark may unlock their understanding of how to use it and what they need to practice at. Even so, I don't think Cheese materializes food, in the strictest sense. Not unless it's funny. Just needing to eat won't be funny enough to make such a thing happen.
I actually think both Pinkie and Cheese have randomized Chaos as their magic, which explains why they get such a variety of results. They have a few other "spells" for lack of a better word (use of hammer space and appearing out of nowhere, as well as anything else that's more clearly conscious and requires precise effort to work the same way every time) but most of their actual magic is low level chaos used for comedic timing. So they can defy gravity but only when it's funny, not necessarily to save their lives, and they can't guarantee it'll work, they just get the sense that it should work when it's appropriate for it to work. It's basically a persistent spell with random outcomes, since Earth Ponies don't study individual spells from spell books the way that Unicorns do.
... Sorry I'm getting into major head canon territory now. But that's how it makes sense in a way that they can't actually explain how it works and how it gives them such a wide variety of results. I honestly think that most ponies have several spells, even if they're not Unicorns, but Unicorns have compendiums for exact results, which they can swap out. So Unicorns tend to have more variety available to them and their Cutie Mark may influence what they're predisposed to. They don't have all of this spell variety at once, of course, and only the most advanced and studious can use some of the higher tier spells. Earth Pony and Pegasus magic tends to be subtle, so I assume it's something that is always there and some of these spells are always turned on, for lack of a better term. They're inherent, which is the trade-off. A Unicorn can prepare for anything and potentially be good at it, but if you bring a specialized Earth Pony or Pegasus in to do the same job, they're just as good. Unicorns also have a number of spells too specialized for any Earth Ponies and Pegasi to ever have, which is the other factor.
That's why I also assume that both Pinkie and Cheese could in theory do standard Earth Pony magic, but they just aren't any good at it. Mostly because they don't practice at it, so it's a languishing skill, perhaps almost entirely forgotten, but it is there and they could try to use it if need be. It wouldn't get very good results though, unless they combined it with their party powers. So suddenly growing a full grown tree from a seed is possible for them, since that's funny if someone else runs into it or it could maybe be fun to play in if it had a tree-house already attached, but it's just not possible for someone like Applejack to do that. On the flip side, actually nurturing a plant isn't something they can easily do, but AJ does it all the time.
... I over think everything. And say the obvious. Someone stop me!
Obviously this isn't a common issue. It depends on what the story needs for it to matter at all. But I like slice of life stuff... especially with weird people.
Yeah, that'd require some serious research to know, but if you don't really love the idea and also don't have first hand experience with it, then it could falter big time. I think it's a wise decision to go with something else. As for the Western thing, I admit I don't even know what I'd necessarily do with it myself.
But yeah, Cheese gets the party going and he enjoys what he can of it. Then when he gets exhausted from having so many ponies around him, he eases into the sidelines to recuperate, but he doesn't leave until he's certain that he's done his job and he isn't needed any more. It's wonderful and he loves it for a lot of reasons, but he just can't take that kind of attention and crowding for long. Ironically, being in a big city wouldn't bother him that much. You're more alone there than in some place that's smaller.
I'm not sure if he'd be happiest with a small collection of friends or being surrounded by an admiring but distant crowd of ponies. I think the former is probably more accurate. He still loves the attention of admirers though, or he wouldn't stir them up like he does. I think, like Pinkie, most of his self esteem is tied to others, even though he doesn't necessarily concern himself with whether or not they like him. He's more concerned with making them enjoy themselves. If they don't enjoy themselves, he crashes and burns hard. But he bases himself on group numbers most of the time, not individuals. He didn't notice Rainbow Dash wasn't enjoying herself during the Goof Off because he had the crowd in the frog of his hoof and he was having so much fun as well. Also Rainbow's level of enjoyment hadn't sunk low enough for it to be really noticeable by anyone who wasn't paying close attention, so it makes sense.
Yeah, I noticed that while reading Swear on Camembert and It Bombed in Seaddle. I like that idea, but at the same time I don't think it works for every story. But I think the notion that a Cutie Mark is insistent in general is probably accurate, given the What My Cutie Mark is Telling Me song. The rest of the Mane Six were definitely driven to do things other than what they loved and explicitly referenced it as if it might be a compulsion. I think varying levels of insistence might work better depending on the plot though. But then you came up with an answer in Seaddle... I think. I kind of missed the point a bit at the end, though I got why the bomb couldn't go off until then. He needs her inspiration, but I didn't quite get why it worked that way exactly, unless art.
(Sorry, I will leave a comment on those two stories at some point. I tend to leave either very brief or extremely long comments... But you had me hooked in the first couple of paragraphs of each, so that's saying something. I get turned off in the beginning of any story and I tend to skim the rest of it or I stop reading altogether, so I'm kind of picky, even though I give leeway for things that I like. You got me to favorite and recommend both almost immediately, above and beyond the fact they're about Cheese Pie.)
Still the compulsion is also a great answer for why he didn't come back until then. I liked the answer that with a resident party pony, they just didn't need him most of the time.
I love your version of his mother. But yeah, I assume he doesn't go there too often.
You need to write this... just what it's like whenever he does manage to go home for a little while. It'd be a super sweet and super sad story.
I agree utterly, but as you've said, the orphan in a box is a notion that people love way too much. That's why I mentioned it though. I also just think it's such a sweet idea and overall I like that concept in Equestria. You see a lone foal who seems upset and you help them out. If they're alone, there's no automatic reason for alarm, because that's not unusual when they're mostly safe to roam around Equestria, but their well-being is still a priority, so if they look like they need help, you help them. Little foals don't get left to cry all by themselves and be hungry. They get fed and comforted and given a couch to sleep on if need be. And they're completely safe (unless the writer wants to go down some dark and dirty roads, but my impression is that's not likely in canon.)
It doesn't make sense otherwise, but it seems like the kind of thing that needs to be mentioned because people forget Equestria isn't strictly like our world. I also just get so many warm fuzzies thinking about this sort of thing. Foals need cuddles.
Yeah... hahaha he literally and figuratively got carried away. It was brave of him to tell the truth though. That's never easy, especially when you know that you've screwed up. I think the only reason he didn't mention meeting her before is that he didn't think she'd understand why that meant so much to him and he didn't want to explain why. It's also not really a natural conversation to have. I firmly believe that he might have told her after the party, when they were alone, but he needed to wait to figure out how to say it. When it became a do or die situation, it was a natural epiphany of song lyrics.
Plus, I get the feeling he sees her as the coolest pony around. She's weird without caring and she makes it look so effortless. He probably assumed that she didn't need any inspiration, the way that he did. I think he genuinely idolized her before he met her again. Which would make sense... he didn't really talk to her before, that we know of (Pinkie didn't remember him at first, which probably means that he didn't) and he didn't get the chance to enthuse with her on the same level until his confession. His affection is genuine, because she meant so much to him, and they have a very real connection when they do talk, because they're almost always on the same wavelength (although that doesn't mean they can't say the wrong thing and pretty much screw up.)
BEST... PARTY... EVER!
But someone might die from exertion... if not all three of them.
Poor Cheese could sprain his funny bone.
I like Big Mac, but I think he's overrated. I know, I know. Blasphemy!
Shining Armor does have a lot of unused potential. Almost as much if not more than Spike. It's sad, really. I have heard about what the comics did, but yeah, I'm not surprised if it kind of gets wonky with canon. Majorly surprised they haven't been using Cadance and Shining for the romance angles, but I suppose I shouldn't be.
But I like Cheese Sandwich better. He hits all of my major enjoyment zones. I love love love characters who are strange, speak their mind, and don't give a crap what others think, even if they're weird or not the standard of heroic. I've always been that way too. And I feel like I understand him very well, since I'm an introvert who learned how to be more open and talkative with others. He's also more down to Earth than Pinkie is, while being on the same page with her and downright distinctly wacky in his own right.
Now I want some Pinkie, Cheese, Braeburn shenanigans... hahaha Pinkie could wear one of her showgirl outfits for kicks. Braeburn could be the center of reason while overreacting adorably and being cheerful while they're dead serious and vice versa. Cheese is himself and the balance for translating Pinkie to Braeburn. And Pinkie is her awesome, unconventional, beautiful, extremely bizarre self.
We'll make it a surreal version of Waiting for Godot called Waiting for Luna. Or something. I don't even know. Doesn't matter as long as they're hanging out and talking in a salt saloon. Or they're in Baltimare for some inexplicable reason. Or maybe they're in Donut Joe's shop. The setting really doesn't matter 'cause I got no particulars right now. I just have so much amusement at the very idea.
I may pass out from cute, depending on what they're doing together. Donut Joe is also hilarious so I'm now leaning towards that in my thoughts.
1907360 Hhmmm... Cutie marks..?
Mines probably a pencil. 
I forgive you though. 
1907529 Oy--I swear I'll keep this short! Oh, yeah, animals are pretty smart, and when a horse learns something was a Bad Idea, you have a lot of trouble getting it out.
"But that said, the first season had them doing slightly more horse-like things with good comedic effect and even as of Keep Calm and Flutter On they used a realistic sounding horse noise for good effect when Fluttershy was surprised."
Oh, they did it in Pinkie Pride. "Freeze, Cheese!" (snort)
Dang, I want to talk about how Party Pony Magic Rule of Funny works with them so much. Mmf! --but some of it is hinted at in "we're not allowed to be sad at the same time." Think power plants and car batteries and electricity and radar. And now that Ponyacci's gone, Equestria's in big trouble if Cheese goes offline again.
1908431
Does that mean Cheese noticed something was wrong when Party of One happened? Then again, Pinkie didn't seem to know that Cheese had returned to Ponyville, more or less, until he started playing.
Also, does that mean they'll need to make sure there are replacements for them when they both pass on?
1908502 Party of One was more like a brownout. "We're sorry. We are experiencing technical difficulties. Our service personnel are working to resolve this issue." Plus, Ponyacci was alive back then. They aren't the only party ponies in all of Equestria, but there can't be more than five, tops, and now the top two are essentially wired together. Cheese was losing his magic when he dragged himself back to Ponyville. Not being able to access Hammerspace is a red flag symptom. (He can, however, still play the accordion. That's an ability he has whether he's got the party abilities and Cheesy Sense going or not.) It's also why Pinkie freaked out when she suddenly lost his signal without knowing exactly what was going on or why.
"Also, does that mean they'll need to make sure there are replacements for them when they both pass on?"
Yes, although since you can't teach funny, they will have to hope that one comes along. It clearly does not run in families. There's no guarantee that even *if* Pinkie and Cheese ever had foals of their own that one of them would be a Party Pony, and I'd even guess probably not. That's why Ponyacci didn't pass on his secrets to his biological son, but to his spiritual son, Cheese. And Pinkie somehow just acquired that level of Funny Enlightenment all by herself, with no sensei, right in the middle of a rock farm.
There's probably one or two foals out there, maybe, who have the natural potential and who with the right catalyst and with the right set of circumstances might be the next great Party Ponies, but until then, it's gonna be like waiting for another Caruso. There's a lot of potential for a lot of things to go seriously wrong.
But anyway, that's just my version, and I know it probably only works for me.
1908654 .
Makes sense to me. I'm guessing being Discorded also counts as a brownout. I wonder if Cheese kept passing close enough to see "HOLY SHIT WHAT IS GOING ON OVER THERE?" but he couldn't go investigate because he was needed more than ever in other places across Equestria, to try and maintain the balance that Discord was trying to break. Also, frankly? I wouldn't be surprised if he was panicking when he did notice. That is some Grade A 'Equestria is in Trouble Fuel'. Or he just couldn't comprehend what that was, other than Not Pony Magic, so he tried to ignore it while doing his part to fight it.
What am I doing? ... I need help.
I may need to reread the last chapter again. Was it all Trixie's fault or was it partly the stress of dealing with Ponyacci's death and the desire to be comforted by Pinkie that gave him the Blue Screen of Death error?
Nah, you can teach funny, but it takes the right kind of mindset, I think. It could run in families, but I agree that there's no guarantee it would, not even for them. And yeah... somehow I'm pretty sure the sheer intensity of Cheese and Pinkie being so hilarious would demand a very confused but potentially sweet foal or more. Even if their foals ended up being funny, they might not be that funny. That's a really high bar to reach.
Nopony's experienced anything like Discord in over a thousand years, so I'm assuming it was major freakout time all over Equestria during Return of Harmony. AND not so great during Magical Mystery Cure. The handful of party ponies left in Equestria were working to make up the sense of humor deficit 24/7, and they all probably needed a vacation afterwards.
Nah, Trixie messing with the party bomb was just the last straw, and the bomb itself was a symptom. If it hadn't been that, it would have been something else. It was losing Ponyacci, which he couldn't let himself absorb. He spent a whole day cheering everypony else up over losing the pony who was like a father to him, pretty much the most important one in the world to him, and not being able to support the other most important pony in the world, either. He lost both of them, bang-bang, within about 48 hours. And then there's Pinkie Sense linking up with Cheesy Sense AND this . . . other thing that he's really unwilling to articulate to himself. Cheese is used to Cheesy Sense, and it's really hard for him to tease out the differences between why he HAS to go back to Ponyville and why he wants to so badly. They're two different but overlapping things. The stronger the pull, the more he confused it with with just wanting to go back, and I'm sure he's wanted to go lots of places and do lots of things that conflicted with Cheesy Sense and just had to drop whatever it was. And the more he wanted to, the more he convinced himself that he shouldn't, and finally talked himself into the idea that the entire population of Ponyville would be out there with pitchforks and torches. How dare he take away their Party Pony, even for a day or two! The idea that they think of her as "oh, that's just Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie" is unfathomable to him. Plus he really desperately wanted to, which just proved that he shouldn't. That part was just plain Guy Stupid, I'm afraid. The Cheesy Sense got really hair-trigger and he was exhausted and running away. He ran himself into an unnecessary nervous breakdown. In essence, he burned himself out. Like a bomb.
EDIT: I suppose you could say that there is some super dark stuff lurking there, just under the surface. But if I said so flat out, it wouldn't have been funny. Augh, I need to go grade and then put this in the fics now!
1909183
Gives new meaning to the phrase Party Hard!
Aww poor Cheese though. But did he realize Ponyville was the source of this anomaly? I think that might worry him a bit more than it would the others... I'm assuming he guessed she was safe afterwards, but I can't help thinking he'd wonder...
But I'm grinning imagining all the party ponies running around like they're saving the world and no one else gets it.
Everything you said made perfect sense and it was lovely and I'm remembering more just reading it. But does this mean she charges him up somehow? Like a literal muse or something else? Was he losing his magic because of the crippling emotional drainage or was it because he was going to lose it regardless and the breakdown just made that happen sooner?
Bwahahaha. He worships her like a goddess... and everyone else is just like "Oh, you." And they probably think she's crazy.
And he will never know.
If that wasn't my headcanon before, it is now. The more seriously they take themselves, the more adorable and hilarious they are. I'm a horrible sucker for that kind of admiration fueled relationship. Especially since this is Pinkie, so I'm pretty sure it's also reciprocal admiration.
1910186 "Everything you said made perfect sense and it was lovely and I'm remembering more just reading it. But does this mean she charges him up somehow? Like a literal muse or something else? Was he losing his magic because of the crippling emotional drainage or was it because he was going to lose it regardless and the breakdown just made that happen sooner?"
Yes, she does. She powers him up like a generator, but it's the result of a thaumaturgic accident. The Goof Off is the Party Pony equivalent of a Magic Duel--don't let the cupcakes and balloons fool you. And SO FAR, he's the only key-giving character who was returning a key connected to Pinkie's elemental magic: a key that set off his own magic and presumably his cutie mark as well. It might even be indirectly connected to the Tree of Harmony itself.
*Snick.* And a circuit gets closed. But that's the simplified version. Even Twilight Sparkle doesn't exactly know how this works (i.e., I am making it up as I go along.) As I have it so far, she powers him up, and she also gets a signal off him like some kind of radio collar. It doesn't leave them invulnerable to all kinds of magical accidents (like, what happens if one of them gets killed?) or relationship problems. I can think of four or five ways this could go ugly, none of which I'll probably write.
1919989
Oooh. Very interesting concept.
A thaumaturgic accident though? Is that because she stopped the duel and it was never completed or because of him returning the key? I wouldn't personally assume this is canon, but I like the idea overall.
And yeah, I doubt it would leave them invulnerable. Especially in the relationship area. That's a matter of personality and compromise, not magic. I can't personally think how it might go ugly magically, other than he looses his magic permanently, but I'm not surprised it could go wrong. Being reliant on someone else, even in a self-empowered kind of way, has drawbacks.
Sorry, I hope I'm not bothering you. I just enjoy discussing this.