Birthday Bios: Cocoa Butter

I still stand by my sentiment that earth ponies doing chemistry is awkward.

Nevertheless, Cocoa Butter so far has been a fun character to write in Brotherly Bonding Time (which I need to return to sometime—gawl, getting sick with different crap two months in a row really killed my inspiration and drained a bunch of my storytelling energy). She turned out grumpier than I was intending to, but then again, I have characterized her as somepony that’s rough, so it works.

At least she’s more appreciative of the zaniness of family members like her husband Acorn Compound and her nephew Cheese Sandwich than most other grumps are. Anyhoozles…

Cocoa Butter was born in Manehattan, considered a three-days-early Hearth’s Warming present by parents Beans and Panini. No other present could compare to their new daughter.

She was loud and she was messy—granted, all babies are, but she took it to another level. She has mixed all her paints and splattered them all over the walls, she has dragged things from outside to experiment on, she has gotten into the shelves to mix ingredients for gunk to eat, and don’t even think about asking what she did with the contents of her diaper—you don’t want to know. And with a defiant, grumpy personality not unlike her father’s, it would take a while to get her to stop her messy mischief.

She did have her moments of bliss. Listening to Dad play the piano or sing her a lullaby was a surefire way to calm her when she was upset, and she was willing to eat anything that her mama cooked up and answer any trivia questions that Panini came up with. When both her parents were off work (obviously when they were, she was watched by a neighbor), they’d take her on days out in the city, or go out to the country to visit Panini’s family.

When she was five, Cocoa became a big sister to a little colt that her parents named Hay Burger. She was initially happy to have a playmate… a little too happy. She often dragged the quiet baby in whatever adventure she had in mind, often either scaring him or hurting him in the process. Often, it came to the point where he learned how to run early because Cocoa was just too rough with him.

Starting school, Cocoa was on that strange line of being one of the smartest kids in class and one of the most disruptive. Sure, she was a nerd, but she was also a roughhouser—she didn’t quite get the line of thinking that she couldn’t be both. After all, learning about simple sciences was fun, and so was playing in the mud! A good majority of her school friends were colts, since she wasn’t particularly interested in feminine activities and couldn’t connect with other fillies save for other tomboys.

As she and her brother grew older, she got irritated with how meek and asocial Hay Burger was, especially when he was always organizing things all the time, whether or not it was needed. Seeing him as a wimp, she started to pick on him, with the justification to herself that she was “toughening him up”. She started with poking fun at his insecurities and calling him names, and escalated with things like startling him with jump scares, taking his things (sometimes straight out of his hoof) and holding them hostage, and even hitting him. Beans and Panini did not like this at all, with the former grounding her half the time, and the latter pulling out the switch the other half.

Having them both home alone was trouble, so Cocoa and Hay were often separated by visiting friends’ houses. Cocoa had a few friends compared to Hay’s only one (Honeydew, who had this condescending sweetness to her that felt so fake that it made Cocoa sick), so she was often a little indecisive about where she wanted to go. Usually, it depended on if she was in a roughhousing mood or a science mood.

Her science moods led to one friend named Electrowiz, a pegasus who had the coolest science kits, including a chemistry set. Together, she and Electrowiz would play with the science kits, whether it be a potato clock, making a salt lick or rock candy, or doing a classic baking soda volcano. They had a lot of fun together, though Cocoa envied his amazing science kits that allowed for a wide range of experiments. Her parents only got her the cheap stuff, after all.

But, she was quite clever with the cheap stuff, along with some of the things at home. And thus, with a bit of creativity and care, she created a glow-in-the-dark reaction that she used to decorate the house for Hearth’s Warming. She also briefly turned Hay Burger into Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (some of the solution got on his nose), but nevertheless, she was quite proud of her accomplishment. Her cutie mark was an early birthday/Hearth’s Warming present.

She desired to expand her talents; however, since her family was kind of the lower end of income levels, she had to work jobs throughout her teenage years in order to save up to attend college. Those jobs had her straighten out her more chaotic mindset, since while creativity was appreciated, anarchy was not. She often rotated from job to job, depending on season, and she was super busy. She even failed at starting a few romantic relationships because of her hyperfocus on her goal (and being kind of mean to the colts that asked her out—she doesn’t have time to be polite in turning them down).

But it all paid off, and she got into college. She relaxed and stuck with one job from then on, and happily attended her classes. In chemistry, she was typically partnered with a young stallion named Acorn Compound, who while smart was pretty scatterbrained.

His frequent kooky curiosity brought out her teasing side, which was still as rough as always. For some time, he didn’t show much reaction to it other than maybe deliberately avoiding her and maybe getting steadily more and more snippy and cold with her as time went on. It took Cocoa casually saying that maybe Acorn was “an idiot who got lucky” to make the stallion snap and rant about how he was invested in science for years, how her picking on him was not helping him fix any of his flaws at all, and that she was the idiot for thinking it would. To everyone’s surprise, including Cocoa’s own, that outburst actually made her cry.

It was about a month before they made up, with Cocoa realizing that her parents did have a point about her being abrasive. After partnering up with Acorn on more friendly terms, she decided to try to be gentle to others—including little brother Hay Burger. Granted, she still teased him a bit when they met, but she resolved to not stoop to outright insults. Unfortunately, teenage Hay Burger was not going to shake off a grudge against her so easily.

On the other hoof, doing activities with Acorn around the city outside of class strengthened her friendship with him. They made fun of current pop culture and enjoyed the view from whatever skyscraper they ascended. They liked each other’s families and vice versa, and sometimes they’d do experiments together just for the fun of it. Though, Cocoa was frustrated when Acorn did one experiment of his own—only to be surprised that he was proposing to her with homemade fireworks.

After school, they got married. They were eager to have a kid soon, but had difficulties in doing so for a while. Turns out, Acorn wasn’t exactly the most fertile guy around. While Cocoa was ready to accept it, her husband had other plans and started concocting various brews in hopes of a fertility potion—which he and Cocoa knew was quite difficult. While Cocoa does like seeing thoughts outside the box, she tried to be realistic and dissuade him from aiming for an unlikely goal. Unfortunately, he didn’t listen, and failed experiments resulted in simple fruit punch, explosions, and one incident where Acorn had a change in gender (so many things went wrong that week that neither don’t like to talk about it).

But, to their surprise, one actually worked when Cocoa got pregnant (though she chalked it up to lucky coincidence). Their son Peanut Butter Sandwich was born the next January, and the colt turned out a lot like his mother when she was small—rowdy, mischievous, and getting into things (thankfully in the kitchen instead of the lab). She was always happy to playfully wrestle with him and show him off to her family (and often left him with her parents when she and Acorn went to work), and found it kind of funny that he liked to mess up Uncle Hay’s organized items, much to the young stallion’s dismay.

However, though her teasing of Hay was gentler than it was when she was younger, it did not endear her to him. When Cocoa had her concerns about how his relationships with others were not exactly healthy (like his childhood friendship with Honeydew, or a budding relationship with Honey’s twin sister Mozzarella), Hay ignored her, thinking that she was just out to make him unhappy, like always. In fact, he actually started to fight back with her, and his temper actually startled Cocoa. Nevertheless, Cocoa still tried to convince him that maybe he should try to find another girl—though ultimately failing and getting the rather bossy and kind of cold Mozzarella for a sister-in-law.

Her troubles with her brother had her hesitate to try for another foal with Acorn, who was convinced that four-year-old Peanut was lonely without a sibling (she could tell he was just fine). As a matter of fact, Peanut’s cousin (Hay and Mozzarella’s offspring) was on the way, so that kid could be a playmate. But, nevertheless, Acorn took another dose of the fertility potion, and Cocoa’s second pregnancy was under way. A little over a week after Cocoa’s birthday that year, they welcomed their sweet little daughter Ice Cream Sandwich in the world. And surprise, surprise, Peanut did not appreciate having to share attention.

Years went by, and Cocoa often visited her brother in order to try to talk some sense into him and maybe Mozzarella, but both were pretty stubborn ponies. Despite the obvious dysfunction and power imbalance going on, Hay wasn’t going to believe his sister really cared. Cocoa was frustrated, and often things exploded into arguments. The most positive thing that ever came out of those visits was that at least Peanut behaved, and that Ice Cream and her cousin Cheese Sandwich (a couple months older) got along. Eventually, Hay’s second son, Tomato Sandwich, joined the family.

Then, the arguments temporarily stopped when Cocoa and Hay’s mother died, and was followed by their father a few weeks later. They managed to get along well enough for a short time to grieve over their parents together, even if Hay was more in a shutdown mode than a talking mode, and when she was at home, Cocoa often had to comfort her eight-year-old son, who was old enough to understand and be upset about it.

But, soon enough, the brother-sister arguments between Cocoa and Hay returned in full force, often scaring the kids. Even worse, Peanut was taking to picking on his sister and Cheese, who was starting to show the same timidity that Hay did when little (save for when Peanut hurt little Tommy—that was the quickest way to anger Cheese). Between the stresses of trying to talk to her brother and control her son, Cocoa was overwhelmed with stress. Eventually, one nasty argument had Cocoa giving up and deciding to take up a job offer of being a university chemistry teacher… in Seaddle.

She calmed down after the move, though she still had to contend with her son’s attitude and penchant for teasing his sister. Nevertheless, she and Acorn enjoyed their new job, and found that scaring cocky college students with some of the more reactive solutions was a lot of fun. She made new friends with teachers from other departments, and they liked to show her and Acorn around Seaddle to get them acquainted.

Years passed with little trouble. Peanut embraced his sporty side and took up basketball, even making it a career as an adult. Ice Cream took an interest in dairy farming, and while Cocoa thought that was strange, it was harmless—plus, it did lead to delicious results. Both at least have some science knowledge thanks to both parents, and Cocoa made sure that neither were morons.

She was surprised when she met one of her nephews after so long—the shy, little Cheese Sandwich had grown into a tall and confident party pony. She was quite amazed at this change, and has asked how it happened, and wondered what Cheese’s brother was like then. Unfortunately, Cheese apparently was not close with his immediate family, to the point where he didn’t like to talk about it and even got upset at the mention of Tomato, which saddened Cocoa over the fact that not much had changed in that family dynamic.

It’d be a few more years until Cheese would make up with Tomato and Cocoa would see that the happy and hyperactive colt had grown into a more serious and grumpy business student. Still, at least Tommy was polite and was not looking to offend anypony most of the time.

Cocoa does think about her brother from time to time, and wonders how things would have turned out if she had treated him differently. She realized that she was stupid to torment him like she did, and wishes that she could turn back time and perhaps make a better future for her brother.

But, she would rather not dwell on it. She has lesson plans to work on with her husband.