Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2016 19:57:05 GMT -6
||| BON BON |||
#Name; Bon Bon1
#Age Group ; Adult
#Orientation; Pan, both sexual and romantic.
#Gender ; Lady
#Species; Earth Pony
#Cutie Mark ;
#Occupation ; Small business owner, baker and confectioner
#Powers and Abilities ; She’s a darn fine candymare and pastry chef, with a firm grounding in both Equestrian and Prench styles!2
#Physique ; Short and stocky, and has developed a layer of cozy pudge.3
#Mane and fur color and style ; Her coat’s the color of a lovely cream merengue, and just as soft and fluffy. Her hair is a bouncy set of curls in dark blue and sweet pink, shiny when maintained, but frizzy as all get-out when it isn’t. She feels like she takes actual baths in fabric softener.
#Eye color ; Tropical jellybean blue.
#Other appearance details (optional) ; On a good day she smells of sugar and dough, sweet and delicate as a bouquet of flours, with just a hint of her flavors of the day; cherries, maybe, or pineapple, or maybe even some strong green tea. (On bad days she mostly just smells like horse.)
#Personality ;It’s a commonly held stereotype that a candymaker also has to be a total “sweetie.” She thinks that conception is trite, overwrought, saccharine—and grudgingly admits it’s kind of true. Bon Bon’s got a big heart, for better or worse, and she knows she’s stuck with it. It causes as much trouble as it does good. Though she finds it easy to bring up a smile, she also finds it hard to say no; her charity cases can end up a costly laundry list. She likes most ponies she meets, but then it’s tough finding the time to get to know them better. It’s a pain in the flank, but
It’s a little too easy to make her feel self-conscious in social situations or get her ire up. And if anything gets her too worked up, the waterworks start. If she gets too stressed about bills, she sniffles; if you break something of hers and act like a jerk about it, she’ll cry and make a whole scene; if you show her a movie where they can’t be together in the end because their worlds are too far apart, you’ll need to put that throw pillow in the dryer. But most of the time, with some space and a breather, the upset passes as quick as it came. She treats it with a level head whenever she’s not in the moment.
(As with many sensitive sorts, though, when she’s upset and doesn’t cry you may actually need to worry. When she’s not snapping back at you or going for the ice cream, just keeping herself very calm and steady… that’s when there’s room for concern. Her temper can flare, but genuine anger is a wall of dry ice.)
In a big group setting (e.g. Pinkie Party), usually you’ll find her playing with the kids. She loves foals, and among Ponyville she’s made herself into something of a surrogate doting auntie to a number of them. In her shop, those under ten get one free candy of their choice per day. And in those mail-in magazine personality quiz polls, where you have to choose between saving your spouse or a child you don’t know, she always picks the kid, since anyone who loves her would understand.
All in, she’s a pretty average mare living a little day to day life in a pretty little town out in the country. It’s something she made for herself, and the comfort she takes in her self-made niche shows through well. She loves to tell stories when she can, she’s an inveterate flirt, she has a deep and abiding fondness for yard-sale knickknacks. (She hopes to be the ideal grandma someday; best to start early.)
Her world is just odd enough to be lovely, and just normal enough to make the middle road fit.4
#History ;
Bon Bon was born to a big old family in lower-east Manehattan, to parents who worked white-collar jobs in a blue-collar neighborhood. She grew up sharing a bed with her sisters, doing grocery runs when mom and dad had to stay with the papers; when she got big enough to reach the counters by herself, she made paper-bag lunches for herself and her siblings. Right from birth she was a precocious and funny kid, albeit clumsy.
She wasn’t the most social in school. She tried to be a tough kid for a while, but since she needed thick glasses and didn’t want to hurt anyone, that didn’t last; then she tried to be a nerd, but she didn’t have either the ambition or the obsessiveness to keep up with her peers. So she floated around, having short friendships from here or there, getting to know a lot of people and really bonding with almost none of them. It was lonesome, in a way, but she always had family to come home to—and that was good enough.
Her cutie mark came from a complicated chain of disasters that nearly destroyed the school bake sale—only to be rescued at the last second by a daring move involving eight bags of sugar, a banner, some things borrowed from wood shop, the basketball team, her poor dad, most of an egg, and an oven that sadly did not survive the ordeal. Details are sketchy, at best; even her own recollection of the event seems to contradict itself now and then. But it ended with one of the most exciting fundraisers of the school year, a big heap of candy, and a brand new mark on her flank!
She was a late bloomer, but once she found her calling, she delved straight in and started work—not just developing her skills, but making them marketable. In between classes she sold basic, local-made baked goods at low prices to undercut the chain stores; though her income was slim at best, it built her customer base and taught her the trade. During the summer, she would go uptown with a cart she and her sisters decorated and find the artsy neighborhoods to sell her more complex confections. Between the tourists and the hippies, she made decent revenue, and passed it to her family.
It wasn’t much, but in a lean year the boost was enough to get their necks above water. And with things inching toward the black, things started to get better for them—they moved uptown, her mom found better and more fulfilling work in a law firm, her father was able to establish a better college fund for their youngest. Bon Bon never stopped working, and by the time she advanced to higher education, she was given a scholarship to intensively study culinary technique in Prance for two years.
She did. And once she came home, fresh from the boat and feeling a good eight years older, she settled in and took out a loan to start up her very own local café and confectionery in Manehattan. She ran things there for several years, paying it off in the process. It was exactly what she wanted to be doing, the work she always wanted, and yet…
In Prance, she had spent some time in the countryside and fallen in love with it. The big city didn’t charm her any more. Every day she stared out and watched the brownstone buildings, the tailored scarves, the streetlights and the convenience stores, and all she could think of was the way wind sounded as it sifted through trees.
So she hugged her family, sold her business, and moved off to Ponyville to start anew one more time. The quiet and idyllic town she held in her dreams was immediately there, spread out before her. With the money from selling off her business, she built her new shop from the ground up, foundations and all, and moved in upstairs—eager to open up Bon Bon’s Bon Bons and get down to bakin’.
Since then, she’s become a quiet pillar of the community—hers is the place you come to when Sugarcube is too noisy, or you’re wanting something on special order, or your daughter really loves those particular strawberry taffy. She may not have it all, but as far as Bon Bon is concerned, she lives her dream job.5
[ CLASSIFIED INFORMATION ]
[Clearance Level 6 or Higher Required]
1 – Not really.
2 – She is also trained in tactical infiltration, clandestine service operations, international relations, improvisational disguise, advanced physical conditioning, Equestrian beast lore, field survival, hoof-to-hoof combat, chemical and mechanical demolitions, and a variety of clerical work.
3 – To insulate you from her lies.
4 – However, she didn’t always have the middle road. Bon Bon is hiding the great majority of who she is. From everybody, even those she cares the most about, all the time.
She goes to great lengths to keep it hidden, but her heart of hearts is locked by the unbreakable golden band of her loyalty to the Crown. You don’t stop being sworn to secrecy because you wear an apron now instead of a suit; if all she can do to serve her country is hide the truth, she’ll bury it a thousand miles down.
So she lies. She plays dumb, even though she knows you’re bluffing. She acts the wimp even if she could carry all these bags and twice more. She says she doesn’t know how to pick a lock, and that she’s never fenced in her life. She has no idea what the dead of winter is like in Stalliongrad.
Her attitude itself isn’t a façade, though. Even in the past she was known as one of the more good-humored and outgoing ponies in her field, a rarity among their sort. Being friendly and funny just comes natural to her, like breathing, like lying. But if she ever forgets to keep a seam too tight, this is where it may leak; when or if her real feelings and the feelings of her persona could not match up.
It hasn’t happened yet. It might never. But sometimes, it makes her afraid to get too close to ponies. What happens if she runs risk of losing her cover? What if she gets called back into service? What if someone gets hurt and it’s her fault—will it be because she lied, or didn’t lie enough? The thought weighs heavy that one day, the tide could rise again, and she might have to leave without even a word. Clean off her traces and never come back.
But then she settles down, pours that hot apple tea for old Granny Smith, and… gosh. How could she not at least give the sweet old mare a smile?
5 – That’s her cover story.
Though she can describe it with vivid and consistent detail, nopony who’s been to Lower-East Manehattan can quite remember the shop she says she ran. She speaks Prench a little casually compared to alumni of her supposed school. You won’t find her family in any of the phone books, either. It’s like she walked into town from nowhere.
Not all of it is lies, most likely. But the truth is that she was once a member of Her Majesty Princess Celestia’s Secret Service, an agent operating under the codename Sweetie Drops. Her life prior to leaving active duty is still, by and large, classified information; she was given her new identity and the means to live it after being quietly released from service. Any records or traces of her prior to stepping off the train in Ponyville are either fabricated or simply don’t exist.
None of it matters, however. For whatever reason is settled in her heart, she chose to get out of the game and took a nice, cozy cover. By any means she’s simply a baker living her unassuming little life in Ponyville, fixing warm tea for old mares and viciously enabling the sweet tooths of the local foals.
But should Her Majesty—Majesties, nowadays—for whatever reason decide that they need her, she is still in the system. Her files hidden behind layers of security clearances and misdirection, the offices hidden behind offices in the highest echelons of Equestrian government. Bon Bon may be a new mare, but although inactive, Sweetie Drops remains a mare of the Service. A mare of the Service swears herself a lifelong oath: For Crown and Country.
Bon Bon has great hope for her apple-pie life, but she hasn't forgotten.The Roleplayer's Corner
#Nickname ; Dizzy
#Age ; Strong
#Gender/Preferred Pronouns ; Neutral or feminine, if ya please
#How did you find us? ; If I was feeling either poetic or accusatory, I’d argue that it was you who found me.
#Sample RP ;"So," said Bon Bon, pouring a cup of clear green tea out of a white teapot, special-made from Prance. "How's it going for you today, Lily? How's the wife?"
The mare stared back at her, the bags under her eyes so heavy no airplane would check them. She said nothing, at first, but when Bon Bon put her cup on a saucer and pushed it over, saw the little shape... she didn't smile, exactly. But she softened up.
"She's fine," said Lily. "Still out in Manehattan. Said things are wrapping Friday, and she'll be on the first train Saturday, but..."
"...But there's always an encore, eh?" Bon Bon asked, leaning against the counter. The older mare nodded and sipped at the tea, her shoulders loosening. The poor thing. Lily always said she liked it unsweetened, but every time Bon Bon slipped a cube of sugar in there, and the lady never complained.
"I'm pretty tired, honestly," she said. "It was easy enough when it was just going to be the two of us. But now with the little one on the way, this time, taking care of the whole house and the garden by myself... even though I'm not that big, yet, it's..."
"Eesh. I get you." She didn't, not really; Bon Bon knew fatigue, but not that kind. She remembered carrying a grown stallion across a frozen lake, the way his frozen fur stuck to her suit, the heart-stopping cracks and shifts under her hooves, the rustle of the Winter Wolves hunting out her scent not thirty yards away in the trees. But she didn't know what it was like to carry a pony in the other way; bringing life into being instead of just saving it.
Lily was staring into her cup. It was halfway down; she seemed to be thinking about something that troubled her.
"Hey," Bon Bon said. "What if you get some of the neighbor kids to take care of some of the garden work for you? Like how old Miss Mayfeather does it?"
Lily furrowed her brow. "That's... not a bad idea. But Miss Mayfeather makes them cookies. I can't bake."
"So give them money! Kids like to spend a few bits too, y'know. Comics, toys, games, or..." She looked around at the shelves of candy surrounding them—jars and bowls and packages upon packages of technicolor wrappers, sweets, and snacks. "Well, you get the idea."
"...I think I do." Lily nodded a bit, breathed in deeper and finished out the tea. "Thanks, Bon Bon. I think I'll give that a shot."
"No trouble~" She shot the mare a grin the size of a ship. "The tea is three, but the advice is free. Think of it as investing in future business."
Lily just chuckled to herself, taking a few bits out of her purse and dropping them onto the counter—then a fourth in the tip jar. "Well, I think you've got it. Have a good day~"
The little bells over the door jangled as the mare made her way out. Bon Bon watched her go, not quite smiling, but not quite anything else. A little jealous, maybe...
But then the bells jangled again as Pip made his way in, and she brought the grin right back up.