Blissful Ignorance

The summer sun sets on a Wednesday evening in Equestria. Everyone is either out about on the town, finishing up work, or at home getting ready for the next morning. In the case of Button Mash and his girlfriend of five months Sweetie Belle, on a date at a sit-down restaurant. They are at an Italian bistro called Papa Pony’s Bistro, waiting for their food and passing the time with garlic bread and conversation. Button Mash and Sweetie Belle are both out of school for the summer, happy that they could have some downtime to spend with each other. Since they both got off work before sundown today, they figured that today would be a good day to get together for some dinner and a little bit of privacy.

“What? No way!” Sweetie Belle says, in the middle of a conversation with her boyfriend.

“Oh yeah,” Button Mash replies.

“And there wasn’t a cease and desist?”

“Nope, we pretty much expected them to go through the drive-thru in a cardboard box at this point,” Button Mash says, “though I’m sure it was beneficial for the environment.”

“Sure, until they decide to burn it of course,” Sweetie Belle quips, to which both herself and Button Mash laugh. The two of them sit in silence for a brief moment. Sweetie Belle pulls her phone out to check her notifications, while Button Mash looks off in the distance to wonder when that waiter with the pedo ‘stache was going to leave that middle aged woman alone. The two of them turn back to one another, taking in each other’s beauty before Sweetie Belle decides to break the silence.

“Hey h-hun,” Sweetie Belle says, “how intelligent do you think I am?” Button Mash looks at her with a hint of confusion. Was this a rhetorical question? He tried hard to make sure he didn’t say the wrong thing.

“Well, if you’re GPA from this past semester is anything to go off of, I’d say you were a genius,” Button Mash replies, knowing that that was probably the nerdiest answer he could’ve come up with.

“Oh, I appreciate the compliment,” Sweetie Belle says, blushing with embarrassment as she was clearly trying to ask something else, “I think what I was trying to say is that, I’ve been thinking a lot.”

“Okay, what have you been thinking about?” Button Mash asks, curious if his girlfriend was trying to open up to him about something. Sweetie Belle starts fidgeting a little bit.

“Too much, I‘ve been thinking about too much recently,” Sweetie Belle admits, “I am an overthinker.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Button Mash replies, “I think extensively about things too, like whether or not it’d be piracy if I sold a movie as an NFT.” Sweetie Belle chuckles at his last little comment. She had always loved her boyfriend’s sense of humor.

“But that’s the thing, sometimes I wish I could just stop thinking so much,” Sweetie Belle says, “like every time I leave the house, I always wonder if I forgot to lock up or take something with me. When I go out somewhere I always find myself thinking extensively about what to say and when to say it. Heck, as I was coming to see you, I kept thinking about the things that I should or shouldn’t say.” Button Mash kept his mouth shut, nodding his head as he was listening to his girlfriend’s woes, not letting the world around him boast any semblance of a distraction. “I don’t want to constantly be thinking like that, one of the reasons I love you so much is that I feel like I can be myself around you. Maybe if I were less of a thinker, perhaps even less intelligent, I think I’d be happier that way.”

“Are you sure about that?” Button Mash asks, concerned that Sweetie Belle was beating herself up over what would generally be considered a positive trait. He loved him exactly like she was, whether she was an overthinker or not.

“Well y’know, I’ve taken after my sister in a lot of ways,” Sweetie Belle continues “I love fashion, and I’m very ambitious, which is why I’m pursuing a career in acting. But sometimes I can’t help but imagine myself as one of those simple ditzy housewives. Y’know, the kind that don’t have to think about anything super important because their husband usually does the thinking for them. I could envision being your little princess in her knight’s castle, only concerning myself with what to wear, how to look, and what to fix for dinner. Not having to think about everything else would relieve such a burden off of my shoulders. I think those kinds of girls are called…” Sweetie Belle flicks her fingers for a second to think of the word that she had on her tongue, “…bimbos, right?”

“Umm…” Button Mash hesitates, “well I don’t know if I’d use that terminology,” he says. Button Mash wasn’t against the concept of a bimbo, he did like girls who were submissive in the bedroom after all. But he never desired to use the term ‘bimbo’ to describe any girl he met in real life, for he labeled the term as sexist.

“Oh come on, it’s not like there were any better words I could’ve used,” Sweetie Belle retorts, “you wouldn’t mind if I was one of those kind of girls, would you?” Button Mash sits and thinks for a moment. He didn’t want to say that he would prefer if his girlfriend was stupider, but he felt as if responding either way would give his unconditional love something he wouldn’t dare suggest, an irrelevant condition. Eventually, the response that Button Mash lands on is one that he prayed would be the appropriate response.

“Honestly, if you unburdened yourself by only thinking about how to make me happy, I wouldn’t mind at all,” Button Mash responds, hoping that it would put Sweetie Belle’s mind at ease, “because I would have ways to make you happy on my mind twenty-four seven,” he adds for good measure.

“Aww, thank you sweetheart,” Sweetie Belle says, her heart touched that her boyfriend would care that much about her, “maybe I’ll start working on how to make myself think less, and who knows, maybe I can really live the bimbo lifestyle and make my tits bigger.” That last comment, though a bit vulgar, made both Button Mash and Sweetie Belle laugh aloud. Suddenly, a waiter approaches with two plates in both hands.

“Alright, enjoy your meals,” the waiter says before setting the plates down on the table. In front of Button Mash was a plate of lasagna with a side salad, and in front of Sweetie Belle was a plate of chicken parmigiana with minestrone. As the two of them ate their meals, Button Mash got to thinking about what Sweetie Belle was saying. He felt bad that she saw her ability to think critically as a curse, rather than a benefit. He wondered if maybe she would be happier if she had less of an ability to think, giving her more of a carefree spirit. He did just say that he would have trying to make Sweetie Belle happy on his mind at all times, but what could he do about this? It wasn’t like he had the ability to suddenly make his girlfriend think less, he wasn’t a unicorn after all. It wasn’t like he was capable of brewing a potion that could regress Sweetie Belle’s cognition. And it was in that moment that Button Mash realized something…

…he knew someone could.

The Next Day

After a requesting for a potion over the phone, Button Mash began traversing through the Everfree Forest in search of Zecora’s place. He knew that she was the only one in Equestria that could brew a potion capable of what he was asking for. He figured that, on their next date, Button Mash could give Sweetie Belle the potion as a gift. Of course, there was the ethical dilemma of whether or not to tell her that he was giving her a potion designed to, on a basic level, turn her into a bimbo. Button Mash would worry about that later, for now he needed to see Zecora so he could pick up the potion. After about fifteen minutes traversing the Everfree Forest, Button Mash finally makes it to Zecora’s place. He knocks on the door, to which Zecora swiftly answers.

“Ahh, Button Mash, who I’m delighted to see, is the potion you requested why you’ve come to me?” Zecora says, using her trademark quirk for rhyming everything she said.

“Yes ma’am,” Button Mash says, “is it ready yet?”

“Your potion is almost ready to show, for I just have one more ingredient to go,” Zecora replies, walking back inside with Button Mash following closely behind. Button Mash took in his surroundings, which were decorated with what appeared to be tribal masks and other trinkets from Zecora’s community. Being the only one of her kind living within close proximity to Equestria, Button Mash figured that Zecora would love to have her home decorated with tokens from her past.

“This is a nice place you got here,” Button Mash says.

“Most appreciated Button Mash,” Zecora responds. She picks up a pinch of some kind of brown powder with two fingers before sprinkling it into the potion mixture. Zecora proceeds to add the final ingredient contained within a small vial. She pours the yellow liquid into the mixture, causing a small puff of smoke to come out of it.

“Viola! What a feat! This potion is now complete,” Zecora proudly exclaimed. She places a lid on the jar of red liquid before taking it to Button Mash. “Now Button Mash, before you receive, I must warn you of what this potion can achieve,” Zecora says, “the chemicals contained were hard to find, mostly made with hazardous flowers that deteriorate one’s mind, I also decided to add plenty of somatotropin, meant to stimulate growth of the body’s proportions, make no mistake as you go through the motions, there can be side effects contained within this potion.”

“Okay, how much do you think I should give Sweetie Belle?” Button Mash asks, wanting to make sure that things didn’t go awry once he presented this potion to her.

“She will have to take it all down her throat, don’t worry, for I can make an antidote,” Zecora replies. “The chemicals can also be tampered by the environment you select, I’d recommend keeping it cold to decrease potential side effects.”
Button Mash was relieved that the person he was asking to make this potion was a well-prepared and we’ll-educated professional. He takes the potion of of her hands and gets ready to head back out. “One more thing before you leave man, protect this potion with all you can,” Zecora sternly warns Button Mash, “It’s effects are untested, so you must defend, give it to no one, except your girlfriend.”

“You got it Zecora,” Button Mash replies, “thanks again!” He walks back out into the Everfree Forest, closing the door behind him. Button Mash was excited that he was going to give Sweetie Belle something that she really wanted. Even though she didn’t request that a potion be made, Button Mash figured that she would appreciate the surprise. Though he didn’t want to admit it, he was also curious if he’d find a bimbofied version of Sweetie Belle to be sexy. After all, Zecora did infuse the potion with chemicals that stimulated growth hormones. If this meant that Sweetie Belle’s boobs and booty would grow from drinking this potion, Button Mash was certainly looking forward to giving it to her. But he would sadly have to wait before he could see if the results of Zecora’s potion brought some of his fantasies to life. For now, it was time to head home and keep the potion somewhere safe until it was time for Button Mash and Sweetie Belle to meet again.

Button Mash makes it back home safely from his journey through the Everfree Forest. He sees that his mom, a light-brown mare named Cream Heart, was nowhere to be found, which meant that she must’ve been at the Ponyville gym tending to her job as a personal trainer. This gives him the perfect opportunity to play some video games for his day off. But first, Button Mash needed to think of a safe place to keep his new bimbo potion. He thinks back to what Zecora said about keeping it in a cold environment in the hopes that the low temperature would reduce any unintended side effects from occurring. Or at least, that’s what Button Mash thought Zecora said, since it was hard to understand her with her forced rhyming. Regardless, Button Mash makes the decision to keep the potion in the refrigerator. He figured that if his mom found it, he could just explain that it was a potion for a friend’s summer school science project. He certainly wasn’t going to reveal that it was meant for the repression of his girlfriend’s ability to think, as that would not sit well with his mom by any means.

Once Button Mash is done placing the potion in the refrigerator, he notices a note from mom on the kitchen counter. It says, ‘don’t forget to water the azaleas out back, thanks!” Button Mash decides to take care of that before he gets to playing his games. If there was one thing he knew about his mom, is that she did not like it whenever he forgot to do something that she told him to do. After taking care of the azaleas out back, Button Mash decides to kick back and enjoy his favorite hobby before his mom came home from her training.

“Oof, dammit!” Cream Heart exclaims, “I think I might’ve went a little too hard on my shoulder today,” she says as she heads home from her training job at Ponyville Fitness. It wasn’t a bad job in the least, though it would certainly leave her tapped out for the rest of the day. Still, the day was behind her and Cream Heart was looking forward to getting home and fixing something nice for dinner. She was hoping that once she got home that her son had done everything she asked. Cream Heart was the kind of person that liked having things in order, planning everything ahead and extensively thinking over everything. It was a great skill to have, but it can get hard whenever her son forgot something or had to cancel something last minute, as it would cause her plans to fall apart. Cream Heart finally arrives home, to which she sees Button Mash walking up to her with a smile.

“Hey mom,” Button Mash says, attempting to get his mother’s attention.

“Oh, hi honey,” Cream Heart replies, giving her son a kiss on the cheek as a quick sign of her affection. She then walks into the hallway before turning to the first door on her left, which happened to be the laundry room. Cream Heart first directs her attention towards the dryer which, to her displeasure, was completely empty. Adding to her displeasure was when she opened the washing machine to find Button Mash’s wet clothes still inside. “Hey Button!” Cream Heart calls out, to which her son swiftly appears.

“Yes mom,” Button Mash says.

“You were supposed to put your clothes in the dryer today,” Cream Heart says with a look that may not have been intended to intimidate, but it certainly has that effect.

“Oh shoot, I must’ve forgotten,” Button Mash replies, facepalming as he came to the realization that he did something his mom never wanted him to do: forget a task, “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Cream Heart says with more disapproval than reassurance in her tone, “I’ll just do it right now.” Button Mash felt a familiar feeling of guilt that his mom got very good at invoking at this point. He knew that his mom probably had a hard day. It just wouldn’t be right to leave his mom to do his dirty work for him.

“It’s okay mom, I can do it,” Button Mash says, fidgeting as he put the offer out.

“I said, I‘ll do it,” Cream Heart insists, “it’ll only take a minute, you can fold them up and put them away later.” Button Mash stands there playing with his hair as his mom rejects his offer to help. Despite his mom attempting to assure him that she was fine with this, he knew full well that she wasn’t. He tries to grasp at something, anything that can make the situation right.

“I watered the azaleas out back today,” Button Mash says meekly. His mom looks up at him for a moment, then back down at the washing machine.

“Okay, thanks,” Cream Heart replies, more focused on the task at hand, but having the decency to be polite.

“No problem,” Button Mash says. He saw his mom thanking him as a good sign, but it didn’t distract him from the fact that he had ruined a part of his mom’s plans. “Is there anything else you need me to do right now?” Button Mash asks earnestly.

“No thanks,” Cream Heart answers, “I’m going to get dinner started soon, this should hopefully be done drying before we eat.” Button Mash goes into his bedroom to relax, and to give his mom some space. Though he loved her very much, and she loved him right back, Button Mash found that his mom has become a little overbearing in recent years. Cream Heart always had a thing for coming up with some sort of well thought out plan for the day, which was just a part of her personality, but recently it was as if she was holding onto that power like a lifeboat.

Cream Heart was in no way abusive to her son, not even remotely, she and Button Mash just recently have had some frequent difficulties with each other. Button Mash was sure that this partly came from the fact that he was an adult now, and that he was his mom’s only child. Even though this played a big part in Cream Heart not willing to let him leave the nest, he didn’t mind living at home for now, even if he was a legal adult. Both Button Mash and his mom agreed that the job he was working at the Hayburger wasn’t going to pay him a high enough wage for a self-sustaining lifestyle, especially once school was back in session. Despite that reason, Button Mash knew that the idea of him moving out someday and leaving her alone terrified Cream Heart, which would explain why she treats him as if he were younger than he actually is. She probably started keeping up this overly demanding power dynamic because she was not willing to let her son go, at least from Button Mash’s perspective.

During the dryer’s one-hour cycle, Cream Heart fixes chicken and dumplings for herself and Button Mash. They talk about the other’s day went, what they did, and what they were going to do tomorrow, which for Cream Heart is a whole day of various tasks that she deemed important. They both enjoy their dinner, satisfying their bellies with savory Southern cuisine, and Cream Heart decides that she’s going to have a glass of wine and relax in her bedroom. Meanwhile, Button Mash decides in his head that he’s going to get his clothes out of the dryer and put them away.

“You should go ahead and get your clothes out of the dryer and put them away,” Cream Heart tells Button Mash, ridding him of his chance to feel independent, instead of only doing everything because his mom said so.

“I was about to get to that,” Button Mash answers, slightly annoyed.

“Excuse me?” Cream Heart says, a stern glare in her eyes, her hands on her hips. She was not about to take back talk from her son after the painful workout she had today. Button Mash did not see it as back talk though. I’m fact, he found it a little ridiculous that she was getting worked up over confirmation that he was thinking about making her happy. He was finally going to do something productive without being asked to do so. But Button Mash figured that when you’re the single mom of an only child, you’ll do anything for some semblance of control in your life.

“Yes ma’am,” Button Mash says, giving his mom what she considered to be the appropriate response.

“Thank you sweetie,” Cream Heart says with a genuine smile this time. It was the thing that made her the most happy, her son doing everything she tells her and not giving any kind of excuses or back talk. Button Mash would be lying if he said he wasn’t tired of his mom’s bossiness. Regardless, he goes into the laundry room and begins taking his clothes out of the dryer. Meanwhile, Cream Heart grabs a wine glass from the cabinet, ready to fill it with some of the finest wine courtesy of Great Grape Orchard. She opens the refrigerator, her eyes fixated on the wine bottle that had the unmistakable Great Grape Orchard logo on it, before suddenly averting her gaze to something unusual.

‘hmm…what’s this jar doing in here?” Cream Heart thinks to herself as she takes out what appeared to be a jar of the same red wine that was in the wine bottle. She doesn’t remember ever saving leftover wine in a separate container, and that was because, unbeknownst to her, this was Zecora’s bimbo potion. Cream Heart opens the jar to smell if this was actually wine. She takes a whiff of the liquid inside the jar, smelling a very pleasant aroma of grape and vanilla. This definitely smelled like her wine, and judging from the fact that it was in a separate container, she assumed that her son was trying to sneak in a drink. Cream Heart knew that her son was two years underneath the legal drinking age, so she wasn’t about to let her son get away with his sneaky plan. She pours all of the jars contents into her wine glass before putting the now empty jar by the sink, thinking that it could be used for something useful later. Cream Heart walks out of the kitchen and into her bedroom for a relaxing rest of her evening.

Button Mash finishes getting his clothes out of the dryer and gets started on putting them away. Once he is halfway done, he decides to go into the kitchen for a drink. He grabs a blue plastic cup from the cabinet before going to the sink to fill it with water. Button Mash takes a drink of his water, thinking about when he can give his girlfriend the potion, when he suddenly sees something that makes him freeze for what feels like an eternity. He drops his cup on the floor as he finds that the jar containing Zecora’s bimbo potion was gone. This causes an internal panic to erupt inside of Button Mash. How could this have happened? What did his mom do once she saw the potion? He was worried that his mom might have poured it out into the sink, unsure of it’s purpose. Was that what happened, or could it have been something much worse? Button Mash goes to his mom’s bedroom to see what drink she had in her hands.

“Heyyy mom,” Button Mash says, a nervous smile on his face. He could easily see in Cream Hearts right hand that she was holding what looked like a glass of wine. But he knew exactly what it really was.

“What’s up honey?” Cream Heart asks, noticing that her son was a bit more anxious than usual.

“I just wanted to ask you how you were enjoying your wine?” Button Mash fibs, trying not to reveal the contents of the drink his mom had in her hand.

“It tastes a little funny,” Cream Heart replies, “I guess it must’ve been sitting in the fridge for a while. Oh well, no better time to drink it than now I suppose.”

“Rrriiiiiiigghhtt,” Button Mash says nervously before leaving his mom alone with her ‘wine.’ To double check, Button Mash opened the fridge and looked closely at the contents of the wine bottle. The amount hadn’t changed since two nights ago. This only confirmed what Button Mash feared, his mom was drinking the potion designed to turn girls into ditzy little bimbos.

This could only end in disaster.