//------------------------------//
// Vinyl + Videogames 
// Story: DJ Problems 
// by joe mother 
//------------------------------//

After claiming my spot as king of my chair, I got up again to turn on my Xbox. 

"Thank God it's Sunday," I said through gritted teeth as I picked up a controller and went back to my chair.

Every other day of the week, I would have been working at a college nearby, teaching music to a bunch of students who did not know the second thing about music.

I loaded up my game, my recently acquired Black Ops 2, and went onto online multiplayer. It was not until halfway through my second match that I felt the presence next to me, watching me play eagerly. After the final kill had been made, I turned to see Vinyl staring in awe at the screen.

"Don't you have something important to be figuring out?" I asked.

She started and blushed.

"Oh, uh, yeah," she said. "But... this looks really sweet. What is it?"

I thought about this for a moment, wondering whether to tell her it was a videogame or just say the title of the shooter.

"It's a videogame," I said. "It allows me to... play in a computer generated world with guns and other people I can shoot. It doesn't hurt anybody, so it's perfectly safe."

"Wow," the DJ said, her eyes growing in size.

I took a second to look at her. No, not like that! 

Her fur seemed to be real; unlike the single tone coats from the show, hers was the white, but in differing shades across her body. There were patches that were glossy and reflected light, while others sections were duller and did not shine. Her muzzle was the same shape as in the show, but its ratio of its own size to face size was larger. Her shades were exactly as they were portrayed in the show as well, glimmering lightly from his fan in the room. Her mane was two colors as well, but as was with her coat, it had different shades cutting through it.

"Can I play?"

Vinyl's comment shook me out of my examination. I looked at her and pondered the idea. To be honest, I had been thinking about Vinyl playing videogames since I had seen her near the TV, but I had placed it aside to deal with more important issues. 

"Sure," I said. "I'll just have to teach you how to play."

I exited Xbox Live multiplayer and went to the local setting. I customized the match so it would have no time limit and no point limit. I added one bot on recruit and handed the controller to Vinyl, who levitated it with some pretty cool looking magic.

"To move, just move this stick around," I said, pointing to the left stick on the controller. "To look around, use that one on the right. To shoot your gun, press this, the right trigger, and press the right button to throw your lethal grenade. Press that, the left trigger, to look down the sights on your gun, and press the left button to throw a tactical grenade."

Vinyl tapped each of the buttons, saying what they did as she went. I was a bit surprised. She had an excellent memory!

"Got it," she said, looking back up at me.

"You see those four colored buttons there?" I asked. Vinyl nodded. "The blue one, X, reloads your weapon when you're low on ammo. Or ammunition, however you want to call it. The red one, B, makes you crouch, or lie down on your stomach, which is called going prone. The green one, A, makes you jump. Now, you have two weapons, one that does more damage but takes longer to reload, and one that does less damage but is faster to get out and shoot with than reloading your main gun. To switch between those two, press the yellow button, Y."

Vinyl repeated her memory actions again, closing her eyes in concentration.

"That's it for now," I said. "Press the A button to go into the game."

Vinyl complied, and we waited while it counted down. When it had finally loaded, I started to point out the features that the HUD had.

"That's how many bullets you have until you have to reload," I told her, getting up and pointing at the number to the left of a pair. "The one to the right is how many bullets you have in total, not counting the ones in your magazine. These symbols underneath are the amount of tactical and lethal grenades you have left, each on their respective sides. Now, the-"

"Whatever," Vinyl said as she saw the enemy and looked down her sights. She pressed the right trigger and watched as the gun sprayed out bullets onto the enemy, killing him. "See, I've got it."

I laughed as Vinyl began to move about.

She saw the enemy again, this time much farther away, and aimed. She fired, but was disappointed when her sights started fly above her intended target.

"What was that?" she asked.

"That was recoil," I told her. "Just pull down on the look button to make it less annoying."

She aimed again and tried that. When she was rewarded with a kill, she laughed.

"This is fun!" she said.

"Good!" I said. "I'm going to go get some breakfast. Just keep practicing, okay!"

I went to the kitchen and opened up a cupboard. I grabbed some Bran Flakes and set it down on the counter. I pulled down a bowl and heard a cry of success from the living room. I smiled and poured the cereal into the bowl. I put the food away and got some milk. I put it in the bowl and waited until it was at an adequate amount. I went to my table with the bowl and sat down. I got up when I realized I forgot a spoon.

When I finished the simple breakfast, I went back out to find Vinyl playing an Xbox Live match, and doing not that bad.

"Wait, how did you-?"

"I'm not stupid," Vinyl said. "I clicked around and I found out how to get through all the words and stuff. I joined some match with some other people and started playing."

I sat down in my chair and watched as she ran around, killing just as frequently as she got herself killed. I heard her cussing under her breath as she did so. Eventually the game ended, and Vinyl set the controller down.

"I suck," she said. 

"Well, you did really good for your first time," I told her.

She groaned and walked off, saying something about "sappy shit." I picked up the controller and decided I wanted to play something else. I went to the home menu, ejected the disc, and put in Skyrim. After it loaded, I continued from where I left off and started my run around to finish a quest.

"What's that?"

I jumped and found that Vinyl had walked up on me, her hooves muffled by the carpet in my home.

"Oh, it's Skyrim," I said. 

She watched me kill a few bandits and sighed.

"Do you only have violent games?" she asked.

"Mostly, but I do have a racing game."

"Racing? What kind of racing?"

"Around a track speed racing."

Vinyl narrowed her eyes.

"Any chance you'd like to teach me how to play that?" she asked.

~

Why the hell did I introduce her to videogames? I do not even know! I went out to get some lunch and find some food for Vinyl, who had a preference for carrots and lettuce, and came back an hour and thirty minutes later to find her playing Borderlands.

I went to the kitchen, set my bags from the store down, and went back out to my living room.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Trying to kill a Badass Skag," she replied, not taking her eyes away from the game.

"Don't you want food?"

"Nah. I'm fine."

I went back to the kitchen and unpacked the stuff. I walked back out.

"You need food," I said. "I don't know how long it's been since you ate, but you need food. If you don't, rule number is going to be: no videogames for Vinyl."

I noticed how parent-like that sounded, and apparently Vinyl did too.

"Are you my mom or something?" she said, pausing the game and turning to me.

"Well," I said. "No, but you are under my jurisdiction. I also can't have a pony die under my care. I'd get arrested for something."

Vinyl rolled her eyes and set down the controller. She walked over to me; I finally noticed how short she was in comparison to me. She kicked me in the shin and I grabbed it, surprised by how hard she could kick.

"Where's the food?" she asked.

I fought back the tears forming in my eyes.

"In the kitchen," I replied, pointing at the room.

She went over and I heard some tearing and munching. As soon as I recovered from my injury I followed her in to see her terrorizing a carrot, the bag poured open on the floor. I sighed and picked it up. When I placed it on the counter again, Vinyl was done.

"Rule number five," I said. "Don't kick me in the shins."

Vinyl kicked my ankle.

"Let me rephrase that," I said, wincing. "No harming me physically."

Vinyl laughed and went back to the living room, where she went back to Borderlands.

Oh, for fuck's sake.