Button Mash's Let's Play Channel

by Servomoore

Let's Play "Story of the Blanks" Pt. 1

In one of the quieter parts of the fairly quiet town of Ponyville, a foal named Button Mash decided to start a video channel. To date it's the eighty-fifth most popular channel on the whole Equestria Wide Ethernet (or EWE as most call it) just ahead of "Twilight Sparkle's Literary Analysis for The Readers of Tomorrow" and way behind "Rainbow Dash's Work Outs" channel. This is the story of that channel.

Button Mash double-checked to see if the program was recording video before beaming into the webcam. What he didn't realize was that his face was not going to be in the video, as he had guessed that the computer put that footage in later so ponies didn't get distracted by their own faces. Instead it would just be video of his computer screen.

"HI, EVERYPONY! I mean, HI EVERYONE! Mom said it's not politically correct to say 'everypony' anymore. I'm Button Mash, and Mom got me the webcam and the program, so, welcome to my Let's Play channel! Wooo!" He paused to triple check and see if the video was recording. "Okay, good, it's going. I tried to make a video before but it didn't record! I might have hit the wrong button, I don't know. But it's recording now! And for today's video, we're gonna play... We're gonna play... hang on." Button Mash tapped the left button on his mouse a couple times. He was caught by surprise when the game started.

"Oh! Well, there we go! We're gonna pla- I mean, let's play 'Story of the Blanks!' I heard it's really fun!" Button Mash skipped reflexively past the title screen and saw the camera pan over orange treetops, over green grass with a few darker green bushes here and there, coming to rest on a yellow pony with instructions in the lower lefthoof corner.

"Woah, this game is 8-bit? No wonder it took so long to load! 'Use buttons to move?' Okay, I can do that!" The yellow pony moved across the screen. He moved to the next screen. The yellow pony came to an intersection and stopped. Button Mash squinted at the screen then. "She's got some red thing on her head? Is that a hat? Who's that coming up?" The new purple pony Button Mash was referring to stopped by his yellow pony character. When he saw the text box that came up when she began to speak, Mash gasped.

"It's Ms. Sparkle! I didn't know she was in a game! I guess it makes sense, since she's really famous and stuff. Might be a tie-in or-" Button Mash started Ms. Sparkle's text asking the yellow pony what she was doing out on her own and then was really taken aback.

"Apple Bloom!? Sweetie's friend is in a video game! Wow, that's too cool! Does she know about this? I've gotta ask her if she knows about this! Golly! But I've got to finish the video first." As surprised as he was, Button Mash had continued to skip through the opening conversation until he came to a part of Ms. Sparkle and Apple Bloom's conversation where Bloom was asking to come along into the Everfree Forest and Sparkle was only letting her come along if the little filly promised to stay close at all times.

"I promise, Ms. Sparkle! So we're going to the Everfree Forest. Okay. I've never been there. Everypony says it's really scary." The sprites went up to the forest area, Apple Bloom just behind Ms. Sparkle but seemingly controlling her. As they were about to enter the orange opening to forest he remembered something.

"Oh, Sweetie, if you see this tonight, could you see if I left my recharger for my joyboy over at your sister's? I'm pretty sure I did. Thanks!"

What completely escaped Button Mash';s attention was that in the real Ponyvile, the real Apple Bloom and Twilight Sparkle found themselves compelled to leave their homes and converge on a path that lead into the Everfree Forest. They said the same things to each other that were said in the game even though many of the things were not true of them at all. Then they trotted into the Everfree Forest in the same manner as Button Mash moved them in the game despite their intense desire not to.

Meanwhile the sprites in Button Mash's copy of Story of the Blanks proceeded through uneventful forest screens until they got to one where the two sprites needed to walk across an array of planks.

"Is this an obstacle course? Okay, real gameplay's started everyone, let's do this!" Mash walked across one stretch of planks, then another, a third, a fourth, and he was done. He paused again.

"Is... Is that it? Wow, kind of a lame level. Oh well." The pair of sprites went through a couple more uneventful levels before stopping outside a tree house. A grey pony seemed to be walking out of it.

Mash read Ms. Sparkle's sprite box call her Zecora and he gasped again. "Zecora!? The grown ups used to say she's really bad! She must be the boss of this level!" Button Mash narrowed his eyes then at the sprite.

"You're going down Zecora!" But then Zercora's text boxes showed her thanking the ponies, warning them not to stick around while rhyming.

Then she went back inside, while Mr. Sparkle's sprite went off the screen.

"Wait, that's it!? Lamest boss fight ever! I thought this game was supposed to be fun! Sorry, everypony, I'm sure it'll get better."

"Butttttonnn!" his mother called from downstairs, "don't forget to take out the garbage !"

"I WON'T, MOM!" Button answered. Then he turned to the cam. "That was my mother... but you probably knew that. Oh well, I can just cut that out later." He would forget to do that before uploading the video.

The sprites went back through screens he'd already seen, and he growled in frustration. But then there was a change: a tree laid across the pathway. Ms. Sparkle's text box asked where it has come from.

Then she floated it out of the way.

"Hey, that was kinda cool." Mash said, trying to remain excited about the game for the audience if nothing else. Then the perspective in the game panned down to reveal a bunch of trees blocking the path. Ms. Sparkle's text box expressed frustration, though Mash was sure she was less frustrated than he was feeling.

Then she moved to start floating the trees away, but didn't.

"Is, is she gonna move those trees?" Mash asked. He moved Apple Bloom's sprite up to her.

"What do you mean not now? Are you gonna move those trees or not?" Button Mash moved Apple Bloom's sprite back up the screen for want of something else to do. He saw a grey pony with a yellow tail. "Is that Ms. Hooves?"

The new grey pony then went off into the woods.

"Well, I guess it doesn't matter. I promised Ms. Sparkle that I was going to stay by her side at all times, and that's what I'm gonna do! Besides, it's probably just a trick that causes a 'game over' if I follow her." He moved Apple Bloom's sprite back down by Ms. Sparkle and waited. And waited. And waited. He perked up when he suddenly heard a noise from his computer, but then recognized it as being an instant message. He checked it.

"Oh, it's Sweetie. She said she found my recharger. Knew it was over there!" He typed a quick message thanking her and then went back to the nothing that was happening in the game. He resumed waiting.

After a minute, he lost patience.

"Okay, this game is stupid! It's overrated and no fun and I'm not playing it anymore! Miss Sparkle and Apple Bloom should sue!" He tossed the controller away, then remembered his cam. He looked into it and smiled sheepishly. "So, uh, please like and subscribe for more great videos! See you next time! Bye! Now which button is it? That one? No, that one? Uh uh. Is it that o--"

Out in the Everfree Forest, Twilight Sparkle and Apple Bloom abruptly found themselves able to control their own movements when Button Mash turned off the game. A very frightened Apple Bloom pleaded for answers from her sister's friend while Twilight ran through her memory banks for answers. This did not seem to be Discord's doing. It was much too subtle, too small. She dismissed the possibility it was some bizarre mind game Trixie was playing as well for essentially the same reason.

"Well. I'm not going to find out who did it by standing in the forest at night," Twilight muttered to herself. She put a hoof around the weeping Apple Bloom's shoulder. "C'mon. We're gonna find out who took us out into the forest and give 'em a piece of our minds!" After waiting a moment to let Bloom calm down, they trotted back out of the forest.