Adagio delivered Sweetie Belle’s console at 6:00. Sweetie Belle sent out two text messages at 6:05. There was a knock at her door at 6:15, and Scootaloo was helping Sweetie Belle set up her Xbox by 6:20.
They were holed up in Sweetie Belle’s bedroom. Normally, at about this time, Sweetie Belle would be in her sister’s room, inadvertently and invariably ruining the perfect neatness of the room. Today, however, she was sitting on her plush green bed, with her TV on, one of her best friends grinning to her left, and an odd piece of plastic in her hands.
“Wait, how come Applebloom couldn’t make it, exactly?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“Oh, she got caught skipping, and Aj gave it to her hard,” chuckled Scootaloo. “She wouldn’t be much help, anyway. She’s a PlayStation gal.”
“Right. I might get one of those, too, if I can afford it,” said Sweetie Belle. She looked up at the screen, which was displaying an awfully unfamiliar set of menus. “Uh… So, what should we be doing here?”
“Oh, it’s super simple. First thing we’re gonna want to do is get you an Xbox Live account,” explained Scootaloo, helping Sweetie to navigate the screen. “This console came with a 3-month trial for the premium Gold membership. It’ll be free for now, but after the trial, you’ll have to cough up, like, $20 a month.” Sweetie Belle tilted her head in confusion.
“Why would I want to do that?”
“You need a Gold membership to play games online with other people,” said Scootaloo. “It lets you watch Netflix and use other apps through the console, and they give away two games a month.”
“Oooh, that’s nice of them,” noted Sweetie Belle.
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle continued their way through the intricacies of starting up an Xbox Live account. They picked out a fitting username (Gamertag, as Sweetie Belle soon knew it as). It took them a few tries, but they finally decided on “Sweet n SourB”, which Sweetie Belle was very fond of. Feeling very happy with herself, Sweetie Belle began to get a feel for both the hardware and software of her new hobby.
“Hey, what does that number zero mean?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“That’s how many friends you have.”
“Well, that’s rude,” said Sweetie Belle, crossing her arms. Scootaloo laughed, then gave Sweetie a soft little jab to the shoulder.
“Oh, chill out. You’ve been online for ten seconds,” said Scootaloo. She took the controller from Sweetie Belle and scrolled to the Marketplace. “You have to meet people to get XBL friends. For now, we should probably get you some Gamerscore.”
“What?”
“They’re points you get for getting Achievements.”
“Ooooh!” nodded Sweetie Belle. She looked at Scootaloo with faux-comprehension. “What?”
“Achievements are special challenges or tasks in a game that give you Gamerscore,” explained Scootaloo, shaking her head. “Gamerscore is basically your rep. The more Gamerscore you have, the better you are at video games. In theory. We need to get you some Gamerscore so that people will see you and go ‘Oh, what a cool gamer chick that is, I really wanna be her friend’, and then they send you requests.”
“Alright, then. So, I need to get some Gamerscore by playing games, right?” asked Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo nodded. “Well, let’s play some games. What do we got?”
“Well, nothing right now. While we were talking, I started up the download for the free game for this half of the month,” said Scootaloo. “I think we can have some fun tonight, before it gets too late. You sure your folks are cool with this late-night gaming session?”
“So long as we keep it down and get up in the morning, we’ll be fine,” said Sweetie. “Rarity’s at Sunset’s house, so they probably won’t even notice us.” Sweetie Belle shrugged nonchalantly. “What type of game is this?” Scootaloo grinned in a weird, conniving, sadistic way.
“It’s what they call a ‘co-optional platformer’,” said Scootaloo. She noticed Sweetie Belle’s confusion, and her smile only broadened. “Don’t worry, it’s not too complicated. I’ll work you through it.”
About twenty minutes into the game, BattleBlock Theater, Sweetie Belle realized that she had made a grave mistake. She didn’t really have much clue of what she was in for, but she expected it to be a calm, fun team-building exercise that would strengthen her friendship with Scootaloo.
“Is this some backhanded way of saying you don’t want to be friends anymore?” asked Sweetie Belle after Scootaloo had kicked her into the water for the twelfth time. With every death, Sweetie Belle felt a part of her soul die.
“Whatever do you mean?” asked Scootaloo, with an amazing amount of smugness. “I thought you liked this game.”
“I liked the opening! The narrator was funny, I thought this game would be funny!” cried Sweetie Belle. She respawned and quickly leapt up to a platform up and to her right. Scootaloo was a bit ahead of her, and seemed to be progressing normally. Instead of following her, Sweetie went to the left and jumped to a higher platform, where the beautiful emerald gem that counted score waited for her. Just as she jumped to retrieve it, she was struck by a random top hat that sent her plummeting into the icy depths of the water that had claimed her life many times before.
“This is funny!” laughed Scootaloo.
“Scootaloo! You’re supposed to be helping me learn video games!”
“I am helping you. I’ve gotten you fifteen Gamerscore so far,” said Scootaloo, raising her hands defensively. “Besides, you gotta learn to deal with Trolls somehow.”
Sweetie Belle was very, very, very annoyed. She didn’t know what a Troll was, but she was quite confident that she hated them, and hated Scootaloo for being one. She wanted to stop playing this stupid game. In fact, if she wasn’t so infatuated with Button Mash, she would’ve ripped her Xbox right out of the socket and dumped it on Adagio’s doorstep.
This was the first time since Sweetie discovered her crush that she considered that Button may not actually be worth it.
“You’re a Troll,” grumbled Sweetie Belle. She respawned and went back to retrieve the gem she had been seeking out all this time. Maybe, if she kept Scootaloo sort of distracted, she’d be able to get the last few gems they needed and book it to the exit.
“You don’t know what that means yet,” noted Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle nodded in agreement. Scootaloo smirked, extremely amused by the mass annoyance that Sweetie was experiencing.
“Your problem is that you play too nice,” said Scootaloo.
“I thought this was a cooperative game!” whined Sweetie. “Doesn’t that mean we’re supposed to work together?”
“Sure does. Too bad this isn’t cooperative. It’s co-optional. That means we can either choose to help each other out…” Scootaloo fired her top hat at Sweetie Belle, knocking her down to drown once again. “Or screw each other over.”
Sweetie Belle respawned, turned towards Scootaloo, and chucked an explosive disk in her direction. The disk knocked Scootaloo to the ground and exploded, blowing Scootaloo to a scattering of limbs, bones that couldn’t possibly belong to her character, and her comically separated head. Scootaloo grinned, and respawned with a fiery purpose. Sweetie Belle laughed quietly, then quickly killed Scootaloo again.
The goal of reaching the end of the level was forgotten. Now, the only thing that mattered to Sweetie Belle was to block and impede Scootaloo at every turn.
“Not so funny now, is it?” said Sweetie mockingly. Scootaloo smirked, then quickly dispatched her friend. Then she killed her again. And again.
“What?! How?! I was killing you just fine a second ago!” demanded Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo just laughed, and killed Sweetie Belle six more times.
“I bought this game months before it was released for free,” cackled Scootaloo. “I know tech that you could only dream of!”
“What the fudge is ‘tech’?!”
Scootaloo laughed, but decided to stop explaining the terminology. Sweetie Belle would learn with time. Right now, Scoots was more occupied with the terribly unfair trouncing that she was unleashing on her friend.
Sweetie Belle sat up in her bed, looking down at Scootaloo, who was sleeping to the right of her bed. Sweetie poked Scootaloo in the back of the head, waiting to see if she’d stir. When she didn’t, Sweetie leapt over to her new Xbox, grabbed up the controller, and turned it on. Once the console was booted up, and scrolled over to BattleBlock Theater. She hit the X button, scrolled through the game details, and clicked “Delete”.
“Good riddance,” muttered Sweetie Belle. She turned off the console and laid her head back against her pillow, humming to herself while she did. She was vaguely satisfied by the soul-crushing experience that was that terrible game. She had survived her first video game session, and it would only be easier from here on out. She hoped so, anyway.
She grinned at the fact that she could now impress Button with her knowledge of the word “Troll”, then closed her eyes for a peaceful sleep.
This chapter reminds me of the times my cousin would constantly kick my butt in Marvel vs Capcom 3. I hated every moment of it. Thankfully I have learned the technique of "yoloing" and "button mashing." Spam the Hulk and M.O.D.O.K with pleasure!
Skyrim
Now, this is an interesting topic. Are the requests for console games only?
...You have to have her play Dark Souls and not realise that the game was designed to be notoriously difficult! Her rage will be my rage! (I'm pretty sure Dark Souls is a multi-platform game)
Anyway this chapter was really good and got Sweetie Belle's frustation across pretty well. I'm sort of surprised she didn't rage quit but she's determined enough that it's believable.
Keep on writing
I think Skyrim would be a great place to go with next. A LOT of funny potential.
And you should probably save Dark Souls for later. Just when Sweetie thinks she is getting good at video games....
6317400 Well, just read my mind and spill all my secrets, why don't you!
This should be Scootaloo speaking, I think.
6317853 Thank you so much! I have this weird issue where I accidentally swap names if they're similar enough. Apparently, sharing the first letter is similar enough. Thanks for catching that
I have a playstation 4 but used to own an Xbox so I like to think I know how both communities are
Playstation players tend to be (but aren't always) quiet and skittish
Xbox players tend to be (but aren't always) aggressive and rude
Of course both communities have good and bad sports but for the most part I think that's how both sides act
Sweetie belle chose the Xbox and if she gets a hold of a mic... Well... Lets just say scootaloo being a troll will be the least of her problems
6322855 Interesting, because my research gave men the exact opposite findings. I'm about to commit some console heresy here, but PlayStation fans are amongst the most pretentious, biased, annoying people I've ever met on the internet. Not to say that Xbox has a perfect fan base, but it seems that more idiots and jackasses gravitate towards PlayStation.
Just an observation
6323055
Odd that I'd found the opposite, maybe I haven't had enough data from both communities...
Are you including both the Xbox 1 and playstation 4 or only playstation 3 and Xbox 360?
Also ouch I mostly play on the playstation
6323617 My first-hand experience is from 3 and 360, but reading forums, listening to conversations, and watching gameplay is where I found most of my date for 4 and One.
No need to feel "ouch". I'm not calling everyone on PlayStation a jackass. Just a lot of them
6323626
Ah well this seems like research for some other time because I speak from personal experience on both accounts (playstation and Xbox) and it varies depending on what games I play, seeing that I play a much more cooperative game like destiny it might be because of that
And because not only do I feel that this chain of conversation has gotten too serious and because your profile pic reminded me of it heres the cutest picture of fluttershy I've seen
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/dd/b1/0d/ddb10d003ca2a186f98dc0705222c346.jpg
6323641 *sighs* That picture is so sweet, it gave me Type 2 Diabetes. Kriss, go get my insulin!
Moar?
6329627 Soon, loyal reader. Not much can be promised in this world, but I promise you that therewill most ccertainly be more and it will come soon.
As soon as I can think of a game Sweetie would willingly pick up on her own.
6329898 Spiral Knights? Ooh, maybe Team Fortress 2?!
6507897 For the sake of easy storytelling, I'm going to make Button a bit like myself: willing to play almost anything, but partial to RPGs.
I would be interested in seeing how Sweetie would tackle EarthBound and/or EarthBound Beginnings.
Especially EarthBound Beginnings, so that she dies to a hippie 10 seconds after leaving Ninten's house by going the wrong way. I know I sure did.
6518781 The problem with doing something like Earthbound is that I have exactly zero experience with the game. Haven't played it, haven't seen it, haven't even heard of that particular entry in the series. That's not to say that I'll never do it, but it'll take a bit more thought. I will consider it though.
6518995 I can probably help you with that. Anyway, just something for you to consider.
Oooh! I'm probably wayyy too late to the party, but...could Sweetie Belle play Professor Layton and the Curious Village with Lemon Twist and/or Silver Spoon? I realize that makes very little sense, seeing as Layton's a DS, non-competitive, single-player game...but perhaps she and Twist/Spoon could switch off? I get the feeling both of her potential players would really like it, plus strategy and logic is important, even in more mainstream games like Earthworld.
Man, I love BattleBlock Theatre. I guess that's because I didn't have friends that were complete a**holes.
...well, at least not in BBT. Portal, on the other hand...