“Wing licking fudge nuggets!” Twilight cursed, throwing her headset across the room. “Celestia dammit! Motherbucker! Arghhhhhhh!”
Heaving with disbelief and anger, she stared at her screen. Displayed in bright red across a black translucent banner were the words YOU DIED. Twilight couldn’t believe it. This was the hardest boss she had encountered in the entire game and she still could not figure out for the life of her why she and her guild couldn’t beat it. It was as if the game was trying to tell her to take a break.
“Screw you and your flawed game mechanics!” she heaved before placing her head in her hooves and rubbing her temples. She didn’t need this right now. A headache too? This was not a good day for her. Maybe she needed something that could help her calm down… like another game.
But would it be okay for her to skip out on her guild? Looking at the clock, she widened her eyes. She had been playing Damned Souls for over 12 hours straight. Maybe it was time. Something to cool her down, where dying was obsolete and nothing could possibly anger her.
She smiled, chuckling at the thought. That would be nice, she supposed. After having vented so much unrealised steam over the past… uh… week? Twilight truly hoped that she hadn’t spent that much time gaming. Either way, she really needed something to cool down. One more game wouldn’t hurt, would it?
Grabbing her headset from across the room without blinking, she put them on… before realising something was off. The sound was all wonky with one side louder than the other and one of the muffs feeling just a little too loose. Taking them off to inspect them, she bit her lip and her eye twitched.
On her left ear muff, she could see the wire dangling from the base of the muff. On the right side of her headset, the arm connecting the muff to the rest of the headset was bending at an angle that did not at all conform with the rest of it.
“I-It’s cool, Twilight, you’re cool!” Twilight muttered to herself, “It’s… just a headset. Just a headset! Don’t… rage…” Breathing in and out more times than she would’ve liked to admit, she held one muff to her ear and brought her mic to her ear.
“-irl? Guys, I really think that Suicide Girl just died,” she heard before pausing. Sighing, she breathed into the mic.
“Hey guys.”
“Suicide Girl!” her party cried, happy to hear her voice after the boss had demolished them, and especially her.
“Yeah, uh, what’s up… Uhm, I really think I need to take a break from this game because I’ve been online for twelve hours straight and I need to cool down. A lot.”
For a few seconds, the party chat was quiet before the leader of the group spoke up. “Uh, sure thing Words Worth. I mean, we did hear you screaming before going completely silent, so… take a chill pill. We’ll still be here, we won’t judge.”
Twilight released a breath she didn’t realise she was holding. “Thanks guys, for understanding. I’ll be seeing you later, right?”
“We’re not going anywhere after that loss,” someone said, and Twilight sighed.
“Yeah, sorry about that. Really sorry. I…”
“Hey, don’t take it so personally. It’s just a game. Now get out. You need rest.”
Twilight nodded. “Alright. See you all later!”
After a chorus of farewells, Twilight quit the game and dove into her game store for what she hoped was going to be a relaxing experience. Scrolling through some lists, she saw a simple game with very positive reviews that seemed simple enough. Clicking on the reviews link, she skimmed through some of the thoughts people had.
Stopping on one, it contained simple wording. “I beat this game with zero deaths. Very relaxing. 10/10 would rate again!” Smiling, she immediately thought of getting it, but frowned. The ratio of people who found it helpful to people who found it funny was odd. More found it funny than helpful. Glancing at the review below it, she blinked at the wall of text.
Basically, it said how frustrating the game was, even though they couldn’t die, and that nobody should ever play it. People also found the review funny.
Surely, a game without dying couldn’t be that bad… could it? Scrolling up to the buy and download link, she looked at the title and description.
Climbing Around It with Jannet Bendy
I made this game for specific reasons. To traumatise you.
But… Twilight couldn’t make sense of how this simple and brightly coloured game could possibly be worse than Damned Souls. Narrowing her eyes, she shook her head and laughed. Oh well, something to relax, right? Buying it, she installed it without a hitch.
Starting it up, she unplugged her headphones, mourning their loss. She couldn’t use them anymore, but she was sure she could rely on her computer speakers for something as simple as cooldown game. Watching as a hammer locked onto a rock, the starting screen came up. Unfortunately, it was still preparing for a new game, so she checked her settings. The most surprising thing to her? There was only one page for the controls to everything.
The only thing she could manipulate at all was her mouse sensitivity. Blinking at this, she checked everything else to see if there was anything for her WASD keys, but came up with nothing. Shaking her head, Twilight shrugged and clicked New Game. She was met with a cauldron and a hammer resting in it.
She frowned a little in confusion as a topless human popped out of the cauldron and grabbed the hammer. As nothing happened after that, she pressed some keys on the keyboard. No response. Figures. There was nothing for keyboards in the settings. Jiggling her mouse, though, produced the effect of moving the hammer around.
A bubble of text appeared above the cauldron person. “The only control you have is your mouse. No buttons. No clicking! Use it wisely.”
Twilight blinked. Moving the mouse down, she felt her heart jump a little as the hammer swung down and propelled her sideways; what she assumed would be forwards. “What the buck?” Twilight whispered as she went into her settings and towned the sensitivity way down.
Proceeding with the game, all that came out her speakers was the ambiance of the game and the sounds of the person grunting and the hammer against objects. Coming upon a tree that blocked her way, she studied it.
“So,” Twilight said to herself, “I can move the hammer. I can use the hammer to pull myself. So Maybe…?” Twilight swung the hammer over the branch and found it to be solid. She then dragged her mouse down, pulling her character up. Still dragging down, she licked her lips and swung her mouse to the right just as she ran out of mousepad and table.
Her character swung to the left as her hammer pointed to it’s last perch before she landed several units away from where she had started climbing the tree. Meanwhile, Twilight glared at her mouse as it floated in her magical aura, dangling in the air from her playing.
“Fudge cakes!” Twilight cried before breathing in. “No, not getting mad. This is to calm me down. It’s just me. Only me. Only me! Come on, not that hard, just have to get used to the controls… the single control.”
Dragging herself back to the tree and making sure she had more space for her mouse to maneuver, she narrowed her eyes and concentrated. Perching her hammer on the branch again, she slowly moved her mouse in a curve and found her character pulling itself up with just the hammer. Placing herself down on the branch, she breathed a sigh of relief. Giggling to herself, she wondered how anyone could find this hard.
Upon doing the same thing with the next branch, she realised she wouldn’t be able to get over the tip of the tree without somehow launching herself up. Thinking that maybe she could use her hammer as a sort of pogo stick, she slowly brought the hammer down and-
The hammer inexplicably decided to move erratically and pushed against the tree instead of gently angling downward, shoving Twilight back to the ground.
“You motherfudging piece of schnitzel biscuit nuggets buck!” she shrieked, yelling at her character. Rambling in incoherent annoyance, Twilight angrily and speedily swung her hammer onto the branch, swung herself up, did it again before completely launching herself over the tree and the next couple of rocks.
Twilight blinked as she took a second to process her achievement. “Yes yes yes!” Twilight said, smiling proudly at herself before a contemplative voice blared from her speakers.
“Starting over is harder than starting up,” the voice of Jannet Bendy said, “If you’re not ready for that, like you’ve already had a bad day, then what you’re about to go through might be too much. Feel free to go away and come back. I’ll be here! Waiting! I won’t leave you.”
Twilight frowned. “No, screw you, game! I’ll be finishing this before I stop if it’s the last thing I do!” With that, she began her limb of a wonky cliff-face with a paddle, a log, and a house in her way. Climbing onto the rock, she swung her hammer over the paddle and tried to swing over only to slam into the paddle and slide off completely.
Twilight pursed her lips and did it again, this time placing her hammer near the end of the paddle and swung herself over. Immediately swinging her hammer for the log, she pushed herself up and landed on it. That left her with the house.
She tried getting her hammer into the house but she kept sliding. “What… how do I do this?” Twilight mused before pogoing herself again upwards and hooking the edge of the roof. Feeling her heart race a little as she angled herself up, she made it.
“Haha! Take that house!” Twilight shouted. Happily making it past the next few boulders, Jannet began speaking again.
“Alright, thanks for coming with me on this trip! I’ll understand completely if you have to take a break from this game at this point. Just find a safe, quiet space, and relax. I’ll save all of your progress. Achievements… or mistakes.”
Twilight’s eye twitched. “Shut up, Jannet!” Twilight hissed, “I’m not giving up just yet!”
Finding herself in a small pocket next to a pipe, Twilight gently swung herself up from the pipe before realising the gap she needed to jump. Easing herself down and still hooked, she jerked her mouse down and swung her character up. Quickly circling her hammer to grasp onto the rock ledge, she smiled as she heard the hammer get traction.
Only for everything to fall apart.
Her hammer, for some inexplicable reason, jerked sharply to the right, shoving her away from the cliff face entirely. Twilight widened her eyes and mouthed a soft “No!” as she waved her mouse in a fruitless attempt to save the progress she had made. At that moment, Jannet began talking again… with her infuriatingly calm and amiable voice.
“Ouch. You just lost a lot of progress. That hurts. That really truly hurts. Like a knife in the foot. Or a bullet in the chest.”
Twilight stared at her screen for a few more seconds in a frozen state before her face contorted menacingly. “Oh it. Is. Bucking. ON. BEEEEEYETCH. I’LL SHOW YOU A PUNCH IN THE GUT!”
Twilight began making her way up again before growling in anger at the pipe and shouting as she swung herself up and hooked onto the ledge. Swing her mouse again, she shrieked as she launched even higher, finding a large boulder and clinging to it for dear life. Pulling herself in, she shot up again and pushed herself onto a large cropping of rocks where a steel beam hung over.
Heaving, Twilight sneered at the beam. “Oh fudge you and all that you live for, steel. You’re nothing compared to the embodiment of motherfudgin’ MAGIC! Kill yourself! Haiyah!”
Twilight pogoed up and onto the beam before her mouse jittered and she swung up… and to the left, straight past the boulders… and back to the ground.
“Gyaaaaah!” Twilight screamed, grabbing her already tortured headset in her magic and crunching it into a mess before ripping it apart in a million pieces. “No! No! NONONONONO! Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! Fuck you! Fuck your shit! You winglicking motherfucker I hate you! AGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!”
Tearing at her hair, Twilight slammed her hoof onto her desk and heaved, eyes red with fire as she began climbing again. “I’m going to beat your ass! I’ll beat it so hard you can’t even feel it anymore! HAhaHAhAHA! Kill yourself and all you live for! ARgh!”
With Twilight so focused on the climbing and a tempest raging inside her boiling mind, the dialogue of Jannet Bendy was lost to her. She wasn’t paying attention to it. All she could see was her goal. She made it past the rocks. Back to the steel beam. And… and…
“What the hell is this?!” Twilight said, pointing at the narrow passage with two lights. “How the fuck am I supposed to make it past this!?”
Gritting her teeth, Twilight pogoed and tried to gain a hold with her hammer but only ended up pushing herself off the ledge entirely, sliding off the steel beam and back to the boulders below.
“NO!” Twilight cried before shaking her head. “No, Twilight! This is okay! It beats falling all the way down. It beats it by a lot. Don’t worry. Stay calm. This is- this is-”
She climbed back up and pogoed once more, quickly swinging her hammer around and snagging the light. Eyes widening in feverish joy, she began to chuckle antically and pulled up to the next one before launching up completely onto another solid piece of land. Chuckling to herself, Twilight nodded.
“Hehehe! Yes! Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes! I made it through! Hahahahahahahaha! Now I just climb this! Make it through this room! Hahahaha! Ha!”
Upon reaching a barbecue, Twilight analysed her surroundings. “So now what?” she asked herself, looking around. Seeing a smooth ledge and some potential hooks with furniture and the like, Twilight licked her lips and furrowed her brows.
“Here we go. No deaths! Hah! This game is awesome!”
She launched… and the game decided right then to make her hammer swing downward. With her trajectory all messed up, she slid right off the adjacent platform, onto some concrete road blocks before falling through the clouds.
“Hehe!” Twilight twitched, watching her character plummet. “Heha! Hahaha! HAHAHAHA!”
Twilight’s magic erupted and a shiny new sledghammer appeared beside her. As hairs began bending out of place, Twilight rambled.
“No problem, Twilight!”
“Nothing you can’t h-h-handle!”
“Zero deaths! Nothing hurts you!”
“Ehehehehehehehehehehe!”
Spike padded his way cheerily to Twilight’s gaming den holding a hot fresh dinner.
Hearing and feeling the vibrations and shouts coming from her room, Spike slowed down and gently opened the door.
Peeking inside, he blasted the door wide open before dropping to the floor as a plank of splintered wood flew out. Looking at the scene of carnage and watching Twilight giggling madly while clutching a sledgehammer and destroying the walls and computer in her room, Spike was properly traumatised. Shakingly placing Twilight’s dinner down, Spike began crawling backwards, eyes locked on Twilight’s insanity.
“Tw-Twi-T-Twilight?” Spike stuttered, “Yo-your food is r-ready?”
Twilight swung her head around so fast that Spike was afraid she had broken it. Her face, though…
Spike gulped and smiled nervously, backing away slowly first as she watched Twilight heave and smile and twitch before turning tail and leaving a dust print behind.
Twilight stared at the spot Spike had been in for a second longer before giggling again and returning to demolishing her room with her hammer.
“Fuck you! And-a fuck you! Fuck you too! You motherfucking bitch ass fuck! Kill yourself! Die! Zero deaths! Who’s dead NOW?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Author's Note
I know it's not very good. But I wanted to write something after having had an account for over a year now and absolutely nothing.
Lise's Twilight respectfully used, though I didn't exactly ask him either :P
