Exactly what it says on the tin
With one last keystroke and a cursory look at her monitor, Sunset Shimmer nodded, sighed in satisfaction, and leaned back in her chair, stretching her arms out behind her. After 3 hours of nonstop work, she’d finally finished the essay required for English class. Not difficult for her, by any means, and it wasn’t due for another week, but Sunset felt better doing it as soon as possible.
Resolving to proof-read it later, when she was less burnt out, Sunset closed her word processor and opened Steam. Now that her homework was more or less done, she could relax. What should I play? Something I don’t have to put much thought into. Maybe a beat ‘em up… Before she could decide on a game, however, a separate popup window opened.
Sunset,
:D
Buckle up,
SonicRainboom
Sunset blinked, looking at the gift window. It wasn’t uncommon for her and her friends to gift each other games on Steam, but what she hadn’t been expecting was the game itself. An image of an iconic orange cat in a blue race car took up the left side of the popup, the title proudly displayed in orange and silver: Garfield Kart: Furious Racing.
...But why though. Sunset pinched the bridge of her nose, and sighed. Rainbow Dash was always trying to convince the group to play weird and silly games, but this was an entirely new level. Why does this game even exist in the first place? Rolling her eyes, Sunset clicked the ‘Accept Gift’ button. A free game was a free game, after all.
She wasn’t just going to let it go without asking questions, though. Opening Discord and moving it to her second monitor, she noticed that she had several pings on server she and her friends shared. She’d had it closed while doing her homework, and it seemed like that choice had been justified.
That’s… a lot of messages. Sunet’s eyes widened as she quickly scrolled through the backlog. As she expected, Rainbow had pinged everyone multiple times, and various exclamations of confusion indicated that yes, she had given the same gift to everyone else.
Fabulosity
You’re still not doing a good job explaining why we should play this, darling.
AJ
i’m not backing away from a challenge
PЇЍҚЇЭ
i say we play it
could be fun
Twilight
From everything I’ve been able to dig up, this game doesn’t actually seem that bad. It has fairly good reviews, at least, even if most of them are jokes.
SonicRainboom
yeah
honestly it’s a actual good game tbh
Shimmy
OK, Dash, I have one question
Why
SonicRainboom
oh hey sunset
we’re gonna play garfield kart
Shimmy
I can see that
I ask again: Why
SonicRainboom
it was 85% off
it’ll be fun, it’s legit a good game
At the same time as reading and replying to Rainbow’s messages, Sunset opened the Steam Store page for Garfield Kart: Furious Racing. Sure enough, like Twilight had said, the reviews were ‘Very Positive”, and while many of them were clearly ironic or simply memes, the few that actually talked about the game indicated it was at least competent.
Flutterbun
I don’t mind playing this. I like Garfield, he’s cute.
PЇЍҚЇЭ
does it even matter if it’s a bad game
even bad games are fun to play with friends
Fabulosity
I suppose. As long as it doesn’t end like UNO…
SonicRainboom
UNO was great though tbh
There was a brief moment in which nobody typed anything. Then, as Sunset put her hands to her keyboard to send a message, she saw the dreaded message below the chat bar: Several people are typing…
AJ
‘great’
Fabulosity
The one game lasted 3 hours!
Shimmy
Rainbow please
egghead
I never even want to look at UNO again.
PЇЍҚЇЭ
UNO was amazing and also I never want to do it again
egghead
Also, Rainbow, stop changing my nickname.
SonicRainboom
no
Flutterbun
Rainbow…
SonicRainboom
fine
As her friends continued to bicker, Sunset (while once again reflecting on the poor decision to let Rainbow be the one to create the server) opened her browser, looking for all she could about the enigma of gaming Rainbow had inflicted on them. Unsurprisingly, it was difficult to pick out genuine discussion from the internet’s obsession with ironic jokes, but it seemed that the game was competent at least. Not worth it’s full price, but for the pitance Rainbow had paid? Somehow, this isn’t the worst thing she’s gifted us.
The beeping noise of a ping brought Sunset’s attention back to the Discord conversation, causing Sunset to quickly skim through what she had missed. Mostly, everyone admonishing Rainbow for bringing up the travesty that was their attempt to play UNO.
SonicRainboom
we should do it for @Shimmy’s channel, tbh
meme games make good content
Honestly, she’s not wrong… It was the exact kind of game she could record a couple hours of footage of and cut down into a video. I haven’t done a group video in a while, those do fairly well.
Shimmy
That isn’t actually that bad an idea
SonicRainboom
see
i have good ideas
AJ
sometimes
SonicRainboom
shut up AJ
Fabulosity
I suppose if it’s for Sunset’s channel, I could give it go.
SonicRainboom
if everyone’s free, we’ll do it right now
PЇЍҚЇЭ
sounds good to me!
Shimmy
Just finished my english assignment, I’m down
SonicRainboom
isn’t that not due until next week?
Shimmy
Yes. I did it now because I’m a sensible person
SonicRainboom
you egghead types are weird…
Ignoring Rainbow’s name calling at her choice not to wait until the last second to do her homework, Sunset set Garfield Kart to install, and booted up her recording software. No idea if this will turn out any good, but it’s worth a shot. What’s the worst that could happen?
2 hours later…
“Ha! And that’s another win for me!”
“Don’t get too cocky just yet, Dash. Ah’m right behind you in points.”
“Wheee! Boost to the finish!”
“I’m just glad I didn’t get last…”
Sunset put her controller down on her desk as her character drove themselves through the victory lap, listening to the voices of her friends coming through her headset. For once, it had seemed that one of Rainbow’s ‘good ideas’ had paid off. It was far from the best game she’d played, but it was entertaining enough, and she’d definitely gotten enough funny moments for a video.
“One race left in the cup,” she said, picking up her controller again. “You ladies better buckle up, I’m taking that first place slot.”
“In your dreams, Shimmer.” Rainbow shot back.
“Only one person’s beating Dash,” Applejack added. “And it’s gonna be me.”
“Oh, Applejack?” Rarity said in a sing-song voice. “Aren’t you forgetting who won the last cup? And who came last?”
“T-that was a fluke!” Applejack sputtered. “Pinkie distracted me!”
“But I still want to know!” Pinkie whined in a joking tone. “Why do they call it an oven?’
“And I told you,” Twilight said, slight annoyance in her tone. “But you didn’t seem interested in the etymology.”
“But you ov in the cold food! It should be an ovout!”
“Pinkie!” Twilight shouted, over the chorus of giggles from the rest of the girls.
“So, does this mean I’m allowed to pick more games for us to play?” Rainbow asked.
Sunset sighed. “Don’t press your luck, Dash.”
“But I saw this game that was super cheap, it looked terrible in the best way, it was called Call of Unity…”
Author's Note
The fact that this is what broke through my depression induced writers block is... par for the course, actually.
