#I do love the idea of GLaDOS needing Chell to be somewhere and all other methods of moving her are inaccessible

[sysig]

You mentioned you mainly ship Glados/Chell when it comes to Portal? Could I please request something with them, however you personally imagine their dynamic? Sorry for the vague prompt, I'm just curious what your ideas are!

Day 25 - As if being dead wasn't bad enough

[silverstreams]

Hey, kinda basic question, but what inspired you to write tlg? Was there a specific moment in canon that inspired you? Did you crave more chelldos content and chose to contribute to the fandom yourself? Have you always wanted to write a certain type of story or shipping dynamic and chelldos seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally get started?

I'm so curious because I really love your fic and it's always interesting to know how it all started and to learn more about the author's relationship with their own story.

Sorry if the wording of my ask seems weird, I'm not a native English speaker, but I'd be happy to talk to you about our lord and savior, chelldos christ

Not too basic at all, I'm happy to answer that!

One fun thing about Discord's easily-accessible and searchable message history is that I can pinpoint the precise conversation where I had the idea for the fic. I was talking to some other chelldos folks in 2018 about the concept of a cloned Chell, mainly how, if that happened, what would GLaDOS do to keep herself from getting bored? She's already gone through the most exciting stuff when it comes to Chell fighting back and destroying GLaDOS the first time. So what kind of stuff could be done that would be interesting to her but not dangeous? Would the variables between these clones gets more intense, more wild as she tried to get results an experiences that she hadn't had before? Then I fell face-first into the idea of GLaDOS messing with her in some psychological manner instead, if she could lull Chell into a false sense of security, but I wondered if she could ever be so "patient and willing to play the long game" and a lightbulb went off in my brain somewhere. After more of that discussion, that month I sketched out a super basic outline of a fic, and then went 'that's kinda messed up' and then set it down for like 6 months. 

But the concept was still in the back of my mind, and I kept thinking about what I could potentially offer that I hadn't seen in other chelldos fics. One thing that came to mind is that, for at least the chelldos fics I had read, Chell returning to Aperture tended to end up being not a big deal, and/or GLaDOS and Chell repaired their relationship easily, or that repair happened off-screen and the fic took place in an established-relationship setting. Which, there is nothing wrong with that! I enjoyed them! And not everyone needs to write a long involved longfic before being allowed to write something fluffy, you know? But what I was thinking about was how hard things might be for both of them, the kinds of trauma they had been through, both on their own and at the hands of one another. Trying to build a foundation of trust between them would be very difficult, much less one where they could start to heal, much less one where they could start to develop feelings for one another. It would require a ton of work, especially since I couldn't ever see Chell returning to Aperture unless her hand was completely forced. Chell doesn't want to be there, and GLaDOS doesn't want her to be there, either. It would take a lot of work on the writing end to write that sort of progression in a way that wasn't rushed and that made sense too.

But I was still working on my other portal longfic at the time, so I decided that I would try to write this SHORT, 50-60k longfic as novel writing practice, something with short chapters that I could write for fun and without too much pressure in between the chapters for my other longfic (lol). Obviously the story developed out a lot more than my preliminary outlines, ha ha, but I'm glad for it.

One thing I do wish though is that I could have written it without an android form, because I love regular GLaDOS just as she is and think that if Chell was going to develop feelings, that she should be able to do it for regular GLaDOS. But unfortunately I couldn't get around it because some major plot points hinge upon GLaDOS getting locked out of her mainframe. Still feel like I'm taking the coward's approach though. It is what it is.

Anyway now it's 2023 and I am 120k into my 60k fic, which will probably end up at like 150k or so, not sure. I have wordcount projections but we'll see how I compare.

Thank you for asking!

[humanwheatleyslefttoenail]

Now I Am An Arsonist

Chapter 2: The Acrobat

Summary: GLaDOS learns a few things about love, hate, and the human condition.

Tags: Canon typical violence, ChellDOS, human!GLaDOS, found family

A/N: I know technically I published this a while back but I did some major edits to both the chapters I’ve already written and the story as a whole. As promised, I’m re-releasing what I already have with the edits/illustrations. 

She’d awoken slowly, feeling the hard coils of a mattress underneath Her back and a stiff yellow jumpsuit enshrouding Her arms and legs. Long fall boots clung tightly to Her feet, uncomfortably squeezed into the rigid white plastic.

Gradually, She sat up on the neatly-made bed, a rough linen blanket still covering Her lower half. The chamber had been deliberately made to look like a hotel room, complete with a TV in the corner and a nightstand on the side. Something wasn’t right.

It was like living in a distant memory, a dream She’d had but not quite remembered.

A part of Her felt like this was normal, as if She’d woken up here every morning, but another urged Her to look for answers.

GLaDOS searched Her memory, not fully processing the world around Her, puzzled as to why Her thoughts had been slowed tenfold.

Looking down, She saw two pale human arms and two pale human hands. Feeling the top of Her head, She found a mess of dark brown hair which came down to Her shoulders.

           No, this surely wasn’t right.

           Only hours ago, only hours ago, She’d been in control of all of Aperture Science. She’d been invincible, the immortal, all-powerful GLaDOS and now…

           Now, She was this.

           What the hell is going on here?

           There was seldom more awful than to be a human being, to live a short, painful life burdened equally by love and hate. Even on Her worst days, the most She could muster for human beings was a vague sense of pity.

           Yet, here She was, more human than She had been in centuries.

           Oh, you have got to be kidding me.  

           Being Caroline, however brief, was not something She’d ever wished to return to. Emotions were completely incapacitating. There was something to be said for the victory of a test well done, of throwing Wheatley into space where the little moron belonged, of the relief when Chell woke up. But something like guilt? Something like fear? Real, genuine fear?

           As a machine, She could destroy those feelings, suppress them until they were nothing at all. As a human, that task wasn’t so easy.

           Sparks of happiness, moments of joy; none of them were worth the ordeal.

           Even the anticipation of fear made GLaDOS’ chest pound, rapidly breathing in and out as She reflexively clung to the blanket. The last thing She needed was more complicated thoughts about Chell, more bittersweet memories of Cave, more useless sentiments to wring Her bitter heart dry.

           In a very human moment of pure shock, GLaDOS screamed. It was an ugly cry of anger and surprise swirled together, resounding throughout the vault. The echoes echoed off the walls, and the once-powerful GLaDOS cowered with Her head in Her hands.

           The potato was bad enough. The potato brought Her closer to Her own humanity than She’d ever wanted to acknowledge, but barely minutes in GLaDOS could tell that this would be infinitely worse. GLaDOS felt Herself shaking, barely even processing the fact that this hideous amalgamate of skin and bones was now Her body. Now She had hair, She had hands, She had fingers and She had lungs and She had a heartbeat.

           She had a heartbeat. A thudding reminder of Her newfound vulnerability. A symbol of Her weakness.

           GLaDOS did not particularly care to be weak.

           Finally, She understood the meaning of organic in Organic Transplant Procedure. Could they have possibly made it any vaguer?

           Whatever this was, whatever had happened, She had to figure it out. The potato battery, being fed to birds, and dying twice was apparently not enough to satisfy whatever gods lurked in Android Hell. She would spite them once again, return to Her body, and everything would be alright. It had been alright before, so why wouldn’t it be now? At least, this time, She didn’t have Chell and Wheatley working against Her. All She had was Herself and the facility.

           GLaDOS took a deep breath, a sensation She had not felt for hundreds of years. The motion didn’t entirely calm Her nerves, but Her only option was to move forward. Staying here would do nothing to help. The faster She figured something out, the faster She could leave this awful body.

GLaDOS leaned one arm against the peeling wallpaper, trying to balance on Her boots. The heels on the shoes were suspended above the floor, supported by a spring. Shifting Her weight while wearing them, however, was an acquired skill. Gently lifting Her hand from the wall, arms out at Her side, She was stable.

Briefly.

Without warning, the boots gave way, and GLaDOS toppled onto the dusty carpet.

A dull pain filled Her legs, quickly fading as She clung to the wall and rose again slowly. If She wanted to go anywhere, She would have to try again.

           She walked along the side of the wall and felt the way the heels bounced beneath Her, made specifically to take the impact of any fall. Cautiously, GLaDOS let go of the side of the room, miraculously still. She took a careful step forward, preparing for impact, only to see that She was steadier than expected. Still, each step was uneasy, tense and on the cusp of collapsing.

           Walking around the perimeter of the bed, She peered at the little wooden nightstand. One of the drawers had already been pulled out, but the other remained tightly shut. Crouching down, GLaDOS wrenched the second drawer open, finding a small mirror clouded with age. Holding it close to Her face, She examined Her repulsive new features.

           GLaDOS wondered if there was any particular reason why this body looked so similar to Caroline. Most likely, it was an odd coincidence, but She wouldn’t put it past Aperture to clone a body that looked exactly like her own. She appeared to be in Her late thirties, already sporting gray hairs and frown lines. Her eyes, weighed down by bags, were a dull metal gray.

           Robots, unlike humans, were built specifically to look beautiful - gears moving in harmony, painted finish gleaming under the lights of the enrichment center. She was stunning in the way She alone could be, completely alien and yet striking to the eye.

           Humans, on the other hand, were made only to survive. Nature didn’t particularly mind if its final product was an unsightly, hairless primate so long as it could handle the simple job of finding food. Some humans considered certain members of their own species more attractive than others, but GLaDOS found them all equally ugly. Humans, with all their variation, all looked the same when you’d seen enough of them.

           GLaDOS’ real body was a physical manifestation of Her power; She didn’t care that it was pleasing to the eye so long as it conveyed a sense of authority. This new human body, with its small size, its blemishes and imperfections, conveyed the exact opposite. Other humans may have even described Her appearance with words like pretty, soft or even kindly.

           The idea of being seen as anything but imposing was a nightmare.

For Her own sake, GLaDOS didn’t ruminate over Her first impressions any longer.

           Part of the zipper on Her yellow jumpsuit was undone, revealing an implant attached to Her right collarbone. It appeared to be a small, bright yellow core, the source of Her being, woven into Her skin by a cluster of wires.

GLaDOS rezipped it, the yellow light still glowing brightly through the fabric.

           Without a second thought, She placed the mirror back in the drawer and shut it closed, screening the room for an exit. In the front of the room was a wooden door with a rusty brass knob, waiting to be turned ajar. Without hesitation, She followed the path and twisted the handle, the door creaking open without any resistance.

As She entered the hall, GLaDOS was taken aback by the sheer number of chambers, suspended from above and hanging inches away from a more stable platform. Closing the door behind Her and jumping onto the catwalk, She couldn’t help but notice the sense of abandonment that filled the room. It had been centuries since the old Relaxation Center had been brought up to code, and previously there hadn’t been much reason to improve it.

Now GLaDOS wished She’d put in the effort.

The metal catwalk led directly to an old waiting room. Ladderback chairs sat around a central column in the middle, surrounded by coffee tables, a water dispenser and miscellaneous paintings. A flickering Aperture Science logo still shined in the dim gray room, gleaming a ghostly white. Near the back, a faded poster called for test subject applications, apparently endorsed by Cave Johnson himself.

Everywhere She looked, remnants of a dead man’s company made parodies of themselves, untouched for years.

Behind a front desk was a hallway filled with shadows, leading behind the room. With nowhere else to go, GLaDOS stepped into the dark, the light of Her core guiding Her through.

There wasn’t much to see, and for a while, the corridor ran along a single route.

GLaDOS had to come up with a plan.

Somewhere around here there had to be a control room, or at least a place where She could catch a lift back to the Enrichment Center. The thought crossed Her mind that She might have to pass through a testing track, one of Her own meticulously designed traps. It didn’t matter. She’d deal with it when She got to it. 

The hallway was only becoming darker, and the little light on Her shoulder wasn’t nearly bright enough. As far as She could tell, there were no switches along the way. Any lighting was likely controlled by a power station a mile from here.

Something metallic banged against Her foot, and upon examination, GLaDOS discovered it was an empty can of beans. In front of Her, at least three more were lined up in a row. She sighed.

Of course Doug had been here. That man was as ingenious as he was stealthy, and had found his way through every nook and cranny at Aperture. Not even Chell had been able to access some of the places he had.

GLaDOS took it as a good sign. Wherever the path led, it meant someone had been able to survive it.

           Surviving had never exactly been a consideration before. Even when Chell killed Her the first time, She had a feeling there was some kind of safeguard. Humans didn’t have a black box; when they were gone, they were gone. Nothing could bring back a dead human.

           As a potato, GLaDOS had been forced to confront the idea that if Wheatley blew up the facility, that would really be the end. There had been a part of Her almost content that if it was, Chell would be by Her side. Whether it was a vengeful wish, or a side effect of companionship was still unknown.

           Back then, though, She hadn’t really been in control. She’d relied on simple hope that Chell could stop Wheatley before it all went down, not contributing much besides the occasional bit of advice. Now GLaDOS was responsible for Her own fate, fully mobile and fully alone.

           Maybe that was even scarier than standing still.

           After all, She could rely on Chell. Relying on this new human body was another story altogether.  

           The question now was whether any light could be found in this hallway. GLaDOS uncomfortably dropped to her knees, feeling for anything besides the three cans. She grasped at something plastic with a switch on the side. A flashlight.

           Turning it on, the hallway became completely visible. Immediately, GLaDOS was surprised by the sheer number of paintings that covered the white walls.

           Portraits of Chell were splattered from floor to ceiling. Everywhere GLaDOS looked, a woman in an orange jumpsuit stared back at Her, shooting portals and knocking over turrets. Swirls of paint danced from one scene to another, blending each picture into the next. Words were haphazardly scrawled across, some of them poetic and others screaming pure nonsense. Whatever meaning they’d had was lost with Doug.

           A common theme was the companion cube, and one particularly disturbing image replaced their iconic hearts with bleeding human eyes. There was a stark contrast between the idyllic, peaceful depictions of Chell sleeping and the scribbles of scientists running for their lives. GLaDOS could barely make out some of the more manic drawings, but those turned out to be the most horrifying. Tightly clustered loops signified a cloud of neurotoxin. Blotches of red were human remains.

           GLaDOS stood back up, meandering further down the hall. The paintings only devolved from here, intricate detail morphing into vague warnings.

           Don’t trust Her lies.

           The path went on for about another fifteen minutes, twisting and turning at sharp angles. Metal doors led to cluttered offices, all of them sealed and locked. In some of them, the computers were still on, endlessly flickering in the darkness.

           When GLaDOS finally reached the end of the corridor, She was greeted with the sudden activation of a bright white light. Reflexively, She shielded Her eyes as the voice of the announcer blared.

           “Welcome, Aperture Science Testing Associate! You’re here because you’ve voluntarily, or involuntarily, chosen to sign over all your legal rights to Aperture Science and further humanity’s progress!”

           Of course. Being turned into a fleshy mess of tissues wasn’t enough. She’d have to go through the testing track, too.

           She bit her lip in silent rage, no longer blinded by the light, gazing upon an airtight room with little more than a circular door. All around Her was white, covered in portal surfaces. Beneath Her, GLaDOS could feel the electronics of the panels whir, making the whole room seem alive. It could move at any moment.

           “Before we begin, the Enrichment Center would like to remind you that you may suffer terrible injuries caused by our testing devices designed to create terrible injuries. If you have suffered a terrible injury, please review our community-shared legal manual, which states that Aperture Science takes no responsibility.”

           GLaDOS knew that redundant message. It was backup, for when She wasn’t there to narrate. Testing tracks had levels of difficulty, and before Her takeover, it was fairly common for subjects to be screened and assigned one based on what they could handle. This message only played for the most difficult, and consequently, the deadliest. Not even GLaDOS was entirely sure what was in here; She hadn’t used it for fear of subjects dying before any real data could be collected.

           “As part of [HIGH DIFFICULTY] testing protocol, Aperture Science has temporarily issued you your very own Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.”

           Without warning, a panel on the ceiling lifted, a robotic claw descending and dropping the device directly in front of GLaDOS. The claw lifted, and the panel closed again.

           “The device has been successfully deployed. To ensure the validity of our tests, please verify that your device is completely operational.”

           GLaDOS was familiar with the portal gun from Her databases, and She knew exactly how to work it. Despite this, She’d never actually handled one Herself, unless being impaled on the end of one counted. The device was heavy in Her hands, cold and sleek against Her fingers. The center, black plastic encasing a glowing yellow coil, was warm to the touch.

           Pointing at one of the white panels, She cocked the trigger, and a golden portal blossomed in front of Her. Running Her fingers across the surface, it felt like waving a hand through a ray of sunlight. GLaDOS turned around, shooting the next portal at the opposite wall. The portal which followed was a lighter yellow, less vivid than the first.

           “Good. A signal from the device has proven activation. Please enter the elevator.”

           The metal door opened, and just beyond the emancipation grill, an elevator stood wait. It was the only path left to take.

---

           Putting a cube on a button should’ve been a simple task for a supercomputer. Even for a human, the menial work was a cognitive breeze. The large button in particular required minimal force to operate, and the weighted storage cubes were lighter than they appeared. In any scenario, placing an object on another was easily mastered with only the most basic of motor skills. It could have qualified as the least difficult task known to mankind. All GLaDOS had to do was put one cube on one button.

           That was all there was. One cube, one button, and several killing machines stuffed with thousands of bullets. It was for this reason that GLaDOS could not perform this extraordinarily simple job. The turrets blocking the way would surely be a hurdle.

           Already, GLaDOS could feel the beginnings of human fear creeping into Her mind. She was out of the turrets’ line of sight, and yet the caution of Her new form compelled Her to stay hidden in the corner regardless. Nervously clutching the trigger of Her portal gun, She considered the dangers lurking in future tests. This one was only the first, and it had already deployed one of the worst weapons Aperture had to offer.

           Logically, GLaDOS knew She could step out. She could put one portal behind Her, another at the opposite wall, and avoid the turrets altogether. Behind them would certainly be the cube and the button. Still, emotion was quite a world apart from logic. As a computer, She could be revived over and over again. Humans could not be fixed, and GLaDOS understood that in the very unlikely possibility She died here, She was never coming back.

           GLaDOS didn’t want to admit that She was afraid, not even to Herself. She was sure Chell could tell back when Wheatley was in control; She’d let Her voice slip more than once. Now, with nobody around, She only had Herself to prove it to.

           Removing Her cores all that time ago had also been the removal of Her regulators; She felt everything once they were detached, things She would have to relearn how to suppress. All She remembered before the world went dark, before Chell killed her, what She’d relived, was fear. Panic. Terror. There were a million words for it, none encapsulating just how soul-wrenching the phenomenon was.

           Even then, that’s all it was for Her. Just an emotion. For human beings, fear was a sixth sense. It could be felt in a spiraling heartbeat, in beads of sweat, in shallow breaths and temporary, last-ditch strength. Fear was a state of being, and for the particularly unfortunate, a way of life.

           GLaDOS knew fear only when She had to, only when She could not shove it to the very bottom of Her files. Humans knew fear like they knew living. 

           What a miserable way to be.

           It was all the more reason to complete these chambers faster.

           When She reached the other side of the room, GLaDOS found exactly what She expected. The cube glowed a bright yellow when placed on the Aperture Science Super-Colliding Super Button, and the chamber lock opened.

           As the elevator descended, GLaDOS realized that She had no idea how to solve these tests. She was smart, and the solution would certainly come to Her eventually, but the human mind could only store so much. GLaDOS used to have entire libraries of nothing but solutions to tests, but the upload procedure hadn’t deemed that useful or necessary. When trying to remember, there was nothing. For the first time, GLaDOS’ mind was blank.

           The next test dashed all Her hopes for a few more tutorial puzzles.

           No, GLaDOS reassured Herself. This is alright. I’m used to being challenged.

           After Chell, She was sure any other problem would be easier to solve.

           This particular test was supposed to introduce lasers. The first step was to burn the turrets with the beam, done with the help of portals and crouching behind a corner. The explosions were louder than She’d expected; GLaDOS had seldom heard them outside of watching from a camera. Her ears rung as She crept past the charred remains of the turrets, almost nothing left of the slender white robots. The burn marks brought a smile to Her face; She’d killed them. Even now, She had power over something.

           The turrets were programmed to have some level of sentience, though their sense of self was not nearly as defined as that of a core’s or a human’s. It didn’t matter anyway; they wouldn’t be missed. For every one that was destroyed or made wrong, ten more were created in its place, and the missing turret was simply forgotten. Nobody really made an effort to remember in the first place.

           Humans, too, were often unremembered. She used to be able to look at their files at any time, but why would She want to? She’d seen so many, none particularly worthy of note, and most of them were gone. Even so, in a part of Her that She wanted to deny, GLaDOS almost felt sorry for them. She too had been forgotten for years; nobody had even wanted to wake Her up, to check and see if She was alright. All the robots in the facility knew was that the voice controlling them was gone, and that She wasn’t coming back. 

           The rest of the puzzle was much more challenging than swinging around a laser, involving the use of a redirection cube and multiple steps to obtain it. Another round of turrets was waiting where GLaDOS couldn’t see, launching a bullet directly between Her ribs. Luckily for GLaDOS, the force of each bullet was minimal, and the single hit left only a painful bruise. These turrets were stuffed to the brim with ammunition, part of Cave Johnson’s idea to really give his customers their money’s worth. The unintended side effect was a reduction of firing power.

           Trudging to the elevator, GLaDOS clutched Her side. She’d been knocked out of breath, and the sharp throb of the bruise had faded into a dull ache. It was almost worse that way, grating on Her nerves, flaring up when She took a breath.

           Chell had taken a couple bullets before, some grazing the sides of Her shoulders and most leaving similar small wounds. GLaDOS had to give her credit for continuing to test, holding her head high even when she was bleeding. That didn’t even count sores in her lungs from the neurotoxin, or the damage from falling down the pit. The fact that Chell stayed alive, then went on to test for days, proved her exceptional stamina.

           This one bruise to the rib was occupying nearly all of GLaDOS’ thoughts. She couldn’t fathom the kinds of things Chell felt. The only comparisons She had were the removal of Her head and dying, both of which didn’t last longer than a few minutes. Her pain as a computer had been simulated, but this was real and arguably worse. Chell had likely felt this same sensation a hundred times over, and a hundred times longer.

           You did that to her, you know. A voice clawed from deep within Her mind.

           You gave her all that pain.

           Testing was bad enough, GLaDOS didn’t need the additional burden of guilt. She ignored the voice, though a heaviness still welled in Her chest. Her conscience, the one with Her own voice, was coming back. GLaDOS couldn’t say She missed it.

---

The following tests had proved themselves to be little more than a series of colorful injuries.

Despite Her caution, misfires on behalf of the turrets were inevitable. A stray bullet had bruised Her shin, while another flew past and grazed the side of Her left shoulder. Other little nicks were speckled across Her skin, the products of miscellaneous falls.

Hitting the sides of walls, and even landing with the boots, left GLaDOS’ arms and legs sore. Every step She took was a laborious trudge from panel to panel, and eventually Her fatigue took control.

GLaDOS scanned the level sign on Her right upon entering the test. 15. It hadn’t felt like 15 tests; it’d felt like hundreds had gone by. GLaDOS wasn’t even entirely sure how long it’d been. The adrenal vapor in the air muddled Her perception, and an hour and a minute seemed to be the same.

An educated guess was about four hours, accounting for the rests She’d taken in between. The hard physical activity had already worn down this middle-aged body. The woman was lean, more bony than muscular, and even slight exertion took all the effort She could give. The factor of age didn’t help.

GLaDOS sat down in front of the glowing screen, giving Herself a minute to catch Her breath.

There was a possibility that these tests would go on for thousands of chambers, enough to last years. Equally likely, at the end of the next there might be a scorching pit of flames. That one without any portal surfaces to escape from.

She leaned Her head on the wall, closing Her eyes and letting Her mind wander.

           The chamber was frigid, and the jumpsuit did little to shield GLaDOS from the cold. Arms crossed and knees at Her chest, the heat still escaped Her.

           The thought crossed Her mind that this was how Chell had felt. Was she always this cold, this tired, this desperate? GLaDOS made a mental note to Herself.

           Make the chambers warmer.

           The heat was only a surface-level fix. The claustrophobia induced by the walls, the artificial lights, and the expectation to give it your all or else was maddening.

           Why does it matter to you? GLaDOS asked Herself. Sure, it was bad for Her, but why care about the other subjects? Once She got through this, GLaDOS would never have to feel it again.

           She remembered the time She’d described Her worst imperfection to Atlas and P-Body. Too much sympathy for human suffering.

           Still, Chell would’ve been happier (whatever excuse for happiness that would be) in warmer chambers. Now that She’d gotten attached to one human, She’d felt for them all. It was why She was so hesitant to form a connection in the first place. That would interfere with Her experiments.

           Memories of sparing Chell’s lookalike and saving the life of the man reentered Her mind, and She was embarrassed at the thought of letting Her study careen so far off the rails. Looking back, how much perfectly good science had been ruined? Chell wasn’t even here, and yet She was still wrecking the facility.

           Missing Chell, no maybe not missing so much as becoming used to her presence, was the source of all this mayhem.  The thought of deleting the feeling completely…it was a motivating fantasy. Sentimentality had been, and would be, the death of Her.

           Wisely, GLaDOS stopped Herself from wandering further.

           Don’t think about it. Control yourself.

           The act of caring verged on Caroline behavior. 

           If only to distract Herself, GLaDOS stood up tall and readied Herself for the fifteenth test. Walking deeper in, Her nose caught the scent of acid, stinging as the fumes filled Her lungs.

           GLaDOS sighed.

           She could already tell that this would be a long one.

---

           Cheating was not as good of an idea as it originally seemed.

GLaDOS knew logically, No, you have to do the test, there’s no other way out. When subjects tried to escape, it never ended well for them. Despite past observation, the temptation remained as strong as ever. The walls beckoned Her, waiting to be climbed, an onlooking room in wait. These tests hadn’t been as thoroughly repaired as the others, and sunlight shone through holes in the ceiling. Wreckage from years of decay looked almost like a staircase, or perhaps more like a ladder. Everywhere around Her seemed like an easier path to freedom.

           The main issue was stability; the rusty metal plates couldn’t support Her weight, and trying to climb left Her tumbling down onto the hard floors. No wall ever seemed to have enough traction, and a sprain on Her arm quickly taught GLaDOS that Her ingenious plans were too risky to continue. Even the use of momentum could not propel Her high enough to reach the windows of the room overhead.

           Frustrated and defeated, She solved the test without further incident. Chamber 25 was waiting up ahead, and the sunlight from above shone with evening hues. To Her own disbelief, all of this testing had amounted to only a single day.

           After the long, arduous completion of 25 had wracked both Her body and mind, GLaDOS found welcome relief. She almost couldn’t believe the fact that the chambers had ended so… safely. The door opened, and there were no death traps or pits of fire waiting for Her. It only led into a waiting room with a faded Thank You sign on the wall. GLaDOS smiled, satisfied with Her victory. Shortcomings aside, the fact that this measly human body had managed to endure so much was something She was proud of.

           That had been Her work, Her survival, not just testing by proxy.

           The waiting room She stood in was eerily similar to the last, furnished with the same kind of chair and plastered with similar advertisements. Unlike the last one, two exits waited in front of Her. One was for test subjects, boarded up with wood nailed to the door, completely inaccessible. The other was a flight of stairs leading upward, blocked off with a chained sign reading Employees Only.

           GLaDOS lifted the chain over Her head and took the staircase, no other option available. Nervously, She hoped that anything but another testing track was up ahead, only to find exactly what She needed. Her luck had been improving; a control room was only a step away. A panel of countless switches was adhered to the pale blue walls, adjacent to a desk with pens, paper, and a noisy radio. The same jazzy tune played on loop until She switched it off, content with the silence.

           It’s finally over.

           She sat down at the office chair in front of the control panel, scanning it for the words lift or escape pod. Dials and switches cluttered the board, labeled with miniscule text that was near impossible to read. GLaDOS scorned Her human eyesight, searching desperately, but finding nothing. The buttons only controlled elements of the test chambers, which panels to open, which cubes to drop.

           She reread it, knowing that surely She’d missed something. Again and again, She screened the switchboard, yielding nothing.

           GLaDOS had to have overlooked a button, misread a label. Nothing was hidden behind the desk, and no other devices had been plugged into the socket on the wall. The realization that She could be trapped here, here of all places, sank low into Her chest. After everything, after all of the testing and the pain and the feelings, it had all amounted to this.

           “Oh my god. Oh my god. That’s not possible!”

           All the panic She’d suppressed was finally let loose, Her human mind no longer able to contain the fear She’d been anticipating.

           I might die here. That’s it. I might never get back in my mainframe, and I might spend my last hours stuck in this human being.

           I’m going to be alone.

           Alone.

           She lingered on that sentence, anxiously pacing around the desk, nervously clawing through Her hair.

           I am going to be very, very alone.

           GLaDOS had always wanted to spend Her entire, immortal life alone. No friends, no family to weigh Her down, to distract Her from purpose. Cave had put it best; Caroline was married to science, and that had carried over to GLaDOS.

           Machines didn’t need companionship, but depriving a human being of social contact was like denying them water. Whatever human need for friendship still existed in this woman’s body was bubbling up, broken by the sheer loneliness of the tests.

           She often wondered why subjects had such a difficult time euthanizing their faithful companion cube. Unless rare incidents of stabbing threats counted, the companion cube had not once spoken to them, never shown any kind of personality or attachment. They were sentient enough, like most Aperture products, but their only real difference from a storage cube was their little heart decal. A mere design change had been enough to exploit human compassion, and it was fascinating to behold.

           A part of Her now understood why it was so easy to believe that an inanimate object could be a friend. GLaDOS’ human component ached for any sort of company, any kind of reassurance. Even an enemy would be nice. An enemy would be better, maybe even preferred.

           Just someone to talk to, even if that conversation was just a tirade of insults on Her part.

                      GLaDOS gave up; nobody was here, and nobody was waiting for Her. The future looked lonely, and in desperation, She gave the control panel one last glance. A button that She’d seen before caught Her eye, one She hadn’t fully considered the first time.

           Core Sentience Connector.

           With nothing to lose, She pressed the button, and a whirring erupted from a panel downstairs. GLaDOS rushed back to the waiting room, portal gun in Her hands, and watched the walls open like magic. In its place was a metal contraption, holding the empty shell of a personality core with a flickering screen above it. The Aperture Logo flashed onto the newly implemented monitor, while the announcer blared from an invisible speaker.

           “Hello, and thank you for activating the Aperture Science Personality Core Sentience Connector Protocol! If you have selected this feature, congratulations. A subject under your supervision has been experiencing difficulties testing due to prolonged exposure to severe social deprivation.”

           GLaDOS wondered what other insane scenarios they’d thought of as the screen switched to a moving blueprint of a personality sphere.

           “All Aperture Science Personality Constructs are made with the intended purpose of solving this problem, providing companionship to those in crisis. Personality Constructs with an active distress signal can be summoned with the connector protocol. A list of available constructs is provided on the screen.”

           Walking closer to the device, GLaDOS saw only one serial number listed. Personality cores all had radio capability, and the signal of their very being could be transmitted in times of emergency. Once the signal was received, that could easily be implemented into any compatible device.

           GLaDOS hesitated before selecting the number. She doubted that the little moron had the capacity to activate a distress signal, and if he did, it was highly unlikely that the signal could bounce all the way back to Earth. Still, the possibility that this core could be Wheatley was something She did not want to risk. Although psychologically destroying him would be a good use of Her time, being in a position of power would make Her revenge all the more satisfying.

           The last thing She wanted was for him to see Her weak again, but the only other option was to remain trapped. At the very least, if they were stuck here forever, She could use the last of Her human strength to make Wheatley’s tiny, moronic life as miserable as possible. In the off chance he could open a panel, She’d use him to escape and leave him behind. Preferably, in the incinerator.

           Survival was worth the temporary burden of dealing with Wheatley, especially if it meant another thousand years doing nothing but testing. GLaDOS tapped the number, an electric chime sounding from the machine as the connector activated. Within thirty seconds, the core’s eye opened, gleaming a bright blue.

---

           “If you were, let’s say, a brain damaged woman who was betrayed by her only friend, what would it take for you to forgive the bloke who tried to murder you? It’s just theoretical, just, you know, coming up with hypotheticals to pass the time.”

           “Space. Space is nice. Rocket ship. Rocket ship goes to space. Space goes to space. Space is in space.”

           “Alright mate, thanks for the input. Very useful.”

           Wheatley sighed, his optic focused on the same group of stars he’d watched for the past couple of hours, his mind wrapped up in the past.

           Four months had been a good amount of time to relive his mistakes over and over, micro analyzing every transgression against Chell. His life was now a series of unpleasant memories, or pleasant ones turned painful by context, interrupted with by chatter of the space core and the light of the sun.

           Fantasies, in which he apologized for his mistakes and Chell forgave him, were far too frequent. He’d say sorry, deliver a whole monologue four months in the making, and She’d pick him up and smile at him. They would be friends again, and Wheatley would never return to Aperture. GLaDOS would be gone, out of sight forever, and they could be happy. He could be happy.

           Not that Wheatley particularly thought he deserved it. By most human standards of morality, trying to kill someone was considered an irredeemable offense. Empathizing with Chell’s fear, Chell’s heartbreak had been impossible with the mainframe distorting his thoughts. All of the sympathy he could not feel then was coming back now, transformed into guilt.

           If you hadn’t acted like a monster, if you hadn’t been so awful, if you hadn’t been such a moron...

           He knew that realistically, Chell would never pardon him. Even that was given the unlikely event they’d met again.

           Wheatley wondered if he would ever get a second chance, ever get the opportunity to show that no, he wasn’t a moron and all that villainy had been just a fluke. He only needed a chance, just one.

           Hell, if GLaDOS got an opportunity for redemption, why couldn’t he?

           Wheatley closed his optic, feeling the cold of space against his metal casing.

           One chance. That’s all I need.

           For a moment, there was only the silence of the cosmos.

           Without warning, his processors hummed with a fever pitch, and his thoughts raced until they melted into nonsense. A loud beeping resonated from inside, and through the chaos, Wheatley could discern a single error message.

           Sentience Connector Protocol Initiated. Prepare for the brief suspension of your consciousness.

           What in the bloody hell-

           Wheatley screamed in surprise, his cry cut off halfway through.

           The space core hardly noticed that his companion had been zapped away, content with watching the surface of the moon below. The stars shone bright as ever.

---

           “Oh, oh my god, I’m alive! I…” Wheatley’s voice trailed off as he awakened to the dim walls of Aperture, facing a brown-haired, tired-looking woman. A yellow light glowed through Her jumpsuit, and a suspicious grin was spread across Her face. Wheatley had never seen this person before, but the moment She spoke, he knew exactly who She was.

           “Well, there you are.”

     She was back.

[thursdaysdove]

Random Portal Writing Prompts (or Art, if you prefer!)

Hello! I wanted to share some story ideas/prompts that I have had floating around for a while. I originally had these posted on my AO3 account, but I felt it might be more appropriate for these to be posted here.

I may or may not get around to writing these (most likely not), but if anyone is interested in writing them, I would LOVE to see these! Some maybe M-rated, maybe not, depends on how it's portrayed. Most are Chelley and Chelley babies (I need more fics with Chelley babies!), but there are some others as well. I may add more from time to time. Anyway, please feel free to use, comment, ignore, etc. And, of course, if you have tag suggestions, please do suggest them. Thank you for looking! :3

- Chell and Wheatley are friends/roommates. Chell wants to have a baby, but she has no partner nor does she desire to have one, so she is looking to accomplish this via sperm donor and insemination. Wheatley finds out about this somehow (maybe he sees a consent form on her table that she has signed or he hears about it from a mutual acquaintance, etc.) and becomes highly jealous and offended (for reasons beyond either of their understanding) that she didn't consider him. Chell is reluctant at first, but Wheatley manages to convince her to let him be the father of her child. This could also be portrayed in other ways - such as, if you would want this to be ChellDOS instead of Chelley, they could be looking to have a child and Wheatley volunteers to be the father, but of course GLaDOS/Caroline might have something to say about that. Could lead to some fun arguments. :P

- I may be missing some bit of knowledge on this, so please excuse me if this theory doesn’t hold out - but I noticed while playing the Portal games that you never see any remains of the people who were killed by GLaDOS with the neurotoxin. I would think there would be skeletons or something, some small bit of remains. This made me wonder what happened to them. Did GLaDOS have them cleaned up? What about the offices and parts where She can't reach? What if there was someone on the loose in the facility, someone in hiding, someone who might be in a desperate enough situation to view these bodies as a food source? What if this someone’s situation was exacerbated by both desperation and a mental condition, so they maybe didn't realize they were eating the corpses of their colleagues? What if this person was... Doug Rattman? GLaDOS would be taunting him the whole time, while his companion cube would be countering her remarks, making Doug question exactly what it is he’s eating. Would love to see this portrayed as a horror/psychological thriller.

- A fic where Chell and a humanized Wheatley (either he was that way to begin with, or he was put into a body, however you’d want to portray it) make it out to the surface. The betrayal and everything still happened, but Wheatley was never thrown out into space. The basic idea is that he and Chell end up sleeping together, Chell ends up pregnant, and Wheatley ends up having to take care of Chell during her late pregnancy and help with the delivery. Chell can either be verbal or non-verbal.

Here is a basic run-down of what I came up with, but you wouldn’t have to use this, of course (this would get an M rating, including dubious consent):

Wheatley is put into a human body and thrown out onto the surface with Chell. Wheatley is completely helpless. Chell waits around a while, watching him, and eventually feels guilty enough that she allows him to tag along, but though she allows this, she keeps him at an arm's length and only helps him with the bare minimum. Somewhere along the way, Chell goes through a level of frustration, one thing leads to another, and they end up sleeping together. Wheatley is very confused at first, like WTF are you doing?, although he finds himself enjoying what she is doing. Chell is satisfied, he feels somewhat satisfied, but he is left to wonder what exactly happened and how to approach her after that. Over time, Chell's feelings for Wheatley begin to soften more, Wheatley grows more bold, and before either of them can really gain an understanding on what exactly is taking place between them, Chell ends up pregnant. She does not know how to explain this to him. She doesn't feel well, is achy and whatnot, and Wheatley of course doesn't quite understand why she isn't wanting to "do it" with him anymore, so he feels hurt. Wheatley ends up being forced to be the one to take care of both of them in this post-apocalyptic world, seeking food, shelter, taking care of Chell when she is sick, and finally, helping with the delivery of the baby. I didn't have much going on after this, that's all I got.

- Something based off this Minecraft build video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q11J9ibl7zs . Could be a comic, a short fic, anything. The whole time watching this video I was laughing so hard, because all I could hear was Wheatley trying to fix the lift to get Chell out of Aperture. Instead of him going all evil, he decides to stay plugged in but still help Chell get out. An oversight on his part - he still punched potato GLaDOS down the elevator shaft, obliterating the elevator in the process. Determined to help Chell, he keeps trying to fix the lift, or build a new one, and it keeps breaking and failing in new and extraordinary ways. Chell is sitting there the whole time thinking maybe she will just stay - that seems a whole lot safer than using Wheatley's "fixed" lift, anyway.

- This was a crack fic idea I had, half inspired by a joke going around in a Discord group I used to be in, half inspired by a quote from George Carlin: "Somewhere out there is the world's worst doctor. The scariest part is that someone has an appointment with him tomorrow." Wheatley works at Aperture as one of their on-site doctors. He may have graduated at the bottom of his class, but hey, he DID graduate, after all, and Aperture really needed more doctors!

[canadian-riddler]

Portal: The Proposition

By Indiana

Characters: Wheatley, GLaDOS, Chell

Synopsis: If GLaDOS had focused on the right person, perhaps the entirety of Portal 2 could have been avoided…

Setting: Chapter 5: The Escape

It was the culmination of simply hours of work.

They’d shut off her neurotoxin.  Swapped out her deadly turrets for crap ones.  And now they had her back against the wall. Sort of.  She didn’t really have a back, and she was in the middle of the room, and still moved about quite freely - or as freely as one could when attached to the ceiling - but still.  They had her pinned. She was at their mercy! But they had none. So she was at their nothing.

“Go on,” he urged the test subject who was, as usual, taking her sweet time completing their plan.  Honestly. How he had managed to get them here in the first place was simply a miracle.  She was so inclined to just stand about, and glower, and wait for him to tell her which place to go or which thing to do or where to stand so that she could fail to catch him, and honestly, it was all very exhausting.  Still. Here they were, with the mighty Central Core in their grasp. She would not be machinating her way out of this one!  “Press it!”

“Don’t - wait,” GLaDOS said suddenly, and he heard her look up sharply.  “Sphere.”

“...Yes?” Wheatley asked tentatively, unsure why she was paying him mind now.  He was, you know, sort of stuck. On this stick. Waiting.

“Why are you here?  And what are you doing with her?”

“Oh,” said Wheatley.  “Um… bad news. All the other humans’ve got a pretty major case of… they’re dead.  All the boxes of test subjects you’ve got stored in the back? All dead. She was the only one left.  I dunno who she is. Didn’t even know you’d met before! She’s fairly brain-damaged, by the way. Not sure if she’s actually going to figure out how to press that button.  Mostly likes jumping, good at jumping. This button may or may not be a bit beyond her.”

“I see,” GLaDOS said.  “You know. I’ve just thought of something.  Would you like to hear it?”

“Uh…”  This seemed to be sort of a trick question.  He wasn’t sure why, exactly, he would want to hear her out, but at the same time she was being quite reasonable.  Much more so than all the time she’d spent on her nutty speeches about cake and computer parts.  “Okay.”

“I have a proposition for you,” she said.  “But in order to tell you what it is, I’m going to have to ask you to remove yourself from that port.  As a gesture of mutual goodwill. You understand.”

Hm.  Sounded like a trap, honestly.  At the same time, though, he really wanted to know what the proposition was.  Sounded interesting. Much more interesting than this sitting about waiting for the human to get around to button-pressing.  “What sort of um, of proposition?”

“You’ll like it.  I promise.”

“And you promise you won’t kill me, if I come off of here?”

“I promise,” GLaDOS told him, and she sounded so reassuring that he saw no reason for her to be lying.  “I just want to discuss this like the mature, reasonable, intelligent people we are. Face-to-face. No killing or threatening with core transfers.”

Well, he was quite mature and reasonable and intelligent, himself, and so he removed himself from the port as she had asked and from one of the ceiling panels appeared a management rail for him to attach himself to.  Ah, excellent! She was being quite a thoughtful host, actually. Out of the corner of his optic he saw the test subject’s hand slam down upon the button at last, but it was already receding into the floor and as a result quite useless.  “Now,” GLaDOS said, again in that reassuring voice, “what, exactly, was your plan? After killing me, I mean. We can skip that part.”

“Well,” said Wheatley, “I dunno what her plan was, but I was trying to leave.  A bit difficult when you’re um, when you’re stuck all the way out there with the smelly humans and the management rail just sort of runs ‘round in circles.  Not much to do when there’s no power and ev’ryone’s dead, honestly. Oh! And the facility was going to explode! Nearly forgot about that. Definitely did not want to stick around for that bit.  Would definitely rather live.”

“Is that all you wanted?” GLaDOS said.  “Well. You should have just asked.  Of course I’ll allow you to leave.  In fact, I’ll do it right now.”

“Oh,” said Wheatley, a little surprised it had been this easy.  “I… s’pose I could’ve thought of that. Though I didn’t know you were up for, y’know, talking.  You always seemed more like the kill now, talk later type.”

“Little Sphere,” GLaDOS said, curving around behind him in sort of a maternal way, “you showed up with the human that killed me in tow.  I’m sure if it had been me who appeared to be working with the very person who had heartlessly destroyed you, you would have done the same thing.”

“Probably,” admitted Wheatley, turning to look at her.  “You sort of… sort of killed me before I could bring up that I don’t even know her, though.  Honest! I don’t!  She’s just, she’s the only one I could find still alive!  Power outage got to all the rest.”

“You must have gone through a great deal all these years.  Attempting to hold the facility together all on your own.”

“I have!” Wheatley blurted out.  “And all the others, they didn’t even realise it!  Just kept ragging on me about how I got the worst job.  Kept saying it was because I was incompetent and stupid, can you believe that?”

“No,” said GLaDOS, shaking her core sadly.  “I can’t.”

“They always gave me the worst jobs!” he continued.  “‘Do that guy’s paperwork,’ they said. ‘Stare at this button and don’t press it,’ they said.  ‘Make sure the computer keeps all those humans alive’, they said. Those bloody humans aren’t even still fresh!  They’ve all gone rotten!  Expired years ago!  How’m I supposed to keep stale humans alive!?  I’m not, I’m not a wizard!”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about any of that now,” GLaDOS told him.  “I’m back and I will take care of everything. As for you… well. I think you should finally get what you deserve.”

He perked up hopefully.  “I’d love that, honestly.  Bloody well earned it by now, I’d say.”

“You certainly have.”  From beneath the floor came a lift, and as he watched the door slid open invitingly.  “That will take you straight to the surface. No tricks.”

“Wait,” he said, frowning.  “Didn’t you say this was a… a proposition?  That’s a deal, yeah?”

“Oh,” GLaDOS said, a syllable of gentle dismissal, “all I want is to keep her.”  She gestured her core in the direction of the test subject.  “We have… unfinished business. And you won’t be needing her anymore.”

Wheatley shrugged.  “Be good to be rid of her, honestly.  D’you know I did all the work, getting us here?  She couldn’t even shut off your turrets without my help.  Useless, honestly. And she just frowns all the time.  Unpleasant. We were s’posed to be a team, a bit of courtesy should’ve been extended.  In. My direction. She was quite rude, s’what I’m trying to say.”

“Oh, I know,” said GLaDOS, who sounded like she did indeed know.  “Now. Don’t you have somewhere better to be?”

It seemed as good a time as any, so Wheatley allowed GLaDOS to remove him from the management rail with one of her claws and put him inside of the lift, after which she turned her attention to the human.  She had finally stopped crinkling up her face and was now staring at him with a sort of… horrified expression. Oh, so now she was going to stop grimacing at him.  Now, when he’d negotiated his exit by having a calm and reasonable conversation with GLaDOS instead of tramping all about her facility with the intent to kill her.  Humans. Never thought of the obvious solutions.

“Now,” said GLaDOS with great relish as the door to the lift slid closed, “where were we…”

A couple of minutes later the door opened onto a great swath of wheat, and the jolt of the lift hitting the top of the shaft caused him to roll out into it.  Behind him, he heard the heavy clang of a metal door slamming closed, and it was at this time he realised the biggest hole in his plan.

There were no management rails outside.

There appeared to be no ports, either, or other people, or anything really except for the tall stalks swaying above him and the great hot sun beating down upon his chassis.  Oh, that wasn’t good.  None of this was good.  None of it at all.

“Hello?” he called as loudly as he could.  “I’m sort of… I’m stuck. Is there any way we can, y’know, sort this out?  Might I borrow some legs, or something?  Just so I can get out of here.  Sort of… sort of stuck. Right here.  On the doorstep.”

It occurred to him that the test subject had legs, and quite sturdy ones too, but how was he to let her know he needed help?  Or… or to get her to care, this time, since he’d...

Oh, bollocks.

“She tricked me,” Wheatley said to the wheat.  “She bloody tricked me!  She knew!  She knew what she was sending me off to!”

And, worse, he had fallen for it.  No, no. That wasn’t quite right. He closed his optic against the relentless, insufferable heat bearing down upon him.  

He’d gotten what he deserved, exactly as GLaDOS had promised.

Author’s note

Wheatley has a voice line in which he says, “Oh!  I’ve just had one idea, which is that I could pretend to her that I’ve captured you, and give you over and she’ll kill you, but I could go on… living.  So, what’s your view on that?”  This is, to me, a massive and obvious indicator that Wheatley does not care about Chell beyond serving his own interests and, if GLaDOS had offered, he would have happily sold her out in exchange for his own life.  So that’s what they do here.

[thehalfworld]

Fanfic MST: ITS MY LIFE!, a Portal fanfic [part 13]

For something that makes absolutely no sense and conveys nothing of substance, this fic does go on for quite a while. I honestly don’t even remember how many chapters are left, but we’re at least a few more from the end.

There’s a bit of gore in this one.

Recap: Marissa tried to take down the Chell/GLaDOS fusion, accompanied by Wheatley, who was predictably useless, and Rattman, who was also pretty useless (and also died, but whether or not that’s permanent remains to be seen). It was revealed that Chell is actually Rattman’s daughter due to some sort of DNA mix-up. The co-op bots showed up to ostensibly help Marissa, but, after she defeated the Chell/GLaDOS fusion (killing Chell in the process), the bots turned on her and shot her in the head. 

Chapter 1

Previous chapter

AN OMG I GOT 102 REVIEWS EVEN IF THERE MOSTLY DUM FLAMERZ THATS STILL PRETTY GOOOD FOR A FIRS STORY!

Man, I love her optimism. Raging at your “flamers” is common for badfic writers, so seeing an author be positive about all the reviews she’s getting, even though they’re almost entirely negative, is kind of refreshing.

Unfortunately, MarissaTheWriter dropped this attitude later on, but let’s cherish it while it lasts.

ALSO THANK RAI AN APE SOME THING BECOS THEY GAVED ME SOME REALY COOL IDEAS FOR THE NEW CHAPTERS!

I don’t know who these two are. I’m guessing people who reviewed her story.

PS MARRISSA DIED THAT PROOVES SHES NOT A MARRY SUE OK!

Well, no, actually, dying is really common for Mary Sue characters. In fact, the original Mary Sue, the character from whom we got the term Mary Sue, died at the end of the fanfiction she starred in. It’s a good way to make your OC look tragic.

PPS THIS HCAPTER IS FROM WHEATLY POV

Oh geez. Oh no. I don’t know how much more weird British slang I can take.

ITS MY LIFE!

CHAPTER THIRTEN: MARRISSAS RESSUREKSHUN

Yeah, that’s the other thing. Having a character return from the dead has the effect of making them look super special and important, and overdoing that is how we get Mary Sues, so…

This was the most bloody terribel thing ever.

I agree.

Oh, you mean Marissa’s death, not the fanfic itself. I take it back.

Marrisser was died with a gun shoot to her soddin head an blood an branes were all over ever were.

Gross! Thanks for the mental image!

I gared at Atlas an P-Body hoo killed the one thing I loafed an shouted "YOU BLOODY BUGGERS IM GONNA WANK YOU!"

That’s going to be difficult. He has no arms and they have no genitals. It’s Aperture Science, though, so I’m sure he can find a way.

But I didnt have arms so i cold not hurt them but I sooooooo mad they ranned off any way.

Yeah, nothing scarier than Wheatley threatening to “wank” you.

Bloody sods. "Marrissa why didnt I was able to safe you! IM SOOOOO SORRY!" An I cried bloody bukets of robottears.

Not sure how that would work, but I don’t need it elaborated on.

It was the end an I thot a bout commitin sewiside like GLaDOS did when a turrent came up to me.

"GO HEAD AN BLOW ME SODDING BLOODY BRANES OUT SO I CAN BE AT PIECE!" I yelled loud at the turrent. "No im diffrent! I am Oracle Turrent an I no how to make Marrissa alife!"

Wow, okay, that’s a character I wasn’t expecting to make an appearance. The turrets can’t walk, though (except the frankenturrets Wheatley created, but the oracle turret wasn’t one of those), so I’m not sure how this one managed to approach him.

No bloody way I o-mouthed in all the shock. "How can she life wen her hed sodding exploded?" I britished at him for tryin a get my hopes up.

“Stop making up pointless new words!” I Irish-Americaned at the author.

"Rember that she has the speshal powers, one of them is that wen she eats the zombee taters instead of become a zombee wen she dies she just becomes alife a gain!" It all made sense, the turrent was a bloody geinus!

Well, they can’t very well feed her potatoes when she’s a headless corpse, so swing and a miss.

"Common lets wankin go!"

Does anyone know what MarissaTheWriter thinks “wanking” means?

The Oracle Turrent ranned fast an I rolled on my rale right to the zombee taters quikly we grabbed up all of them an got back to Marrissa body.

How are they grabbing things when neither of them have arms?

I coldnt help but cry at the site of my troo love with head all open an messy.

Yeah, sounds pretty gross.

"Its ok Wheatly soon she will life!" The turrent made me more happy an we started stuffin the buggerin taters in Marrissas mouth.

So she’ll come back to life, promptly choke on potatoes, and die again. Excellent plan.

Then she started coffin an all the blood was got healed.

I hope “coffin” was a pun. On second thought, no I don’t.

"W Wheetly?" She asked in the most butiful voice in the hole portal worled.

Marissa, give GLaDOS her vocal processor back right now and no one gets hurt.

"Oh Marrissa I thot you were bloody gone for wankin ever!" We hugged an kissed an things was gettin hot an heavy so the Oracle Turrent left becos he didant want to see that kinna stuff.

I don’t either. I’m going with the turret.

MEANWHILE IN THE PAST

…thinking about whether or not that phrase makes sense is hurting my head. Moving on.

Teen Fortress 2 was MAD an PEEVED at Gabe Jonson an his dotter Marrissa Roberts for killin there leader Cave Jonson.

Hey, hang on a second. Whose point of view are we from now?

They wanted ervange speshally on Marrissa sinse with out her Gabe wold not have been a hard fight.

I’m going to assume for now that we’re just in third person.

"We shold right a mean things on her facebook page!" The evil Heavy dummed. "No you idot this is the past facebook isnt invented yet!" The evil Medik extricated.

Interesting how they know about Facebook although it’s not been invented yet.

All of em was angry but coldnt thing of a way to revenge Marrissa when the evil Ingineer got a idea. "I no! We will create an evil clone of Marrissa an send it to the futur an kill her!" It was a good plan.

Evil clones are always a good plan!

After school the teen fortress all gotted together at evil Ingineers hose an builded the clone mashine.

Ah, yes, the clone machine.

How are they going to clone her? She left. She’s in the future. Doing something I’d rather not think about with Wheatley.

"But we dont have dna evidance?" Evil Sniper said in sexay british aksent.

I doubt that, seeing as he’s Australian.

But the evil spy lolled an pulled out some thing. "I stolled some of her hare just in case we needed it for some thing."

Outside of making evil clones, is there really much use for hair samples?

He frenched an gave evil Ingine the hare an they started to clone Marrissa.

You cannot use “he frenched” like that. You just can’t.

A few mins later the clonin was done an a gurl stepped out hoo looked kinna like Marrissa but more evil an mean with angry face.

So she looks like Chell, but meaner and hotter. Alright. I’m into it.

"I am Assiram Strebor an I will kill Marrissa Roberts!"

Nice backwards name. Oh, sorry. Ecin sdrawkcab eman.

TO BE CONTINUED!

OH NO! CAN MARRISSA STOPS HER EVIL CLOWN?

I recommend getting a group of kids to fight it in a sewer somewhere in Maine.

FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON ITS MY LIFE|!

She’s right! Tune in next time for some evil clone and/or evil clown fighting action!

Next chapter

[humanwheatleyslefttoenail]

Number 15 :o)

NUMBER 15 BURGER KING BURGER-

Ok all jokes aside, unpopular opinion time. 

- It’s cool if you just personally don’t like ChellDOS, but shipping aside, I think they are coded as a couple. I mean, GLaDOS sings her Cara Mia and Don’t Say Goodbye, which are objectively love songs. Want You Gone and You Wouldn’t Know are breakup songs. There’s deleted content where GLaDOS passive aggressively gets mad at Chell “cheating on her” by talking to other cores. GLaDOS begins to use “we” in old Aperture and starts treating Chell like an ally, then saves her and lets her go, all while revealing the humanity she’d promised not to reveal to anyone else. The ENTIRE FOCUS of the series is on their changing, dynamic relationship be it as friends or enemies. Their arc is also literally just... an enemies to lovers set up lol. Again, I’m not saying it’s canon per se or that you have to ship it or like it, but I am saying there’s a lot of canon subtext there. (Also btw I heard somewhere “cake” in Argentinian Spanish is slang for lesbians so maybe the cake isn’t a lie-)

- Wheatley is very flawed, and throughout the whole game. I don’t think he was always evil and I definitely think he got corrupted just like GLaDOS, but I also don’t think it was a case of “Corrupt The Cutie.” He’s never been a cinnamon roll or whatever the fandom calls it - he’s shown having some implicit sexism, he’s cowardly, he’s flighty, he’s so obviously a show off because he’s so underconfident. People seem to gloss over these things, especially his actions in the mainframe (which, btw, he is at least partially responsible for), but I feel like if you do that and then justify everything he does... you don’t have Wheatley anymore. Wheatley’s flaws make him *more* sympathetic imo, not less - like I see fics and art where people insist Wheatley doesn’t need to redeem himself or grow in any meaningful way and just want him to be forgiven. I really don’t like that because A) It’s just not true and B) a flawed but likeable character struggling to be better is so much more compelling and relatable. 

- Chelley is. Not a good ship. But. I still like it out of nostalgia and because Blue Sky lol. I think it could work post-canon but first Wheatley would need to do a lot of work on his end and actually prove to Chell that he is worthy. Unfortunately, a lot of Chelley content doesn’t actually do this and has Chell do all the emotional work for him which I don’t like. I consider myself a fan of this ship and I think if you search it up, I’m one of the blogs that comes up, but I don’t like it as much as ChellDOS and I wish people put more consideration into their fanworks when portraying it. 

- Cave dying was actually kinda sad - like he was a bad person and everything but his last few intercom messages still really get me after everything he did. He made so many fucked up decisions but like, I think it’s very relatable - this idea of getting so caught up in your own ideas that you hurt everyone around you and don’t realize until it’s too late and you’re going down with them. It’s sad because like... there were so many chances for him to stop and they never happened, and with the lemon rant he’s still struggling against everything. He still never gave up. And like... idk it just makes me emotionally because he was a bad guy for sure but he’s very human. It doesn’t make me sad in an “oh he didn’t deserve that” way, but more like the way you’re sad after finishing a Greek tragedy kinda way, if you get what I’m saying. 

- I wish I saw more content for the P1 cores because they’re adorable. I want to give the Curiosity Core and the Cake Core hugs. They are babey. 

- Wheatrat and Chellmann aren’t that popular rn because Doug never actually shows up in the game, but both these ships are seriously underrated imo (maybe that’s just the multishipper in me lol). ChellMel and Chellyx are also good and I wish there was more content for that, too. 

- It’s 2020. Can we stop acting like Wheatley did nothing wrong. Can we stop acting like GLaDOS is Only Mean And Has No Other Traits. Nuance is a thing, and the Valve writers didn’t spend hours meticulously creating these three dimensional characters for the fandom to turn them into UwU Cinnamon Roll and Mean Evil. 

- I think Chell is actually a pretty kind person - the fact the game gives you the option to save companion cubes and the oracle turrets, the fact she still tries to stop Wheatley from going to space, the fact that she allies with GLaDOS despite everything, the fact that you physically cannot let go of Wheatley in the first half when you’re holding him - Chell really only does bad things when it’s a literal matter of life and death. She’s a good person just looking out for her own survival, and I don’t like how the fandom has decided she’s mean, angry, or just as bad as GLaDOS and Wheatley when she’s pretty clearly not.

- We as white portal fans need to do better and think critically about the way we’re portraying Chell, be that drawing or writing her. Stuff like not portraying her as an angry stereotype and not whitewashing her. It’s really sad to see the amount of implicit racism in the fandom. 

- Blue Sky is still good although GLaDOS being the bad guy again was a bit OOC. I think it still serves as a good study of Wheatley and I like that it acknowledges his flaws and ultimately makes him responsible for his own redemption, not Chell. Also, “Prove it” was a raw line - I still can’t get it out of my head. 

- He’s unpopular for obvious reasons, but I really like Nigel from Aperture Tag. He’s so charming and quirky and then when he betrays you, he’s such a fun and charismatic villain. I love to hate Nigel and I wish Wheatley had been more like that when he turned evil. Nigel is a good combination of weirdly cute, intimidating, and frustrating. He’s a really well written villain and I wish more people knew about both him and Aperture Tag. 

- GLaDOS didn’t delete Caroline. I don’t think she physically can, and I think she was just lying so that Chell wouldn’t come back or think GLaDOS had feelings lol. I think even Ellen said she thought Caroline wasn’t deleted.