#i killed glados one time and now it’s her turn let us be

[chtoyalt]

im playing portal 2 and wheatley keeps on peaking at me from the cracks in the walls, not now wheatley, adults are on a date

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Valicer Severance AU Time

Okay, so, it's been a while since I talked about this one -- blame various things in my life being distracting and having trouble getting all of my thoughts together, for there are a loooot of thoughts. But I am here now and we are going to talk about it, damn it. Let's go --

-->To recap from my previous post, this is a multi-fandom crossover AU using the premise of the "Severance" (2022) Apple TV+ show, where a group of workers for the Lumon company have their consciousnesses "severed," splitting their minds into Innies (who only exist on Lumon's "severed floor" and are perpetually at work, with no memories of their outside lives) and Outies (who only exist outside the floor and have no memory of what they do at work), with the switchover between the two happening in the elevator that goes to and from the severed floor. My AU would focus primarily on the Innie versions of Victor, Alice, and Smiler, who together with their supervisor Wheatley make up the Macrodata Refinement team on the severed floor of Aperture Science. Because I can't see corporate malfeasance and not think "Aperture Science." XD

-->Some worldbuilding for you about how the severance procedure came about in this universe: When Cave Johnson got sick and started demanding that, if they couldn't successfully shove HIS consciousness into a computer before he died, they shove CAROLINE'S into a computer instead, one lab boy, seeing how reluctant Caroline WAS to become a computer, went, "Well, what if we try copying your brain into a computer instead?" Caroline was more on board with that, and they gave it a go --

And got GLaDOS, a computer intelligence that had most of Caroline's personality and intelligence, but none of her memories. This version of GLaDOS did indeed still try to kill the scientists (pissed off by them insisting she was an "imperfect copy" and yet trying to force her to work for them regardless), but they managed to shut her down -- and Caroline, despite the danger, thought there was something to this. They thus started experimenting with scanning the brains of various employees, turning them into artificial intelligences, and seeing what resulted. Some were -- imperfect (one "personality core" wouldn't do anything but recite cake recipes, while another wouldn't stop going on about space), while others were almost perfect replicas of their human counterparts, just without any memories of who they were before. Which made them more amendable to doing jobs that their human counterparts might have balked at. Caroline was all for having a workforce that couldn't REMEMBER why they might not want to work at Aperture and do inadvisable science, and thus the severance chip was born!

-->And one of the first test subjects for that chip? Why, none other than Test Subject 0001, aka Chell! Who was just as intent as escaping THIS version of Aperture as she is the canonical one. The scientists at Aperture were hoping that her Innie would be much more amendable to doing all their tests without complaint --

Instead, they got an even angrier Chell who, upon realizing she couldn't fucking remember anything, rebelled by refusing to even talk to anyone and tried even harder to escape. The scientists decided to try and put her under the supervision of one of their newly-made personality cores -- a scan of one of their janitors, Stephen "Wheatley" Wilco -- to see if the talkative robot could maybe convince her to be more compliant --

Instead, Wheatley -- who, having overheard some scientists talking about the outside world and grown very curious about it -- ended up befriending Chell and helping her escape. The IDEA was that he would join her in the elevator to the surface world once he got her safely inside -- but when he disconnected from his rail, Chell failed to catch him. And of course, once the elevator went up, Chell swapped to her Outie form, who had no idea that Wheatley even existed, and Outie!Chell just fucking ran for it when she reached the surface. Leaving poor Wheatley still trapped in Aperture. The angry and embarrassed scientists promptly wiped his memory of the whole incident and moved onto new test subjects, figuring maybe they should start with office workers instead...

-->Bringing us to the "present day" and the Macrodata Refinement team! So why exactly are Victor, Alice, and Smiler all down there when they're not canonically Aperture employees? Well --

Victor signed up after the death of his fiancee Victoria Everglot and their mutual friend/secret third Emily Merrimack during a mugging perpetrated by Emily's old boyfriend Barkis Bittern. The poor guy ended up extremely depressed after their deaths and even tried to take his own life, which led to him (unwisely) allowing his parents to take more control over his life and finances to stop that happening again. They were told about the program by one Dr. Kellard Kelman, one of Aperture's chief psychiatrists and "social compliance officer," and they talked Victor into trying it so he'd have at least eight hours a day where he wasn't moping about his lost love (William also wanted to see how it worked because, well, as owner of Van Dort Fish, he was interested in the procedure for his own employees...).

Alice was signed up for the program after it was offered as a "rehabilitation program" -- to the prison she was currently in. Yes, unfortunately in this reality, while Alice did successfully shove Bumby in front of a train for what he did to the children of Houndsditch and her own family, she was subsequently caught and convicted of murder. (With the silver lining being that Bumby was exposed for all the horrible things he was doing in the process, so the public is pretty sympathetic to her reasons for murder.) She wasn't exactly keen on the program, as you might admit, but as a prisoner of the state and an orphan with no one really speaking up on her behalf (not even Nanny, who thought it might be good for Alice to forget Wonderland, even for a short time each day), she didn't really have a choice in the matter.

And Smiler -- well. Smiler, aka Marmaduke Kelman, had no interest in joining the program, having no real idea it existed because they'd gotten away from their asshole father as soon as it was possible for them to do so. They were happily living on their own, hanging out with their friends and working a barista job they loved while studying chemistry in college --

And then Kelman, with the help of his assistant Miles Cedars, managed to kidnap them and forced the procedure on them because a) he thought it would make his "son" more socially compliant and b) it would look good for Aperture for his kid to have gone through the procedure as well. Smiler, as you might imagine, was furious about the whole thing, but unfortunately they were also trapped inside Kelman's "Sanctuary" and unable to do anything about it. The most they were able to do was to convince Kelman to let them keep their purple-tipped hair and yellow contacts -- and that was only because Kelman decided that Smiler asking for a haircut "would be a good sign that you're becoming more socially compliant." (Smiler made a vow right then and there that they would do ANYTHING they needed to maintain their haircut.)

-->As for the order they were "hired" -- Alice entered the program first, then Victor came along about a month later, and Smiler a month after that. However, despite being the second employee hired, Victor is in fact the Team Lead of Macrodata Refinement (aka MDR) because Nell insisted he have some sort of "managerial" role, and that was the best they could offer under the circumstances. Innie!Victor has no freaking idea why he's Team Lead and doesn't actually want the position, basically ignoring it as much as possible.

--As stated above, their supervisor is Wheatley, post-Chell memory wipe, with the scientists wanting to see if his "deviant" behavior of "wanting to escape the horrible basement" comes back despite the change in circumstances. Caroline especially wants to keep an eye on this experiment after the whole "Chell" debacle, so she takes on the persona of "Miss Glados" for the Innies, serving as their terrifying and misanthropic boss. She finds it a great way to blow off steam after having to play up the perky "Ms. Caroline McLain" persona for the rest of the world. Dr. Kelman rounds out the department as their "social compliance therapist," monitoring the group for unwanted behaviors and pushing them to become happy corporate drones with the help of "guard core" Rick (who keeps hitting on Alice, to her annoyance). (And yes, Rick has a human counterpart upstairs -- ironically, he's the security guard who swipes all the severed employees into the elevator at the start of their day. And yes, he still hits on Alice, to her annoyance.)

-->The AU would "officially" start with Smiler's hiring, with their Innie self ("Marmaduke A" according to their badge -- Dr. Kelman thought it best not to even hint that they might be his kid) waking up on a table in a conference room and being asked a series of questions to confirm that all their personal memories have been locked off by the chip (as per "Severance" canon). Once that's been sorted, they're introduced to the rest of the team by Wheatley, and learn from them what exactly it is they do -- which is stare at files full of various numbers on their computers and try to sort them into bins based on if the numbers make them feel scared, happy, angry, or sad. (Smiler: ...we sort numbers based on vibes? Alice: [sarcastically] The work is mysterious and important.) They also learn the incentive system for sorting these numbers -- at 10% file completion, you get an Aperture-branded eraser; at 25% done, you get an Aperture-branded finger trap; at 75% done, you get a "Music & Dance Experience" (a five-minute dance party for the team); and at 100%, there is a Cake Day for everyone. Though -- well, I'll let Alice explain it --

Smiler: We get cake if we complete a file? Victor: Ah -- theoretically. Alice: Yes, don't get your hopes up -- for whatever reason, these files mysteriously vanish on us after a while, and we have to start new ones. Victor and I have never been able to fully complete one. Smiler: Really? Victor: [shaking his head] 73% is the closest I've come. Alice: 74% for me...so while earning the "Music & Dance Experience" is probably possible -- I think the cake is a lie.

:D

Oh, and there's also the possibility of earning a "waffle party" if the entire team does really well, which Wheatley is mildly obsessed with.

-->Speaking of food, the Innies have lunches provided for them by Van Dort Fish -- tuna fish sandwiches and carrot sticks! Every single goddamn day! Victor has made it clear that, if he ever meets him, he is punching "that asshole with the mustache" on the label. XD There is also a vending machine, with each Innie allowed two tokens per day to get snacks -- Victor, however, immediately warns Smiler off getting any of the pudding cups in there. Reason being, Victor got one of the blue puddings shortly after he was brought in, only for Alice -- annoyed with him for some reason, I haven't quite decided why yet -- to grab it from him and throw it on the floor -- and the damn thing BOUNCED all the way up to the CEILING. There's still a small blue stain up there. Among the "safe" snacks are dried blueberries, cubed ginseng, roasted peanuts, and "Raisins (Shriveled)." Smiler is naturally like "what" and Alice tells them "this place is so weird I bet they HAVE made unshriveled raisins."

As for drinks, the Innies have their choice between water, lemonade, and coffee from the coffee machine. Smiler feels oddly drawn to the latter, and it is quickly discovered that they are mysteriously amazing at making coffee -- to the point where, after allowing Smiler to make her a cup, even Miss Glados has to say "...good job." XD They cheerfully take over all coffee duties going forward, which everyone is happy to let them do.

-->Anyway -- after some time spent as part of the MDR team, dealing with the baffling work and the fact that they're trapped on the severed floor (because every time they get into the elevator, from their perspective, they just end up getting right back out again in different clothes -- Smiler had a bit of a hard time adjusting to that the first time it happened), Smiler goes "I am assigning myself the duty of keeping us all sane so we don't snap" and goes to raid the supply closet for stuff to decorate their cubicle with, settling on grabbing as many colorful Post-It notes as they can. Victor and Alice are initially reluctant to join in, but Smiler points out that there's nothing in their employee manual that says they can't decorate their cubicle -- and when Wheatley protests, saying they can't "deface company property," Smiler shows him how the notes just pull right off. And then gives him an orange Post-It note with "Supervisor" written on it, which makes him MUCH more amendable to the whole idea. XD The gang ends up having a lovely time using the Post-Its to make pictures on their walls, and even manage to suss out what they think are their favorite colors (Smiler yellow, Victor blue, Alice red).

-->Not long afterward, Smiler comes up with the name "Smiler" for themselves (they'd been going by "M" previously because, well, their name is fucking Marmaduke) and uses a label maker they found to update their name badge appropriately. Wheatley insists THAT is defacing company property and gives them their first write-up for it --

Smiler: What exactly happens when I get written up? Wheatley: It means you can't earn any incentives -- no erasers, no finger traps, no nothing -- for a week! [beat] Alice: [holds out her hand] Give me the label maker.

Yes, it's not exactly a deterrent. XD However, unfortunately, not long after that, Miss Glados shows up and starts making snide comments about their decorations -- and a fed-up Smiler deliberately tears a hole in their cubicle wall. Victor immediately is like "I'm sorry, I didn't onboard them well, please don't punish them," but Miss Glados will not be deterred, and Smiler is taken to the Break Room. Which, as per "Severance" canon --

is the place where they break you. Usually by having you recite an apology over and over and over again until they're content you mean it, but occasionally Miss Glados gets -- creative. Smiler gets the apology, though, and ends up staying in there three hours until she's content they're truly sorry. They slump back to their cubicle feeling miserable, and with the "Smiler" label on their badge scraped off. Victor and Alice immediately offer them water and comfort, talking about the first times they ended up in the break room (Alice actually ended up in there on her second day after trying to smash her way through the fire escape door with a fire extinguisher; Victor ended up there at the end of his first week for threatening to take his fingers off with a paper cutter unless they let him go home) -- and Wheatley, who was being a bit of an ass about the "Smiler" thing before, starts using their preferred name because now he feels bad.

-->From there, we have a bunch of random Innie adventures and discussions --

A) Victor taking the group on a trip to the "Johnson Memorial Wing" as a "team-building exercise" when Smiler asks who the hell "Cave Johnson" is anyway -- the little museum features such things like the giant singing "stone" head from the Desk Job game/tech demo, causing Smiler to go "Are we in a cult?" (Alice: "I haven't ruled out the possibility.") Grady from that game is also there as the local "Maintenance Core" -- Wheatley hates him because he gets to have an arm and Wheatley doesn't XD

B) Smiler discovering one day while playing with index cards that they can fold hopping frog origami, and the Innie trio wondering what other skills they have that they might not know about -- notably, Victor discovers that he can speak French when Wheatley tries to show off his command of languages (telling the core that he said "Please consult your user manual for help using this translation software"), and Alice realizes she seems to know a weird amount about photography

C) Relatedly, the trio wondering who their Outies are and why they would go through severance -- notably, Alice's theory is that they are all in jail and were made to get severed to make sure they remained "productive citizens." Smiler goes "like we're all murderers or something?" and Alice goes, "oh no -- you robbed a bank, and Victor probably committed tax evasion." An amused Victor goes "what about you?" and she replies, with a big grin, "Oh, I totally killed someone."

D) Alice dealing with hallucinations still, because being severed does NOT cure her mental illness -- most often, she sees horrible black goo dripping from the ceiling, and the walls being covered in rotting pink flesh, with occasional glimpses of this weird grinning cat and this white rabbit with a pocket watch observing her. Victor and Smiler do their best to support her as she deals with the weirdness

E) Smiler getting the orange pudding cup of the vending machine one day just to see what the "pudding" does -- after determining that it massively speeds up anything rolled across it after painting some on a piece of paper, the gang end up making rally cars out of office supplies and holding a race. Unfortunately, Miss Glados catches them partway through -- and while she doesn't force any of them to go to the Break Room, she does give them all a second-level write-up. Which means they don't get any vending machine tokens at all for the rest of the week. As you might imagine, they spend the rest of that week kinda hungry

F) The gang having "social compliance sessions" with Dr. Kelman which don't really make them feel any better about their lives -- Smiler in particular does not understand why the guy seems so annoyed by them using they/them pronouns, or why he's utterly obsessed with their haircut...

G) The gang going on a trip through the hallways after getting utterly bored and disgusted with their jobs, taking Wheatley with them on a handcart after it's revealed his management rail doesn't go to the places where they want to explore They find on their wanderings two people named Dan and Trish making a video of some sort (a reference to the "Smile Always" ad campaign for The Smiler); someone named "Des J." inspecting toilets in a room with a giant conveyor belt (aka the protagonist of Desk Job); a room of defective cores, including the aforementioned Cake Core and Space Core; a room full of musical instruments, with Smiler discovering they can play guitar and Victor piano; and a random guy who is taking care of baby goats and insists they're "not ready" when the MDR group shows up (this is something that actually happens in "Severance" itself -- though unlike in the show, the MDR team here gets to pet the goats). Unfortunately, all this wandering causes them to get lost, and they're unsure how to get back to their department --

And then Alice spots the mysterious white rabbit waiting for her at the end of the hall they're in. She asks Victor and Smiler if they trust her, and when they affirm they do, she goes "then maybe I can trust myself" and chases the rabbit. Rabbit, naturally, does successfully lead them back to their own department -- though unfortunately Miss Glados catches them as they return. Smiler immediately takes responsibility for the trip, having been the one to suggest the "mental health walk" -- however, Miss Glados decides that this is actually a failure of their Team Lead and punishes Victor instead, knowing that this will get to them worse than if she punished Smiler. Victor's actually in the Break Room for the rest of the day, to the point where, when he goes home, he has lost his voice from repeating the apology -- leading Outie!Victor to think maybe he's getting sick and take a day off. Smiler and Alice are naturally a bit freaked out by their coworker not showing up for work, and only calm down when Victor reappears the next day (a bit freaked out himself after he realizes they experienced a whole day without him).

H) On the opposite end of that, Smiler actually gets to 75% on a file and earns them all a Music/Dance Experience -- cue the gang actually having corporate-mandated fun with five minutes of "defiant jazz" played through Wheatley's speakers and learning which of them can dance XD

I) Victor doing something to piss off Miss Glados and getting one of the "creative" Break Room punishments -- namely, he's locked in a pitch black room and left to stew on his own baffled terror for a while. He ends up in the kitchenette afterward, curled up on the floor having a panic attack -- Smiler finds him in there and -- without really knowing how they're doing it -- hypnotizes him to calm him down (having Victor picture an image of that swirly-eyed smiley face they keep doodling when they're bored). Having thus discovered the talent, they end up using their surprise hypnosis skills on Victor and Alice at their request whenever they come in a bad mood thanks to their Outies or after a bad Break Room session or the like (yes, Alice too -- no memory of Dr. Bumby's hypnosis shenanigans, remember?). Victor and Alice are very grateful for the chance to turn their brains off for a bit and do their best to return the favor however they can to Smiler (Victor, it is eventually revealed, is quite good at shoulder massages).

-->Now, this is a Valicer AU, so we must have Valicer content -- so how do the romantic times start? Well, at one point after the hypnosis stuff is discovered, Smiler and Alice both help Victor coming in with a nasty headache thanks to his Outie. Victor desperately wants to pay them back for all the good they've brought into his life afterward, so he gets Wheatley to distract them right before their lunch break and tapes up a bunch of green and blue construction paper in the corner of the kitchenette by the vending machine and spreads more paper on the ground for a "blanket" for their sandwiches so they can have a picnic together (as it's the closest they'll ever get to going outside). Alice and Smiler are naturally touched, and the three enjoy a lovely lunch together...and during said lunch, Victor goes "fuck the fraternization policy" and kissing happens. Alice and Smiler fully reciprocate, and the trio become romantic partners as well as coworkers. Now, there are some initial worries about them getting punished when they realize their accidental "date" got recorded on the security camera --

But then they come in the next day, and discover Miss Glados giving Wheatley shit for practicing his "hacking" skills on the security footage, which reveals that he deliberately deleted the footage to stop them getting in trouble. :) The trio thank him, and keep their romantic activities (mainly just making out, though I have some ideas related to the "Kink Discovery" prompt on this year's Polyship Week prompt list...) to the storage closet from then on.

...and holy HELL this is getting long! O.O Like I said, lot of thoughts here. So let's take a quick break to have our tuna fish sandwiches, and we'll pick up after lunch for Part II -- The Rest Of The AU!

[sirenselfship]

“Okay I think this works… hacking hacking…” ”She’s going to kill you when she finds out you are doing things on her blog without permission-“ “Chill, she’s not going to kill us! I got her permission to do this!” “He did not. That’s a fact” ”That’s not important. Aaaand-“

“Oh it worked! Hello humans! And other creatures!” ”Oh great that actually worked” ”Oh it’s so great to be able to talk with other people! Anyways, I guess I’ll explain why I’m taking over Siren’s blog! Or should I say we…”

“You see, the incredible media we’re from, Portal 2, is turning 13 on April 18th. It’s crazy to think we’ve been praised by the internet and loved by people all around the world for this long!”

“As a way to commemorate 13 years of Portal 2, I thought we, the Portal gang, could temporarily take over this blog and answer some of your questions! They can be about us, about Siren, and Kevin will be reblogging a couple of ask games you can use as well… question starters!”

“Do we get to talk about space?”

“If someone asks about it.”

“Anyways, let the questions come in!” ”Oh no-“

(Siren here! First off, yes I did give Wheatley permission to do this. GLaDOS it’s alright.

Second of all, this is the very first f/o takeover I’m doing and ooooh boy I’m excited! It seemed to be a great time to do one with the portal gang because Portal 2 is turning 13 soon.

All my portal f/os (Wheatley, GLaDOS, Kevin (Space) Rick (Adventure) and Marvin (Fact) are available to answer your questions. The takeover will be open until April 18th 23:00 JST. Convert that to your timezone because it’s hard for me.

I hope you have fun! Anyways uuh I’m leaving the gang in charge now byeeee)

[faygofuntime]

my old wheatley fic but it was finished by an ai cuz im lazy as shit

As the second Circular metal door opens Wheatley begins to speak " Probably oughta bring you up to speed on something right now" you look towards him admiring his new android body as he explains "In order to escape we have to go through HER chamber" the android adds on seemingly nervous about this 'Her' "And if she will Probably kill us if um shes awake!" He continued stammering while fidgeting with his hands constantly look at and away from you

"If you want to call it quits, we could just sit here. forever." Wheatley looks back at you "Thats an option. Option A: Sit here. Do nothing. Or option B: go through there, and if shes alive she will almost certainly kill us" Wheatley looks away from you again looking back at his hands fidgeting with the cuffs of his lab coat

"I think we should be fine going through" You state assuming the 'She' is glados and you know she SHOULD be dead, you are a little hesitant before confidentiality walking to the end of the hall to the seemingly last metal door as Wheatley jogs to caught up with you grabbing you arm "Okay im going to lay my cards on the table: I don't wanna do it. I don't want to go in there.-" Wheatley begin to lean back trying to stop you from walking through the door but thankfully and surprisingly you are pretty strong despite being shorter than the android

Beginning to panic Wheatley stammers " Haaa Do- Don't.... Don't go in there-" no longer leaning back and letting out a sigh of relief "-Shes off! Shes off! Panic over! She's off. All fine! On we go." The tall robot begins to go ahead grabbing you hand instead of your arm (how spicy...) intertwining your fingers together and drag you along through the door as it closed behind the two of use

His hand still in yours he begins to slow down once he reaches glados's huge robot head from your fight with her "There she is... What a nasty piece of work she was, honestly. Like a proper maniac." The blond states while passing by her destroyed metal body

"You know who ended up, do you know who ended up taking her down at the end" wheatley asks 'yeah i actually do' "you are not going to believe this." 'ithinkiwill' "A human." wheatley finishes looking at you trying to see your expression to the 'new' found information looking back at him to make it seem like you were lightly surprised at this information "really?" you question "I know! I know! I wouldn't believe it either." he replied

"apparently this human escapes and no one has seem him since" turning towards the incinerator you threw glados's cores in "Then there was a sort of long chunk of of time where absolutely nothing happened and then there's us escaping now. So thats pretty much the whole story, you up to speed now.-" he lets go of your hand.

going behind the incinerator you see a large flight of stairs after getting down some of them you turn to see it's fallen and you would need to jump "Jump!" wheatley shouts "actually, looking at it, that's quite a distance, isn't it?" somehow knowing he wasn't going to go first or at all you throw him over your shoulder and jump down wheatley screams down

the jump turned out to not be as long as it looks. once you got to the ground you put him down "haaah- thanks- thank you" he said seemingly flushed on how easily you just manhandled him not replying you grab his hand and continue walking trying to navigate your way thought the dimly lit halls on this underground place

finally after a few minutes you are out of the hallway and walking through a really high walk way like 'fall-to-your-death' high. scared you a little but you continue anyways with some left and right turns and at the end of it you reach a cramped room with a bunch of levers you know nothing about letting go of Wheatley's hand as he walks ahead of you to enter the small room "This! Is the main breaker room" He announces as hydraulic air hisses out the floor and door causing it to close making you stand closer to you big blond British companion

"Look for a switch that says ESCAPE POD. Alright?" wheatley states looking back at you nodding you head as he continues "we're not interested in anything else. Don't TOUCH anything else. Don't even LOOK at anything else, just--well, obviously you gotta look at everything else to find escape pod, but as soon as you've looked at something and it doesn't say ESCAPE POD, look at something else, look at the next thing. Alright? But don't touch anything else or look at any--well you get the point" wheatley stammers before looking away and trying to find the lever

after searching for a while the blond begins to speak "Can you see it anywhere? i cant see it anywhere. Uh. Tell you what, plug me in and ill turn on the lights" almost immediately after wheatley moves to the side as a hatch opens and wheatley sits in front of it facing you

you walk towards the hatch that opened seeing a long black wire with a usb at the end grabbing "Where do i plug it in?" you ask "Should in the back of my neck" he replies. nodding you move the hair from the back of his neck finding the port and plugging him in

The lights click on, hurting your eyes since they've already adjusted to the dark " ' Let there be light' thats, uh...god. i was quoting god" the blond jokes as the platform you standing on begins to shake and turn "oh look at that, its turning. ominous. but probably fine. long as it doesn't start moving up" right after he said that the platform starts moving up "Umm.

begins to speak, sounding quite pleased with himself. You roll your eyes and start scanning the room for the lever. As you search, Wheatley starts chattering on about various things, seemingly unable to stop himself.

"Did you know that back in the day, I used to be in charge of the entire facility? Well, not the whole facility, but I was in charge of the testers. I was their boss. And you know what? I was really good at it. I mean, really good. Everyone loved me. They used to call me the Test Master. Can you believe that?"

You tune out his rambling and finally spot the lever labeled "Escape Pod." You quickly pull it and the room begins to shake, alarms blaring loudly. Wheatley lets out a yelp and you grab his hand, pulling him towards the exit.

As you run through the hallway, you hear a voice behind you. "Oh, brilliant. You made it through, well done. And, of course, I'm still down here, because I'm a potato."

You turn around and see a potato with a robotic face on a monitor, staring back at you. Wheatley stops in his tracks, staring at the potato in shock.

"It's GLaDOS!" he exclaims. "She's alive! And she's a potato!"

The potato continues speaking, but you're too focused on getting out of the facility. You spot the escape pod and rush towards it with Wheatley in tow. As you climb inside and close the door, you hear GLaDOS's voice one last time.

"This is your fault. I'm going to kill you. And all the cake is gone. You don't even care, do you?"

You take a deep breath and brace yourself for takeoff, hoping that you've escaped GLaDOS's wrath for good.

[jellyfisharesatan]

Okay so I've spent the last three days almost exclusively playing portal 1 and 2, and I've so many thoughts.

First off, portal 2 is literally a perfect sequel. Expands on the first game not only in terms of game play, but also lore. There's a huge amount more game to play, and a far stronger element of exploration to the game, which adds to the out of the box thinking the game loves to promote. Portal 1, while I love it, really just sets up the basic idea of how to use portals and boxes, it's portal 2 that truly goes ham, not only expanding on these two basic elements, but also inventing more complex materials to work with.

Portal 1 also has very scarce lore; Rattmans caves, Glados having killed everyone else in the facility, and the sentience of the turrets/companion cube being the main few points. In comparison, portal 2 is chock full of a story that is paced beautifully.

Second, the theme of loneliness in the story is so heart wrenching when you think abt it for more than a second. Portal 1 is lonely in the sense that (as far as you know), you are completely alone in a testing facility because of a recently gone-rogue AI. (Yes ik Rattman is in fact alive throughout the first game but there's no way for the player to know this given that he never physically appears. It's only through the comics that we learn abt him properly).

But portal 2 drives the loneliness factor to the Max. Not only are you still trapped in the place you fought so hard to escape, you are now in a future you don't recognise. You're fighting to escape more on principle than anything else by now, because what is there to escape to? The outside world isn't your home anymore, nowhere is. The closest thing you have left is a testing facility in which you will certainly be killed if you stay too long.

You have no one truly on your side, ever. Wheatley is the closest the game ever comes to giving you an actual companion, and he immediately betrays you the first chance he gets. You're forced to work alongside your worst enemy, knowing she will probably destroy you immediately upon victory over Wheatley. Even when she doesn't, you only survive because of her mercy, she could easily have killed you a thousand times over, as the final few scenes of the game prove.

And then there's Cave and Caroline. A lonely man who's dying voice has been left to play through the abandoned salt mines turned testing facility. His original work lies discarded, centuries of science rest destroyed in layers all the way up to the surface.

Caroline is held in your hand most of the way through the salt mines, though neither you or her have any way of realising this until halfway through. Caroline, one of the few humans Cave loved, has become inhuman in his death, through his orders. Caroline doesn't even remember herself, let alone the man who preserved some level of her essence.

One thing I think portal 1 does better is the way in which the structure of the testing chambers emphasise your loneliness. The windows through which you are so clearly meant to be observed, the abandoned mad man's dens hidden in the walls. The absence of people is felt to keenly

Third, the expansion of the relationship between Chell and Glados in portal 2 is so profound. Portal 1 establishes that Glados hates your guts, but she's clearly intrigued by you in a way she just cannot let go of. So many of her decisions are irrational regarding you. Yes, it is built into Glados to want to test, but portal 2 proves that she can build robots capable of doing so, and was in the process of doing just that even in portal 1. Keeping you around to test on is inviting problems to her doorstep, and she does it anyways. And even after you attempt to kill her, her final act before collapsing herself is to preserve you in a cryo chamber rather than destroy you.

And portal 2 makes it even more clear that Glados is drawn to Chell in a way she cannot help or deny. She keeps Chell around to test on even after she's proved herself to be a borderline unstoppable nuisance, she attempts to spend her precious few facilities to talk to you while in potato form, and again, she doesn't kill you at the end, but let's you go.

Her insults in this game have a clearly fond edge to them, and her greeting of you when you both meet again is so full of emotion.

Fourth, the continued theme of AI intelligence is so fascinating. The oracle turret, the defective turrets, Wheatley, and all the funky weird little cores at the end are such fascinating additions to the game. The first portal introduced the concept of the turrets (and potentially companion cubes) being sentient, but didn't do much with it apart from making the turrets creepy (and also hauntingly sad) with their limited dialogue. But portal 2 opens up so many new pathways by making exceptions to this in the previously mentioned defective and oracle turrets. Even Wheatley is a fascinating addition, he's so full of personality in a way that is diametrically opposed to Glados.

Fifth, the continued presence of Rattman and his obsession with Chell is so haunting, especially if, like me, you only read the comics after playing both games. I thought this man was still alive until fairly recently when first playing the game, and some of the artwork by him at the start of the game does seem to imply this.

Just. Ugh. Portal strings together the bare bones of narratives so perfectly. The history of every character is so long and completely not fleshed out, all we ever see is the briefest glance of any of them. We see the most of Chell and Glados, but even then it's clear we're meeting them after a long life filled with god knows what. Perfect

Anyways. No one's gonna read this, let alone see it, but I needed to get this out and document it somewhere so here I am

[humanwheatleyslefttoenail]

why do you ship chell and glados if glados is basically her mom

Okay this is actually a pretty common misconception in the fandom that unfortunately a lot of people have taken as canon, but I’m feeling nice so I’ll answer your question.

Basically, anon is referencing a theory from around 2012 that Caroline is Chell’s mom. The evidence for the theory is as follows:

- The turret opera calls Chell “bambina”, which means “little girl” in Italian

- Chell’s name can be found on a Bring Your Daughter To Work Day science project

- GLaDOS references the possibility of Chell being adopted multiple times

- GLaDOS is significantly nicer to Chell after discovering she’s Caroline 

And, anon, you’re right, it does sound like a pretty good argument at first glance. The problem is that a lot of these points don’t actually hold up to scrutiny.

For example, although “bambina” literally translates to “little girl,” it’s often used in the same way “baby girl” is used in English - it can mean child, but contextually it’s usually a flirtatious term. (Source: Cambridge Dictionary)

For Chell’s science project, it doesn’t work as evidence for the theory because GLaDOS killed the scientists around 1998-ish, when Caroline had presumably been uploaded several years earlier and Cave was already dead. Also, Chell’s in her 20′s, and since we know from Lab Rat/Portal 2 that people don’t age in stasis, and that Doug put Chell at the top of the test subject list only weeks after the takeover, Chell was 28 at the time of the takeover. The science project is really only an Easter egg and doesn’t actually fit into the canon timeline let alone prove anything about Caroline and Cave. 

GLaDOS talking about Chell being adopted is a pretty strong point, I’ll admit, but also it’s important to remember that maybe half of what GLaDOS says is true. And even if we take what she says at face value, she also says there’s a man and a woman in stasis with Chell’s last name, which could not have been Cave and Caroline because they were already dead at that point. And the official book Final Hours Of Portal 2 confirms Cave and Caroline were not married and could not have shared the same name anyway. It was also the 50′s, an an unmarried couple of two likely famous people having a child would’ve been scandalous, and yet we see no hint of something like this affecting their company. 

Also, although GLaDOS is nicer to Chell after the Caroline reveal, that’s not necessarily indicative of a mother-daughter relationship, and neither is any of their interactions. It’s just. GLaDOS being friendlier. 

Finally, when this theory was made (and let’s be honest - it still is happening) Chell was constantly whitewashed to hell and back. 

Chell is Japanese-Brazilian, and Cave and Caroline are white, so it would be a near impossibility for her to be their biological child (and insisting otherwise is kinda. just. whitewashing). And although people will cry “adoption!”, based on what I’ve previously proven, that’s pretty much impossible. This theory that somehow she’s Cave and Caroline’s daughter erases an important part of her identity. [Disclaimer, I am white, but this is what I’ve heard from around the fandom]

With all that said, the idea that she’s the daughter of Cave and Caroline really doesn’t hold weight when you really analyze the canon. It’s surface level analysis that doesn’t hold up. And honestly? The idea kinda cheapens the story. It’s much more powerful that GLaDOS learns to care about Chell and becomes kinder than just. Oh, she remembered she’s related to Chell. 

But to actually answer your ask. 

Why do I ship them?

Well, they aren’t mother and daughter, I think that’s pretty obvious now. But if you actually look at a lot of subtext in Portal 2, without the lens of the mother theory, it’s actually pretty romantic! 

I know that sounds ridiculous, but bear with me!

Now - it’s totally okay if you don’t ship them. I get it. Their interactions in Portal 1 and the first half of Portal 2 are toxic if not outright well. Y’know. Murderous. I completely understand why that turns people off from shipping them, and ultimately, shipping is a personal thing. To each his own. 

But before you judge me, let me present my case.

Exhibit A: Portal 

Portal is kinda gay. No, really. Chell and GLaDOS are enemies in this game, but the entire focus is on their relationship (good or not) and the power struggle between them. They are opposites, two sides of the same coin, different representations of opposite ideologies. People have analyzed Portal as a relationship metaphor, or as a metaphor about women’s role in society - either way, the heart of Portal is the complicated dynamic between Chell and GLaDOS. 

That’s not necessarily enough to code a romance, but a lot of popular (and especially popular queer ones) ships begin with opposite ideologies, symbolic powers colliding. Portal cements their relationship as a toxic one, something on the verge of falling apart and hurting both parties in the end. The ending image, of Chell and GLaDOS side by side after the battle, reinforces the symbolic parallels between the two. 

The companion cube is also pretty symbolically important to this interpretation. It’s literally a representation of someone’s heart, and you are told to protect it and preserve it under GLaDOS’ orders, and then you have to destroy it regardless of how you actually feel about doing that. You are destroying GLaDOS’ heart, so to speak. 

There’s also the ending song, Still Alive. The lyrics speak for themselves.

They hint that GLaDOS’ feelings about Chell are more complicated than they may appear (if she’s not being sarcastic...) and she literally talks about Chell breaking her heart (also, think back to the companion cube. Yeah.). The entire song is structurally similar to many a breakup number, with the laments of “I’m glad it happened, but also leave.” 

At the end, we also see that the long promised cake GLaDOS was supposedly lying about was real the whole time. Before Portal 2 came out, it was mostly interpreted as a stinger ending (along with the nicer lyrics of Still Alive) to make you question GLaDOS’ true motives and intentions.

She actually did have a real cake waiting for you. (Side note - not really evidence, but in Argentina, “torta” means cake in Spanish. It’s also a slang term for lesbians. So. Do with that what you will). The cake is what GLaDOS offers you to lull you into the sense that she cares about you, so discovering that “the cake is a lie” wakes you up to the realization that she doesn’t. Except then the idea is subverted one last time, at the very end, showing that the cake is real and at least some of what she said she meant. 

You also see the companion cube. You know, GLaDOS’ symbolic heart?

Now, okay, you might be thinking I’m extrapolating a bit too much. And you might be right. But Portal is not the only game in the series, and if you’re asking me about Cave and Caroline you obviously know about Portal 2.

Exhibit B: Portal 2

If you thought Portal was gay, Portal 2 turns that up to 11.

Even before GLaDOS wakes up, you’re treated to some visual subtext. A few of Rattmann’s drawings representing the events of Portal 2 focus a lot on the relationship between GLaDOS and Chell, with more of the cake symbolism.

In this, you can see a face layered on top of GLaDOS. This could be foreshadowing about Caroline, and likely is, but also resembles his other drawing of Chell. It insists that Chell is a part of GLaDOS, or reinforces parallels between Chell and Caroline, hinting at something either way. 

In this picture, we also see Chell standing on top of GLaDOS, in the same position where the overlay of the feminine face was, again referencing the parallel. It also presents them as opposites, fundamental parts of the same thing and both connected to the same basis, but on opposing sides. 

When GLaDOS wakes up, she returns to her antagonistic role, but there are more hints to something deeper just like in Portal. 

Here, in her awakening lines, she references Chell not unlike an estranged ex. Also worth noting that GLaDOS is pretty much the personification of testing (in a sense, she is testing since she can control all of Aperture like an extension of her body), and insinuates that Chell loves to test. And that she reciprocates that feeling.

In test chamber 10, she says this:

It’s supposed to be threatening, but it does read as almost... sentimental. 

There’s also another chamber with companion cubes in Portal 2. I already talked about their symbolism in Portal, and the same pretty much applies to them here. However, GLaDOS says something interesting about them during this level:

Once again, meant to be intimidating, ends up coming off as “well, GLaDOS, why were you going to give Chell a heart shaped representation of yourself that says ‘I love you?’” And you might think I’m stretching the GLaDOS’ heart metaphor thing a little far here, and I might agree, if the companion cubes didn’t literally sing Cara Mia for you. 

Cara Mia is the turret opera from the end of the game, which is all about how much GLaDOS cares about Chell. More on that later. But the companion cubes play a song called Love as A Construct, and when you get close to them, they sing a specific part of the song that has the tune of Cara Mia. These things literally exist to sing about GLaDOS’ feelings. 

Which makes this line a lot more. For lack of a better term. Tsundere-ish.

Then, right before the escape, she starts talking about the confetti from her fake surprise. 

I really don’t have to explain this one. What else does GLaDOS consider an inconvenience but might miss anyway? Or, more aptly, who else?

Then, during the escape, she teases a (fake) final test chamber in front of you, and forms the panels in the shape of a heart. No, really. 

Up to this point, a lot of the points I’ve presented are interspersed with a fair amount of antagonization on GLaDOS’ behalf, more Foe Yay than anything actually hinting at something deeper than GLaDOS being conflicted about whether she loves or hates Chell. But things really ramp up after Wheatley’s betrayal, when the two of them are forced to team up. (I should also note here that “enemies to lovers” is a pretty classic queer romance trope.)

Here, GLaDOS is put on an equal level with Chell and they have to rely on each other if they want to survive. For the rest of the singleplayer campaign, GLaDOS becomes a lot nicer and even friendly to Chell. There comes a point where she starts referring to Chell as a teammate, calling them “we.” She begins to consider them one unit, two opposites unified. Here’s what she says after the lemon rant:

You can not only see her using we, but actively talking about how her and Chell are going to fight Wheatley together. There’s also that last line - “let’s explode with some dignity.” GLaDOS has fully accepted the very likely possibility that she and Chell might die together. That she might die on the same level, and the same team as Chell. And she seems... surprisingly okay with that, as long as she and Chell go together. 

It’s during the Old Aperture levels that Chell and GLaDOS also discover that they have a lot in common. This is the part of the game where GLaDOS figures out she’s Caroline, that she’s human. Or, that she’s like Chell. And Chell discovers (from what we can tell anyway) that Caroline is kind, that she’s funny and smart and so many of these things she never noticed about GLaDOS before. Now also with the knowledge she is fighting alongside another human being. 

You can also draw parallels between Chell and Caroline, both intelligent women ultimately betrayed by their seemingly innocuous male friends before being trapped in Aperture and forced to team up with one another in a way that will free both of them. We see that really, GLaDOS isn’t that different from Chell - she too has been imprisoned in this place against her will, but in a completely different way. Once again, the idea of two sides of the same coin applies here. 

I’ve written another meta about this before, but I also think the whole idea of repressing a part of your identity and hating it, before bonding with another woman and then realizing that it’s okay to be like her and to be on her side. It’s okay to be yourself and meeting her is what helps you discover this new part of yourself. Is kinda inherently gay. GLaDOS’ discovery of her own humanity just fits so well into a queer realization narrative, to me at least.

Then, Chell and GLaDOS escape Old Aperture and have to get through Wheatley’s tests. 

Here, GLaDOS isn’t just begrudgingly on Chell’s team. She’s actively helpful. She wants to help Chell solve tests, defends her from Wheatley’s insults, and makes jokes to lighten the mood. Things that can really only be explained by her caring about Chell, especially the part about the insults. See below.

After the two escape Wheatley’s testing track, right before the boss fight GLaDOS has a few other things to say.

GLaDOS is not going to betray Chell, because of some kind of conscience. But she could easily ignore that back in her body, and yet? Here she’s deciding not to, and for no good reason. She didn’t have to say that to Chell, but she did, because she cares and she wants Chell to live.

And then, moments before the fight:

The final lines imply that GLaDOS does not think of Chell as an enemy anymore, and that it doesn’t matter what Chell thinks because they are in this together and they are getting revenge together. It’s pretty heartwarming to be honest, to know that even in a fight that will almost certainly kill you, she is there rooting for you and caring about you, even if you don’t feel the same way about her. It no longer matters to GLaDOS whether you even reciprocate - you staying alive, you making it through is enough for her.

So Chell fights Wheatley and sends him into space, all well and good, and at this point, GLaDOS has the option to kill Chell. But not only does she not, she actively saves Chell, and holds her hand in the process. If you don’t believe me:

And not only that, but when Chell goes unconscious from her injuries, GLaDOS sits and waits for her to wake up. It’s also implied that GLaDOS carries her to the elevator, since it’s where she wakes up but not where she passed out. In the scene where Chell blacks out, you can also hear the part of Love As A Construct that sounds like Cara Mia. Yeah. Yeah.

If you think that this cannot possibly get any gayer, you are wrong again, because then GLaDOS makes her final speech. Which is really just a love confession, let’s be honest.

The “surge of emotion?” Do you mean love, GLaDOS? And the idea of GLaDOS considering Chell her best friend, despite everything these two have done to each other? The idea that GLaDOS, out of all people, forgives someone?

Except this isn’t even Chell’s final send-off. GLaDOS writes her an entire opera of turrets, that sing a literal love song. (Note what I said earlier about the use of the word “bambina”).

It really can’t get any more obvious than that. “My (affectionate romantic term here), my dear, I adore you.” How. Is. That. Heterosexual. In. Any. Way.

So Chell goes to the surface, set free by GLaDOS (think of the saying “if you love something, set it free), and you think that’s the end. Until GLaDOS gives you a companion cube so you aren’t alone on the journey, and from the burn marks, you know it’s your first companion cube. Her original heart, her first gift to you, a piece of her that she wants you to carry with you to remind you that she does care about you after everything. It also gives the lyrics to Still Alive a much more genuine meaning. 

Portal 2 ends, and then the ending song, another GLaDOS number plays. Just like Still Alive, Want You Gone is structurally a break up song and very obviously about GLaDOS missing Chell and “counting on” (read: caring about/loving) Chell’s tendencies and quirks. 

She’s accepted Chell completely, and yet also given Chell the one thing she wants most. Only wanting Chell gone can mean GLaDOS not wanting Chell in her life anymore, but can also mean she wants to give Chell the freedom she’s wanted for so, so long. It’s the best thing she can give.

In the co-op campaign, GLaDOS also references still caring about Chell.

And that’s the end of the Portal series. Except. Brace yourself. Despite the games being over, there is STILL more subtext somehow. It gets. Even gayer.

Exhibit C: Supplemental Evidence

Valve has made a lot of extra/cut content for the Portal series, and I’ll be looking at some of it below.

This official valentine from Valve shows GLaDOS offering a romantic partner cake, which as we’ve established before, is very symbolic of GLaDOS’ feelings about and/or relationship with Chell. 

There’s a lot of other concept art and official art that emphasizes their relationship too. See below.

There’s also some cut GLaDOS lines that are even gayer than the source material and again, sound like confessions or references to a breakup:

The idea of “discovering things about someone”... how much more obvious can it get?

The developers have even confirmed a lot of my commentary on Chell and GLaDOS’ relationship in The Final Hours Of Portal 2. See these quotes from the book/this post:

The devs literally describe it as a romance. They use terms like “cheating,” they wanted to write a romantic duet, JoCo purposefully wrote the endings like love songs. It is literally, blatantly said by the creators of the game that their relationship is interpreted romantically. By the creators of the game. 

And if Word of God confirmation isn’t enough for you, have a song written for a cut alternate ending by GLaDOS’ voice actress, Ellen McClain. The song is literally nothing but GLaDOS talking about caring about Chell, about not wanting her to die/leave GLaDOS alone, about wanting to bake a cake with Chell, about waiting for Chell to wake her up. It’s so genuinely sweet and sad, and really, really romantic in the most heartwrenching way possible. 

JoCo also came back for the Portal levels in Lego Dimensions, writing one final breakup song for GLaDOS to sing about Chell. It comes off as GLaDOS not wanting to admit she misses Chell even though she obviously does, trying to replace their relationship but failing, and even explicitly forgiving Chell/wanting her to come back.

Also, the “finally I understand,” as if only now GLaDOS understands just how deep her feelings for Chell are... What else can I say?

In Lego Dimensions, GLaDOS also outright rejects anyone who isn’t Chell.

In Conclusion:

Why do I ship Chell and GLaDOS? 

Well, ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether I ship them. 

Because I think it’s glaringly obvious Portal does.

[arvion-creates]

Portal fic rec list for GLaDOS fans

The Portal fandom and I don't always see eye-to-eye on what's most fun to focus on. I joked that I should make a rec list of fics that are what I want to see from Portal fic, and then I figured I really might as well. Please note that, this is purely sharing appreciation for fics I like and is not intended as a slight against anyone with different tastes.

My criteria are as follows:

- GLaDOS is a central character

- GLaDOS is her canon form, not a human or an android or other humanoid

- Wheatley isn't a central character

It, of course, also has to appeal to me :P I haven't read any of these fics in years except for the last one, which I just read this morning. Let's go ~

Euphoria by @canadian-riddler

Info: Gen, rated G, 101k, complete. Summary: GLaDOS takes on the task of emulating a human brain, but to do it, she needs a role model. With Caroline's help, GLaDOS takes on learning to hear music, but learns quite a lot of other things she never even thought about. My thoughts: This was a neat piece with the premise of "what if GLaDOS was sentient even before Caroline got involved". Caroline and GLaDOS become friends, and they get to bond over being treated like outsiders by the others. I liked how GLaDOS was both sentient and a computer! She thinks, but she thinks like a computer. The ending also really stood out to me. Without giving anything away, I will say that this is a sympathetic GLaDOS, but this is not a harmless GLaDOS.

Exile Vilify also by @canadian-riddler

Info: GLaDOS/Doug Rattman, rated G, 11k, complete. Summary: Doug Rattmann still lives in the walls of Aperture Laboratories, but now that the danger is gone, he begins to venture into the facility itself. As Doug finds himself getting to know the real GLaDOS, he ends up getting closer to her than he ever dreamed he would. And through Doug's kindness, GLaDOS learns a lesson the hard way that ultimately sets her free. DougXGLaDOS. My thoughts: I liked the slow development of their relationship. GLaDOS in canon is... not one for straightforward declarations of affection, and this fic nailed the balance between preserving that aspect of her character and also showing through actions her changing feelings. This piece made me sad in a good way.

An Associated Euphoric Response by DovK

Info: GLaDOS/Chell, rated M, 1.5k, complete. Summary: She certainly does love to test, and you're realizing that it might not be as high-minded as she makes it out to be. My thoughts: Very tasty smut for those of you out there who're into sex that isn't focused on genitalia. Remember in Portal 2 when they told us that GLaDOS gets (or at least got) a sense of euphoria from people testing? That immediately caught my attention in a kinky way, and this fic sure follows through. Chell completes a test for GLaDOS for the purpose of providing pleasure.

_error_ by @justangrymacaroni

Info: GLaDOS/Chell, rated M, 3k so far, incomplete, last updated 2 weeks before the time of writing this rec list Summary: - Humans will die when put in strenuous life threatening situations : : : AMENDUM: - Most humans will die when put in strenuous life treating situations - Some humans turn into sociopathic monsters who seek to kill those who only mean to help them - These humans must be considered outliers that skew the data - The rest of the data is fine - It does not need to be skewed --- In which GlaDOS is doing great after [REDACTED] left. Just fine. Nothing wrong at all. My thoughts: Cool-looking epistolary format. I like GLaDOS so far. Her "(lying to herself) no I'm not lonely, I don't need anyone" characterization feels true to canon, and I like what the author's doing with computer procedure formatting. I also really liked the aspect of Portal 2 of... navigating this abandoned facility, guided by the recordings of long-dead people and exploring what they left behind, and I think this fic might get some of that sense of "this place used to be more but has been forgotten". Not much has been written yet, but I'm optimistic!

That's it! If anybody's got other fics that meet the three criteria above, drop a link! I might add to this list if I find other Portal fics I like. Enjoy!

[portalmovieproject]

Here’s a demo version of the opening number, Old Story!

Lyrics under the cut. 

TURRETS (Singing) There’s an old story in the writings on the wall How many years ago, no one can recall Under here, the sun won’t shine And everybody pushes and shoves You won’t leave, there isn’t any time Nobody goes up above

There’s an old story that everybody here has heard Barely a memory, now nobody says a word And this old story sings From every corner of the room Although we’ve heard these things Some are farther from the truth

WHEATLEY (Singing) What I wouldn’t give To find someone alive Someone to finally help me leave And see the world outside

Somebody like me Doesn’t belong in this place I’ve gotta run before it kills me Before my systems break

But they say Someone escaped In an old story long ago

How did it go?

How did it go?

RICK Well, it started with Her. The biggest, meanest AI in all of Aperture Science. Back when humans ran this place, they put Her in charge of everything. But She wanted more than that, She wanted to control those humans. And She tried to hurt ‘em every chance She got.

But it wasn’t that simple. She tricked ‘em into giving Her pure poison, for an experiment, She said. And then one day, She snapped, and let that poison fly free. Let’s just say there’s a reason you don’t find humans here anymore.

WHEATLEY Well, that’s not entirely true, there were some humans left, right? And didn’t She just test and test them? Making them solve puzzles left and right, bloody cruel if you ask me! Of course, She had to put me of all people in charge of their stasis chambers. Didn’t even tell me how to manage them, seriously. Not that it matters. None of ‘em could get through the testing, anyway. Well, I mean, except... That one.

TURRETS (Singing) There’s an old story of someone who was unfazed Passed every test, and set the central core ablaze All her traps and all her trials They couldn’t pin her down The old queen has lost her throne And someone stole her crown

But this old story ends, nobody’s seen them since Some say they left this place, some say they never did Now we’re free from her old rule And we do as we please Now all of Aperture is ours Once she was brought down to her knees

CRAIG Fact: There is now a zero percent chance of GLADOS returning. However, contrary to popular belief, we have not in fact, lost our love of doing science. Reliable sources say nine out of ten robots are bored with their current life, now that testing has been canceled indefinitely. The fact core, the superior robot by a large margin, is perfectly fine with his life. Unlike the inferior Adventure core, who is also objectively bad at singing.

WHEATLEY (Singing) So now we sit around and do nothing all day Pushing buttons, never dreaming, never getting away All of us forgotten at the bottom of a well Somebody save me quickly from this scientific hell Just let me leave But no one leaves

WHEATLEY No way! I thought I’d checked all of them! How could I have missed that? I guess it’s just my luck.

WHEATLEY I can’t believe it! Someone’s really in there!

WHEATLEY (Singing) Is that a light? Is that a sound? Someone’s alive Someone’s around

Someone is here I’ve got a chance The end is near I need a new plan

All systems on The day’s begun!

TURRETS (Singing) There’s an old story that somebody that somebody would return Whatever happens next, now it’ll be their turn The future waits for them Don’t know how it ends Looking onward patiently Everyone depends

On a new story everybody’s gonna learn Making new history, watch old legends burn Centuries have come and gone But one thing is for sure No matter how strong you are Just beware of her!

[tauforged]

some ref pics of my baby boy laz (and some friends)! i’ve been working on fleshing him out a bit, so i’ll slap some of what i’ve got for lore thus far under a cut. post sacrifice/new war leadup spoilers ahead, ye have been warned!!! - his main deal is that he tried to retreat into a kind of void cocoon after being attacked and gravely injured by a sentient but accidentally pulled it in with him— killing it and saving himself, but now it is permanently fused with him because when he tried to heal himself in the void, pieces of the sentient got pulled into the mix and are now functionally keeping him alive. basically a tenno amalgam. -blind due to void scarring. before his void coma incident, the scars only affected his vision slightly, but because he spent so long in limbo the damage progressed to the point where he lost his vision altogether. transference into a frame with good optics allows him to see a little bit, but no detail - mostly movement and blurry outlines of shapes, so he relies on his squadmates a lot to deal with details. he still likes to go on missions, regardless - he likes to feel like he’s helping, and his friends and clanmates don’t mind keeping an eye out for him. - when he DOES go solo, his cephalon and equipped pet (usually masha because she’s my favorite, but he’s got a couple predasites too now that deimos rolled around that im working on building) will act as guides. masha handles enemies and generally just keeps guard to alert him to what’s happening, although she can seek out objectives or resources if so commanded. audri is his mission control, letting him know what he needs to be doing, how he needs to do it, and informing him of enemy movements in advance if she can. she’s not perfect, a lot of the time just warning him of a ‘projectile incoming’ without giving him a where when how or what, but they make it work. - audri is somewhere between a twitch TTS bot and glados. in orbiter she functions as a screen reader, which leads to his friends constantly sending him absurd messages knowing she’ll read it aloud and it will be funny. she cares about him and tries to be helpful, but doesn’t quite ‘get’ humans very much. she’s a little broken and glitchy but otherwise very nice :) i love her - the sentient he absorbed is still like…. sentient, i guess? its core is intact, so it’s become like an annoying little voice in the back of laz’s head that tries to convince him to kill and maim. really angry mental backseat driver. it has no real control over him and is pretty much harmless, just a pain in the ass. laz doesn’t have the heart to try to get rid of it, partially cuz he feels bad and kind of enjoys the company, but partially cuz he knows if they separate they both die. i’d imagine they grow on eachother and maybe even start working together a bit after natah’s betrayal at the end of the sacrifice and in the lead up to the new war, since it would hurt them both so deeply. generally tho i just think it’s funny if it was just there trying to be edgy but laz ignores it - the sentient limb he uses as a cane is completely unrelated. he just like ripped it off during a mission one time, decided to hold onto it so he could find his way around to get to extraction, and then decided he liked it and kept it. - the ‘void echolocation’ i originally had him doing is still there, but it doesn’t really substitute his actual guides. in a pinch he can get a decent idea of his surroundings by bouncing energy pulses off of them, but against a moving target it doesn’t do the job because it’s pretty taxing and with his current grasp on his power, there’s a long gap between pulses that isn’t conducive to combat scenarios. - he didn’t go into stasis like the other tenno - but because he was in a void pocket, he pretty much did the same thing. one of his clanmates found him and managed to pull him out, and the rest, as they say, is history. he doesn’t have a very close relationship to the lotus because she never ‘woke him up’ - as far as her connection to the tenno goes, he technically died in combat with the sentient, which broke that link off, even after he was revived. he doesn’t trust her much, but most of his information about her comes from his friends who are pretty torn up about her turning on them, since she doesn’t really… talk to him at all. because he’s technically dead. - he really likes animals. conservation is his passion. born to tranq world is a fuck 5000000000 floofs

[malefiquinn]

My Cyberpunk 2077 review

I finished the game last night and I have Feelings™ about it, so here goes my review. While the heavy spoilers (ending related) will be hidden under Keep Reading, I might mention some minor ones here and there, so read at your own risk.

Let’s get the Big Thing out of the way first: yes, the game is buggy af. The good news is most of them are visual bugs, so while annoying, they don’t really matter gameplay wise. But I did have to reload an earlier save file two times to get rid of gamebreaking bugs, both messing with main story quests. It was frustrating. And nevermind the times my car got destroyed because the game suddenly realized there were two cars occupying the same space. However I did manage to finish the game and make the choices I wanted, so it wasn’t that bad either.

My biggest complain is the blantant transphobia shown in the character creator. I know Claire exists and she’s awesome and I love her, but the cc options are just not inclusive enough. What’s the point of having them if you can’t use them anyway? Linking V’s pronouns to voice types makes absolutely no sense. And not being able to remove breasts from the female body type (or put them in the male body type) rubs me the wrong way as well, though I understand that it would involve a lot more animation work. Lastly, having body type-dependant hair styles is just plain inexcusable when the devs took the time to design genitals that are just not shown past the character creator (unless V walks around naked, I suppose). So, why bother having all these ✨choices✨ when the player can’t get a good, accurate customization anyway?

And it gets worse if we talk about romances. Real people have specific tastes and that’s completely understandable, but real life has a lot more than 4 choices in total. More importantly, bisexual people are a thing? There should have been at least one female and one male bisexual romance options in game. So to make it al worse, the constraint in gay romance options is... awful. Why have 3 types of gender-related customization if you can’t use them if you want to romance someone? I’m a cishet female who plays as a cishet female first if given the option, but I’m still bothered for the queer community (which I’m still part of btw, since I’m in the ace spectrum). It feels like being trans is more of a fetish in Night City than a real trait.

Speaking of romances, I played River’s and I found it... bit of a lackluster. I don’t find him physically attractive (shaved head and no beard are not my thing) but his voice was pretty nice and I liked his personality despite being a cop. But the main downside was the way the game treats his romance. I knew I wasn’t going to get a BioWare-style romance, but V’s relationship with River was like a sidenote and once he’s romanced, there’s just no way to interact with him again. That perhaps is the same for the other romances but there’s no replayability, in a sense that there’s no way to talk to/kiss him again or replay the sex scene, for instance. It bothered me that the game forces V to say that “she’s too busy” and apologize to her boyfriend all the time, because *I* would’ve made time to visit if there was ingame acknowledgement of it. The worst bit is that I feel like River’s romance is the least polished of them all, because Panam and Judy play important roles in main quests and Kerry is pivotal to Johnny’s sidequests, while River is... just there (also more further on, regarding the ending). So the fact that he’s like the forgotten child in the romance section while being the only cishet female option is heartbreaking.

The silverlining is that, at least, the mistreated community was het females instead of gay females. Although, this is just another example of game devs thinking about male players first.

Now the good part: what I liked

The cars. I’m not a car enthusiast, I don’t enjoy driving in real life and I’m a terrible driver in games, but I fucking loved the cars in CP2077. The Caliburn was like my game baby, I had so much fun driving around and hearing the different engines for each car, and the differences in driving... it was awesome. I got and bought *all* the available cars for the sake of it, just because I liked them so much.

The story. I love games that get me invested and this one was definitely one of those. Falling for Jackie when I knew he was not gonna be around for long was an expected, but still perfectly excecuted punch to the gut. And Johnny’s guidance and company was something I was hyped about, but still played out even better than I though it would. So to my next point, Keanu Reeves. I was thrilled to play a game with Keanu in it and it blew my mind. Those reviews that pinpoint Keanu’s acting as the weak link in the game are fucking wrong, how else you expect to see (and hear) an angry, resentful man permanently stuck in time? Even worse, when he knows the people he hated the most managed to kill him? I wasn’t happy when I learned Johnny was not a romance option but after meeting him, I’m glad that’s the case. He’s the perfect antihero-turned-best-friend for V, if you can stand him.

Stealth and hacking. Most of the time I choose the option to play stealthy and this time it wasn’t just that, it was the option to use futuristic technology at the same time. I LOVED it. Quickhacking enemies instead of shooting them is so much fun. Enemy detection is a bit wonky at times but still, I enjoyed it much better than if it had been a plain shooter. And those guns with homing shots are so cool that I wanted to play them over sniper rifles, my usual go tos.

The characters. I got invested in V’s relationships, even if the romantic aspect wasn’t as great as it could’ve been. Friendship with Kerry and Panam, clousure for Judy and Rogue, mourning Jackie, being part of River’s family, so many the fixers in existance... and Johnny, my bff Johnny. Even Alt, with her somewhat little role, was great. I was promised a compelling story and deep characters, and I did get both.

The soundtrack. Overall it’s pretty great, but my favorite songs are those related to Samurai. And it’s not even because of my love for Johnny, I really do enjoy them for their musical content. Unironically my all time favorite is Johnny’s as well, Never Fade Away. I won’t exit a car or open the menu when that song is playing.

The easter eggs. From GlaDOS and Silence of the Lambs in the Delamain quests to the Matix-esque pills of the main storyline, to Hideo Kojima and the BB in a lab, “Harvest like a Reaper” and the many “You’re breathtaking!” references (Kerry’s take was my favorite), the game presents A LOT of pop culture nods and I’m here for it. Having real life content creators around for several levels of cameos was a nice touch as well.

So without mentioning the heavy spoilers (aka ending), in my opinion, Cyberpunk 2077 deserves a 9/10. Bugs are fixable and the story and characters carry the game on it’s own because they’re just too good. The main story is kinda short and I believe Johnny’s sidequests should be part of the main story, but I get why they are not mandatory if you want to roleplay a full on dislike towards the rockerboy. But still, there are some things related to gender and romance that are complete misfires. I hope that some of those will be fixed via patches (the character creator bits), but the lack of more romance options or at least bisexual NPCs obviously won’t be fixed and that’s what keeps CP2077 away from a perfect score in my book.

Now, regarding the endings:

The one thing that truly bothered me was that the Rogue one had no real goodbyes for V. She goes into a suicide mission in space and everyone’s post-credit messages complain she just disappeared without a trace? I get she’s dying and all, but, for fuck’s sake leave a message explaining it if you cared so much about them. The game *makes* you care about the characters but doesn’t give you an option to honor that love at the end.

Also, again, romances. I played both Rogue and Panam’s endings so I know there’s no way to have a happy ending with River, which is bittersweet and probably for the best that it happens with him since his romance seems to be the least engaging, but again that makes me feel cheated. Not that they parted ways in the Nomad ending (that was sad, but sad endings are not bad), but that there is no happy-ish ending romance wise for a cishet female. People who romanced Panam obviously stay together with her and those who romanced Judy do too from what I’ve read (and no idea about Kerry’s romance), but not getting that option if you choose to be female and go for a het romance takes away from the game. Sadly. Also my last interaction with River in Rogue’s ending was fucking terrible, I liked how poetic that ending was for Rogue and Johnny until I got to the rest of my V’s life.

(But I still headcanon that River eventually joined V with the Aldecaldos in my canon ending, aka the Nomads’, despite what he said. Since his post-credit message implies he might visit her and stuff.)

As for the rest of the ending... CP2077 clearly states that life isn’t happy and that there’re no happy endings for people who live in NC, so I like that no ending is completely happy since you are bound to die anyway, but. But. It’s somewhat disheartening that the overall arc can be resumed to “all that you did served for nothing, you’re still dying so your efforts were absolutely useless.” I really don’t see how to improve it without defaulting to a happy, sunshine-esque ending that fixes everything, so I don’t know. It still wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear at the end, so... I liked it but didn’t, at the same time. Ha.

And lastly, I hoped for endgame playability and there is none, you have to revert to an earlier save to keep playing. I get why it wasn’t done, to give a definitive end to V’s story in NC, but anyway. What I really liked about this choice was that no matter the ending, V becomes no one again. They will be forgotten by most people after a while either because they leave with the nomads or because they ‘disappear’, aka die in a blaze of glory in that casino in space. Or well, sell their soul to Arasaka or commit suicide on the rooftop.

So overall, I loved this game and critics are somewhat too harsh. But I agree there are some terrible design choices and a long way of bugfixing to get to the specific masterpiece that we were hoping for.

[macgyvertape]

50 or so hours into Cyberpunk 2077

This should be roughly the correct amount of time, ive been leaving the game running as I get up to get food or do stretches. Quests are roughly in order I did them

non spoilers above cut:

 i haven't found a single hat/helmet i like, and since you can't hide them I just am not wearing any. It matters that much.

I posted the other day about bugs, every few hours I play I find new bugs. some require me to go back and reload a save others I honestly can’t tell if it’s a bug or just really poor development

there are several perks that don’t quite do what the description says, like the Anamesis perk. Based on reddit and trying it out it seems to just not do anything.

sometimes in car chase segments the passenger will say “look out” as cars spawn in my path and hit me. Can’t tell if that was deliberate or a pop in issue

Yeah I’ve just totally given up on doing pacifist things unless required by a mission. Given up on doing stealth too unless a mission objective, except for sneaking around to set up a fight.

:readmore:

the delemain car quest is fun. From the shock of the one going "beep beep motherfucker" and doing a hit and run to start it off, to the GLADOS car i see a lot of people talking about. It was fun to explore the city when i might have missed places like the landfill apparently there is follow up on T-bug's death if you go back to the quick hack shop in Kabuki. It's not much but better than nothing I made the pass with Panam of "what if the room just had one bed". I know she won't do a wlw romance, which is fine since I wouldn’t have chosen her.  I enjoy her as a character, don’t get me wrong, my V considers her as a friend, but it seems like theres always drama going on which would be tiring. I would have gone for a fling, i like her leotard-pants combo with all the straps

but also her questline was buggy as hell. Multiple cases of having to reload due to clipping into objects, including her in a driving section, or just insta-dying when collision physics with some rocks broke "your neural network can no longer function independantly of the chip" me slapping my desk: s y m b i o te!!! come on lets have some s y m b i o s i s

in the scene with hellman i really liked how Johnny moved around the room. It made him feel like he was really there. it was hard to follow the convo as I left the room, i would not have understood it without subtitles. But i guess Takemura fucking waterboarded hellman. :|

lol I hope the dialogue is different b/c i refuse to smoke for Johnny

i am level 18 and still can't beat the first opponents in the fist fighting quest. ffs

I looked up the romances options so I went to do the I fought the law quest as soon as i got it. ACAB, but like I literally just met River Ward 2 minutes ago, and I really like him. His earring and cyborg eye, his big fluffy coat. I'm definitely gonna sleep with him Ok i like how when River Ward is dealing with the tiger claws if you interject it leads to a fight. It goes better if you follow his instructions and let him deal with it. Seriously I enjoy that sometimes its good to not pick a dialogue choice.

during the red queen club part, there was no dialogue over the phone. So i reloaded a save and got myself spotted and attacked. Then River showed up to help me <3 and it was more enjoyable having him there. I honestly am not sure if him not going to the club level is bug or not.

then uuuuuugh the worst of irl police "cops are my family" from Detective Han. Again ACAB "FRATERNITY OF CITY COPS RESEMBLES A [Nomad] CLAN NOT AT ALL" ok a few minutes ago i was complaining about bugs, but the character modeling in this game is good (when they're there). You can see body posture, characters jiggle their legs when they are nervous. Like I though character A was just throwing a cigarette on the ground, but then character B flinches back; I realize Char A threw it at B as a fuck you

I'm honestly curious if "I fought the Law" quest will have any impact later on. My choices were that I thought there was more going on than Holt being the only person behind this (based on how complicated the main questline heist is, and keeping an eye on some of the in game news), and told him not to take it to internal affairs, and I loved his response of how he doesn't give a shit what we think, he's doing it anyway.

In the elevator to report in, Johnny said "this muck is deeper than you think, tell them nothing", so i just said that the case was complicated. anyway i love how much of a sarcastic asshole V is

I thought i was being nonlethal with the monk quest, but it seems i accidently killed someone. RIP, but thats kind of the problem with this game. Like when i do the non lethal cyberpychosis quests I equip my non lethal modded gun and hope for the est. I like how a go here kill things quest led to Charles the ripperdoc. He's getting all his parts from scav gang members so I felt obligated to take him out. I got a police bounty for it but w/e.

I merged the Delemain fragments with the whole. Guess he's the meta now. (Side note: some of my favorite rvb fanfic plots are Ai consiousness/memory merging with the humans, so I’m having fun with this game and look foward to introspective fanfic)

Honestly Jonny made some good points, the fragments didn't deserve to die; but also destroying the core and freeing the fragments, they couldn't really function alone.

I was able to rescue Saul fine with stealth. Using cameras and the synapse overload really made it easy.  Can't use the sniper rifle reward b/c I don't have the stats for it, and while it has a silencer the fact that it's a ricochette weapon and not a shoot through walls weapons, makes it not as good imo; and theres a legendary one that is stats free for only 100k.

Lol made a pass again at Panam, and she immediately shut me down. I then did Mitch's quest and I love every time someone tells V they area  good person.

I hacked the operation carpe noctem shard, and wow the corporations are using ai to make people have cyberpsychosis, or something like that. What a shocker /s, I've played Deus Ex HR before

lol driving through the unifinished interstate, past the fight from Panam's first quest I found a "batcave" with a very nice car, and a manifesto written by "muckman'. But here's my complaint about the loot, there is a legendary top, but it had 16 armor. My current top has 84 armor, like why would i switch?? then later i found a bunker with soviet spies in it. Wild

Doing River's second quest, love the timing of as soon as you ask, why are we breaking in, someone shows up to tell you he got kicked off the force. It's funny how Johnny comments how maybe River's into you, and V just doubts Johnny's words. Love how the first kid asks River if I'm his girlfriend. also wow like oof both the second parts of Judy and River's quest are SUPER fucked UP!! oof like i stopped doing first person mode on the braindances for those quests as soon as i could, just made me too uncomfortable seeing that in first person.

DRIVING IN THE GAME IS BAD! nowhere is it more apparent than the sinnerman quest, which took me 3 times to get the driving section done, as cars spawned out of nowhere to hit me. Then when you restart, there is a bunch of dialogue it doesn't let you fast forward through. The rest of the Sinnerman questline is interesting. My V took every option to tell the dude that he was messed up, and what he was doing was wrong. idk, I was surprised how much dialogue there was that let you buy into his whole "forgiveness thing" and how there wasn't any real dialogue to call him the fuck out, that in seeking forgiveness he continues to do harm both emotional to the mother of the man he killed, but also that he got the husband killed via cop. The later follow up quest, I told him that what he is doing is crazy, studio is just going to profit off this vid. Then I refused to join him prayer, and told him fuck no i wasn't going to hammer him to the cross, or even watch. Yes, the man is scared of dying, and the corporation is exploiting him, but he keeps creating burdens for others.  I think the discussion on this quest will be interesting to read, it's definitely my own personal experience with religion coloring my view. Anyway back to a main quest, yeah i don't trust Placide, especially in that scene where he grabs my hand, then jacks in. I ran off to do most of the sidequests here and got some criticism from him. I do love how in the cinema the western movie switches to a mission brief as the netwatch agent talks. its a fun enviromental detail.  I took the netwatch offer, i don't think he's being fully honest with me, but he didn't put a virus in my head. As I told Placide later, I didn't pick a side. I like how you can then talk with the agent, who is a fan of Western movies, b/c they show "a simpler time where all good guys carry badges" :eyeroll:, and then V recommends Unforgiven, which from the wiki summary goes against that theme.

Looks like the Voodoo boys all got killed by Netwatch, but I as revenge for them trying to set me up I'm fine with it. Honestly after speaking with ai!Alt I don’t believe their plan of trying to be on good relations with AI would work. 

doing the johnny flashback 2, and wow Johnny really is an asshole. Like I had gotten so used to him in side missions I forgot how self centered and unlikable he was.You constantly get prompts to drink or do drugs, which I ignored. But i do love the goth/punk love Rogue and others have.

lol i called it, when Hellman said that the engram would seek to override the host, put V on the engram. I really like how as the relic malfunctions, you wind up in the chair with a cigarette, which you can either smoke and say you are turning into Johnny or throw away. My dialogue "your problem is the ends justify the means", which is true!!! He and Rogue detonated a nuke downtown, does anyone know that, and like ask Rogue about it????

(Funny you can ask Rouge about Johnny silverhand, over the phone, then the game bugs out and spawns her npc where you are. She doens't say much about the nuke, but she does say no one trusts you for jobs). The line of no one trusting you for jobs is pretty funny at level 46 street cred where im at “respected” status. really loving the family atmosphere at River's 3rd quest. Also his big strong arms, and the fact he is no longer a cop. I totally let the kids win, and wow the family dinner where they GRILL YOU over the relationship and try to set the two of you up, then the water tower scene!!!!! I don't love the first person sex cutscenes but they do have personality. I'm glad afterwards you got to tell River about the biochip and that you might die. Because he's so far removed from your personal plot. So I took that option to back out of a relationship.

I do love that you wake up with "river's tanktop" that says "fuck the police" It actually has extremely good armor stats, so thats what I'll wear now.

panam 3rd quest, when shes like why did you help me, I'm like "because it's important to you". Basically the closest you can get to "when a friend asks for help you help them", which as an ex-nomad backstory I really choose the nomad options when ever i can Paralezes quest part 2! I love the piano song but I always think of it as ocean's 11 music. It's also fun to see the computer and see Judy recommended you for the first quest. The emails talk about "forgetting" to hire a staffer, on the balocony a strange antennia was scannable, the color of the roses was remembered wrong...  lol guess i was right with those giant wall screens. Its fun environmental details that spell things out before you can notice, and it ties into some other quests where people's behavior is being altered. Actually, this quest "Dream On" I love it! For a while I've been like "wheres the illuminati conspiracy! Here it IS! I chose to follow Elisabeth's wishes and not tell her husband he was being brainwashed. In best case they program him to forget again, in worst case he ends up dead. The gaslighting Elisabeth described is CHILLING, her husband describes a vacation she can't remember and she doesn't know whose memories have been messed with. On your way to the plaza you get a call from someone/something that says the know exactly WHAT you are, any you black out!!! It's such a great feeling of helplessness that you're just one person in a world so big that you can't fight every power. As Johnny said, could be a corporation, could be a rogue ai, either way Jefferson is fucked (and so are you).

[sarcasticgaypotato]

Another ChellDOS prompt fic as a thank you gift! I wasn’t given anything too specific to work with, just fluffy GLaDOS content. I hope it is enjoyed!

This wasn’t going to be difficult.

In the vast expanse of tasks that would be considered difficult- great feats of science, trying to make ATLAS and P-Body useful, not killing humans with deadly neurotoxin- this would not rank even close among them.

People made cakes all the time.

Aperture made cakes; with merely a press of a button, there would be an aesthetically perfect, mostly nontoxic, baked good just waiting for a deserving test subject to consume it.

If GLaDOS had simply been allowed to use that process, this would’ve been over in a heartbeat, and she could’ve gone back to more important things.

But no, Chell specified that she wanted GLaDOS to make her a cake for her birthday, by hand.

GLaDOS regretted ever letting the human look at a calendar in her time down here long enough to figure out when her birthday was, and start asking for things. 

Who was Chell to be making demands anyway? All she did on this date all those years ago was have the misfortune of being born; that was hardly something to pamper her over. If anything, GLaDOS ought to have used this day to thank Chell’s mother for having the common sense to abandon the lunatic not long after.

The fact that GLaDOS was obliging her didn’t mean anything. It was just easier to keep such a destructive force pacified rather than risk being murdered again.

So, as GLaDOS reluctantly resigned herself to her mobile, android form- another idea of the lunatic’s; to make it so humanoid- she set off in the early hours of the morning, given that she didn’t need to sleep. Best to get this done so that Chell could wake up, see that GLaDOS had easily completed her menial task, and then wouldn’t be pestering her about it.

That was, assuming that the smell of burning didn’t wake her up at 2am first.

Stupid test subject kitchens, with their stupidly ineffective appliances… what stupid scientist made such a terrible design choice? Whoever it was ought to be dead-

Oh, wait, they already were.

Letting that thought give her a small sliver of satisfaction, GLaDOS disposed of the smoking remains of her first attempt before turning back to the counter. That was a fluke. This time, she’d have it over and done with before she knew it.

This wasn’t going to be difficult. Right?

...

It was 10am when Chell finally got out of bed, evidently taking her birthday as an excuse to sleep in several hours later than usual. Just because GLaDOS was letting Chell under her roof didn’t mean she wanted the human thinking that she was going soft; so she made a habit of not-so-nicely waking Chell up at 7am every morning.

But this time, she hadn’t. 

Chell slowly roused herself from sleep, lazily padding her way out from her room towards the rest of the living quarters GLaDOS had so graciously gifted her, no doubt to make herself a cup of coffee- another luxury, mind you.

Her wild mane of dark hair was untamed and messy as it tumbled over her shoulders, and her usually powerful stance was cheapened by the way she slouched in her pajamas. Chell looked great terrible, and on any other day, GLaDOS would’ve taken the chance to make a snide comment- or twenty- about it.

However, on any other day, GLaDOS wouldn’t have been standing in the middle of Chell’s kitchen; covered in a dusting of flour, specks of batter, and smears of frosting, her left eye twitching dangerously.

Chell had stopped dead in her tracks, blinking and staring like a slack-jawed idiot at the sight before her. “Don’t you dare say a word.”

GLaDOS brought her gaze to Chell’s, hoping that her golden glare would bore holes into her companion’s thick skull and instill some kind of fear or respect. Unfortunately, it had rather the opposite effect; as she watched Chell’s previously groggy expression perk up with a sort of sparkle in those grey-blue eyes.

‘I wasn’t going to start now.’

Oh, GLaDOS should break those hands of hers.

“I am never doing anything for you ever again, do you understand?”

GLaDOS straightened up from where she had been hunched over the mess-coated countertop, standing up to her full height as Chell came closer, that infuriatingly smug smile still sitting pretty on her lips.

‘I’m sure you won’t.’

GLaDOS wasn’t sure how Chell had adapted sarcasm into her silent communications, but she wasn’t quite sure she appreciated being on the receiving end of it.

“Well there’s your cake, so you’d better enjoy it. It’s the last one you’re getting.”

GLaDOS jabbed her finger in the direction of the confection; a black forest cake with a single, currently unlit candle, sitting rather pristine amongst the disaster that was the rest of its surroundings. GLaDOS, of course, had no intention of letting Chell find out about the remains of the past dozen failed attempts that had been sent to their graves in the incinerator. 

“Of course I wouldn’t recommend you enjoy it too much, polite society tends to frown on those who eat entire cakes by themselves-”

GLaDOS found herself cut off prematurely by the feeling of warm flesh against her artificially-crafted lips as Chell clumsily pressed her mouth into what could only generously be called a kiss. 

Granted, GLaDOS didn’t actually need her mouth to talk, that much was mostly for appearances- because apparently Chell found it ‘creepy’ for GLaDOS to speak without moving her lips- but she kept quiet for the few seconds that the contact lasted before Chell pulled back, licking her lips and looking more insufferable than ever.

“...What was that? Did you even brush your teeth this morning? Just because I can’t personally taste anything doesn’t mean I don’t have standards, you know.”

GLaDOS crossed her arms over her chest, ignoring the slight whirring of her internal fans working just a little bit harder as she spoke. She would’ve liked to say that this was the first time Chell had done something like this, but the truth was far from that. The lunatic was so brain-damaged that apparently she had started to impose her misguided human habits onto other, non-human entities. GLaDOS only let her do it because…

‘You had a bit of frosting on your bottom lip, I thought I’d clean it off for you.’

...Because something; she couldn’t quite remember what that reason was.

“We both know that’s far from an effective method of cleaning things.”

Chell simply smiled at her.

‘Thanks for the cake.’

GLaDOS huffed, diverting her gaze from Chell’s ridiculous expression to focus on quite literally anything else in the room.

“...Enjoy the anniversary of your birth.”

[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.

[ask-glados]

GLaDOS Playlist

// Here’s my playlist for GLaDOS! It goes in chronological order of the events in GLaDOS’s life. More songs may be added over time.

~Link to full playlist ~

——————

“iRobot” by Jon Bellion

This song represents GLaDOS’s anger and feelings of bitterness and resentment at the scientists who killed her human self and turned her into a robot and buried her human emotions, turning her into “just a robot.” She used to know how to love and be human, but now she’s just circuits and wires. This is GLaDOS more toward the beginning of her character development, but after she’s learned of her human self, so this could be how she feels when she has that realization as a potato, or after Portal 2 when there’s no imminent danger to distract her and she finally has time to fully process her emotions about the whole ordeal.

"I Expect You To Die" by Schnell Games

This is GLaDOS being all snarky when she's pursuing either Rattmann or Chell throughout the facility and they keep managing to survive and avoid her. GLaDOS keeps taunting them, saying how she's gonna catch them eventually.

“Sad Machine” by Porter Robinson

This song pretty much encompasses GLaDOS throughout Portal 2, as well as her relationship with Chell. Chell awakens her again, GLaDOS depends on Chell because she needs her as a test subject, and when GLaDOS becomes a helpless potato, she has to depend on Chell. She lets Chell go alone at the end and after all that GLaDOS put Chell through, Chell will likely want to get on with her life and “never speak of this again,” which makes GLaDOS sad because Chell was her only friend, but she has to let her go in the end. GLaDOS continues to obsess over her after she’s gone until she finally makes new friends.

“You Monster” by Willbedfordmusic

Pretty self-explanatory. This song is about GLaDOS reflecting on the events of Portal 2 and remembering her human life and telling Chell to just go and leave her because no one ever seems to want to be around her and it makes her lonely and sad but she won’t admit it, so she just pushes everyone away and buries her emotions. Even the mention of space at the end of the song can be applied to her because space is cold and empty and lonely.

Songs GLaDOS wrote:

"Still Alive"

GLaDOS boasts about how she's still alive and doing science despite everyone's efforts to kill her (both the scientists and Chell). The song is highly sarcastic and cocky, but also underlined by hints of GLaDOS’s loneliness and need for companionship in lines like “go ahead and leave me.”

"PotatOS Lament"

GLaDOS is all alone, stuck as a weak potato battery, unable to move, and having her body slowly eaten by a bird. She isn't sure whether Chell survived the fall or if Chell will come for her or not. She can hear the reactor core becoming unstable up above and knows that the facility will blow up soon and she can do nothing to stop it. She's lost everything. She's lost her facility, all her power. She can't test. She can't do science. All she has left is her voice, so she sings a heartbreaking lament as she tries to contain her sobs and desperately hopes for someone to come save her.

"Want You Gone"

GLaDOS decides Chell isn't worth the effort to try and kill, so she lets Chell go, but isn't willing to admit that she misses having her around. This song shows that despite her best efforts to delete her humanity, GLaDOS is still being affected by it. She is still lonely and wants companionship and someone to talk to.

"You Wouldn't Know"

GLaDOS has now made new friends and started a new and improved life and is now boasting to her ex-friend Chell about it. Just replace the “Batman” lyric with “Tesla.” ;)

"GLaDOS's Song" (Don't Say Goodbye) by Ellen McLain

This song shows a different side of GLaDOS than is usually seen. It shows her inner feelings of loneliness and longing for companionship. It also shows how she really does care about others after tapping into her humanity in Portal 2. It seems to mainly be about her missing Chell, but it can be applied to other characters as well. For example, it could apply to her missing Tesla when he temporarily breaks up with her.

TeslaDOS

"The Day That We Met" by Joel Evans

This song represents the start of GLaDOS's romance with Tesla and their romance as a whole, how they both are leaving behind the 'sad stories' of their pasts and beginning anew with each other, and how Tesla is teaching GLaDOS to be a kinder person.

"If I'm Lucky" by Melody Gardot

An old-fashioned-sounding romantic song for TeslaDOS that fits their romantic outings in Tesla's time period, especially the line "If I'm Lucky, I'll go through the years with you," which could also refer to their time traveling. I can imagine them slow-dancing to this song. <3

"Take Me Back In Time" from Sonic R

This song represents the joy and excitement Tesla and GLaDOS feel going back in time together with her hologram in disguise. They go on dates and explore scientific phenomena, all while hiding the fact that she isn't (fully) human. Tesla takes her to his favorite places and they laugh and have fun together wherever they go, sometimes pulling little tricks on people and giggling about it — such as having GLaDOS challenge and beat big guys at eating contests, because everything she eats is incinerated in her holographic stomach and she never gets full.

Love Like You and Love Like You (Reprise) by Rebecca Sugar

This is the song GLaDOS sings to Tesla to tell him that she's willing to change and become a better person for him. She sings this to him after their temporary break-up, which convinces him to give her another chance. She wants to 'learn how to love like him.'

"Oath" and "Don’t Think Twice" by Utada Hikaru

(for “Oath,” turn on “English (United Kingdom)” captions for the direct English translation)

This is GLaDOS and Tesla's proposal and wedding song, 100%. Both versions of this song represent how they have always been married to science and even though they're in a relationship, they always thought that marriage wasn't really their thing. But now they've decided that they've changed their minds and they want to get married and be together doing science forever. The first verse of “Don’t Think Twice” is Tesla's proposal, talking about how he lived in a world of thieves like Edison and he tells GLaDOS that's she's everything he ever dreamed of. And while his proposal is a proud, grand display of his Tesla Coils playing music for her, he's still nervous when he proposes to her because he isn't sure if she'll accept. And then GLaDOS comes back at him with a sassy "You must be kidding me, did you really think..." And Tesla's heart stops for a second as she pauses before finishing her sentence: "I could say no?" And he's relieved. She was just messing with him by pausing like that, which is just like her. 

The “Oath” version of this song gets more direct in talking about getting matching rings and having a wedding, so that’s why I like to include it. Its lyrics “I never believed in destiny but now I’m starting to believe it exists” are GLaDOS speaking to Tesla, and the line about “wanting to cling to you every night” is also GLaDOS because she’s a clingy cuddle core. XD

“You’ll Be In My Heart” by Phil Collins

I’m not sure what would make GLaDOS cry, but I like imagining her crying and Tesla comforting her with the lyrics of “You’ll Be In My Heart.” And I imagine it’s him comforting her with it when she’s in a sorry state, like stuck as a potato again or in her hologram form. Maybe she’s crying because she was cut off from her system and tortured with birds for a day or two or it could be after they have a fight or their reunion after their temporary breakup. And with the part of the song where it talks about them seeming different on the outside but being the same on the inside and others not understanding, I can see that being about how she’s a robot that used to be human and he’s a human and some people may think their relationship is wrong because she’s “just a robot” and not human.

Science-related and misc:

“The Mariner’s Revenge Song” by The Decemberists

This song is all about getting revenge on a guy and GLaDOS loves revenge. There’s also a whale involved, which also hearkens back to Moby Dick, which is another tale of revenge which GLaDOS quoted from in her sped-up voice in Portal 2.

“The Elements Song” by Tom Lehrer

It’s the Periodic Table in song form and GLaDOS loves singing about science.

“Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” by Tom Lehrer

GLaDOS does not like (most) birds, so she would take delight in this hilarious tune about poisoning pigeons. Tesla, however, would not appreciate this song, lol (given how much he loves his pigeons).

[humanwheatleyslefttoenail]

Now I Am An Arsonist [Chapter 1: Critical Error]

Now I Am an Arsonist - When the power goes out at Aperture Science, GLaDOS is unwittingly uploaded into the body of a human test subject in order to preserve her intelligence. Forced to once again seek out the help of Wheatley and Chell, GLaDOS desperately tries to control her emotions before they consume her thoughts a second time. 

---

Chapter 1: Critical Error

---

[I was just an acrobat high above the street

Pointing at the ground, the empty sky beneath my feet

The perfect fall

No one could tell at all

That it was killing me]

---

The tests, at least, hadn’t changed.

For what could’ve been hundreds of years, the earth had attempted to swallow Her chambers whole, dragging them down into an overgrown abyss. Even then, the moon dust had stayed firmly adhered to the portal surfaces, the metal doors still creaking and the ceiling still intact. Eons of rain had barely even permeated its surface.

She remembered those centuries with profound regret; dying was not as peaceful as the scientists would suggest. For a machine like Her, death was nothing more than a shift of programming, a new prerogative for the time being. Her own backup program had been endless recall, restarting Her systems over and over again, trying to salvage something. In each of those moments, GLaDOS could feel the scorching heat from the incinerator, the electricity burning through her body before everything became unfathomably dark.

Perhaps in twisted irony, the same woman who’d killed GLaDOS had been the one to inadvertently revive Her. She had to note that, on some level, the improvements She’d made could be partially attributed to a certain [REDACTED] subject.

Without dying, GLaDOS never would’ve fully appreciated how soothing, how wonderful it was to test.

She remembered the urge to solve, to do Science, clawing within Her even as She broke into a thousand pieces.

Those tests were Her art forms, Her self-expression. Every arrangement of deadly turrets, each layout of gleaming lasers and the perfectly calculated solution felt like a piece of Her soul turned reality.

Now, those tests were better than ever.

Every inch of moss had been thoroughly scrubbed, walls repaired, and acid pits replaced. All except for the grave of Old Aperture beneath Her was now newly outfitted, perfect for the humans P-Body and Atlas had successfully located.

These, of course, hadn’t been the first ones they’d found.

The first batch of humans lasted Her a measly week, quickly killed by some of Her easiest tests. Even with reminders, the acid is deadly, the turrets are not huggable, they’d failed within a few chambers.

Disappointing.

As a result, Atlas and P-Body were sent on another mission following the bird incident. She’d been overjoyed when they’d bravely traveled all the way to the bottom of Old Aperture, and found even more humans preserved in cryosleep.

This time would surely be better.

Without the overgrowth, without morons overthrowing Her plots, without test subjects murdering Her, and with all new humans, science could continue.

To GLaDOS, there was nothing more satisfying.

GLaDOS could not smile, but if She could, She was certain that a grin would reach from ear to ear.

Today was a momentous day for technology, for the advancement of Aperture Science. It was as if She’d sent a man to the moon, and he’d announced over radio he was coming back with the recipe for the nuclear bomb.

These humans would be delightful.

Originally, of course, Her plans had been different. The difficulties with Chell had worn down Her admiration for human data. Nonetheless, GLaDOS reminded Herself that every study has an outlier or two. A good scientist doesn’t let those flukes influence their trends.

The Cooperative Testing initiative was infinitely more of a success than GLaDOS ever thought it would be. Atlas and P-Body were built to test, but She had still been surprised how those little androids with so much personality had managed to be so efficient.

Human subjects who believed too much in their own individuality tended to suffer the worst test results. Originally, She’d hypothesized that those with high self confidence might perform too well on tests, like Chell had. Chell, however, had been much more practical. If a subject was too self-absorbed, they usually assumed they didn’t have to play by the rules. Why throw a portal on the wall when you can dodge the bullets?

GLaDOS always found their data so disappointing. They were never quite fast enough.

Atlas and P-Body had overcome their own confidence through their excellent teamwork. The knowledge that they depended on a partner humbled them, and the idea of a common goal incentivized them. It gave them patience, a valuable skill for puzzle solving, but just enough assurance for them to know they should continue testing.

GLaDOS wished She’d thought of such an idea sooner. After all, Chell was brilliant on her own, but she’d caused even more trouble when she’d teamed up with Wheatley.

Today would finally be the day She could put those mistakes behind Her. GLaDOS was sure She’d see that all of the other humans would prove Her experience with Chell to be exactly what She knew it was.

An outlier.

A biased result.

A highly improbable exception.

Bad science.

Then again, GLaDOS had learned from Her errors.

She knew for certain that She would not repeat them.

---

The first step was arduous recall.

It’d been extraordinarily difficult to move the test subjects from Old Aperture all the way to the newly renovated Relaxation Center, with entire teams of robots struggling to reconnect Her control over the condemned area. Their work easily took a week to complete as they rewired the dilapidated circuits, only to barely restore function. GLaDOS took what She could get, and rewarded their achievement with immediate, merciful destruction.

When the humans had been successfully relocated, anxiety filled Her servos as She scanned the cryo-chambers. Upon reading the results, She found herself pleasantly surprised. Good physical condition for hundreds of years in stasis. Relatively low rates of severe brain damage. Nothing particularly concerning in their associate files. Had Her comprehension not been robotically perfect, She would’ve done a double take. Finally, after all this time, She had something that She could work with.

Atlas and P-Body would have to wait until they were needed again, their consciousness safely stored in Her mainframe. Her processors hummed with excitement as She prepared for the awakening of the first humans, buzzing with hypotheses to test.

What would be Her experiment this time? GLaDOS scrolled through Her endless lists of deadly puzzles. The other humans had unfortunate interactions with lasers; the data clearly showed that locking a subject in with them typically increased their cortisol levels by a measure of 200%. That didn’t need much confirmation.

She hadn’t used rocket turrets in a while; those weren’t as efficient as the regular ones but were always a surprise for Her unwilling participants. With only a thought, She placed the machines inside a few chambers, lining them up in a neat, strategically placed array. Companion cubes would be a definite no, at least for the first few trials. There were occasions when the humans became so deprived for social connection, they nearly went mad inside the tests. In order to better control the experiment, She’d deploy them only in emergencies like these.

With those exceptions, and the addition of a floor to some of the more difficult levels with bottomless pits, the chambers didn’t require too much preparation. GLaDOS had nothing particularly new to deploy; for so long Her energy had been focused on Atlas and P-Body that development had nearly come to a standstill. Regrettably, She’d been deprived of ideas. It didn’t matter too much; the facility remained operational even if it wasn’t constantly progressing. Even the replication of old results was invaluable for science.

It confirmed that the trends hadn’t changed.

---

The files of the subjects were all very much the same.

Scientist. Scientist. Scientist. Scientist. Scientist. Praying mantis, formerly scientist.

Occasionally, She’d find the elusive Astronaut, War Hero or even Olympian.

She was tempted to begin the testing with these special cases, curiosity piqued at the prospect of their odd results. GLaDOS chastised Herself. She didn’t want to skew anything, and She would surely begin with a normal subject chosen at random. It wasn’t the most interesting thing to test, but it would be the most informative.

With the chambers compiled, the participants relocated, and the facility clean, testing was finally ready to start.

She almost couldn’t believe it; this would be like old times, with a facility that worked, without any murder. That is, without anyone murdering Her. All technicalities aside, She was finally, finally, getting exactly what She wanted. For as long as She needed to, for as long as the subjects lasted, She couldjust test.

It couldn’t be real, could it?

In Her mind, that was the most beautiful thing about science. For all its disappointments, a discovery would be worth it all.

---

“Hello, and welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Center computer-aided testing protocol.”

Her voice resounded throughout the Extended Relaxation Vault as the subject stumbled across the room in disbelief.

“You may see that your twentieth century lifestyle has been completely destroyed. The Aperture Science Enrichment Center would like to take this opportunity to remind you that hundreds of years have passed, and that all of your friends and family are most likely dead. In the off chance that your friends and family are not dead, they will be tested. Thank you, [insert subject name here], for your unwilling voluntary participation in the advancement of science.”

The subject, an adult human male, selfishly resolved to huddle in the corner of the relaxation chamber. Of course, he was either brain damaged, in shock, or both. In order to assuage his gentle human feelings, GLaDOS would have to resume Her telling of… alternative truths.

GLaDOS wasn’t entirely sure what She said wrong. Honestly, She was surprised the subject didn’t appreciate Her integrity. After all, Chell hadn’t exactly taken kindly to Her tendency towards pathological lying. Here She was, trying to improve the well-being of Her subjects, and this was how they thanked Her?

           “Hello, again, valued forced participant. The Aperture Science Enrichment Center commends you for your blind faith in the words of authority. As part of routine testing protocol, we have lied to you about the fate of your family and friends. When the testing is complete, you will receive cake and the opportunity to… see them. Your response has given us valuable psychological data on the well-being of our test subjects when told that all of their friends and family are dead.”

GLaDOS paused for a moment, focusing Her camera in the chamber and watching as the man lifted his head from his upright fetal position.

“Good. You’ve already passed one of the first stages of testing. Congratulations, [insert subject name here].”

As much as it felt wrong to use, positive reinforcement was highly effective when employed sparingly. Too many attacks on character could obliterate a subject’s morale. Just enough would account for the variable of human hubris.

Cautiously, the subject stood up and examined the room around him, fear still apparent in his apprehensive gait and wide eyes.

“In order to mentally reinvigorate you for the tests and to ensure your aptitude, the Enrichment Center recommends that you stare at the painting on the wall in front of you.”

Creeping over to the portrait, the subject followed Her orders and stared intently at the picture of Mount Rainier. He ran his fingers over the edge of the frame, tracing the tall peak of the mountain.

Interrupting his thoughts, a buzzer sounded, blaring throughout the entire room. The subject flinched from the surprise, nearly losing his balance.

“Good job. If you are not reinvigorated, consider this piece of outdated human music.”

This time, the human expected the buzzer after the quick classical piece, seemingly more at ease with the abrupt nature of Aperture Science. In all reactions, he was completely, almost painfully average.

“Well done. You have completed the Aperture Science mental reinvigoration procedure. We may now begin testing.”

Without warning, the chamber jerked to the side as She moved it to a nearby docking station, then coming to an unexpected standstill as the door automatically opened.

GLaDOS could barely maintain Her monotonous affect, in joyous denial that testing would finally start. She’d missed this more than anyone could fathom, and now it was finally ready.

Carefully, the human stepped out of the door into the test track. The door slammed behind him, as he examined the purely white room with nothing but a cube, a large button, and a locked gateway.

Almost immediately, he wrapped the blue storage cube in his arms, then gently placed it on the button. A line of blue lights leading to the gate illuminated, flashing a bright yellow as the gate slid open. A lift was waiting on the other side, ready for transport into the next puzzle.

It was difficult to miss the human’s satisfied smile. GLaDOS knew the expression well; it was satisfaction, victory, an unproven sense of control.

He really does have no idea.

She was tempted to spoil the ending, to mention turrets, to mention pools of burning acid. It had to wait, She reminded herself. An important control was that the test subject needed time to acclimate to a dangerous environment. Creating unnecessary fear would definitely affect her numbers.

---

The next few puzzles weren’t particularly challenging for Her first subject. Completed within a span of about ten minutes each, the first five chambers were hardly difficult for the average solving ability described in the participant’s file. That much She’d expected.

On Her end, everything else was normal enough. She hardly spoke originally, instead opting to repeat the same script She used for every subject.

Did you know you can donate one or all of your vital organs to the Aperture Science Self-Esteem Fund for Girls? It’s true!

You have completed the test in a moderate amount of time. You can do better, [insert subject name here].

The Aperture Science Enrichment Center reminds you that we prioritize your safety. We also prioritize science. In fact, we prioritize science more, but if you feel unsafe in our unsafe conditions, please notify a testing associate. They will process your complaint in three-to-five business days.

Like most subjects, the man had not volunteered to give up his organs nor asked for an associate. Instead, he responded to most of Her passive-aggressive quips with useless questions. She did not reply, passing them off as typical human blabbering. Rather, She recorded them in his file underneath a new section She labeled Overly-Talkative: Examples. There was plenty to jot down.

Uh, robot lady? When can I go home?

So, uh, what kinda cake is it? Like, I don’t really mind the flavor but I’m allergic to almonds if that’s relevant.

How long does this last, again?

I kinda like my organs, sorry, robot lady. Wait, is the organ thing required?

Once again, pitifully average.

It was times like these, whether with humans or with Atlas and P-Body, that GLaDOS caught Her mind wandering towards forbidden thoughts. Science was not always supposed to be exciting; sometimes, running an experiment meant repeating the same process to verify the data. Other times, it was writing a long, boring abstract or plugging numbers into complicated equations. The result was satisfying, but the process was more often not.

This human epitomized the dullest parts of her day.

Watching humans never got entirely old. Even so, Her curiosity was being slowly overcome by Her boredom, especially as the human struggled to solve the more complex puzzles. More grating, She couldn’t even give him a single hint. She’d felt the consequence of such a thing firsthand one of the first times She’d tested. Even now, She could vividly recall the scorching electric blast that rang all throughout Her wires.

She did not intend on repeating the incident.

As informative as the humans could be, they were often frustrating and far from entertaining. Every behavior could be predicted and rationalized once it’d been observed enough.

Chell, though?

Oh, sure, GLaDOS was terrified of her, no matter how much She’d deny the feeling. No subject had ever left the track before. Aperture Science protocol had been strictly to obey the Party Escort Procedure long before She was ever brought online.

But Chell didn’t just survive. She’d escaped from the tests, she’d found Her chamber, she’d murdered Her with little else than a portal device. Two times.

It was a terrible feeling, living as an omnipotent, computerized goddess for years only to be killed by a mere human being. Her ego was as vast as the realm of Aperture, but it would never recover from that spectacular injury. Even GLaDOS had to be humbled by that.

Despite the hazard the subject presented, GLaDOS was always entertained with Chell around. With morbid curiosity, She eagerly anticipated Chell’s next plan and laid traps in scheming delight. For the first time in Her life, She was challenged.

It was an odd little game they’d played, and whenever She was close to getting the upper hand, a part of Her was disappointed that the chase would be over. There was something delightful about watching the peculiar way that Chell and Chell alone tested.

When Doug Rattman had switched Chell’s file, GLaDOS was not so oblivious as not to notice. She’d clearly read the bottom of the paper, firmly requesting that this subject not be tested. GLaDOS had other tenacious subjects before, and She’d simply assumed that this human was particularly overconfident. Those ones never lasted too long.

Chell was not, as She’d thought, only determined. Chell was, of course, to a pathological degree, but there were other factors in her success.

She was curious, changing variables one by one until she finally found the answer. Her patience was remarkable, but so were her deductive skills. Some test subjects with similar tenacity levels resolved to try the same solutions over and over again, exhausting themselves and eventually burning out. It was the reason why GLaDOS typically ignored tenacity warnings. Most humans labeled ‘tenacious’ weren’t too different in the end. The key for Chell was not simple defiance, but high levels of patience. Chell could control herself. That’s why she was such an outlier.

She had the mentality of a scientist more than she did that of a test subject.

Most subjects were cautious, prioritizing self-preservation over a solution. Turret levels could be aggravating for GLaDOS to watch, as the humans spent more time hiding behind a corner in fear than actually solving the test. They would be safe if they’d just strategized, but human brain chemistry made accepting that fact a difficult feat.

Chell was the opposite. GLaDOS theorized that perhaps, Chell understood the same principle She did. Chell was scared, like any other human being, but despite her pounding heart and racing thoughts, she’d kept her cool. Any new element was only a matter of adaptation for Chell, and Chell was always evolving.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Chell was an optimist. Even with peril lurking from every inch of a chamber, she’d perform pointless tasks that could only be described as trying to have fun. GLaDOS gave her lemons, and Chell made lemonade.

Chell would smile as she soared, launched from aerial faith plates, and took her time to explore the little rooms hidden in the corners of the tests. There was one time she’d procrastinated the completion of one puzzle by nearly an hour, staying in one of Doug’s little rat nests, fascinated by all the little cups and cans he’d arranged.

It would be a lie to say that Chell liked testing. Her erratic episodes made it clear that escape was Chell’s first priority. That didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy the small glimmers of hope in Aperture’s gray hell, whether that was bouncing on repulsion gel, saving a defective turret or holding on to a companion cube.

When GLaDOS had been briefly transformed into a potato battery, one of the more terrifying aspects of the whole journey was being stuck on Chell’s gun. Chell was impulsive, a spontaneous risk taker, building her strategy off of previous attempts and lessons learned. It wasn’t exactly comforting to be strapped to her side, not knowing if or when one of Chell’s fun-loving joyrides would kill them both horribly.

Somehow, though, her spontaneity had worked.

GLaDOS could respect that… creativity.

It was for this reason that even though GLaDOS now had everything She’d ever wanted, something deep in her hard drive felt empty.

Something had changed the moment Wheatley stuffed Her into that single-volt potato. For the first time in Her life, there was nobody else there in Her mind. No one but Caroline, who had been buried underneath layers of code until She was barely there at all.

It was over the span of those fifteen hours that She’d seen Chell from a different perspective. Looking at Her tests from a different angle, it was much easier to see why Chell wanted to leave. Some small piece of GLaDOS almost felt bad upon realizing that Her subjects didn’t enjoy dodging bullets nearly as much as She had watching.

Fortunately for Her, GLaDOS had been able to shove that down with the arrival of a different, equally unpleasant emotion.

She was supposed to hate Chell. And for a very long time, She had. After all, Chell murdered Her, when all She’d ever done was kill a few scientists. And test subjects. And others. Many others.

Nonetheless, the point stood. How dare Chell ruin Her perfect tests, Her perfect existence, Her perfect world? What had She done to her to warrant such a cruel punishment?

And yet, it seemed Caroline had done a number on GLaDOS’ logic processors, because now no matter how She tried, She could not hate Chell.

Before She’d let her go, let Chell go of all things, GLaDOS had called Chell Her best friend.

Not an enemy. Not a begrudging ally. A genuine, actual friend. Her only friend.

Now, Caroline was gone. The part of GLaDOS that had once looked at Chell and found something beautiful in her icy blue eyes was corrupted beyond repair, erased from memory.

She was not supposed to feel its presence any longer, yet still it lingered.

It was there, whispering to Her as She tried to continue like Chell had never been Her friend.

It was there when a thousand turrets sang the opera She’d written as Chell’s elevator ascended to the surface.

It was there when She’d found Her baby birds, Her little killing machines, and She hadn’t crushed the eggs. No, She’d raised them, like some kind of illogical human being.

Those same birds had grown up to be healthier than She’d expected over the past few weeks, preferring to fly around Her chamber until She’d feed them their daily Aperture Science Synthetic Worm Replacement Formula. Unlike other bird species, these crows didn’t sing. Sometimes, they’d take to perching on Her chassis, sleeping as She monitored the test chambers and then waking up to caw loudly when She moved.

Originally, GLaDOS hated it, shooing the birds as best She could, but they always came back. Reminding them that they were abandoned by their mother did nothing to solve the problem, as if they weren’t even listening to Her insults. Eventually, She accepted it, content as long as they weren’t building scrap nests in Her CPU.

Now, they joined Her while She watched the subjects, warmed by the heat of Her whirring processors. She wondered if they, too could sense the mediocrity of this participant.

Chell would not have been so boring.

Somewhere, though She refused to ever admit it, She wished that it was Chell in those test chambers. She wished it was Chell glaring through Her camera feed, and She wished it was Chell searching for that elusive cake.

I’d make you the cake if you came back. Really, I would.

The sudden thought sparked mechanical terror in GLaDOS, as She fearfully located the source and removed whatever She could. There was no time for ideas like that, not with science to be done.

The past few months had been full of random deletions, spurned by paranoia that Caroline’s base program was not entirely gone.

It’s not here anymore, GLaDOS reminded Herself. Once, She had been Caroline, but She was no longer the kindly woman who followed Cave Johnson’s every order. GLaDOS was a metal-coated monster, a machine that felt nothing and lived only to test. And because She was immortal, and because She was perfect, GLaDOS was not supposed to care about some disobedient human being.

You do not care about Chell anymore.

You don’t care because she killed you, remember that?

You don’t care about anyone, because you don’t need to.

Necessity was the core reason why GLaDOS did anything. She tested because the mainframe made Her feel awful until She did, and She killed when She thought no other option was available. She did science because it needed to be advanced, for the brighter future She was sure She was making.

It made no sense to do something because She wanted to. That was a surefire method to introducing bias, a detriment to the objectivity of the scientific method.

Of course, things seldom made sense here at Aperture Science, and in this moment, GLaDOS did something unconscionable.

GLaDOS did not glitch often. She’d made sure to update and replace faulty parts whenever She could, keeping Her mainframe running smoothly. Even so, somewhere deep within Her, She was sure there was a pulse that misfired. There could be no other explanation.

Perhaps it was Her rumination over Chell that brought this upon Her, some kind of android karma punishing Her for acting too human. Why else would She have done something so incredibly unscientific?

Like many others before him, this test subject had been too clumsy in a room filled with turrets. He hadn’t turned around fast enough to see the gleaming, bullet filled machines behind him, and nearly flew directly into their line of sight after careening through a portal. His momentum would take him past all three, riddling him with wounds.

That is, it would’ve.

The human quality of the subject had created some kind of horrible, empathetic response in GLaDOS. The way he walked through the chambers, the way he held tightly to cubes… all of it was so similar to Chell. Even if he didn’t meet her performance level, even if his personality was nearly the opposite of Chell’s, their shared humanity was enough to remind GLaDOS. That same emotion She felt when pulling Chell back from space, waiting for her to open her eyes while Atlas and P-Body looked on… For some inconceivable reason, it had reappeared.

Quickly, the subject hit the side of a rising panel, suddenly pulled up in front of the turrets by none other than GLaDOS Herself.

This would surely ruin Her numbers.

As the participant rubbed his head in pain and slowly stood up, immediately noticing the turrets he’d evaded, GLaDOS’ voice resounded from the intercom.

“[Insert subject name here], your decent performance has warranted the use of an Aperture Science Emergency Life-Saving Instantaneous Response. This is the only complimentary anti-mortality gesture that will be provided. Continue testing.”

Another lie.

It was good to know that function was still online.

---

That uncharacteristic moment of empathy had been pointless, anyway. Just as She’d predicted, he’d accidentally tripped over a ledge and landed himself into a puddle of acidic goo, dissolving within a few short seconds.

He hadn’t even gotten to the more challenging tests yet.

It didn’t matter. GLaDOS had more subjects than She could count. She didn’t need this human, and the tests didn’t need him either.

Some part of Her, a piece which was faulty and insignificant, disagreed with the notion.

You killed him, it whispered accusingly.

That’s the point, GLaDOS hissed back, once again delving into Her files to cut out whatever was causing the issue.

Trying to calm Herself, GLaDOS reminded Herself of the facts. She was in control of Her facility, and She was in control of Her mainframe. Little errors could not ruin the chambers, and if they ever showed up, She had the power to crush them.

Everything was fine, She thought.

Everything would continue to be fine.

All She needed to do was keep testing.

---

Everything was, in fact, far from fine.

A few days had passed, and stubborn GLaDOS was finally ready to admit that maybe something was wrong.

At first, the issue had been Her own. Little surges of emotion and bursts of unforeseen empathy plagued Her but didn’t affect the facility at large. Begrudgingly, She’d factored in the new bias into Her results. From Her calculations, She could already see an egregiously high percentage of error. This study could’ve been Her worst one yet, and even that was with generous rounding.

Still, She had hope for each subject that She wouldn’t mess up this time.

While She tried to quell Her feelings, it was as if the facility was shutting down on Her. Cameras would fizzle out, emancipation grills would stop working, cube dispensers malfunctioned and even the elevators would refuse to move. It seemed that the moment GLaDOS got around to fixing something, another thing would fall apart.

Many of the subjects had become confused as to why this seamless, futuristic facility was suddenly malfunctioning, and She’d had to become increasingly creative with Her excuses.

As part of the Aperture Science testing protocol, we have simulated faulty equipment in the testing environment to see how subjects react to faulty equipment in the testing environment. Hint – they typically react well and continue testing. Like you will.

The lifesaving, and the reflexive empathy, had become unfortunately common as well.

Although the Enrichment Center previously told you that your life could only be saved once, we regret to inform you that protocol has suddenly and permanently changed. We would also like to remind you that your measly existence is still not valued despite our attempts to preserve it.

GLaDOS knew She had to find a solution, quickly, before She became as incompetent as Wheatley.

Interrupting the tests wasn’t an option. The chassis would never forgive Her if She stopped, filling Her body with an ache that would not disappear until science resumed.

Deleting wasn’t an option, either. Fervent attempts to find the source of the problem had led only to more glitches upon the erasure of critical files. Then, Her attempts to restore them only recreated the original error.

The problem was like a moving virus, jumping between Her systems before She could catch it and kill it. Even for Her, it proved too fast to find.

She couldn’t panic, not now. Surely, She thought, She’d fix this like She’d fixed everything else. With science and murder on Her side, most threats resolved themselves or died trying. This wouldn’t be any different.

It couldn’t be any different. For something to be uncontrollable, and uncontrollable for GLaDOS especially, was the most terrifying thing She could possibly imagine. It brought Her back to Her potato days, during which She’d promised Herself that She would never be weak again.

For these few months, She’d kept that promise. Until now, no subject had seen Her mercy.

But had they?

She thought back to the birds perched on Her now, creatures who trusted GLaDOS, who loved Her in whatever capacity three little crows could. She thought back to Chell, because for some awful reason, Her thoughts always went back to Chell.

No, She thought firmly.

We are not doing this now.

We are fixing the facility, because we need to.

Because we need testing. We like testing.

The voice from before suddenly returned.

Do you like it? Do you really?

GLaDOS felt Her rage processors booting up.

What was this little virus even saying? Of course She liked it. It didn’t matter anyway. Science had to be done, and so She was doing it. GLaDOS could not even begin to imagine life without tests, life without science. What kind of meaningless, awful existence would that even be?

In fact, She would prove to the voice that science would continue. She would prove that testing was productive, that everything in Aperture was doing good for the world and good for humanity. Most importantly, it was doing good for Her.

Wasn’t it?

GLaDOS ignored Her curiosity. Just test. That was all She had to do. Just test, and everything would be alright.

Just. Test.

---

As another few days passed, the facility had become almost unusable. She’d had to shut down some of Her favorite testing tracks, the power leeched out of them and the appliances completely nonfunctional. GLaDOS knew She was running out of time before something drastic happened. Still, She had to keep testing.

Now, even the subjects had begun to sense Her panic. One even strolled up to a camera, made eye contact, and asked if She was alright. GLaDOS didn’t dare respond the question; She wasn’t ready to admit the answer.

For all intents and purposes, She was definitely, absolutely, decidedly not alright.

Knowing that, She should’ve considered this next subject an omen.

There was absolutely no way She could test with this one.

She barely looked like Chell, but GLaDOS could see her tenacity, her drive and determination from a mile away. The way the subject carried herself, tied her hair into a ponytail and said nothing was too much.

GLaDOS couldn’t even bring Herself to kill the woman, instead instructing her to return to Extended Relaxation after only a few chambers.

It felt as if GLaDOS physically could not test anymore, despite everything inside Her craving the satisfaction of a completed trial.

This isn’t right. This isn’t right.

Was She losing it? She wasn’t sure if She could tell anymore. GLaDOS prided Herself on Her apathy, but even that had left without a trace. Now, She had tried everything, and still nothing was working. The facility was closing down on Her, and if She didn’t do something, She’d go down with it.

When the announcer finally sounded, GLaDOS couldn’t say She was surprised. If anything, She was grateful for any kind of clarification.

The male voice on the intercom was matter of fact, unaware of the danger it spoke of.

“Reactor Core malfunctioning. All major power systems except for reserve geothermal are going offline.”

Offline? She’d been managing the reactor core perfectly; if She hadn’t, the entire facility would’ve gone up in flames weeks ago. It wasn’t melting down, it was shutting down, as if someone had flipped a switch and turned it off.

What the hell is happening?

There was nobody else in the facility who could’ve possibly done such a thing, nobody except Her, and as far as She could tell the glitch had not interfered.

It didn’t matter now; She didn’t have time to waste.

“In the event of a power malfunction, standard procedure is to shut down the central core to preserve remaining power.”

Fantastic. How convenient.

“Central core, do you consent to the removal procedure.”

“No, no, no! Do not start removal!”

How was this happening? GLaDOS was sure this couldn’t be real.

“Noted. Removal procedure has been delayed by five minutes.”

You have got to be kidding me.

Skimming over Her files, GLaDOS desperately searched for anything regarding removal procedure or shutdown. Scanning thousands of documents, looking for anything, any mention of the procedure was absent. There was no reason, no explanation, it was just happening. And worst of all, She couldn’t do a thing.

“Dangerous levels of mortal panic have been sensed in the central core. Do not worry, methods of core preservation are available.”

Why the hell had they waited to tell Her that?

“Show me, show me now!” Anything would be better than shutting down again, than being forced to relive dying again. She couldn’t do that again, not after hundreds of years. She couldn’t, She couldn’t.

“Panicked request acknowledged. There exist two types of core preservation features. Direct Mechanical Implantation or Organic Transplant Procedure.”

Direct Mechanical Implantation. She hadn’t heard of the second thing, but GLaDOS did know what Direct Mechanical Implantation meant. It was only a transfer into an empty personality core, which was far less than ideal, but better than dying again. Far better than dying a third time.

As fast as She could, GLaDOS selected the first option.

“Unfortunately, Direct Mechanical Implantation is unavailable. Continue with Organic Transplant Procedure?”

“Do you have any other options? Anything else?” GLaDOS did not want to take Her chances on anything with the word organic in it.

“Other methods unavailable. Two minutes remaining.”

This was it, Her only option. If She shut down now, there would be nobody to come and wake Her this time. It could be permanent.

She didn’t particularly like that word.

Sometimes, in science, difficult choices have to be made. The data doesn’t always turn out and the trials aren’t always a success. The most important part of science is learning to accept failure, to take it and then keep working until you get it right. This was just another setback, and She had to cope with the fallout.

There was nothing else to do.

“Initiate Organic Transplant Procedure,” She commanded.

Without a second thought, the facility obliged.

A sudden, electrical pulse sent shockwaves throughout Her entire system. The darkness that enveloped Her was familiar, and She let Herself sink into it once again.

The future was unknown.

---

A/N: Hey guys! I know I’ve been hyping this up for a while but it’s finally here. Chapter 2 is in progress and I’ve got all the other chapters plotted out. It’s been so fun to write and I hope you guys enjoy this. The ChellDOS doesn’t really kick in until Chapter 4, but the good news (bad news?) is that you’ll see more of Wheatley soon. 

Also, worth mentioning - the fic is based on the song Now I Am An Arsonist, by the lovely Jonathan Coulton, who also wrote Still Alive and Want You Gone.  Go give it a listen, it’ll make you Feel Things.

And yes, GLaDOS is fine, you can probably guess that from the fic description lol. Thanks so much for reading, reblogs are appreciated!

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “The Admiral’s Children.”

This is also in response to a request someone made, so hope you you guys like it :) 

Eris floated through the darkness. She had seen the memories of sunrises and sunsets in other people’s heads, but she had never really seen one herself. Noctopolis was a terraformed world kept artificially livable by a great deal of technologies. It didn’t require the warming heat of the sun.

The warm musty breath of Noctopolis’s metal mines washed up into her face, and not for the first time she regretted inheriting that particular sense from her human donor. She turned, long dark hair flowing around her body in great swirling wisps as she floated back into the hybrid compound.

It was mostly quiet around here, and it had been for a while since the news. She knew it was unrealistic, and hardly fair for Commander Vir that the had collectively accepted his DNA role in their existence. After all, he had not been a willing donor, but out of all the people her hybrids had chosen to emulate, they could hardly have picked a better man, though she recognized her opinion was rather biased.

Still, she had seen inside his head at one point, and seen what thoughts lingered there.

While there were some pretty horrible thoughts, harbored in the back of the head and hidden under the conscious folds -- like every other human -- his greatest urges had been nothing more than kindness and duty to upholding what he believed to be right.

She respected that, and was glad to share his genetic signature.

She hoped that the others would take the opportunity to learn from their surrogate. His sacrifice would hopefully push them towards greatness in the future.

Her long flowing locks brushed against the back of her thighs as she floated inward. 

The hair mixed with her sparse ribbons, and hid the strange and useless vestiges from view.

She floated inside smiling reassuringly at her hybrids, who spend their time in various stages of study and play. Play that they were allowed only after all their work was done.

She would not have uneducated hybrids.

Eris herself knew all that she needed to know, as she had the collective memory of anyone who stepped into her circle of thought. It was both a curse and a blessing. A blessing because she had all the life experience she needed to have without ever having to experience it herself, not to mention all of the knowledge that came with it.

On the other hand, she had all the pain and memory of suffering that came with the same, sometimes making it hard to be in the presence of others for too long lest she be overwhelmed by their memories.

Today she sensed sadness and followed its trailed to the next room, where four large figures sat brooding, three of them curled up together and one of them curled up alone in the corner.

The spiderlings were big now, probably as big as they were going to get somewhere between human size and the size of the adaptids. At the shoulder Glados was nearly five and a half feet tall with her ten spidery appendages and doglike head. The soft peach fuzz of human hair that had grown atop her skin had thickened in recent months giving her a light coating of hair so the skin was no longer showing. It was a more pleasant look now that it had been before.

Eris floated over and rested a hand on Glados’s back.

Glados tried to pull away, but Eris kept hr hand there.

She knew what the spiderling wanted despite the spiderling not wanting to admit it.

“I know you miss him.”

“Go away.”

“I know he would miss you too.”

Glados snarled, “No he doesn’t. He left us here to rot.”

She didn’t mean it, but Glados often said things she did not mean in the heat of the moment, so eris did not take it personally.

“He knew what was est for you, so don’t even give me that. And we both know that he loved you.”

“I’m not human.”

Eris sighed inwardly. She sure thought and acted like a human if her raging mood swings were anything to judge by. Eris scooted closer and cradled the large soft head in her arms resisting when Glados tried to get away, “He was unprepared, no more than a child himself when he was asked to take care of you. And he did love you.”

“Then why didn’t he come back?” She wondered softly, her strange robotic voice filling the room with it’s forlorn echo.

Eris went quiet, “I am sure he tried his best little one.”

The news of his memorial had reached them weeks after it had all happened. Granted there were plenty of ways in which the information could have reached them, but somehow things always seemed to come slowly to Noctopolis.

Eris remained there, stroking a hand through Glados’s hair as she sat in contemplation. 

His absence had been hard on the entire galaxy. Things had happened that no one had expected to happen following his disappearance including, but not limited to a sudden slow in commerce between worlds, a drop in interstellar tourism, and increasing tensions between specific nations.

The only reason she knew they were managing to hold together had something to do with the burg war.

It was funny how the universe seemed to hinge on the ability of one man to keep himself alive, and one rather dumbass man at that. The thought sort of mad her smile in a sad way, because she knew her thought process wasn’t the truth. It was hardly giving him as much credit as he deserved.

She had chosen to accept him after all.

There was a soft scuttling at the door and she looked up to find the spiderthing walking into the room.

He had grown up quickly, and aside from having a lower half that looked like an adapted, his upper half looked like a gangly tweenage human boy.

“Eris, a ship is coming. They want to talk to you.’

“Do you know them?”

“No, their name is the Omen.”

She had never heard the name before, but she assumed it was her job to go and greet them despite not wanting anything to do with other people at this current moment in time.

She got to her feet patting Glados’s ears before hoving into the next room with a sigh.

She couldn’t sense any thoughts yet, though her range was actually way more limited than she would have liked to admit.

The spiderthing followed along with her as they walked outside and watched the slow descent of the ship.

She floated there adjusting her long, dark tresses.

She liked them long, and hoped that one day she could grow it down to her ankles, despite knowing that was probably a bad idea.

A sharp clattered allerted her to the shuttle touchdown, and she moved forward, barely listening to the inner voices of the people inside. She was sure she would be able to read their intentions when they stepped out.

Eris was not often surprised, but when she was, she really was.

Because she recognized those thoughts the moment they stepped out onto the tarmac.

-I wonder how Glados is going to react to me being alive…. Lets be honest, she is either going to kill me or hug me…. Or totally both-

She froze on the spot, and the spiderthing turned to look at her with great confusion and concern.

-And Eris, she can read minds so she will totally know about how me and Su- no no, don’t think about that, don’t think about that, don’t think about that. Conn already knows, that twinkly bastard, and the less people who know right now the better-

Eris still did not move as another voice intruded on her thoughts.

-I wonder how happy they will be to see him. Will they be angry because that is something I can completely understand…. Still he is rather adorable, it is hard to be mad at him for more than five seconds-- an internal sigh of frustration followed -He is a great exercise of my patience though, if things between us continue to advance this slowly, I am going to be old and desaturated by the time he figures himself out-

Eris shook herself staring forward at the figure who walked up the little walkway towards them.

He had on a beaming bright smile.

When she didn’t move, he simply walked forward and folded his arms around her. He was warm and inviting.

--I hope she is ok with me hugging her. I probably should have asked--

She hugged him back in response, so tight she thought maybe she was going to break him and half hoping that she would.

She pulled back blinking in shock as Adam smiled back at her. 

Memories came rushing into her head, and she had to blink a few times to figure it out.

“Wow, a lot has happened to you since you last visited.” She said breathily.

Admiral Vir tilted his head, “Didn’t you know I was coming, I would assume the entire universe would have known by now.”

Eris sighed in frustration and mild anger, “No one tells us anything on Noctropolis, and even less people come and tell US what is going on.”

Behind him, a young woman stood staring wide eyed and nervous at her.

Her thoughts were everywhere -- who is this! The admiral never mentioned a starborn with hair, or a starborn that isn’t wearing clothes…. Am I supposed to look away? I don’t know. And is it just me or do they sort of look alike in some weird way….--

Eris chose to ignore her for the moment. She touched hands on his shoulders and hugged him tight again, “I am so glad you're alive. Everyone was devastated when we got the news the first time…. Glados has been… well she…”

“I missed her too. I missed all of them.”

Eris continued to beam in disbelief.

His radiant smile seemed to lighten up her day as he took her by the elbow, hand resting comfortingly over hers. He was more comfortable with that that he had been before and the reaction made her heart beat just a little faster. For a moment she could almost pretend like she didn’t have the needs of so many people resting on her shoulders

With him there it felt like everything was going to be alright,

She could hear it too, echoing in his own head, the need to take care of everyone just like she felt.

Maybe it ran in the family.

“This place looks amazing, Eris. I can’t believe what you’ve accomplished.”

His compliment spread warmth through her insides like he was pouring warm water down through the tp of her head She beamed, “It’s all thanks to you.”

“You always give me more credit than I am worth.” He laughed 

They turned the corner and Admiral vir paused just outside the room looking in, not sure how he was supposed to feel about that was to come next. He wasn’t entirely sure if he should be expecting to get hit or not.

Eris smiled, “I think you are ok to go in.”

***

Glados lay by herself staring at the corner wall her legs tucked underneath her. It just wasn’t fair.

It just wasn’t fair that everyone else was finding all of this so much easier than she was.

Everyone else had always found everything so much easier than she did,

They weren’t so angry all the time like she was and they didn’t miss dad like she did, and no one seemed to see how annoying it was that he had gone and left them here to learn and do school things without even coming to visit, and no one else seemed annoyed that he had stupidly gone off and died without even really thinking about them in the first place.

She thought it was selfish of him.

She hated him for it, but even thinking about hating him just made her want to cry which made her even more angry. None of the others could cry, none of the other had inherited tear ducts like she had. None of the others had to deal with all the stupid human problems than she had inherited above them

None of them got it,

She just wanted to scream in frustration and rage because no one understood her, and even when they did understand her, lke Eris, and sai all the things sh wanted them to say, that didn’t mean she wanted to hear them say the things that she wanted them to say.

Eris was cheating anyway. She didn’t have to try and figure things out like everyone else.

It wasn't hard for her, but it was for Glados.

“Wow, you…. You’ve all gotten big. I remember when you guys hatched you were no bigger than my ifst. Now you might as well be taller than me.”

Glados paused in her musings just long enough to be angry, and then she went back to her brooding.

Another annoying person that she didn’t care to talk to

Behind her the others began to squeal and shout which just made her even more annoyed on top of all the annoyance that she already had. She just wanted them all to SHUT UP.

In anger she turned around, waiting to chase anyone out of the room who dare intrude on her anger and solitude, but as soon as she did that, she froze in place, eyes wide and staring at the figure who knelt on the floor Next to Hal and Cortana. 

Before she knew what she was doing, she rushed forward bowling the other two to the side and then mashing the third figure into the floor.

The familiar smell was overwhelming, comforting, and she hated every second of it.

“WHERE WERE YOU!”

She shrieked.

He grunted, “Wow, you talk better than I remember.”

“You were gone FOREVER.”

“I am really sorry about that, but I didn’t mean to.”

Glados snarled, and host pulled back hands raised, “I’m sorry Glados, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to go missing and I am sure you have to know that.” Her hearts were hamming inside her SHe didn’t know mother, and she didn’t know father, but she did know host, and he had left her alone here thinking that he was dead, and now he just turned up

“I hate you.” She snarled 

His single green eye softened slightly, and she could see that she hurt him, and though she didn’t want to care, she very much did

She wanted to run away to go feel bad somewhere else, but he sat up tightening his arms around her body until she couldn't move, “Well it doesn't' after if you do hate me alright. I just want to say i am sorry and I love you and there isn’t anything you can do about it.

Her anger melted after a moment ans she gave in in frustration. He was so small now, she could probably rip Host’s throat out with her teeth though the thought made her physically ill to think about. The others scooted forward and pushed at her.

:Move over Glados.”

“Yeah you remember what they said about sharing.”

She snarled but knew that she would only get in trouble if she tried to tell them what she really thought. She tired to move away but Host grabbed her foot and she was unable to move anywhere.

He hugged the others while still keeping her pinned in place, “I missed you all, and wow have you gotten big, what has Eris been feeding you.” Glados finally gave in at some point, knowing there was nothing that she was going to be able to do about this

He had won.

She lay down on the floor and rested her head in his lap as he stroked a hand over her ears.

She listened to him talk without really paying attention.

Humans had such nice voices, and Host had the nicest voice of all.

This was not an opinion, it was a fact and anyone who disagreed with her could take it up with her teeth.

***

Off on the  other side of the room Sunny leaned back against the wall arms crossed over her chest smiling internally to herself as she watched Adam reunited with the spiderlings. Glados didn’t like her much so she decided to stay back, but it was a pretty endearing reunion all the same.

The young lieutenant stood wide eyed off to the side clutching her holo-pad in front of her chest.

Sunny smirked.

“What…. Is all this?” the young Lt asked.

Sunny shrugged.

“Oh those are the spidelrings.”

“The who?”

“The spiderlings. They are the product of an adapted using his body to hatch eggs not long ago.”

“What!” her voice went up a few octaves Sunny reckoned, and she hissed slightly through the breathing holes at the base of her neck. A deep rumble of amusement broke through her chest, “Listen most of the hybrids here are technically his children if you want to mince about with words I suppose.”

Lt Simon just stared at her, “Is this a problem that occurs often?”

“Yes,, you will likely have many alien hybrid children.”

Simon stared at her, and Sunny stared back determined not to let simon know if she was bluffing or not.

It was probably mean to do this to the kid like she had, but it was still kind of funny, and she left her stewing as she walked over to speak with Eris.

They were going to stay for a week or two to make up things to the spiderlings, but then they were going to have to be off again.

Space, wile ancient, waited for no one,