#when I first got into portal my friend made fun of me for liking chelldos

[spaceyraccoon]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[humanwheatleyslefttoenail]

Number 15 :o)

NUMBER 15 BURGER KING BURGER-

Ok all jokes aside, unpopular opinion time. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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