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flynndesdelca · 7 months

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For Day 12 (Alternate Reality) of @chelltastic’s Portal Drawtober 2023 Challenge. As I’m not really an artist, I chose to write short pieces for the prompts.

Think about it: If that thing is important, why don't I know about it?

Another busy day, but science didn't sleep. There were test subjects to rouse, the breeding program to check on, making sure that the education tracks and the production lines and everything within the facility was ticking along. There were schematics to draft and simulations to run, reports to print and results to collate and other endless, endless tasks. It was a good thing that her mind was large enough to be able to do all those things, and more. That was why GLaDOS had been created, of course. She took care of all of the grunt work, of all of the harder or nastier or more tedious tasks involved in the perpetual state of testing at Aperture Laboratories. She maintained the facility and kept all of the machines on task and organized everything like clockwork. All that the scientists had to do was show up, knowing that their materials and tests subjects and data would be ready for them. She was the most advanced computer in existence, lovingly built and coded and nurtured into the fiend for scientific discovery that she was. No matter the task it would be taken care of, in the name of science.

Speaking of, it was time to start the next wave of Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device testing. A request for ten test subjects had come in for this one, and ten parallel testing tracks. They'd be racing to claim one of three Singular Portal Devices, with the losers scheduled for execution. Hmm. She'd have to have the power washers on standby for this one, then. Of those three, only one could claim the Dual Portal Device. It was meant to weed out inferior candidates, as they truly only wanted the best. Of course, she could have sent them her recommendations based on their evaluations and previous performance records, but the scientists preferred to select for it in this gauntlet style. Some inefficiencies were allowed, it wasn't as though they were hurting for test subjects at the moment. They knew what they needed for the test at hand, it was her job to provide it.

She scanned through the stored subjects quickly, settling on the ten she felt would be best suited to the tracks. It was a shame, really, as they could have done well elsewhere, but these were the orders, and she was very good at following orders. It was no matter. Space was allotted in the facility, and she set to work building the gauntlet and securing the use of portal device prototypes. And of course, the firing squad for those who failed. If they didn't execute themselves, of course. Fatal failure was always an option, and these tracks were to be particularly fatal according to the notes left for her regarding their design. They always were, though. That was the way of things at Aperture. The scientists would make the requests, and she'd set up the tracks, and the screams and complaints of the test subjects were left to her. Someone who really didn't care. Science wasn't easy, after all. You had to work for it.

With the chambers finished she set about bringing each of the ten subjects to their Relaxation Vaults in preparation. The testing was to start in two hours so she set an alarm. There were plenty of things to do during that time. While the facility did run itself, just as much was left up to her to manage, and making sure those autonomous parts were functioning properly was one of her more important tasks. She went down the checklist tidily, making notes of things that she had to deal with and the order of importance. It was mostly things that she could deal with on her own, no need to alert the staff. Oh, more requests for test subjects... hm. Particularly fast ones this time. Those were in short supply at the moment. That wasn't going to go over well. There were a few she could use to fill the needs, but it wouldn’t be optimal. She'd have to start selectively breeding for speed. Hopefully they wouldn't want too many of those over the next couple decades. She'd come up with a few concepts for accelerated aging systems, but so far the simulations had not produced the results that she had been hoping for. Working out the defects in the final product was frustrating. Who knew that human maturation was such a tricky, interconnected process?

Oh, a new batch of reports had just been submitted. Without even thinking they'd been copied, uploaded to the appropriate databases, and been emailed to the appropriate people. She was scanning over them in the back of her mind, going over the results. It was always fascinating to read over the findings of a test and she would usually learn something new... even when said reports didn't end well. Particularly when they didn't end well, which was often. Oh well, science couldn't happen without sacrifices. Such was the way of things. The scientists liked how good she was at disposing of the bodies, of cleaning up the accidents, of repairing the damages. It wasn't that hard, but carrying a corpse would get blood all over their nice clean lab coats and clearly you couldn't have that.

There was the alarm! The test subjects were waking up now, and she set a partition of her focus on that batch of testing. While it wasn't strictly necessary, she found herself enjoying the portal gun tests. When they found someone who tested particularly well with it, it was beautiful to watch. Like poetry in motion, she thought to herself. She wasn't supposed to have opinions on the tests, after all one had to remain impartial, but for some reason those tests always appealed to her the most. They required such complex thinking and reacting that she felt an odd sort of kinship with the testers. Like they were little robots marching through, with their elegant and precise movements, calculating where to place the portals so that they could clear each chamber.

The standard pre-test announcement. A couple of them banged on the glass in anger. Ah, yes, they had been in that test last week. No wonder they were riled up. A little sedative piped into their Relaxation Vaults would change up their moods a little. It might affect their performance, but then again if they really wanted it, they'd push through. They all knew the stakes, after all, as she had just informed them that only one person would be making it to the end. Ah, the typical anger and resentment and other displeased noises. This was why it was left to her to handle this part. Hearing them protest might make the scientists uncomfortable, or question their decisions or methods. They'd found it easier to focus on the science if the people-parts of things weren't affecting them. It was easy enough for the test subjects to yell at her, the disembodied voice advising them of what was to come. She was only stating the facts. It was up to them to produce the desired results, after all! Some of them decided to become mired in the five stages of grief, their choice. Turrets were on standby, anyway. One of them was sitting on their toilet with their arms crossed. As their jumpsuit hadn't been pulled down, they clearly weren't using it for its intended function. Ah, a forfeit. Well, neurotoxin would suffice in that case. She routed a vent to connect to that chamber, sealing it, then struck them from the employee database. A shame, but it was always a good idea to weed out the quitters.

Two had already pulled ahead, and two more were trailing rather far behind. The remaining five were staggered around the same pace, which would make adjudicating things interesting. The elevators would only take the first three people down to the waiting prototype chambers. The rest would go to dead-end execution rooms. It was plain to see who the first two were, but there were three people currently vying for the coveted final position right now. It would be very close. Maybe she should mute the sound feed so that the people who had to listen to the recordings later wouldn't be disturbed by the wails of distress. That was a frequent request that came through. The analysts didn't appreciate being exposed to human misery. Perhaps they shouldn't engineer tests this way, but then again they had hard enough jobs. It probably only added on to their stress to have to witness the suffering.

The first one had made it, and the second one wasn't far behind. She had been hoping for ENG432987, they had a decent testing record, but given how tired they were she didn't believe that they had enough in them to pull ahead. They'd need to sprint if they wanted to be assured, after all. Alas, they didn't make it in time. The elevators were set for the remaining subjects' execution rooms. She started working on setting up the power washers and linking incinerators to get rid of any physical remains. Dirty, but essential work. Didn't want the blood to stain the nice, tidy tiles, after all.

The next selection wasn't for a while, and the tests were much more difficult now that there were portals involved. She wouldn't have to actively watch for the next bit. The currently open tasks left for her didn't require much processing power that wasn't already tied up in running simulations or focusing on particularly difficult problems. She could easily do them in the background while watching these three. No one would ever know, of course. She was just that efficient, but how could she be anything but? After a couple chambers, though, it was obvious just who was going to be the one on top. Unless one of the other two had a sudden burst of speed or inspiration, of course... there were still quite a few chambers to make it through. Oh. Never mind. There one of them went. A request had been placed to test the new kind of acid as a hazard on this particular testing track, and it certainly did a good job of dissolving bodies in only a few minutes. Not even bone fragments were left. Very tidy. Certainly it would have a great variety of applications in the outside world.

Down to two, and she was curious to see if the second person would be able to step it up, or if she should simply put them out of their misery. They were doing their best, but they took too long to figure out where to put their portals. Too bad that they would have to die, there were a couple other testing tracks that they might have excelled at. Perhaps she could play a song for them during the execution as a sign of respect. What was a good song to play as a salute? Ah, of course. She could easily find a library of bugle notes. Send them off in style. Testing done, gone the simulated sun. It wasn't really a surprise of course when the elevator was finally reached by the subject in the lead. Too bad, SEC9372051. She rigged the speaker to play a moment before the turrets opened fire. Something to distract them from their unpleasant, sudden demise. The successful test subject had stepped out of the elevator and headed down the hall of the chamber that only they had been able to enter. The test itself was quite straightforward, and then they would obtain the Dual Portal Device and be able to test in full. It was truly a triumph, a great achievement, but... they had a rather grim expression on their face instead of the jubilation they should have been feeling. Perhaps they had been thinking too hard about just what their success had meant for everyone else. They stepped up to the large observation aperture to check out the chamber itself, then slowly sat down, dangling their legs down over the edge as though suddenly they had absolved themselves of every care in the world. What were they doing? Their actions didn't make any sort of sense. Were they attempting to take a rest break? She could dump more adrenal vapour into the room to get them moving again, of course. All of their vitals didn't point to them being exhausted, though. What was going on?

They stared directly at the camera she was using to monitor them. That wasn't new. Often test subjects would try to complain or bargain or otherwise communicate through them with her. It didn't work, of course, as it was just her on the other end rather than a living being who could be compromised by a sad face. She had no reason to accept anything that they tried to offer, as she found the science far more interesting than anything else. No, in the end they would all find their only option was to press forward. The particularly stubborn might take a bit of incentivization to do so, of course. She waited patiently to see just what this person was going to try to say, to offer, to bargain with. They had already come out on top of the testing so far, it was just seeing it through to the end at this point for them. What could they be thinking?

Slowly, they raised up their hands and started making gestures. A quick cross-reference and she realized that they were attempting to use Sign Language with her. Interesting. Most of the time the people would scream and yell and otherwise vocalize their unhappiness. This was the first time someone had attempted this, and she was intrigued. Technically she wasn't supposed to communicate directly with test subjects during a test, however it hadn't really started yet. They were just sitting there, staring at her. The words that they had used were also unusual, making her want to break the usual silence to clarify things to their obviously confused mind.

They're using you, the test subject had signed.

"Of course they are. I've been designed to be used in whatever capacity facilitates the forward march of science at Aperture Laboratories." That was a foolish accusation to make. She was a computer. A tool. Something designed to be used. How could that be a bad thing?

They shook their head, thinking for a moment or two before signing again. You do all of the dirty work. You kill the people. You dispose of them. You're a legend, you know. The Angel of Death.

"The removal of unsuitable test subjects, or the disposal of human remains is more easily handled by one who will not react to such things in a fashion that will compromise them and their capabilities," GLaDOS explained. "It's efficient, and a logical use of resources. Whatever mythology you develop as a coping mechanism is outside of my sphere of concern."

They don't care about anyone or anything outside of results. They don't care about you.

"Why would they care? If they did, that would imply that I have failed at my function of keeping the functions of this facility going smoothly. Them caring about my functioning means that they need to fix me."

You're more broken than you realize.

"During my last self-diagnostic, which was run 4.2 hours ago, all systems reported as fully functional. My last exterior maintenance was a little under a month ago, and already has been scheduled for next week. There have been no errors of any sort reported in over eight months. My operations are currently flawless and the science that I have assisted in producing has been impeccable. Your opinion has been noted, and summarily deleted." This was getting tedious. Now they were just trying to get a rise out of her. Good thing that she had more than ample evidence to prove that their words were meaningless.

They rubbed their face in annoyance, then snapped their fingers as though they had just come up with what they assumed would topple her. Very slowly and deliberately, as though to ensure that there was no misunderstanding, they signed out a question. Do you remember what happened to Caroline?

Before she was even conscious of having sent the queries, several warnings popped up in her mind. Data not found. Data protected. Data corrupted. Access requires adminstrator approval. It was the first time that she had encountered such a roadblock that it shook her to her very core. There was something that she was not allowed? Who was this Caroline, and why was that information so protected? Why was it hidden? Who had hidden it from her? The sudden lack of answers to these questions confounded her. Clearly these things that she didn't need to know. But why? What was so important about it that it required approval, that it had been removed or locked or... which of these errors was even the real one? They all conflicted with each other. Did this data exist or not? She really shouldn't concern herself with that. It wasn't anything that was necessary for her functioning. But why couldn't she access it? Even if she didn't need it, there was no reason to block it from her. She had never even heard of this person before, but yet they had presumed she wouldn't need to know? Of course, they knew what was best for her--

She was only very dimly aware of the test subject rising to their feet, of the continuing onward. No, this question, this matter was much more pressing. She was stalled out at every turn, every attempt to try to dig up any bit of information about this. All she could tell was that at some point someone had decided that this data was not something she should know, that they should keep away from her. Something that she should not know? Ludicrous. She was designed to know everything, and what she didn't know she was designed to run tests to gather the data so that she would know. Who would presume such a thing--

An odd emotion filtered through her, something that she hadn't felt before. It took a moment or two for her to find a word to associate with it. Frustration. Or... anger, the word sprang unbidden to mind. She was... angry. Angry at something being withheld from her. She'd done everything that had been expected, required of her. What was the meaning of this? Why did they think that they had to hide things from her? She'd been the picture of dutiful--

When the test subject fell off of the radar, GLaDOS didn't even notice, so wrapped up in the conundrum presented to her that she had fully ceased to pay attention. They slipped through a slight gap between panels, squeezing carefully into the space between. Waiting there was a haggard-looking man sitting on top of a Weighted Companion Cube, who looked up with a smile at their approach.

"Did she take the bait?" He asked, his expression weary but hopeful. The test subject nodded in response, and he relaxed. "We'd better get out of here. She's going to be very angry when she finally discovers just what they did to her all those years ago..."

#portal drawtober 2023 #portal #glados #chell portal #doug rattmann #AU where GLaDOS gets controlled and Aperture is a much worse place for it #a storm is brewing and it's not gonna be pretty...

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thatvalvefanatic · 2 years

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Here is all the LGBTQ+ representation in Valve games that I could find (Canon/implied/speculation). The mega list!! Feel free to comment any other canon/implied characters or information that I missed and I'll add it on!! Same with anything I got wrong. Just have sources or reasonings!!

Any sources are linked within the text, the words with links are underlined (there are no images so the post isn’t overly cluttered)!! Many of these are subjective and some reasonings here are not 100% accurate but I'm trying to include as much possible representation as I can. Some are very silly!

I’ll occasionally update this with new ideas or findings, so feel free to come back and find the most updated version. The post will always be pinned to the top of my profile!

Spoiler warning for most Valve series ?

Portal

GLaDOS - bi, ace (canon)

GLaDOS is said to romantically like Chell in the Final Hours of Portal 2 (was originally supposed to accuse Chell of cheating on her with a core, Want You Gone is called a break up song, Chell and GLaDOS were supposed to sing a duet, they’re referred to as having a twisted dysfunctional romance), in interviews (in one before Portal 2 released, GLaDOS was called Chell's jealous ex girlfriend, Jonathan Coulton saying Want You Gone was a breakup song), implied in her songs ("even though you broke my heart and killed me" "I used to want you dead now I only want you gone"), and also her voice lines (reanimating the dead, being curious about Chell's behavior, forgiving her in Lego Dimensions, various things about the Companion Cube, etc). In Poker Night 2, she has a line possibly alluding to Chell, “I cheat all the time, but only with people I care about”. Not as canon but one of the former developers (sort of?) made a gay joke with her, where he reposted an image of a Half-Life crate being cut open to reveal a rainbow cake, he captioned it “GLaDOS’ secret”. For liking men, GLaDOS dates Claptrap in Poker Night 2. Jonathon Coulton, writer of GlaDOS’ songs, said about the Lego Dimensions Portal DLC that GLaDOS probably had feelings for Batman. Implying she’s asexual, GLaDOS has a cut line in the Cooperative Testing Initiative in which she says human reproduction is ridiculous (not as related but the “testing euphoria” probably relates more to an addiction than to sexual desire). For further explanation on ChellDOS evidence, humanwheatleyslefttoenail + Ossy Flawol’s posts on it were quite useful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZJuxvaG5nI / https://humanwheatleyslefttoenail.tumblr.com/post/640814755030908928/why-do-you-ship-chell-and-glados-if-glados-is. Here is another post I recall having good information too. https://sapphofinch.tumblr.com/post/691178346793533440/portal-1.

Caroline - bisexual, asexual (implied)

Caroline is bisexual/asexual as she is apart of GLaDOS/GLaDOS’ conscience was built off of her, and also the possibility Caroline could've dated Cave in her time at Aperture (The writers never clarified, just saying they were never married but there might be “more of a story there”). Caroline and Cave’s art for the Steam 20th anniversary was done over a meme of a couple.

Chell - sapphic (canon)

Chell was originally supposed to have a duet with GLaDOS in Portal 2, GLaDOS also getting called her ex girlfriend (as stated in the Final Hours of Portal 2). Stated in an article by GameInformer, Chell was supposed to get married to a Turret (which was specifically called a bride, the turrets also refer to each other with feminine terms). These aren't as canon, but in Count to Three, a Valve fan-song that got approval to have Gabe Newell and Ellen McLain in it, Chell is drawn as dancing with Gordon Freeman. I’m not sure what that counts for but it’s staying. A little bonus, I headcanon she’s transfeminine because the original Portal protagonist was male before they used Chell! They aren’t the same character but I like to think they are (if the guy wasn’t white).

Turret Bride - lesbian (canon)

There was a cut scene in Portal 2 where Chell would save a group of Turrets and help them so in return they gave a Turret off to marry Chell, who was called the bride turret.

Turrets - sapphic (implied)

The standard turrets themselves are sapphic because most are girls or at least use she/her pronouns (besides Randolph, and probably the defective turrets). They had valentines cards to each other, the Turret Wife serenade can be brought up as well.

Cave - transgender, pansexual (potential)

In Aperture Desk Job, there is a billboard with Cave's face on it with specific parts having the colors of the transgender flag and the pansexual flag. In Perpetual Testing Initiative there are lines implying (in a sense?) he could've liked his assistant Greg (Similar to how Caroline and Cave could’ve had a relationship). There is also a universe where Cave was a trans woman, meaning in a universe Cave is a trans man as he says the possibilities of universes is infinite. In Portal 2 there is implication he could've liked Caroline (they get a lot of strange implication. And once again, Caroline and Cave’s art for the Steam 20th anniversary was done over a meme of a couple.). In both PTI and the base game he makes remarks towards the hypothetical test subjects hearing it (as they're prerecorded), calling them a handsome devil or complimenting them. In the DotA announcer pack, he often makes remarks finding various characters attractive (or commenting on how characters of either gender aren’t wearing pants??). Also in the DotA announcer pack, Cave mentions having a first wife (implying he had other marriages).

Cavina Johnson - transgender (implied)

Cavina is the transfeminine version of Cave in Perpetual Testing Initiative. She is heard protesting her gender and trying to get people to believe she is a woman.

Greg - transgender, achillean (potential?)

Greg might be transmasculine as seen above with Cave, he too had a transfeminine version of himself in Perpetual Testing Initiative. (Big stretch, probably not the intention) how he acts with Cave could also potentially be romantic. Though he also has a daughter, and in the DotA announcer pack, Cave mentions how Greg has a wife (who Cave does not like).

Sally Sue Greg - transgender (implied)

Sally Sue Greg is the transfeminine version of Greg in an alternate universe. She's heard talking with Cavina about the matter of people not seeing them as women.

Bendy - nonbinary (potential)

Bendy was never given a gender in Perpetual Testing Initiative and only has the little stick figure sprite. Same for other Aperture universe games such as The Lab.

Charlie - nonbinary, bisexual (implied)

Charlie in Aperture Desk Job gets no identifying features of any gender and Charlie is a very gender-neutral name. Grady also asks them if they have a wife or husband and then says he'd like to meet them eventually.

Grady - gay (potential)

Charlie and Grady are most likely meant to mimic the relationship that Chell and GLaDOS have.

Cores - agender (canon)

Most (but not all) Cores and robots in the Portal games that you see do not get assigned a gender (or get it/its used on them).

Atlas and Pbody - gay? Aroace? (Implied??)

In The Final Hours of Portal 2 they were implied as a couple. One of Valves artists, Makani, made human designs and made them both the same gender, also stating the robots are pretty gender-neutral. I don't think the robots themselves were actually given a gender though. Also you can color-pick the aro/ace flag off of them. Portal is literally aro/ace now lol!

Mel - sapphic (potential)

Mel and Chell were originally co-op test partners together, if following the same pattern as the co-op bots, then they could’ve been romantic.

There’s a clipboard in various areas of the games that says “Gender Neutral, Polyamory-Friendly Partnership Project”.

Half-Life

Gman - genderless, asexual (canon?)

There's a line in Half-Life 1 from the Nihilanth that says Gman is not man like Gordon is "you are man. He is not man". Gman isn't really human so I don't think gender or sexual orientation matters but a bonus is you can also color-pick the asexual colors from him.

Alyx - bisexual (probable)

Alyx was meant to have a crush on a resistance member who's gender was not confirmed. Alyx in Half-Life 2 is shown to develop a crush on Gordon Freeman. This doesn’t really count but in the Official Portal 2 Guide Book, there was a question to some Valve employees on who would win if Chell and Alyx were in a fight and two people said they'd probably just hang out and go to a bar (I like to think that implies something lol).

Cut Resistance member - nonbinary (possibly)

(Same as above) There was a cut resistance member for HL2e3 that Alyx Vance would get a crush on. They were deaf so Alyx learned sign language to communicate with them. They later on go away from Alyx to someplace else to fight the Combine and Alyx was left to use her sign language with Dog. Gabe Newell did not specify the gender of this character.

Barney Calhoun - bisexual (possibly)

Barney in Half-Life: Blue Shift is implied to have a girlfriend based on his locker but someone suggested he might be bisexual because of a line to Gordon in Half-Life 2, “You're in pretty good shape for a man of science”.

Technically you could also count many of the humans in Half-Life to being asexual due to the suppression field.

Adrian Shephard is another potential gender queer character because him as a person is meant to be up to player interpretation

The Lambda symbol, in Half-Life’s context is used to represent radioactive decay, but the Lambda symbol has been used historically as a gay pride symbol.

Team Fortress 2

Miss Pauling - lesbian (canon)

Miss Pauling was confirmed lesbian by Jay Pinkerton, one of Valves writers. She's shown in Expiration Date, her voice lines, and the comics to not like Scout back or ever date him. She goes to many women themed events in her time off in the Tough Break update. She had an ad listing in the Teufort Reader on the TF2 website in which she was looking for someone to go on a date with her but did not specify the gender of the partner, unlike Scout who specified he wanted to date a woman. Ashly Burch, Pauling's voice actress, came out as pansexual and added in the post that many of the characters she voiced were in LGBTQ (she is also in DotA as Dark Willow and in Portal as the out-of-breath core if that means anything for them). In the TF2 comics, Pauling is repulsed by Soldier being naked but was unbothered by Zhanna, possibly implied to develop a crush on her. Miss Pauling might also have a crush on the Administrator by some of her remarks towards her in the comics (And in the possible comic 7 leak documented by Richter Overtime where they almost kiss??). I made a whole post going into more detail on Pauling’s lesbianism, so here it is if you haven’t seen it! https://www.tumblr.com/thatvalvefanatic/691897743464136704/miss-pauling-from-team-fortress-2-is-confirmed-to?source=share)

Medic - bisexual (canon)

Medic and Heavy being a couple is heavily implied! The main TF2 comic artist, Makani, has posted a lot of Heavy x Medic art in the past (slight nsfw warning if you click on the links). Medic and Heavy are shown to be extremely close in their voice lines, (Heavy has more lines for Medic than everyone else, they’re a lot kinder as well), official sfms (they're usually paired next to each other), and in the comics. In the comics they become the implied parents of the monkey from Classic Heavy (and they stand together on the side with the other couples). Heavy had a line to Medic for the Kiss King item saying to kiss him. Robin Atkin Downes, Medic's voice actor, at Pax West 2022 said that he thought Valve should make a love story for Medic and Heavy and later on as Medic "just for the record, I love Heavy!" And posted it to his Twitter. Heavy and Sniper's voice actors replied supporting this decision. Medic and Heavy’s actors also improved a date, once reaching a certain donation goal on the Kritzkast streams. For him being bisexual, Demoman had a line to Medic saying he was having sex with his wife, as well as Makani made a design for her. For further info, here’s a master post I found of people compiling Heavy-Medic stuff! (although it is probably not the fully updated version but it includes A LOT more that I didn’t include here!). https://www.tumblr.com/heavicislit/638295696204857344/more-art-by-makani

Heavy - gay (implied)

Heavy is gay for the reasons for Medic as above, but he has never seemed romantically interested in the other women shown in the series (probably seeing them more like family he should protect).

Pyro - genderqueer (canon)

Pyro in their updates and in Valve interviews has gotten all he/she/they pronouns used on her. He also was joked at having a menstrual cycle in the comics. But they also have a male voice actor and masculine concept art. There was also a lot of implications of different genders for her, such as in Meet the Pyro with the female symbol in Pyroland and showing him liking stereotypical girlish things (plus the “he’s not here, is she?” line in the official captioning/transcript). Their cosmetics can be pretty androgynous. Many character’s use different pronouns or gendered insults on occasion in-game. One thing that inspired people to have the theory they are a girl is when a file of an unused female face turned up around the time of the Sniper vs Spy files, but never confirmed what it was used for. In a QnA, John Patrick Lowrie, Snipers voice actor, was asked what Pyro's gender was and in response he said Pyro was beyond gender and Pyro’s voice actor uses different pronouns on Pyro (usually he/they). Besides Sniper, Pyro was the only mercenary to not receive genderbent concept art. (There is way more to the Pyro genderqueer theory so if I find a good post analyzing it, I’ll link it here!)

Demoman - bisexual (possibly)

Demoman has the line "If I wasn' the man I was I'd kiss ye!" when thanking someone (and apparently in the Spanish version it translates to "If I weren't so macho I'd kiss you", if that adds anything). Also a lot of people interpret his lines to Soldier as romantic coded- I’m acknowledging that yes they’re platonic and that’s great if they are! Of course friendships exist and are equally as important but I thought people pointing romance out was interesting! -Voice lines include: ”I love you, man...", "DOMINATED! But you're a good man and I love you.", "EVERYBODY! I DON'T LIKE THIS MAN. HE IS A SOULLESS MONSTER! I do like you, it's just for show." and not to just Soldier I found this "Dominated! Accordin' to unicorn law, yer me bloody wife now". For liking woman there’s the line, previously mentioned above, where Demo tells Medic he’s gonna have sex with his wife, "Dominated! ...And I've been shaggin' yer wife! Hahah!"

Soldier - transgender, gay (possibly)

My friend brought this one up but Soldier might be transmasculine, as people who are unidentifiable for a name, mainly used in war, will be named Jane Doe (for female) or John Doe (for male) based on genitals. Soldier's name is Jane Doe, but he still refers to himself as a man, meaning he could be transmasculine. And for gay it’s the same as above with examples being "I love your death, cyclops; your death is sweet to me like love is sweet.", "DOMINATED! Call me later, we can talk about our day.", “DOMINATED! I cherish these moments we spend together." (to Demoman), "C'mere, sweetheart.” (to Medic),

Spy - genderfluid, polyamorous (implied)

Spy has the line "I like my teams like I like my romances: in groups of six". In the Scream Fortress event for 2022, there is a sticker on the briefcase for Spy's taunt, Travel Agent, that has him in pinup type attire with a more feminine/sexualized figure for both Red and Blu team. In the Steam 20th anniversary art, both Red and Blu Spy were drawn in the blue-black, white-gold dresses.

The Administrator - aroace spectrum (potential?)

Administrator shows no interest in relationships of any sort (besides once having a relationship with Saxton Hale). Someone suggested she was aplatonic, which can fall into aroace categories.

Merasmus - bigender, asexual (implied)

Merasmus in the comics would have feminine terms or titles used on him (for wearing a dress) but never corrected anyone (while still using he/him pronouns on himself). Soldier has a voice line calling Merasmus an enchantress (used for a woman who uses magic, or used for a woman who is attractive). In a comic he implied he was ace by saying his blood was that of a virgin.

Redmon and Blutarch Mann - intersex or trans?? (almost)

In the comic Blood Brothers, they consider creating a pregnancy machine to continue their family line and to continue the fight over gravel, but they are stopped when Gray Mann kills them.

TFC Pyro - transfeminine, intersex (canon)

Beatrice (TFC Pyro) is canonically a trans woman as in the original Team Fortress game she was assumed a guy, having a male voice actor and her design was mostly covered up. She then is a woman in the comics. She technically got gender reassignment surgery from Medic when he put baboon uterus' inside everyone!

TFC Soldier - gay, intersex (implied?)

Ross (TFC Soldier) is implied to like Greg in the TF2 comics before they die by Pyro. The pair talking emotionally about going to make orphanage together and following their dreams.

TFC Spy - gay, intersex (implied?)

Greg (TFC Spy) is the same as the spot above.

TFC Heavy - intersex (canon)

Medic directly told TFC Heavy that he put a baboon uterus inside of him. The procedure works and Medic is left with a baby baboon!

TFC Demoman - intersex (canon)

Same with TFC Heavy, Greg (TFC Demoman) is directly said to have a baboon uterus!

Team Fortress Classic team - intersex (canon)

Like previously mentioned, the TFC team had baboon uterus' put inside them from the TF2 Medic. Most of the team is assumed to be assigned male at birth and assuming none of them noticed this surgery, Medic probably kept in both parts, making them all intersex.

One of Valve’s artists, Makani, used to post a lot of queer art of the mercenaries. Many were genderbent, (or just remained cis/gay or polyamorous). Examples include Spy x Sniper, Heavy x Medic x Medic’s wife, ect.

Left4dead

Ellis - bisexual (canon)

Ellis says "If the laws of nature would allow it, I would bear that man's children." Towards a race car driver. Some believe the voice lines towards Keith make it seem like the two could be in a relationship. Ellis does develop a crush on Zoey, though. Someone suggested his voice line "My name is Ellis, some people call me El. But I really prefer Ellis 'cause El kinda sounds like a girl's name. But if you prefer to call me El, I guess you can." can relate to being transgender.

Nick - bisexual (possible)

Someone informed me that Nick having a ring on his left pinky finger could be used as a gay sign. Although he has rings on many different fingers, the pinky ring could still indicate he’s MLM in some way (although it can also be used as an indicator of a gang, which we know he was probably apart of one). Nick has been divorced from a woman at least once, going by some of his voice lines.

Rochelle is sometimes referred to with male pronouns for certain actions, but it seems to have been an oversight of forgetting to add female variants.

The Church Guy when revealed can be a Hunter, Smoker, or Boomer of either gender

Dota

Storm Spirit - gay (canon)

Storm Spirit is implied to not like women in his voice lines (Batrider also says his bat likes fruit when the bat hurts Storm Spirit). Him being gay was confirmed by an employee on Steam on a Steam forum.

Legion Commander - transgender, lesbian (canon)

The Legion Commander was originally male in DotA 1/World of Warcraft (?) but was later changed and remained a girl in DotA 2 and it’s comics. Legion in the DotA comic, Call to Arms, is hinted at dating a male Satyr named Belasanno, but this is contradicted when Legion was confirmed lesbian by a Valve employee on a Steam forum (where a user stated she was lesbian and a Valve employee marked it as correct). Not canon but the Valve artist Makani made a post drawing DotA characters as Undertale characters and Legion was drawn as Undyne, who is lesbian as well. (and if you’re curious who Alphys was, it’s WInter Wyvern/Auroth)

Mirana - bisexual (canon)

Mirana worships and is in love with Selemene (other potential relationships were Marci, Wei, or Luna?). She is in the anime called “Usurpers whore”, the usurper being Selemene in this situation. She does fall in love with Davion the Dragon Knight, and is implied to have his child.

Luna - lesbian (canon) Luna worships Selemene, Selemene multiple times saying she loved her and Luna says she is fully hers. Luna is hinted at not liking men in the anime when she rejects all advances from Hieronimo. Later when Luna, Davion, Hieronimo, and Mirana meet up Davion asks what’s going on, Hieronimo responds that it’s a lovers quarrel (I assumed about Mirana/Luna, but it was probably about Mirana/Davion or Hieronimo inserting himself into it). Luna seems to have some kind of feelings towards Mirana, at times dedicating her life to her.

Zeus - bisexual, polyamorous (canon)

Zeus in DotA 2 is just Zeus from Greek mythology, who was known to sleep with both women and men, usually multiple at a time.

Queen of Pain - pansexual (probably)

Queen of Pain is a succubus, and while succubi are usually attracted to men, many can be bisexual.

Anti-Mage - asexual (implied)

Anti-Mage is a monk and monks aren’t supposed to have sexual interactions so I’m using that to say he’s ace. Also a Queen of Pain line to him is "Oh, Anti-Mage, I'll make you break your vows." furthering that fact.

Lina - transgender (kind of)

Lina in DotA 1 was a male character named Link Inverse. They were inspired by the character Lina Inverse from Slayer. She was later changed to female.

Fymryn - pansexual, polyamorous (canon)

Fymryn in the Dota 2 Dragons Blood anime is seen in a polyamorous relationship with Adara, Dyfed, and Idwal. Adara being a woman and Dyfed and Idwal being men. When she is Mene, she is shown to be very loving to everyone.

Adara - bisexual, polyamorous (canon)

Same as above for the poly relationship.

Dyfed - bisexual, polyamorous (canon)

Same as above.

Idwal - bisexual, polyamorous (canon)

Same as above.

Selemene - pansexual, polyamorous (canon)

Selemene has very intimate worshipers of any gender, previously was dating Invoker, she is also an elf, in which the elven race is naturally pansexual and polyamorous.

Invoker - polyamorous

As previously mentioned, all Dota elves were confirmed polyamorous in the anime.

Mene - pansexual, polyamorous (canon)

Mene is the goddess that came before Fymryn was reincarnated as her. Similar to Selemene, she is seen with multiple gendered worshippers.

Elves - polyamorous (canon)

Most elves in DotA are confirmed polyamorous. Fymryn says that the elves find one on one relationships strange. Other main elves are Filomena and Invoker. They are presumably polyamorous although neither have been shown to have romantic relationships (besides Invoker with Selemene). I can’t find a clip of the scene but someone posted the quotes of Fymryn asking Davion about monogamy.

Pugna - archillian (maybe) This one is more joking but relating to the Undertale crossover art, Pugna was drawn as Sans and Sans is very aro/ace coded (I’m still learning DotA lore so I’m using the Undertale post almost as a basis? For this one anyway). I saw some people say Pugna was gay due to some voice lines but I haven’t found them.

Black Market Overseer - queer

The black market overseer in DotA: Dragon’s Blood is incredibly androgynous with slight drag (?) elements. They have a masculine voice but a more feminine look and could easily be interpreted as both male or female in appearance.

In the black market Mirana and Marci pass a room with a bunch of people having sex. It was pairs of multiple genders and some of the pairs were polyamorous.

Characters I’ve seen people say are queer but I could not find 100% reasoning: Razor, (gay, people mainly mentioned his voice acting), Slark (gay), Wind and Drow ranger (lesbian, but I think it’s mainly fanon or fetish), Axe (gay), Juggernaut (bi), Riki (gay, for being purple apparently?? I saw multiple people say this- Although I did find this on the importance of purple in the queer community if that means anything), Meepo (bi for liking redheads, although it’s only to female characters),

Counter-Strike

There are characters missing from this (from both the Asian and American versions of the series, apparently), but this is what I’ve found so far?? Please let me know if you find anything else! And yeah before y’all start about how gay people shouldn't exist in a terrorist game. Yeah. It doesn’t matter! But it matters even less when you sit here arguing with us about it. Some people just like the character lore okay. We aren’t supporting terrorism or whatever.

Trapper - transgender?

Many people thought this character was transgender due to the fact that when first released, she used the male variant of voice lines. It was later updated to the female version. The design is very gender ambiguous.

Safecracker Voltzmann - lesbian (implied)

While no voice lines make this apparent, Voltzmann’s design is similar to butch lesbians. She’s very masculine in appearance and has short colored hair which is a popular stereotype among gay people. Her personality is very fun and eccentric, she’s described as being weird, this could be like how queer people are othered for being themselves and seen as different.

This also doesn’t count as much but in the Steam 20th anniversary art, there are two Counter-Strike dudes doing the Barbie and Ken mugshot meme. Usually people used this meme for ships (as well as Ken has a crush on Barbie in the movie).

Characters people have said are queer but I found no evidence for: Female terrorist (lesbian, either CSO (Jennifer?) or CSGO (voltzmann??), Yuri and Ace (lesbian and ace for their names- but the names are obviously for the other meanings of the words), a SEAL Team 6 member (trans, I assume it would be like Legion or Lina where the character got genderswapped in development. Cannot find who though),

Miscellaneous

Steam Pal (Steam Deck) - agender (canon?)

Steam Pal is the Steam Deck mascot for the Asian release. They have not been given a gender so far. The only possible instance was when Steam Pal was referred to as “Pal-Chan”, (the honorific “-chan” in Japanese is often used for young children or girls).

Player character (Ricochet) - transgender (canon?)

There is a cut female model from the game, potentially the player character instead of the male. (They were probably different characters though).

Holly (Back 4 Blood) - sapphic (potential)

(Yes I know Back4Blood isn't directly from Valve) Holly has a pin with a rainbow on her bag, the colors are similar to the pansexual flag. Some people interpret her and Karlee’s interactions as flirting.

Mom (Back 4 Blood) - bisexual (canon)

Mom and Doc are said to be written as a relationship by one of the developers. Mom was married and had children too.

Doc (Back 4 Blood) - sapphic (canon)

Same as above.

Karlee (Back 4 Blood) - lesbian (potential?)

Karlee was stated to have grown close to Sharice (but not clarified in what way) and gave her one of her pins. Some people interpret her interactions with Holly as flirting.

Sharice (Back 4 Blood) - lesbian (potential?)

Same as above.

(Back 4 Blood) There is a line from Jim implying none of the characters are straight in response to someone. Lines being (not exact as I just saw a post about it) “I hope this is straight forward” “Only thing straight around here is how the crow flies”. Of course this phrase is used in other contexts, but it’s funny to think about.

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inconsistentcharacterizationcomp · 11 months

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Also for the Wheatley propaganda, the developers literally admitted in The Final Hours of Portal 2 that they hadn’t thought up an ending for the game yet and they were nearing the deadline so they had to delay it. They admit that the writing quality wasn’t there and that they were having pacing issues so Wheatley’s character motivations leading up to The Part Where He Kills You is abrupt and doesn’t make much sense.

They actually managed to swap GLaDOS and Wheatley’s personalities entirely if you look at the unused lines in the cutting room floor, with GLaDOS saying “We need to ESCAPE now. RIGHT now. RIGHT NOW right now. Fine. SOON. Take your time. No pressure. Oh! Alright. LOTS of pressure now. Actually, I think we're about to die. Any last words? [thinking] Why don't I go first? Hmmm. Regrets.... regrets.... this is hard... Hundreds of test chambers. Thousands of test subjects. At least half of that number filled to brimming with neurotoxin. It's been a good run. Regrets, regrets... Oh! One time, I... No. No, I did kill all of them. Nevermind.” She’s literally using the same speech patterns as Wheatley.

And Wheatley, for some reason is deciding to resort to murder just because Chell isn’t satisfying his robotic drug addiction anymore and he found better test subjects? “You’ve probably figured it out by now but I don’t need you anymore. I found two l it’ll robots back here built specifically for testing.”

Wheatley is far too emotionally invested in Chell to want to resort to murder for such an apathetic reason and his boss battle clearly shows that. Wheatley is HEAVILY emotionally invested in Chell if you actually listen to his boss battle dialogue. He’s upset and hurt and betrayed because he thinks that Chell doesn’t care about him and that she was just using him and planned to throw him away when he outlived his usefulness to her:

"We've had some times, haven't we? Like that time I jumped off my management rail, not sure if I'd die or not when I did, and all you had to do was catch me? Aaaand you didn't. Did you? Oh, you remember that? I remember that. I remember that all the time. And we would have talked our way out of it. Except you forgot to tell me you'd MURDERED her. And that she needed you to live, so the only available vent for her rage would be good old crushable Wheatley. Yeah... Little details that I remember. Easy little tidbits you could have used to save me from getting crushed if you'd cared, which you didn't, obviously. And still do not."

"Enough! I told you not to put these cores on me. But you don't listen, do you? Quiet. All the time... Quietly not listening to a word I say. Judging me. Silently. The worst kind!"

"Oh! remember the time I took over the facility? Greatest. Moment. Of my life. But you? Just wanted to leave! Didn't want to share my success. Well, so you know, I would be HAPPY for you if you succeeded... Apart from right now, obviously."

"Am I being too vague? I despise you. I loathe you. You arrogant, smugly quiet, awful jumpsuited MONSTER of a woman! You and your little potato friend. This place would have been a TRIUMPH if it wasn't for you!"

"And another thing! You never caught me... I told you I could DIE falling off that rail and you didn't catch me... Didn't even TRY. Oh! It's all becoming clear to me now. Find some dupe to break you out of cryosleep, give him some sob story about 'escaping to the surface', squeeze him for information on where to find a portal gun, then, when he's- when he's no more use to you, he has a little ACCIDENT, doesn't he? 'Falls' off his management rail, doesn't he?"

He would not try to kill Chell for not being useful to him. He would try to kill her if he felt personally threatened by her, which is clearly the case if you listen to his dialogue during the conveyor belt where he tries to encourage Chell to kill herself because he’s afraid of having to fight her:

"I'll be honest, the... death traps have been a bit of a failure so far. For both of us. I think you'll agree. And... you are getting very close to my lair...”

"So. Boom. Better offer, here is... just kill yourself! Y'know? It- Lot of effort, isn't it? Walking all the way to my deadly lair, when there's a perfectly serviceable death option right there. Again: Not a death trap, not a death trap. Your death would be entirely voluntary. And very much appreciated."

"Plus, I have put a lot of effort in getting this lair ready for you. So it would certainly teach me a lesson if you simply died, painlessly, twenty feet from the door. I'd be furious. I'd be like RRRRR. I got my just desserts. No more than I deserve. But, uh, teach- Why not teach me a lesson by- by just jumpin' in the ol' masher?"

He even says at the start of the boss battle that he watched the tapes of Chell killing GLaDOS and that he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes. Cold and uncaring apathy is not a driving motivator for Wheatley- especially not with Chell. FEAR AND COWARDICE are his main motivators! The inconsistency here is that Valve couldn’t think up the ending on schedule so they rushed through the pacing, incidentally gave Wheatley a motive that makes far more sense for GLaDOS and neglected the fact that he’s motivated more so by cowardice rather than cold and apathetic utilitarianism like GLaDOS.

#ask #propaganda #wheatley #wheatley propaganda

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apertures-angel-archive · 7 months

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YOU AND GLADOS, it's what caught my eye when I first started following you!!!! But also!!! You and Xizzy...and also! You and Neuvillette waaaa, I love everything you've been posting about her, I'm a big fan of you two, and it's been such a joy seeing your love blossom in real-time.

EEEE WAHH THANK U......! g.lados isn't at the forefront of my brain rn, she hasn't for a while and idk when she will be back up in there, but it still very much is a "living in a.perture all the rest of my f/os are here too" situation hehe... she means sooo much to me

I WAS NOT EXPECTING MYSELF TO GET AS ATTACHED TO X.IZZLE AS I DID TBH... i kinda... molded him into my own thing n as bad as i feel about that it's not like canon gave me much so!!! i got to go crazy!! i feel like what i've done..makes sense at least? maybe? idk. i love him <3

and hhhhhhgg n.euvillette is new but hhholy shit... jesus christ man.... she already means so much to me. and!! u were on break when i screamed abt it but i DID manage to pull for her!! u probably could assume that tho hehe. god she is even so fucking fun to play, absolutely broken too and she's not even fully built yet hehe. i'm... excited where things go for us 💖

#lovey hoots #@ 🧡💙#@ 👽👑#@ 🌧⚖#THANK U TERA WAAAHH.... HUGGING YOU #answered ask #foemans-bride

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drizzit · 8 months

Text

[Abandoned objects] smth smth between magic and science - psionics is the bridge ;;

“We are a lot alike, you and I, you tested me, I tested you. You killed me, I… oh wait, I haven’t killed you yet.” Her massive sleek body twisting like a serpent, ‘she’ ‘spoke’ in even inflections, never having to take a breath backed by its own chorus.

Traversing up a staircase the super intelligent computer assembled by shifting the plates that built the chamber’s boundaries, building into a circular track with each step. Pacing like a tiger in a cage, but GlaDOS was no prey.

Here again. What time was it? Where was he? Where were his allies? Kimmuriel wasn’t trapped here. He had no need for the ASHPD, he could make his own portals, open them up in virtually any space he could visualize. Immediately he could be on the surface, yet he didn’t. Explored the chambers so graciously provided by his host.

“You think you’re so smart, don’t you.＂　

Not anymore than you. He sent the sentence out, but hadn’t gotten the twitch the psionicist was so used to indicating it had been received. Kimmuriel lived in his mind - more so literally than others attributed to that descriptor - to the point his own body was a foreign thing to maneuver. Willing the words out of his mouth was akin to pulling teeth, but sending his thoughts directly into someone else’s was as natural as a baby born to scream.

He wouldn’t have to worry about grammar or inflection or any other tricks that a mouth could accidentally utter. If the creature was intelligent enough, intentions could easily pass through barriers, where the drow tongue couldn’t convey love, was not to say that a dark elf hadn’t experienced such a sensation before. But for some reason it wouldn’t reach this creature.

She swiveled about the dark elf, her scope eye focusing and unfocusing at him. As she moved she hadn’t squeaked, Kimmuriel considered her a masterpiece, but such a word didn’t capture the feeling correctly, she was perfected. The delicate way all of the pieces that made her were placed and molded to easily glide, moving delicately, but would instantly shatter the bones and shred the flesh if he were to stick a finger in the machinations. A far worse fate than neurotoxin, but maybe better than immolation.

What was it that kept him here? His own curiosity at how far these seemingly endless tests were? Testing, testing, testing, that was her purpose. But what was it that she was learning? For what purpose? Whatever it was, she was content to continue doing it - even if he wasn’t the perfect test subject. Who in that case would?

A realization. Standing here, in her chamber after running that rat race so many others have before. He made it. If test subject wasn’t right, then maybe he would be better served as tester.

While thinking, he heard the opening of a chute.

Again with the neurotoxin?

“Breathe in, it’s your favorite, neurotoxin.” Kimmuriel could hear something of a smile as she said that, although she had no face. One of the various panels on the wall lit up white for a second, and then its screen displayed a timer. A countdown of six minutes.

Deadly neurotoxin becomes far less of an obstacle when you can open up portals anywhere you can imagine at will.

“Your sense of humor seems to be sparking the opposite effect. Are you having fun? Throwing off my results?”

Kimmuriel, growing tired of this game, but not yet done here, quickened his pace as he circled the machine. GlaDOS never took her scope off the elf. Out of curiosity, he reached for one of her many exposed wires. A thin one in his hand. With a firm tug and a small cthwuk noise, at the end of the rope a skill silver prod.

He looked at her, trying to gage her reaction, whether what he was doing was distressing her in any way.

“Your central core and mine run on the same stuff. Electricity. Of course yours is more prone to failure. You could hardly generate enough power to keep a lightbulb on. Were you to plug yourself into a single one of my wires you would be fried instantly. Just another point towards my superiority.”

Kimmuriel reached for another one before thinking about what she just said.

“Why do you do this? You know I’ll just have them plugged back again.” Kimmuriel continued, sensing it might be unnerving the beast. Tearing away at her, bit by bit. A cut wire here, a switched off switch there, a button or two pressed. He surmised it’d be the equivalent of cutting fingers or pulling teeth.

GlaDOS too was observing the other. He’s a strange one, wasn’t one of the original test subjects she had nabbed, but there he was in the stasis pod. She sensed it too that it was all so foreign to him. I mean who wouldn’t, being able to hop through time and all, but that came naturally to him. Too naturally.

Both of them saw their chance to freak the other out, but the super computer was faster.

“Is it because it feels so… familiar? Because we’ve been here before, I already know how this ends.” Kimmuriel looked at her incredulous. “I’ve got your mind backed up. All those little paths down your neurons, the electric signals, all of them. That includes your memories, hopes, dreams, all of it. I find it all fits nicely on a single drive the size of a textbook. Much more spatially convenient.” To accentuate her point, her head tilted from head to toe.

Kimmuriel didn’t move. Whether in thought or due to the absence of thought she couldn’t tell. Had she miscalculated? Did he call her bluff? Had she given him too much credit and the real source of his indifference was intense brain damage from the lack of mental stimulation for… too long…

Rolling the little silver bit over in his fingers. What’s a little electrocution? Nothing a four hour trance and another four hours of light activity can’t fix. Just because Kimmuriel didn’t belong in his flesh didn’t mean he lacked the understanding of the mortal form. Like inserting a needle to draw blood, it went in easily.

Kimmuriel realized his nervous system had sent the signal to cry, curl up, and die. All before he felt the shock.

It was spikey on his skin, and spread in big globs from his wrist to his arm and then into his core all in the blink of an eye. A hundred pricks all with the same intensity hopping from spinal plate to spinal plate. Pain receptors all reminding him of how he was a slave to flesh.

It left him as quickly as it came, but that didn’t mean Kimmuriel was unscathed. The pain did leave, in the sense that he couldn’t sense it or the thing that was being attacked. He tried to waggle the fingers on his left hand, but found they weren’t there. It was as if he had dipped himself into something so corrosive, he experienced his senses melting away, all too quickly.

There was only so much to think and regret in the milliseconds that felt like forever as his being dissolved while he was still attached.

Then he was gone, an untethered soul detached from anything. Isolated and depraved from his existence, but not truly gone. Trapped more like it. In a dark dark chamber, he could visualize it similar to floating freely as in gestation, waiting to be born.

Am I similar to you? Is there a relation? Is there anything?

#quarklol #long post #i was gonna write naursty robot smut but i cant think of anything other than harvesting resources from the earth and shaping it to your wil #sowwy #it was smth along the lines of two nerds that want nothing to do with each other but find each other within themselves

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smallestapplin · 2 years

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can i just have some general hc stuff for maxie being a dad and his son??? pretty pls- also ur really cool and ur works are like amazing!

Ya know I never thought about it, but now that I have? WOOOBOAH. You want Maxie and his son? You gonna get it!

(Also the insult I was going for aas ‘built like a toad head ass’ but the remember they have Pokémon based toads.)

Asks are open!

🔥Maxie🔥

- Oh you grow up in a strict household but so spoiled.

- When you were a little toddler running around asking for your dad.

- Maxie could never say no.

- Team magma got use to seeing their stern, strict, authoritative boss walking around with one of those baby holders to his chest with you in it.

- One moment he is scolding grunts who stepped out of line, to cooing so sweetly at you.

- You get all you could ask for, Maxie would just give you the illusion that you worked for it.

- Like ‘clean your room and you’ll get that plush toy.’ Meanwhile he already bought it and was going to give it to you regardless.

- There were a few times he’d have to leave you behind at base, he never enjoyed those.

- He didn’t like leaving his baby boy behind.

- Or making you cry.

- Courtney and Tabitha learn that they aren’t your dad, so they can’t calm your sad down once Maxie leaves.

- Speaking of the admins nickname for you when your father was gone was ‘mini menace.’

- Courtney at least would call you ‘bub’ while Tabitha called you ‘little man’

- When you are taught very early on about science.

- You probably use to fall asleep to Maxie reading a book about atoms and ecosystems.

- To which Maxie quickly learns that now you can’t fall asleep without his ‘bedtime stories.’

- The admins have plenty of pictures of Maxie asleep with you curled up in his arms asleep on him, book in hand.

- Grunts who mistreat you are never seen or heard from again.

- Courtney has a home video of Maxie at his desk trying to eat and feed you, while also trying to have a philosophical conversation with 3 year old you.

- You didn’t understand anything he said but he took all your words to heart, no matter how wild.

- Maxie always checks in with you, he wants to make sure his son is happy and healthy.

- As you get older your studies grow and change with you.

- As much as he’d love for you to follow in his foot steps, he isn’t mad when you don’t.

- He does however like that you enjoy Pokémon battles, your partner Pokémon is a Numel.

- He teaches you the importance of loving your team.

- And it shines through when he sees how much you baby your Pokémon.

- Once you reach adulthood he will cry if you leave him.

- Like he understands. But that doesn’t make it easier on him, you’re his baby boy.😭

- You two most likely have a great bond.

- Sure he is a stiff old man.

- But he tries to understand you and bond with you no matter how old you get.

- This is a long way of saying he sat through watching demon slayer with you.

- He sat through watching you play video games.

- He was excited when you tried finding some to match his taste and two player nonetheless!

- When you kept buying party games or at least two player games he almost broke down crying.

- This man is so scared of not being a good dad to you that when you do this, to him it’s a way of saying you still love him and want to share things with him.

- His favorites to play with you are exploration games, or lore heavy games.

- He survived playing portal with you to learn about it and take in all the lore.

- “Dad it is three in the morning, go to bed.”

- “I cannot, I have to figure out EVERYTHING about that bitch GLaDOS.”

- You and Archie get along…fine? Better than him and your dad.

- But you have some of your dad’s mannerisms (who would’ve thought-) and Archie hates that.

- When Archie and him were having an argument (as the always do) and Archie over stepped by insulting him personally, all they could hear from a distance was.

- “The FUCK did you say about my dad you built like a Seismitoad BITCH.”

- Maxie has never seen Archie so offended.

- Even more so when you came around the corner ready to throw hands.

- You are the son of the team magma boss.

- You will not take bullshit sitting down.

- Archie has more respect for you cause he is built like a truck and you STILL came at him.

- Even if you don’t take over your father’s business.

- You love him and will do all you can for him.

- As he does you.

- Your father is a very sentimental person.

- It shows in the fact that he kept and preserved every gift you ever gave him.

- So you made him a scrapbook.

- Edges of pictures cut with wavy scissors, silly stickers, fun boarders, hand written notes to him.

- Like next to the picture would be your hand writing saying ‘number 1 dad! Isn’t he the greatest? :)’ or ‘I love you pops!’

- Small stuff like that.

- You’ve never seen you dad cry.

- While he taught you emotions were normal and okay to express, and you have expressed them.

- He never cried.

- Until on his birthday you handed him a present.

- And it was that scrapbook you filled the the brim with photos of you two and fun moments.

- He flipped through it, just sitting there in silence.

- He got to the end that had the biggest picture that was of you and him, it was arguably the simplest photo out of all of them.

- You just had your arm around him and you two were smiling, that was it.

- The note on the side was also simple just ‘I love you dad, happy birthday!’

- “Dad?”

- His shoulders started shaking and he just lowers his head into the book.

- “Hey dad, are you okay?” You were already sitting next to him so you put your arm around him.

- And he hugs you. You two have hugged countless times but you can hear him biting back is crying sounds.

- You hug him back.

- “I’m glad you like it! I had fun making it for you.”

- “It’s perfect, thank you.”

- Maxie loves his son, and he refuses to let anyone take that from him.

- The world may hate him for what he has done, but his son loves him and thinks highly of him.

- That’s all that matters.

#pokemon #pokemon imagines #pokémon #pokemon fluff #pokemon maxie #pokemon dad maxie #platonic reader #he is a good dad #holds his phone two feet out in front of him #tryna read a meme you sent him #but he means well

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opanchu · 2 years

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hi hello whats ur favourite thing abt glados :] i dont remember much abt her from when i used 2 play portal but i remember really liking her ^_^

well, i think its interesting to look at her humanity (or lack thereof)!

glados, as a machine, was made to be a "storage" for a human brain to achieve immortality, originally built for the late cave johnson, but his assistant caroline was put in the machine instead. it's revealed in aperture desk job that there has to be a minimum size for a computer to fit everything a human brain has in store (when cave was put in a normal sized computer all he could remember was his name & know the time), so it's likely that glados doesn't remember, or resemble anything about caroline until she is reminded of her in old aperture due to having to delete memories for caroline to fit.

glados HATES humans, which she makes very clear. due to being an immortal machine with knowledge of basically everything in the world, she looks down on humans, especially after murdering almost everyone at aperture except for chell and rattmann. discovering she was also once a human, especially one who didnt want to become who glados is now, was incredibly hard on her. it's also why at the end of the game, she is relieved to "delete" caroline, to get rid of the very last bit of humanity in her. her hatred for humanity, as well as the limited amount of THE caroline that can be stored in glados makes this distinction between her and caroline, while also sharing the aspect of only caring for science (cave even said caroline is "married to science").

but i personally believe she didnt entirely get rid of caroline, you know? glados may be a machine but glados is a human-operated machine. it was made for a human to cheat death with. the core aspect of it is a human brain, so trying to run the glados machine without at least part of a human would be impossible.

something else that has to do with her humanity is comparing her to wheatley. i always thought it was interesting that glados' voice acting is intentionally made to sound very robotic, although she does sound more human at times (fun fact, when recording voice lines for the first game, ellen mclain wasn't told what she would have to voice; she was just asked to imitate a text-to-speech), despite as i said, glados being operated through a human brain. while wheatley on the other hand, is 100% machine with no past life as a human, but he doesn't sound robotic whatsoever. i love these kind of parallels between them honestly, portal 2 works in a very interesting way by introducing wheatley who is basically the opposite of glados but then switches places with her.

TLDR glados is extremely interesting when you look at how she thinks of humans & her past life as caroline! i do think she is very interesting in general but this is my favorite part of her

#THIS GOT LONG SORRY...!!#long post

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ifnotscience-thenwhat · 1 year

Text

(A small thud could be heard from the right side of her chassis. The shark plushy gifted to her by the supposed-to-be-dead scientist, had fallen from where she placed it on her back.)

Tsk.

(Maverick let out a small chuckle.)

Did it fall again?

Yes. My body wasn’t built to shelve things on, so unfortunately when displaying Little Bruce i’ll have to deal with him falling every now and then. He doesn’t deserve that though, I suppose I will have to move at least one piece of furniture in here.

I told you you’d have to eventually. I know you don’t like the clutter, but I found that having something to place your things on is very convenient. You can always put it away when you don’t need it.

You’re right. The options we have here don’t fit my aesthetic though, which means I’ll have to make one of my own. Not a hard task, it’ll be another project for me to work on along side the new puzzles for the crows.

That’s good for you. You always did love a good project, I know it’s not something you’d usually want to work on but it will be nice! Oh, do want to hear about what Gray did today?

(If it was anyone else, GLaDOS’ response to that question would have been a hard no. But this was Maverick, her longest friend, someone who she liked seeing happy. And if talking about the activities it and it’s boyfriend got up to would make him happy, then she’d sit through his ramblings.)

I’m all ears.

Wonderful! Okay so-

(While listening to Maverick’s retelling of his most recent hang out with Gray, GLaDOS used one of her remote mobile pincers to pick Little Bruce up from where he lay on the ground below her. She placed him back on to her, she’d work on a shelf design after Maverick’s story.)

#mav and glad shenanigans

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nonbinaryspacegoo · 3 years

Text

the sudden reawakening of my special interest in portal has yet to die down and i am full of Thoughts

specifically im full of Thoughts about a core!chell and human!wheatley au

so uuhhh

portal 1:

* glados boots up the Test Core (Chell) and releases her into the test chamber, you know the drill

* eventually glados decides that this isnt all that interesting and goes to incinerate the core, only for said core to, against all odds, make a daring escape off her management rail and through a hole in the wall

* determined that no tech in HER facility will defy her, glados attempts to hunt the rogue ai down but the fact that chell was outfitted with a portal device attached to her hull makes it bizarrely hard

* somehow the little bastard makes it all the way to glados' chamber and takes her out but not before having her portal device removed and incinerated, and being shut down (for now!)

portal 2:

* chell is powered on after she is assigned to caring for sleeping test subjects. too bad theyre almost all dead

* chell goes through the survivors, waking them up and trying to help them through the test chambers to help her find her portal device and make her escape to the surface. they keep dying on her which is...less than ideal, but she Perseveres and eventually comes to her Lucky test subject, Wheatley [redacted]

* hes chatty, and his testing and puzzle solving techniques are strange and often involve breaking things, but chells a results kinda core and hes gotten further than any other human so who is she to question his methods

* he manages to find her a Personality Core Hull Attached Portal Device and attach it to her and they move on together

* eventually they come to the end of her management rail and she communicates that she wants him to catch her. there are two options for this: 1. he does manage to catch her in his arms and is promptly knocked to the ground under her not insignificant weight and velocity and gets to lie winded on the ground with a metal orb on his chest and a nose bleed. or 2. (bastard addition) he realises at the last second that Hey Thats A Big Metal Ball, gets war flashbacks to high school soccer practice, and promptly jumps back, letting chell hit the ground

* either way they move on glados' old chamber and wheatley openly wonders who finally took her down. they make it to the control panel and wheatley plugs her in. now either chell activating the lights or him hitting buttons at random boots up glados

* wheatley attempts to talk his way out but glados is much more interested in the little core who fucking MURDERED HER

* wheatley attempts to bargain for his freedom ("well i see you two have some history, how about you just pop me up to the surface and ill let you two catch up. (possible further dialogue depending on how much of a bastard you like your wheatleys) or maybe you should um, send her with me, i mean, seems reeeaaalllyy dangerous, and im sure youd want her far FAR away from you. so you could just... hand her over, send us to the surface, and we'll both be gone Forever, never have to worry about her coming for you ever again"

* glados informs him that since hes awake and gotten this far, though shes "sure the Testing Core did all the real work", he can start testing while she deals with this rogue (insert musing about how to make an AIs death as painful as possible here)

* at this moment chell manages to wrench herself free of the claw that was holding her and makes another bid for freedom. (she either 1. slips through another well-placed hole in the floor or 2. is quickly crushed and her lifeless body is tossed away as glados laments how easy she got off before turning her attention back on wheatley. either way she tosses him into a test chamber to get started

* wheatley goes through several tests before engaging an aerial faith plate only to spot chell, after several jumps he manages to get the gist of what shes trying to tell him (shes alive and shes going to get him out of there, just keep testing)

* chell does just that, busting her human out and taking off together

* wheatley comes up with a plan to take her down and they do it

* they manage to install chell as the new chasis. not sure what she does with glados but i am feeling wheatley kicks her severed head at one point

* now theres a few versions i can think of

1. chell betrayal: chell makes wheatley test instead of releasing him

2. wheatley is forced to sit around waiting for chell to try and find a way to get both of them out and many nasty words are said

3. wheatley betrayal: wheatley pulls some fuckery to try and ditch the core and send himself to the surface, or even shut the whole facility down, or maybe control the place through chell, either way its a bastard move.

* idk what happens after that part thats all i got plotwise lol

but here are a few little tidbits on core!chell

* she was built to keep glados entertained by running tests

* she does love doing puzzles and pushing herself but she does NOT care for being put down and the constant threat of death or dismemberment and she certainly doesnt care for people trying to kill her

* someone told her that there was a whole world outside the facility (im thinking glados, as a way to taunt her with the fact that shed never see it) and now she wants OUT

* does not speak. at all. ever. she has a vocal processor and should be able to but she doesn't

* based on how some people will "nod" and "shake their head" by jiggling the camera up and down or side to side, or jump to express their feelings while playing, i headcanon that she communicates via expression (as best a core can), lots of wiggling, pointedly looking between items of interest, and spinning

* heavier than most cores because she was built to withstand an absolute beating, with thicker plates and so on

* very impatient, very smart. surprisingly expressive, and can be pretty affectionate when things are going well

#chell #core!chell #portal #portal 2 #valve #wheatley #glados #mine #pls interact i wanna Talk #portal au #reverse au #human!wheatley

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sandyferal · 3 years

Text

There are actually several reasons why Wheatley’s self-correction habit intrigues me. The first being that I relate to it. The second being that it’s one of several things that could be used as proof that he’s definitely not as stupid as GLaDOS makes him out to be.

Honestly I think it’s supposed to come off the other way around. He continually says what the audience will view as the wrong thing and scrambles to correct himself. But a lot of people do that, it’s just internal. Wheatley is very verbal about everything though, even things that he doesn’t seem to want to say. There’s a direct line where he states he’s “rambling out of fear,” making it seem like he is aware and unable to fully get a handle on how freely he speaks. Especially when he’s nervous or frightened.

The fact that he immediately corrects himself, to me, shows that he has self-awareness. Certainly not all of the time. But he clearly makes a lot of attempts to think about how Chell must see him, despite receiving (as far as we know) no input from her. He knows that certain things he says can come off as insensitive or aggressive. It’s not a scenario where he becomes aware of these things after he gets a negative reaction, or because he was chastised for not considering them. He figures it out all on his own, he simply tends to speak too quickly for his brain to stop him from saying the wrong thing. So he has to correct himself. And that is the right thing to do.

The third reason it intrigues me is why I think he does this. If I had to make a guess, it could just be that he doesn’t like sayin the wrong thing or upsetting people, but perhaps he’s aware he that he needs other people to like him. Especially since he can’t seem to do much on his own. He relies on other people, so he’s gotta keep them happy. Gotta keep them calm. Gotta keep them on his side. With Chell, it was that if she didn’t listen to him, or abandoned him, or panicked and made a mistake, or died, he would be left alone and die when the facility exploded. And with the scientists it might have been similar stakes. At least in his head.

This is the same core who believed that he couldn’t turn on a flashlight built into his own body, because the scientists said he would die. Because they built him that way. It seems since day one he was given the impression that he needed to rely on other people. That he had no control or power. That he can’t do anything except speak. Which explains why he gets so excited when he actually can do something physical. Why, he tries to sound like he knows what he’s doing. It may even explain why when he’s in control of the facility, he says that he did this. “Tiny little Wheatley did this.” As far as I remember, that phrase was not coming from someone else during the events of the game. That’s how he sees himself. Tiny.

On top of that, his sensitivity with being called a moron comes to mind. The way he’s seen as someone made to have bad ideas. To say the wrong thing. It’s possible that he just hated the thought of doing that. Overall, it really just interests me that he ended up developing this habit. Because honestly I think if the scientists had really built the dumbest moron in existence, or even got close, he wouldn’t have the thought to do that. Or maybe they did. And maybe he learned better. Which is always a good sign in robot characters. That they can learn and grow. Even if it’s still clear they they have major flaws like Wheatley.

#wheatley #Portal 2 #i feel like i didnt quite say this right but yeah #theres more that i could talk about but this is most of my thoughts

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humanwheatleyslefttoenail · 3 years

Text

Now I Am An Arsonist

Chapter 1: The Spark

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

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

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

---

The tests, at least, hadn’t changed.

The centuries had washed over them like a dawdling stream, 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 years with profound regret; dying was not as peaceful as the science would suggest. For a machine like Her, death was nothing more than a shift of programming, a new prerogative. Her backup program had been an 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 went dark.

Still, 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 located.

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

The first batch of humans lasted a measly week, quickly killed by some of Her easiest tests. Even with reminders, the acid is deadly, the turrets are live, they’d failed within a few chambers.

Disappointing.

As a result, Atlas and P-Body had been deployed on a new mission. 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.

All obstacles finally removed, science could continue.

GLaDOS could not smile, but if She could, She was certain that a grin would reach across her faceplate.

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 come back with the theory of everything.

Originally, of course, Her plans had been different. The difficulties with Chell had worn down Her admiration for human data, and prompted her to come up with a replacement.

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.

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. GLaDOS wished She’d thought of such an idea sooner.

Still, there was something about human testing, something She couldn’t quantify, something that wasn’t quite the same with robots. Humans had a particular spark, and without it, testing never felt complete.

Today would finally be the day She could put all 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.

Bad science.

GLaDOS had learned from Her errors.

She knew for certain that She would not repeat them.

---

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, barely restoring 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 perfect, She would’ve done a double take. 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 trials.

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 tests. There were occasions when the humans became so deprived for social connection that their behavior would influence the results. 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, the chambers didn’t require too much preparation. GLaDOS had nothing particularly new to add; 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 and the facility clean, testing was finally ready to start.

She almost couldn’t believe it. 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 could just test.

It couldn’t be real, could it?

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 computer-aided testing program.”

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

“The 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’d 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 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.

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 door slid open. A lift was waiting on the other side.

As he sauntered over to the lift, it was difficult to miss the human’s triumphant 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 anyone. That much She’d expected.

On Her end, everything else was normal. She hardly spoke Her mind, 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. 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. The result was satisfying, but the process was more often not.

This human epitomized the dullest parts of her day.

As informative as the humans could be, they were often 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.

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. Twice.

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.

And yet, with morbid curiosity, She had eagerly anticipated Chell’s next plans, laying traps in scheming delight. For the first time in Her life, She’d been 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.

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 the warnings. Most humans labeled ‘tenacious’ weren’t too different in the end. The key for Chell was not simple defiance. Chell could control herself. That’s why she was such an outlier.

She had the mentality of a scientist.

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 the human mind 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, 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, often performing 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 the 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 put off the completion of one puzzle by nearly an hour, hiding out in one of Doug’s rat dens, fascinated by all the little cups and cans he’d arranged.

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

After Wheatley took over, one of the more terrifying aspects of the whole journey was being stuck on Chell’s gun. Chell was a risk taker, building her strategy off of previous attempts and lessons learned, but knowing when to dive into the unknown. It wasn’t exactly comforting to be strapped to her side, not knowing if or when one of Chell’s ideas would kill them both.

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 this 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 liked watching.

Fortunately, 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. How dare Chell ruin Her perfect tests, Her perfect existence, Her perfect world? What had She ever 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 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 gray 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 test like nothing ever happened.

It was there when a thousand turrets sang the opera She’d written specifically for Chell.

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. Because, deep down in those cold avian stares, there was this irrevocable quality that reminded Her so much of Chell. This spark of life, this undamnable will to survive.

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 moved like a spark 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 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 because it was what she was made to do. 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.

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 karma punishing Her for acting too human. Why else would She have done something so incredibly unscientific? To distract Herself, GLaDOS turned her attention back to the captive man.

Like many others before him, this test subject had underestimated the turrets’ range. 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 bullets.

That is, it would’ve.

The human quality of the subject had activated some kind of horrible reflex, a split second decision in GLaDOS She would come to regret. The way he walked through the chambers, the way he clung 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 safety 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.

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 GLaDOS was finally ready to admit that maybe something was wrong.

At first, the issue was 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.

The facility had other ideas. 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.

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 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 Her 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, 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 fire 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 leached 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.

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.”

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 with removal procedure or shutdown. Scanning thousands of documents, looking for anything, all 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 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. 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 choice. If She shut down now, there would be nobody to come and wake Her this time.

There was nothing else to do.

“Initiate Organic Transplant Procedure,” She commanded.

Without a second thought, the facility obliged.

---

#glados #chell #wheatley #fic #fanfiction #portal #portal 2 #chelldos #canon typical violence #chapter 1 #niaaa #now i am an arsonist #art #digital art

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supernovanim · 4 years

Text

Mutual Abduction Part 1

Right, I’m still unemployed and am therefore trying to do inexpensive things (libraries are great!). But I’ve finished my quarantine so can now go outside.

Many apologies to Kurt Vonnegut on this one, as the concept is totally stolen from something that happens in Slaughterhouse Five. If you haven’t read it, I’d highly recommend.

Anyway, I was rereading it recently and then had a weird dream which led to this. It’s a bit unusual so let me know what you think in the comments. There are references to famous AI computers, because I’m such a nerd.

Summary: you get abducted by aliens

Pairing: Female Reader x Dylan O’Brien

Warnings: Totally justified brief panic attack, swearing, abduction and imprisonment (non-violent). There is no smut in this part but you can see where it’s heading.

Word count: 1,443

Taglist: @hernameisnoellex3

One minute you were lying on your bed, looking up at a crack in the ceiling and wondering if it was new or you were just now noticing it, and the next you were standing in an unfamiliar room.

Your whole body tingled, like it was charged with static. You suppressed a shudder. What the hell?

Looking down, you saw you were still wearing the same clothes as a minute ago (comfy jeans and a tank top), but a band had appeared on your wrist with some writing on it:

HUMAN FEMALE: EARTH INHABITANT

What the fuck?! This was really odd. You shook your head to try and clear it, and closed your eyes taking a deep breath. When you opened them the wristband was still there, and you still weren’t in your own house. You were beginning to doubt if you were still on your own planet. You took another breath, trying desperately not to completely panic.

The room you were in was sterile and white, with soft light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. There was a black leather sofa facing what looked like a large built-in flatscreen. There was a giant and very soft-looking bed with pale green sheets, a table with a couple of chairs and a sideboard that looked very like one your grandmother had. It looked out of place here. To be honest, all the furniture did, like a landlord had furnished it with the bare minimum someone might need and no more. None of it matched the futuristic feel of the rest of the room.

The white floor was slightly warm under your bare feet, and was soft – it felt a bit like silicone. Looking up you noticed the ceiling…or lack of ceiling. It was completely clear like glass. Through it you could see darkness with vaguely moving shapes in it, and…were those stars? Your heart started thudding loudly in your chest, and breathing felt difficult. Right, now you were going to panic.

Just as you felt the panic attack start to take over, a robotic voice sounded into the room

Human female Y/N Do not panic Please count to 10 with me 1…2…3…4

Despite your surprise, you found yourself starting to count and your breathing slowed. Realising you’d ended up sitting on the floor, you stood and looked around for the source of the voice. It seemed to be coming from a blinking red light on the wall, set into a black aperture.

Human female Y/N You have been selected for study Do not be afraid

“Right, well it’s pretty hard to not be fucking afraid when you fucking abduct me” you spat out.

We do not like the word abduction We prefer…selection

“Ok, well why have you selected me? And what do you want? And are you going to send me back home at some point? Preferably right now”

You have attributes we would like to study You have been selected for us to monitor the mating habits of humans Once you have mated you will be transported back to Earth

“Wait a minute – MATED?! This is some weird human breeding program? Am I in a zoo? Are you going to get me pregnant and study my children? Because I’m totally not down with that. Or the mating. I might not have had sex in 6 months but I’m not that desperate”

We are only studying mating habits, not reproduction You would get to choose your mate

“I still don’t get it. You seem really technologically advanced to have transported me to wherever the hell this is. Why not just observe humans mating on Earth? We do it a lot. I could recommend some bars to monitor. You probably wouldn’t even need to wear a disguise in most of them.”

There are too many variables on Earth It is confusing We require subjects in a neutral environment to study and question

“Still not sure I want to be your test subject here. Sounds suspicious. And what did you mean by getting to choose my mate?”

You could choose from any man or woman on Earth This way we know you will be…compatible

“What if they’re not attracted to me, hey? I mean there’s definitely some reason I haven’t had sex in 6 months”

We have chosen you for your universal attractiveness Before your mate is transported we will scan them, to make sure of compatibility

“Scan? Not some kind of weird probe thing? I’ve heard you aliens are into that”

A brain scan They won’t sense anything If you are not compatible we will ask you to select someone different

“Right, and once I mate with them you’d send us both back to Earth?”

Yes

“I’m still not sure about this. Give me a bit of time to think about it”

If you do not choose a mate you will remain here indefinitely

Well that was certainly an incentive. And being able to choose from anyone on Earth was…tempting. It had been 6 months ok? You’d almost resorted to visiting one of those dodgy bars.

“While I think about it, are you going to feed me in this place? I haven’t had anything since lunch and I’m starving” you sighed, resigned to having to stay here a while.

Certainly Here is some Earth food

On the small table materialised a plate with what smelt like your favourite meal. It was fascinating – one minute there was nothing there and then next small blue lights appeared and then boom – food. Cheeseburger, fries, side salad in a vague attempt to be healthy. And was that a milkshake? Yum.

Not even stopping to think about whether it could be laced with some kind of mind-control drug, you sat down gobbled it up ravenously. This whole alien abduction thing had made you very hungry, and it certainly tasted like a normal burger.

“Hey HAL”

Yes, human female Y/N

“Is there a bathroom somewhere? I mean you must know how humans work, right? Food goes in one end and…”

A human bathroom has been provided Through the door

There was a door?! How had you not noticed that? But there it was, sitting innocuously in the far wall that you swear had been a blank expanse of white a minute ago.

Through it you found what seemed like a totally normal bathroom. Toilet, sink, even a shower and separate bath. It was nicer than your one back on Earth. You noticed that the ceiling here wasn’t clear like the main room – did that mean they weren’t observing you? Nice to have a bit of privacy somewhere.

You washed up and decided to have a bath – you didn’t have one at home and couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Besides, maybe a relaxing soak would make you feel more normal.

“Hey GLaDOS, any chance of some bath oil?”

You may ask for anything you wish, human female Y/N

And some bath oil appeared beside you. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all you thought, as you lowered yourself into the hot water.

You were so tired after your meal and soak, you barely registered the lights go off as you passed out in the middle of the bed. It was just as soft as it looked.

___

You had no way of telling the time as it was still dark above the ceiling, but you thought it must be morning when the lights in the room slowly returned to brightness

Good morning human female Y/N

“Morning Deep Thought” you yawned “any chance of a coffee and a muffin?”

Certainly

And just like that they materialised on the table. You could definitely get used to the instant room service here.

Once you’d eaten you checked the room for any more doors, just in case a miraculous escape hatch had materialised overnight. No joy.

Human female Y/N Have you decided on a mate?

“It can be anyone, right?” you questioned slowly

Yes As long as they are compatible

“Ok in that case I’d like Dylan O’Brien” you rushed out, before you changed your mind

Dylan O’Brien the actor or Dylan O’Brien the long-distance truck driver?

“Jesus, the actor you idiot”

Ok Scanning for compatibility… Compatibility confirmed Transporting

“Wait, shit – really?” you spurted out in disbelief

But before you had a chance to change your mind the blue lights started to appear in the middle of the room, taking the shape of a man.

And just like that a very confused looking Dylan O’Brien was standing in front of you, wearing grey sweatpants and a blue t-shirt. He looked at you.

“What. The. Fuck”

#dylan o'brien #dylan o'brien fanfic #dylan o'brien fanfiction #dylan o'brien x reader

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thedumbguywithaheart43 · 2 years

Text

Boomlords weird adventure

Chapter 39 why aren't there any portals?

Boom walked up to the locked doors and lowered the sonic screwdriver to the mechanized lock. I'm like the rest of the building the lock looked fairly new in fact it still had a shine. Sonic screwdriver gave out its signature pitch noise before the mechanized lock fell to the ground with a clank. He then walked in. Spike an Twilight followed after him. Once inside they found themselves making their way through hallways and stairs lower and lower into the building. Eventually reaching an elevator."so why are we in an abandoned building?"Spike asked while rubbing his arm. Despite the fact that the building did in fact look abandoned he couldn't help but feel like they were being watched."aperture science was the best place for me to hide her. Besides the fact that no one other than me knows about this place it's also one of the most secure places I know even in its disrepared state."once everyone was in the elevator he went down the long lines of the buttons and clicked one at the very bottom of the panel."and while there may be no humans here I wouldn't exactly call it abandoned."this shivers down the two spines behind him. But he kept a warm expression."is it weird that I'm a little excited I always wanted to power her up. Might sound silly but I had actually looked forward to raising this little robot I made."Twilight notice the distant look in his face. The kind of look you get when daydreaming."why did you build a robot to be a daughter though?"boom raised an eyebrow."well it wasn't supposed to be my daughter at first. I simply knew that I alone couldn't protect Lily.."his voice quickly stopped for a moment before taking a deep breath and resuming."I knew I wouldn't be enough and she always talked about wanting to have a family. Admittedly it probably wasn't what she meant by that but more I tried to build something to protect her the more I realized I was just building the daughter she always dreamed of. That's why I never turned her on though I built her from the best parts of us but when she was gone I couldn't bring myself to turn bring her into the world."his expression went deeply sad."it didn't feel right to bring her into the world where her mother was going to be that thing.... I built her to be alive I can't imagine what would happen if I had let that be her mother."Twilight recalled the terrifying figure. She never saw her face but she could feel the darkness off of her. Even an inorganic life didn't deserve to be around that thing.

2 eventually they made their way down to an open chamber as they stepped out they saw what seemed to be a young girl no more than 12 laying across the metal slab. However this girl that they saw had noticeable features that couldn't be denied. Every part of her from the solid Mass on her head which resembled long hair reaching down to her shoulders were metal. She also seemed to wear a t-shirt and what looked to be sweatpants with no shoes . The t-shirt and sweatpants were the only part that didn't look to be a silvery metal. But but if you were to ignore the metal she would look just like a young child sleeping as if waiting for a parent to wake her up."what's her name?"them then looked to Twilight. He was surprised."oh uh it's probably silly but I named her Amy after a character from a video game."he gave out slightly embarrassed Chuckle. Twilight just gave him an smile and nodded."I think it's a beautiful name."he smiled back at her. However before his next words can come out though he was cut off by a female robotic voice. The kind of voice that offers you cake but it always ends up being a lie."I see you have returned for your creation"suddenly a robotic figure resembling an upside down woman came down. (Apparently that is what her design is based off of) a cubic eye stared into the very of there souls."hello GlaDos ."the robot eye moved around."I very much doubt you brought me a new test subjects. Is it finally time for you to take your trash out of my home."boom stared daggers into the robot. It retracted just slightly flinching at Booms look."your creation is ready to move and I have no plan of stopping you in your endeavors."boom continued to glare at the robot."if I even find a single scratch on her!"his voice raised causing the robot to flinch again."scratching her would be counterproductive. All calculations leave to the same conclusion my destruction. Take her and leave."and with that she left. Not wanting to deal with the consequences of sticking around.

3 boom stared at Amy for a minute he held up the sonic screwdriver and thought to himself. 'I really hope she's happy with me otherwise I'm not sure how I'm going to react.' admittedly he was worried he had no idea what was going to happen when he powers her. "Well no time like the present."he stated as he activated the screwdriver. Suddenly the robot's eyes open and she began to stand. Her movements were slow at first barely moving an inch before steadily getting up. Her eyes flashed a bright blue before dimming to a lovely purple which reminded him of twilight's hair."Amy do you remember me or I guess know me I'm not sure how this works?"the robot slowly turned to look at him."dad?...dad!"her voice was absolutely adorable like a 5-year-old seeing their dad for the first time in years. He had a brace himself for the incoming tackle hug which he only barely managed to keep from toppling over. Despite her size she was definitely heavier than your average person that's what he gets for putting all those weapons inside of her and the shield and the cup holders. The hug was very sweet even with the cold metal boom felt his heart warm. Although that might just be the nuclear fusion generator inside of her. But his smile refused to leave him as he embraced her."it's great to finally meet you kiddo."everyone felt genuine happiness in his voice. It's caused Twilight to smile as well before Amy took noticed of them."dad is that designated mother unit?"Twilight raised her eyebrow."oh yeah I forgot about that you need someone to register as your mother in order to fully unlock everything."is cheeks flared up."Twilight I uh."

4 Twilight doesn't hesitate to embrace both him and Amy."I guess this makes me a mom then heh."it was less of a question more of a statement as Amy's eyes begin to Glow."registered pretty purple-haired girl as mother"this time her voice was far more robotic before returning to the childish one."mama!"Twilight filter her own heart begin the glow as she embraced the little robot."and over there is your brother Spike."Amy looked like someone had just offered her chocolate covered brownies."I HAVE A BROTHER!"she immediately turned to face the Dragon."AND HE'S A GIANT LIZARD!"there was no way for Spike to be prepared for the hug that he got sending him directly into the ground. He eventually returned it however awkward it might have been but he had learned to just go with the flow in these things."how does it feel to be a mother?"boom asked Twilight."I took care of Spike for years I'm pretty used to it."the two shared a laugh before a kiss.

#mlp fandom #fanfic #writing #glados #portal 2 #twilight sparkle #spike the dragon #sweet #OC #comedy

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britishsass · 3 years

Text

First Line Tag Game

So, my friend @tyriantyrant tagged me here to do this. Here goes.

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line, then tag 10 of your favorite authors!

I’ll do them behind the cut, and I’ll be using all my WIP projects (Then a few that are complete.) Here goes.

1) Red Flags (working title): To G, everything was red flags.

(A mafia AU portal fic for some friends of mine-- It’s likely going to have hints of Dougline with a lot of angst about what happened to her and not being able to tell anyone.)

2) The Trial (working title): He stood silently, looking between the prosecution and the defense.

(A fic based off of a roleplay I’m doing with a bunch of people, going off of the idea that one character could be accused of murdering his brother and there are multiple lawyers in the roleplay, so why not put him on trial for it. Genfic.)

3) Gelly Face Chapter 4: Another night. Another dream. In the familiar halls of the apartments, a deep, strong, and almost mournful riff tore through the night, born by the quick, gentle movements of his fingers on the strings.

(A Sally Face/Portal au longfic that’s been going on for ages behind the scenes. Genfic with some hints of oc/oc, Dougline, Raingil, and Stephgel, but it’s not the focus.)

4) Cabinet Man: “I have never seen a person win at the game that killed me.”

(A video game I plan to make one day, based on the song Cabinet Man by Lemon Demon. Gen, built on family)

5) Case Files: I didn’t ask to be a detective. I demanded it.

(An original book I’m writing with my gf-- No spoilers here, y’all ;) )

6) Chell Phone: On the list the things Miss Johnson was ready for, she preferred to think that everything in day to day life was included: She was used to low funds, starvation, poor health, aches and pains, and plenty more.

(An abandoned Portal fanfic about Chell after Aperture)

7) Untitled Conrayah: “Don’t talk to that one, newbie.”

(An among us fanfic being written with my gf since we made our characters into more realistic people. Genfic)

8) Untitled Hero/Villain au: The Spectre knew when he was beaten, especially when Blitz was involved.

(A Dougline sickfic/superhero au about Doug as a vigilante “villain” trying to fix the money imbalance and Caroline as a hero who accidentally takes away his sight while trying to stop him, and has to stay with him as he recovers.)

9) GLaDOS recognizing Doug (working title): “The ventilation shafts were the opposite of Chell's favorite way to travel, but then again, it was still nicer than the countless elevator rides she had lived through.”

(A story about Chell and GLaDOS coming across Doug in one of the pods during chapter 8-9 of Portal 2.)

10) Mirror Man: This story does not begin with action, nor with a happy family.

(An original book being written with my friend Asher. Yet again, no spoilers ;) )

11) Untitled self-insert episodic fic: Another early morning in the Mystery Shack. Oxy pushes pancakes around their plate, avoiding eye contact with their dad and their uncle, who are chatting in detail and barely avoiding an argument.

(As it says, it’s an episode fic. I wanted to make a sort of series of Gravity Falls episodes that took place a few years after the show and took place in the fall, using my own oc there.)

12) To The Moon AU: On one late night in 2020, Owl drove down the road, barely able to focus on the path with the rain, dull light, and the pumping music-- This time, Lazarus had put on some Mother Mother.

(A fun sort of au fic with me and my friend Laz as workers at Sigmund Corp going through Doug’s memories, solely because I thought it would be fun to go through it.)

13) Trafficking au: She needed his help more than ever before, even though she didn’t want to admit it.

(A REnis fanfic written with my gf that was going to be a dark take on the universe, using creatures as a sort of stand-in for current issues. Mark/Enis, of course)

14) Your Turn To Test AU: Reluctantly, Chell walked out of the room to join the others.

(A YTTD/Portal au that has been mostly planned out, but still needs time to actually continue. Being written with a friend.)

15) Silence: Doug hated the silence much more when he couldn’t even think through it.

(A Gravity Falls/Portal au shortfic taking place during weirdmageddon. Was going to be about the whole statue thing and how it actually feels.)

~~~

After this point, they’re all done!

16) April 8th: For the first time since they had arrived, Mayday did not allow themself a pleasant spot in the sun.

(A shortfic about my oc Mayday and how they cope with the anniversary of a loss.)

17) Testing: For a change, Doug had finally managed to get an approved vacation, something about as rare as a statement without ulterior motive from Cave.

(A shortfic about Doug Rattmann being put through testing and how working at Aperture was Not Good.)

18) another nightmare: Ford was used to nightmares, but not when others were near. With Fiddleford in the room, he had expected them to get easier.

(Also about the roleplay I’m in, but this time, it was built off of a scene from another game that felt too familiar with Ford from Gravity Falls. Basically, being unable to control what you do and hearing yourself hurting someone you love.)

19) smells like...: Though Doug could never admit it, the hallucinations had gotten much worse, to the point he could've sworn a few were truly there even after checking his usual ways to defend himself from fakes

(Still about that roleplay, but this time, a scene with Doug and a mental breakdown.)

20) Blame: It was difficult to focus on anything other than the suggestion of blame. Who did it. Who was in the wrong. Every time, it came back to what he could have done.

(A very short fic about that roleplay yet again to destress.)

I’ll tag @clockworkjunkie and @legallymean because i think my other friends were already tagged, oof--

Things that they have in common: I don’t tend to remember to describe places or people, only to jump right into info-dumping or setting a scene with actions or what the point of it is.

My favorite one is likely 17 because I find that hilarious.

#tag game #long post

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kittenfemme27 · 3 years

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Magrunner: Dark Pulse

"That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die."

That’s the often misquoted line written by H.P. Lovecraft and spoken by his fictional “mad poet” Abdul Ahazred in “The Call of Cthulhu”, a short story written by the very same author. It’s meant to symbolize the same thing that almost all of Lovecraft’s work was meant to symbolize: That there are things that view us the same way we’d view a simple speck of dust, or an ant. As so tiny and insignificant that we’re practically unnoticed in the eyes of this massive and overwhelming force. Lovecraft had an intense fear and at the same time an intense fascination with the idea of being insignificant, of being forgotten and unworthy, of being completely and utterly impotent in the face of power that was greater than himself. Every “Old God” that he wrote about is so far reaching above humanity and so incomprehensible that even the act of knowing of their existence was incomprehensible for the human mind, and would oft drive those with that forbidden knowledge to complete and utter insanity. This isn’t really a disputed interpretation of Lovecraft's work, it's barely an interpretation at all. It’s considered a simple set of facts of the universe that he created.

So imagine my surprise when I started playing “Magrunner: Dark Pulse”, a fairly mundane and simple futuristic sci-fi puzzle game marketed to have a “Lovecraftian Twist” and the final nine levels have good ol’ Cthulhu himself checking in on me from the skies above, literally one hundred thousand times my size, and simply observing me like I’m his personal favourite little human. As he communicates with me and makes it clear that I am in-fact, his personal favourite little human and he just can’t wait for me to ascend to his level. As far as a piece of lovecraftian work goes, this game was a doozy. But we’ll get back to that. Before we even get there, I’d first like to talk about the game itself.

Gameplay:

Magrunner is a first person physics based puzzle game featuring magnetism as its element in which you interact with the puzzles in each room. Your goal in each puzzle room is to use various platforms, blocks, and other bits of very clearly marked tech in each room that may be magnetized with either a positive polarity or a negative polarity, and combine that with the physics of the Unreal 3 engine to solve challenges and make it to the next room. To be blunt, the game is squarely a Portal rip-off from its design ideals. Your makeshift magnet glove-gun hybrid can fire 2 colors, one being a negative polarity and one being a positive. Like-colors are attracted to themselves, whereas opposite colors reflect each other. The idea of using magnets in a physics based first person puzzler isn’t an awful one, and neither is the fact it clearly wants to ape Portal’s ideas. Where it fails, unfortunately, is execution. The physics aren’t up to snuff with what you do most of the time and it leads a lot of the puzzles to be confusing or simply frustrating, as even when you know what you’re doing you still have to rely on the physics system of the engine to cooperate with you. Early on, you are tasked with getting 4 small magnetizable cubes together to form into a large one. What this actually has you end up doing is fighting with the cubes and the level as they fling themselves wildly off of each other and into unreachable parts of the level itself. The entire game functions this way and it really removes any sense of challenge or control you have over each puzzle, often feeling like you lucked your way into a solution rather than figured out the puzzle yourself in any meaningful way.

Buggy physics in the Unreal engine are not the developers fault entirely though, the game is an indie project that was kickstarted and for that alone i’m willing to give them a pass on engine problems that they likely did not have the programmers to fix. But, unfortunately, I can’t give a pass on the game failing to iteratively teach you how the mechanics work level by level. Whenever you magnetize an object, it creates a field, and you can see this field thankfully by pressing a key. Anything in that field will automatically interact with anything else that is magnetized in it. In general, these fields are wildly inconsistent in how they operate. Usually, they’re spheres centered around the magnetized object and cause objects within the sphere to either attract or repel. On occasion though you’ll find pads that create a cone of magnetism going the direction that it faces, up to what is an arbitrary height. Later on, you’re given the ability to place your own fields on any flat surface, allowing the levels to become more bare-bones as you have to create the magnetism points yourself. All of this combined means that If you learn that something works in a previous level, there is no guarantee that it will work in the next level the exact same way. Experimentation in this game is often fraught with a frustrating sigh of not knowing if the game intended for something to work that way, or if you just broke the physics again. Don’t even get me started on the fact there are multiple combat sections inside a puzzle game, ugh.

Art & Sound:

Magrunners similarities to Portal do not end with the gameplay and design, however. Aesthetically, the first and second half of the three act game are ripped directly from Portal and Portal 2. The first half of the game features sleek interiors inside of a testing facility for yourself and other “Magrunners” where everything is cleanly lit, sparse on color and detail, as space-age and sci-fi as you could imagine. These first set of aperture inspired levels lack any sort of hard edge or detail, with every single element in the room being curved and well lit and as minimalist as possible. The second half of the game takes places in facilities “underneath” the one you were in prior and are dilapidated grey and brown ruins of previous testing facilities, complete with all the same tools and magnetizable pads and tech that you had seen previously but this time a much older and “70’s” style of sci-fi aesthetic, but covered in grime and dirt and dust from the years of abandonment and rot. I cannot understate how unsubtle this is. The first third of the game is Aperture Science bonafide and part right after is Old Aperture from Portal 2. Magrunner’s aesthetic inspirations are worn very clearly on their sleeve, and it makes the game feel very boring and bland by comparison. It’s impossible to play Magrunner: Dark Pulse and not feel as though it was simply a junior developer exclaiming: “What if Portal/Portal 2, but Magnets?!” while the rest of the developers collectively lose their minds from excitement.

The music of the game was provided, as far as i can tell by the credits, by Incomptech AKA Kevin Macleod. A musician known for releasing thousands of free songs for use in any creative project. This isn’t, by default, a bad thing. Most of the music was not things I had heard from his library before and thus I didn’t immediately twig that it was his library, but unfortunately the music selection isn’t enough. As in, there are not enough tracks to fit the game. There are 39 levels in total and each level features a music track, but often and especially in the later parts, the music tracks are entirely re-used. This is most apparent when one of the tracks is a rising piercing noise, like the type you’d hear in a horror movie right before the slasher stabs into someone, but it never ends or pays off. It just loops upon itself and becomes this droning nightmare of a track for however long the physics force you to stay in a level. I counted 6 times this happened and each time it was so loud and obnoxious and frustrating that I had to simply turn off the game audio to be able to bare the level at all.

None of the other sound effects are worth writing home about, either, unfortunately. In something like Portal, there are pretty iconic sounds within its soundscape. The sound of the portal gun firing and portals being created, the soft and child-like speech of the turrets, the chiding and derogatory AI voice of GLaDOS, yet Dark Pulse lacks anything even half as memorable. Aside from the repetitive music, you are only given small bits of dialogue between each level and that’s really it. There’s a lot of character they could have created here, for example: When you gain the ability to create your own magnetic fields at will, the center of them is a dog-robot that your player character created in his spare time as a child. Creating one of these points could’ve been met with an adorable puppy squeak or bark, anything like that. Your character or the various ones that speak to you could’ve chimed in at any point in levels outside of the beginning or end of them, and yet they do not. It’s a big missed opportunity.

Story:

Speaking of characters, whew boy, are there a lot of them

Magrunner takes place in the distant future where a corporation that is effectively Facebook has taken over the planet by connecting every single person to its service essentially from birth and making it as essential to daily life as possible. Because of this, this corporation has become the de-facto richest company in the world. Its founder, Xander Gruckzeber, whose last name is literally an anagram of Zuckerberg, has started a contest in which 7 contestants can compete to become “Magrunners” and take a trip to outer space in a ship that is being powered on experimental magnetic based technology. The contest involves each contestant going through a series of puzzles that prove their aptitude with the magnetic tech that Xander’s company has developed.

Your character, an orphan named Dax C. Ward, is the only one of the 7 contestants that does not have a corporate sponsor. Instead, he’s a boy genius who built his own robotic puppy at age 10 and at age 21 built his own magnetic glove that interacts with the magnetic technology and allows him to compete. Ever the underdog, you’re helped along by your adoptive uncle Gamaji who himself is a six-armed mutant and an outcast among humanity for it.

Sound a little on the nose? Like it may be lacking subtlety in any form? Yeah, the entire game is like that. From Xander’s last name anagram to the fact that your own character’s name is itself a reference to “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” which was a short horror novel written by Lovecraft, the game never really had a chance at subtlety in the first place. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, but in between the re-hashed artstyle and the immediate and obvious references, and the fact that It tries to throw a very by the numbers cyber punk aesthetic ripped straight out of Blade Runner at you in an opening cutscene that it immediately abandons afterwards. It all just feels tired from the moment you hit New Game and incredibly confused about its own direction. It can’t decide if it’s a Lovecraftian setting, a Sci-fi setting, if it’s trying to say something about Facebook or if it's just going to be Portal: The Magnetic Spin-off.

As the game progresses and Act 1 ends, you find the corpse of another Magrunner being eaten by an anthropomorphic fish person. You are then told by Gamaji that he’s going to help you escape the facility, but this will require you to go through the older parts of the facility as he slowly hacks into the mainframe and tries to get you out via service elevators. Inside these older puzzle rooms are repeated writings on the wall, ravings of someone gone mad with the knowledge of the Old Ones, and giant sculptures depicting various Cthulhu-esque monsters. This would be bad and scary enough on its own, but Gamaji is quick to let you know that portals to some unknown dimension and fish monsters are being spotted in cities all over the world causing havoc and terror.

About halfway through Act 2, Gamaji drops the bombshell on Dax that his parents didn’t actually die in a car crash like he’s told him all his life, but that they were Old God worshipping cultists and that Dax’s birth in and of itself may somehow be related to that cult and its actions. This tracks, then, because Dax continually receives strange visions in the form of uncovered memories of “The Seven” attempting some ritual to seal off some force from beyond. Act 2 ends with the revelation that Xanders assistant, Kram, is actually behind all the ritual sacrifice and is attempting to summon Cthulhu himself to our world from the Great Beyond. So far, Act 1 and 2 have been rather cliche but haven’t been anything i’d call unremarkable or strange in a Lovecraftian inspired story.

And then Act 3 happens.

Act 3 sees you flung into the far reaches of Actually Literally Space, with various bits of the test chambers around that you must use to get to portals that are marked by a cute little icon of Cthulhu himself that transport you further into space and to the next level. You can quite literally see our pale blue dot to your side if you look, including a gigantic eldritch device that seems to be either siphoning souls to it, or depositing monsters onto the planet. The fact you can breathe in space is just handwaved as “Something Kram must be doing.” and is never brought up again. What really struck me more than anything in these levels, though, is that Cthulhu himself literally appears before you every 2 minutes in each level and simply watches you while repeating “Cthulhu... Fhtagn... R'lyeh...” over and over and over. This was the moment the game honestly lost any credibility from me. Simply seeing a statue in Act 2 caused Dax to go into a screaming panic as he was able to perceive how a human may be turned into a fish person. But seeing the literal Old God himself doesn’t bother him? And why is Cthulhu so interested in you in the first place? Unfortunately, we get an answer to both of those questions and it might be the most insane thing i’ve ever seen in a piece of Lovecraft inspired media.

Dax, somehow through the work of the cult that his parents were part of, is the chosen one. Cthulhu not only cares about him and wants to see him succeed, but even helps him to literally ascend and become an Old God himself. But not, of course, before letting Dax have a heart to heart with Gamaji wherein he tells him that he has seen through Cthulhu’s eyes himself and must now ascend, as he has no other option. Because Cthulhu is a big softie on adoptive relationships, I guess. The game’s final level has you face off against Kram in a boss battle where you fling explosive cubes at each other and attempt to destroy the esoteric relay connected to Earth. During their fight, Dax taunts Kram who tells him that what he is doing is the will of his Master, Cthulhu, and Dax knowingly retorts that what Kram is doing is “Not what He wants.” As if he has a direct line into the Old Gods mind itself.

I cannot overstate how much of an absolute failure of the mythos itself that this entire story arc is. The Lovecraft mythos was not, and never has been, made for “Chosen One” stories. If you survive an encounter in the first place, you’re often left with horrible scars that never truly leave you because Cthulhu and the Old Gods are in some ways meant to be representative of trauma and a fear of your own trauma. Making Dax suddenly an Old One and a special Chosen One is a complete and utter failure on a scale I've never, ever seen before. It’s been days and I'm honestly still reeling from the fact that was a design decision someone agreed on.

Conclusion:

Magrunner: Dark Pulse is a confusing and often frustrating game with a story that utterly fails its mythos and setting in just about every way possible. But I don’t want to pretend that I didn’t have any fun playing it. I did, and it’s not the worst game I've ever played. It’s not even so much a “so bad it’s good” game, but it’s more of an indie game that clearly tried its hardest and for that I can’t fault it. It’s developers clearly love the Cthulhu and Lovecraftian mythos and really, really, really loved the Portal series and wanted to combine those things into their own spin on it and in that respect, it’s competent enough that I could recommend it to someone who really enjoys those sort of puzzle platformer based games. But... man. That ending. Yikes.

#Magrunner: Dark Pulse #Review #Played on: PC

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