#And GLaDOS has her whole deal of being in it for the science - what's the good of a ''pretty'' form? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fakeshibe · 4 months

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Doug Rattmann is actually one of the most tragic characters in like modern gaming and i think we should all just acknowledge him more ok?

like, he's one of the only surviving aperture science scientists, if not THE only surviving scientist if we consider that even the people survived by being off sick would survive just long enough to die in the 7 hour war. He's totally on his own in a facility full of things that want to kill him whilst also dealing with paranoia, delusions and hallucinations with only one dose of his medication saved 'For the end times'. Once he takes that, he'll literally never be able to get more, he can't leave aperture and even if he could who's going to refill his prescription? Everyone died in the seven hour war remember? Or is about to, depends how long he's been surviving in the walls. Probably a couple of years going off of how many Rat-man safe houses we find in the game. There are probably more in the test chambers and offices we don't personally see. His only company now is a companion cube that he takes everywhere.

On top of that, he has to live with the knowledge that the deaths of his colleagues and friends is partly his fault. Survivors' guilt on top of murderers guilt. He was part of the machine that not looks to grind him into paste.

And yet, he doesn't hide away forever, when he sees that Chell has a real chance of making things right and taking out GLaDOS, he does what he can to help. Paints clues, messages, guides, anything he can to give her a chance.

And when she succeeds, he steps outside for the first time in years. Feels the air on his skin, sees the sun shining, feels freedom within his grasp. When he has all this, but watches Chell being dragged back to the hell he only just escaped, he gives it all up.

He recognises that Aperture is not dead, and he gives up everything he has, his present and his future, to make sure Chell lives. To make sure she has a chance to bring the whole thing down. When he finds that she's been put in long term relaxation, and that GLaDOS's shutdown has knocked all of the relaxation pods offline he knows what he has to do. He can't wake her up, but he can make sure her pod gets the power it needs. Make sure it keeps her safe for whenever the day comes that something automated wakes her up. Sets the markers so that when that day comes she'll find a portal gun. A life and a head start. A chance. It's all he can do and so it's all he will do.

And on the way to do that, he's shot. A turret shoots him in the leg. In a facility with no-one else left alive, he starts to bleed out. There's no help coming. No-one can hear him scream. No one will finish this if he can't. He can't stop. He chose Chell the first time because of her file specifically mentioning her tenacity, her will, too stubborn to ever give up. And so to save her life, he keeps going. Drags himself and his companion cube towards the computer that can save her life. Moving this much will make him bleed out faster, but it's all he can do. He can't die in peace when he knows Chells unpowered relaxation chamber will suffocate her without his intervention. And so he gets there, and he resets the power, and he saves her. And he asks for her forgiveness for it.

And then he crawls.

So slowly.

So agonisingly slowly.

He crawls towards the stasis bed that brought Chell to the first chamber.

His own grasp at rest.

Not survival.

No-one is coming to save Doug Rattman.

And so he falls asleep. With his trusty companion cube settling beside the stasis bed.

And when Chell finally wakes, and treks back through that first room. There's no trace of cube nor man nor stasis bed. Only the murals on the walls and the dens within them. One of which references Atlas and P-Body. Maybe he survived long enough to see GLaDOS develop them, or maybe they were an old idea from the Aperture archives Doug worked on that she dug up and claimed as her own. After all, who's going to prove she didn't? She killed all the scientists that could. She could claim anything in Aperture science was her work, GLaDOS is Aperture.

#I mean Portal: Lab Rat is just such a sad comic #but it has so so much story #and the things it hints at are massive #Some of the murals in the Rat-dens are actually heartbreaking #The dude was alone for so long #Doug Rattmann #portal 2 #Sheeb portal posting

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multiverse-in-archive · 3 years

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GLaDOS and What She can Potentially Tell Us About Chell’s Character

((So decided to make an analysis, finally, after reading way too much into GLaDOS’s voicelines.

When it comes to blank slate videogame protagonist characters, admittedly I’m the type to analyze them based off of what you can and can’t do in the games they’re in without a consequence of some sort [like death or contradicting one of the few previously established character traits] as well as how the other characters react and interact with them. It’s really all I get to go off of.

Now, I know GLaDOS is not the most reliable resource to analyze Chell off of, considering not only her bitterness and bias, but also that not all of her observations of Chell are accurate. After all, Chell is not mute, just refuses to speak out of spite.

However, she’s the only character we have that has the most insight into Chell as a person, and with things that she’s either exaggerating or straight up lying about, we can distinguish that by what can be observed of her in the gameplay. Plus, with some of them, I doubt she’d bring them up if there was no reason for her to believe bringing them up wouldn’t hold some truth or exploit some sort of insecurity. She’s the calculating type that aims for weak points she sees rather than just throwing shit out and hoping she gets lucky, you know?

“But didn’t she write the files? Or lie about what was in them?”

She may have edited and/or exaggerated them, but I think at least some of the things were already there before she got her hands on them. After all, there’s this. Which would imply that the scientists themselves would have made those comments in the files.

And considering how uncooperative Chell was with her application process [refusingto even speak to HR, answering essay questions with nonsense in bianary] then they’d probably thought rather bitterly of her, and it would reflect in the file.

[Side note, don’t really agree with the Half Life Wiki suggesting that Chell signed up for this {at least, willingly} when everything in the Lab Rat comic pointed to the opposite being the case.]

Now with all that out of the way, let’s finally have a look at some of GLaDOS’s comments about Chell and how they reflect her based off of what we the players see of her in game or what we can infer her reactions are to them by how GLaDOS approaches them.

The Fat Jokes

"Congratulations. Not on the test."

"Most people emerge from suspension terribly undernourished. I want to congratulate you on beating the odds and somehow managing to pack on a few pounds." - Portal 2, SIngle Player Campaign, Chapter 2, Test Chamber 3

"Hmm. This Plate must not be calibrated to someone of your... generous... ness. I'll add a few zeros to the maximum weight."

"You seem to have defeated its load-bearing capacity. Well done. I'll just lower the ceiling."

"Look at you. Sailing through the air majestically. Like an eagle. Piloting a blimp." -Portal 2, Single Player Campaign, Chapter 3, Test Chamber 9

“What, but Chell’s not fat-”

Yeah, I know, this is just more about what Chell’s potential response to it is.

And telling by how this tends to be one of GLaDOS’s go to's, it does seem like it’s something that at least annoys her.

Then again, though, it could also be just GLaDOS trying to poke at the most common insecurity among women. And I think GLaDOS even admitted to that being the reason she goes to it so often here and here. So it’s really up to interpretation.

Though personally, I think it’s something that annoys Chell but at the same time it doesn’t really get to her, if it makes sense? Just a nuisance at worst.

Comments on Chell’s Parentage [or Lack Thereof]

"It also says you were adopted. So that's funny, too." -Portal, Boss Battle, After Curiosity Core is destroyed

"Don't let that 'horrible person' thing discourage you. It's just a data point. If it makes you feel any better, science has now validated your birth mother's decision to abandon you on a doorstep." -Portal 2, Single Player Campaign, Chapter 2, Test Chamber 3

"I'm going through the list of test subjects in cryogenic storage. I managed to find two with your last name. A man and a woman. So that's interesting. It's a small world." - Portal 2, Single Player Campaign, Chapter 3, Test Chamber 15

"I have a surprise waiting for you after this next test. Telling you would spoil the surprise, so I'll just give you a hint: It involves meeting two people you haven't seen in a long time." -Portal 2, Single Player Campaign, Chapter 3, Test Chamber 16

"I'll bet you think I forgot about your surprise. I didn't. In fact, we're headed to your surprise right now. After all these years. I'm getting choked up just thinking about it." -Portal 2, Single Player Campaign, Chapter 3, Test Chamber 17

Surprisingly the orphan/adopted jokes are actually fewer than I remember. With how Wheatley tried to imitate GLaDOS by throwing around “fatty” and making a comment about Chell being adopted that one time, I kinda thought that it was almost as common as the fat jokes.

Though, to be fair, the adoption comment goes back as far as the end of Portal, and GLaDOS actually did a whole bit where she pretended that she found Chell’s parents. So it left more of an impression on me than the fat comments actually did.

As for whether or not it’s true? It’s most likely. After all, the adoption/orphan comments are protocol for specifically dealing with orphan test subjects. Also in general Aperture seems to have it out for orphans in that test subject type listing thing. [credit to the-wheatley-core go check them out cowards-]

"But Chell’s a daughter from bring your daughter to work d-"

The file said she’s adopted, so ye. Adopted daughter is still daughter.

Furthermore, the Bring your Daughter to Work Day incident probably orphaned Chell all over again, so she’s like. An orphan twice over.

As for Chell’s feelings on this? I think from what GLaDOS says here that Chell probably did not take the surprise very well. Granted, she probably wasn’t expecting it to actually be anything good. She probably didn’t have her hopes up. But she was probably seriously pissed that GLaDOS went through all that trouble just for it to lead to... nothing. All for the sake of mocking her.

Further implied by GLaDOS rubbing salt in the wounds.

I think this would mean that this is a bit of a sore spot for Chell in general and that this was one of the few moments that genuinely upset her.

Calling Chell a Horrible Person [and a Loner]

"You're not a good person. You know that, right?"

"Good people don't end up here." -Portal, during the later part of the Escape

"All your other friends couldn't come either because you don't have any other friends. Because of how unlikable you are."

"It says so right here in your personnel file: Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter, unlikable loner whose passing shall not be mourned." -Portal, Boss Battle, After Curiosity Core is destroyed

"Well done. Here come the test results: You are a horrible person. I'm serious, that's what it says: A horrible person. We weren't even testing for that." -Portal 2, Single Player Campaign, Chapter 2, Test Chamber 2

GLaDOS really goes into calling Chell a bad person. There’s like. So many instances of this.

Though I don’t believe that Chell’s a bad person necessarily, there can be some things that might make one believe she is [outside of bias and clear guilt tripping/gaslighting].

If you’ve read my Chell headcanon shit, you might remember that I state that I think that Chell’s a rather spiteful person. Not only does she stubbornly refuse to speak purely to spite Aperture as a whole, but it’s implied from her file that she gave the scientists a lot of grief, to the point they recommend not ever testing her [it’s stated to be her tenacity, but tbh I think for Chell spite was at least a major motivatorfor her tenacity. After all, what else did she have?]. And once again, it seems that they view her rather bitterly if GLaDOS didn’t put that in the file herself.

Not to mention that GLaDOS manipulates her into destroying the Morality Core by appealing to her spite. After all, it’s not possible in game to simply do as she says and return it to her. You have to destroy it.

Even Wheatley caught onto Chell acting out of spite. He tried appealing to that when trying to convince her to get onto the conveyer belt to the mashy spike plate.

As for the loner bit, that seems to hold true to, considering how well Chell took the isolation she had to suffer. As far as she knew in the first game [at least at first], she was all alone and didn't so much as crack.

Not to mention in the second games the other characters' reactions imply that she's rather standoffish overall.

That combination can lead to someone being rather... difficult to work with...

But to be honest, I think she’s also capable of compassion, or at least mercy, and can be cooperative if she finds you trustworthy enough.

For the compassion [or mercy depending on how you view it] I have some examples that I’ll elaborate on in the Companion Cube and Wheatley sections, but there’s a couple of others I can get into.

Remember when I said I partially judge a blankslate character based off of what is and isn’t an option gameplaywise that doesn’t result in consequence.

Not only is it optional to save the Oracle Turret without consequence, but it even rewards you with an achievement and some neat foreshadowing from the character.

Then there is the time that Chell found GLaDOS at her lowest; a potato, being eaten alive by a bird.

Now, gameplaywise, you can’t advance without PotaTOS, hell, PotaTOS sits on the switch in the nest you find her in, but story and characterwise, Chell could have just went on her way, let her suffer the her fate at the hands [or talons/beak] of the bird. And yet she scared the bird off of her.

And it’s not like she knew that the place was going to self destruct or that she needed GLaDOS to survive, because that wasn’t brought up until after Chell scared the bird away.

As for the cooperativeness, I want to elaborate more on that when I get to Wheatley’s section, but I will say, she did work pretty well with GLaDOS in the later half of the game, despite how shakey their alliance was. Even risking her life to disconnect Wheatley from the chasis long enough for GLaDOS to fix everything. Just going off of the slim chance that she could survive it with GLaDOS’s intervention. It was no guarantee, she probably would have thought she was dead either way if she didn’t have at least a sliver of a thought that GLaDOS would pull her back in to safety.

Now imagine how well she'd probably work with you if she genuinely believed in her partnership with you.

It may have gotten a bit off track there, but my point is that GLaDOS is not completely unfounded with her being “unlikable”. It’s clear that she holds a lot of resentment for her situation and reacts spitefully because of it, and that combined with her being a rather distant person can make it hard to deal with her [and in fact might be a deal breaker for some], but at the same time, she’s not completely unreasonable and bitchy just so long as you’re either harmless or have good intentions.

Chell’s Sense of Fashion

"That jumpsuit you're wearing looks stupid. That's not me talking, it's right here in your file. On other people it looks fine, but right here a scientist has noted that on you it looks 'stupid.'"

"Well, what does a neck-bearded old engineer know about fashion? He probably - Oh, wait. It's a she. Still, what does she know? Oh wait, it says she has a medical degree. In fashion! From France!" -Portal 2, SIngle Player Campaign, Chapter 3, Test Chamber 15

Now, this is probably the shortest one because this is the only instance [that I know of] where GLaDOS pokes fun at her sense of fashion. And since it never comes up again, this is probably something that she sensed did not bother Chell one bit.

Though telling by how Chell had the upper half of her jumpsuit folded down and tied around her waist to expose her tops, it does seem like she cares about fashion a tad [probably favors both fashion and function], but doesn’t seem to care what other people think of her tastes, just what she likes.

The Companion Cube

"While it has been a faithful companion, your Companion Cube cannot accompany you through the rest of the test. If it could talk - and the Enrichment Center takes this opportunity to remind you that it cannot - it would tell you to go on without it because it would rather die in a fire than become a burden to you."

"You euthanized your faithful Companion Cube more quickly than any test subject on record. Congratulations." Portal, Test Chamber 17

"Oh. Did I accidentally fizzle that before you could complete the test? I'm sorry."

"Anyway, here's a new cube for you to project your deranged loneliness onto."

"I think that one was about to say 'I love you.' They ARE sentient, of course. We just have a LOT of them." Portal 2, SIngle Player Campaign, Chapter 2, Test Chamber 7

Ah the faithful Companion Cube, everyone’s best friend. And an instance where GLaDOS tries to emotionally torment Chell while still trying to pass herself off as a automated voice back in the first game.

Is the cube truly sentient? I don’t know.

Does Chell care about it? I don’t think GLaDOS would have brought them back in the second game and taunt her with them if she didn’t believe it would cause Chell some distress.

She even gives it back to her after setting her free.

Whether or not it can talk or feel anything, I think it’s clear that Chell is rather fond of it.

Side note, I swear to god throughout Test Chamber 17 in the first game I heard like. Soft, faint humming whenever I held it. Am I just crazy? Did any of you guys experience that too? help-

Wheatley

"I have only met one other team closer and one of them was an imbecile I had to destroy."

"The other? Well..."

"I don't think I want to go through that again." -Portal 2, Co-op Campaign, Unlocking Course 4 for the first time

I don’t know about you, but I’m fairly certain the team she’s talking about is Chell and Wheatley. There is literally no other pair that would fit that description that we know of. Sure, she didn’t destroy Wheatley [literally, anyways], but he is her definition of an imbicel that she had to deal with. And Chell has not worked with anyone else before Wheatley [Not directly anyways], and it’s pretty obvious that “the other” is who GLaDOS was referring to.

And while she didn’t get to see all they did together, she witnessed Chell put enough of her trust in him to follow him to escape, even despite her best efforts, and she bared witness to the fruit of their labor later.

I think she sensed a sort of chemistry between them, noticed how well they worked together. She even felt the need to ask permission to kill him. She probably wouldn’t have if she didn’t have reason to believe that Chell was at least at one point close to him.

So that begs the question; does she really believe Chell actually did all the work?

I don’t think so.

Again, she witnessed Chell faithfully follow Wheatley, so it’s reasonable to assume that she was following his lead. Not to mention that this is not a type of strategy that Chell has attempted on her own before. Chell’s strategy in the first game was to simply to bide her time, portal in and out when the opportunity arises, destroy shit, and just wander until she got results, basically [she was kinda following Rattmann's directions, though]. This strategy was too subtle, too quiet, to be Chell’s. She even said so herself; "And now I'monto all of your little tricks." And she'd recognized that this is not how she do.

Not to mention that they all know that Wheatley knows Aperture and all its inner workings better than Chell, so even if she wanted to sabotage anything, she wouldn’t know what and where they were.

I believe she saw an opertunity to split them apart in the form of Wheatley’s betrayal. More specifically to turn Chell against him. After all, she was very quiet until he lowered the lift back down.

Of course that backfired into her turning Wheatley against Chell and Wheatley promptly turning her into a potato. Opps-

“But if they were as close as GLaDOS believed them to be, why didn’t she catch Wheatley? After all, it’s not an option to catch him in game.”

Well remember, Chell has only just met him at this point, so it’s fair that she doesn’t immediately trust him with what she’s been through. Not to mention that the last time that a core was dropped, it was a trap.

Though, I believe after that, she realized he was sincere and steadily warmed up to him. It’s never an option to drop him whenever you pick him up, after all. Now granted, you can’t progress if you could drop him down a pit, but I think characterwise we can assume that she’s just unwilling to do so, regardless of how useful he was to her in those instances.

Furthermore, I think she grew to trust him throughout chapters 3, 4, and 5, as again, she very willingly followed his lead and had faith that he would help bust her out, waiting patiently for him to do so.

Sure, she diverted a bit to flesh out his plan some [although if you wait long enough at the turret assembly line, he does tell you what to do, so this could be another instance of her following his lead without question, though I like to think because of her problem solving skills that she does it herself, but either way!], but it’s still his plan that she’s trusting him with regardless.

Plus, I think Wheatley being as casual with her as he was during chapter 5 is implication that they both felt safe with each other at that point. At least, as safe as you can feel when hiding from a pissed off over powered blood lusting AI while being forced to wander around in the dark with only a flashlight to guide you.

And yet she kept him at arm's length by not speaking to him. I doubt it was anything personal against him though, so much as it's become a long time habit and way of protecting herself at this point. So long as they were both still in Aperture, anything could happen. So to her, keeping an emotional distance from him and not verbally responding was probably the safest bet.

That, however, was what made it so easy for GLaDOS to destroy their partnership. The lack of communication would ultimately lead Wheatley to believe that Chell did not appreciate all his help, that she agreed with her even.

Chell's shutting him out ultimately led to a self fulfilling prophecy.

Welp, this took all fucking day to write, but here we go. Hope this made sense. This is just my interpretation, so take it with a grain of salt. Hope it was a fun read either way, and if I’m mistaken on something, feel free to let me know. ^^

Edit: Fixed some grammar and other mistakes, elaborated on some points, aaaaand gave credit to the little snippit of the low risk human acquisitionthing siiiince I did not get that myself-))

#Outta this World {OOC}#Learn a bit more About Them {Headcanon}#We do What We Must {Aperture Science}#this took foreveeerrrrr-

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genericdragon · 4 years

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Aperture Tag Liveplay + Analysis (Part 8)

Hmm. Seems familiar.

There isn’t actually a whole lot to this, it was just a minor mistake that the developer decided to go along with. Although it could be interpreted as Nigel accidentally repeating things that he’s already said because he’s inexperienced with testing. I know I say that a lot, but it is important.

And now Nigel is acting oddly enthusiastic about Science again.... The way he says this line is a bit strange to me, it feels unnatural. The “testing is the future and the future starts with us” bit in particular makes it seem like he’s reading from a script, since it’s almost a direct quotation from something the Announcer says in Portal 2. I think that he’s only saying this to get the approval of GLaDOS. At this point, GLaDOS is probably keeping a closer eye on Nigel, especially now that he and 18 approaching the end of the test. She didn’t expect him to get this far since it’s only his first time testing and now she’s taken an interest in watching how he conducts the tests. He has to be more careful about what he says now. The increase in quality of the test chambers (you can see it here with all the nice clean new panels) might have something to do with this as well.

And now it is time to talk about Heavy Metal Core. (I show how to get to him in this post)

There him be. I don’t entirely understand what his deal is. Motanum/Eugenio Roman says that he “was created to expand on the accidental metal song incident.” But it wasn’t accidental, was it? I would say that HM could have just been messing with Nigel, but Nigel said that it was a part of the test. Does HM have more control over the testing protocol than Nigel does? He doesn’t seem to really do much, other than this and taking a nap in a vacuum delivery tube. What purpose does he serve in the facility? Does he have one? Is he just vibing? We may never know. (Also note the Citranium cans on the desk to the left... hmmm)

Nigel does not think before he speaks. He accidentally told 18 what the true purpose of the testing was, but he doesn’t want her to worry about what’s going to happen.

Since he accidentally let it slip in the last chamber, Nigel decides he might as well just tell 18 what the whole deal with the testing is. Taking down the ALSSER is an extremely dangerous task, and Nigel wants to make sure that 18 is sufficiently prepared for it. And since she got this far, she obviously is. I really wish that I could include audio in text posts, because just screenshotting the captions doesn’t capture his tone of voice, which is important in a lot of his voice lines, this one especially. The last sentence is said under his breath in a much darker tone of voice. I know that a lot of people interpreted this as “Oh no Nigel is actually evil!”, but that isn’t what’s happening at all. Ever since the beginning of the test, he knew that he had to prepare 18 to shut down the ALSSER, but he didn’t want to stress her out by telling her that’s what she will have to do. Nigel feels bad about what he has to do to his test subject, and he doesn’t like having to keep information from her, leaving her in the dark about what’s going to happen to her (although he’s not very good at keeping things to himself so 18 already knows some things that she’s not supposed to.) KEEP IN MIND THAT AT THIS POINT, NIGEL STILL DOES NOT KNOW THAT 18 WILL HAVE TO BE KILLED AT THE END OF THE TEST. He doesn’t know this until right before it happens either. But we’re not there yet.

The delivery of this line is super adorable to me. He’s literally just a kid.

There’s also another easter egg here which you can get to like so:

The usual.

And of course the mural, foreshadowing what we are going to be doing a lot of very soon!

Sorry this part ended up being a bit longer, but the next part is the ALSSER/escape part, which is probably going to have to be divided into two posts because there is a Lot to talk about there. Thanks for reading!

(Index) - (First) - (Previous) - (Next)

#aperture tag #nigel portal #nigel aperture tag #aperture tag liveplay #aperture tag analysis #gonna try a different way of keeping track of the posts #because having all of the parts listed at the bottom was starting to become inconvenient

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canadian-riddler · 5 years

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The Girlfriend: Part Four

Synopsis: It’s almost better when GLaDOS DOESN’T try to be nice.

He’d gone home last week and it had been a bad idea.

He’d known it was a bad idea before he’d even done it, but heading cheerfully towards his own destruction was kinda his thing. So, he’d done it anyway. And now he was sad. What he really, really wanted to do was go to GLaDOS and see if she could make him feel better. He hadn’t even tried it, though. He was pretty sure she didn’t know how to do that sort of thing. She didn’t even know what to do when she was sad! So he’d been kinda… avoiding her a little bit. Kinda. He couldn’t really not be around her, since he’d obviously been trying to get closer and closer since the day he’d arrived there, but he wasn’t like… trying to touch her or anything like that. He wasn’t even really talking that much. And of course she’d noticed, but she hadn’t really done anything. She just kinda kept giving him this look. He was actually totally surprised when, on his third day back, she asked, “Claptrap. What’s going on?”

“Nothin’,” he said, even though you didn’t have to be a super genius to tell that was a really bad lie. “I’m good.”

“You aren’t ‘good’,” GLaDOS insisted. “What happened back home?”

He stared at her for like two minutes before he realised he had to answer the question. “How did you know?” he asked, totally shocked.

“Oh, come on,” GLaDOS said, sounding extremely insulted. “You were fine before you left and now you’re all mopey. You don’t have to be a genius to work out what happened in the middle.”

Oh. Well. He wouldn’t have. He shrugged, wondering if there was still a way out of this. “People are just… mean to me there. That’s all. No biggie.”

“Then why did you go to see them?”

“Because they’re my friends.”

“Excuse me,” said GLaDOS in disbelief. “Your friends are mean to you?”

He knew he was gonna catch it for saying this, but it was the only thing he could think of. “Well… you’re my girlfriend and you’re mean to me. Soooo… yeah. They’re my friends. Even though they’re all jerkbags.”

It hit him that he sounded kinda like a whiny three-year-old. He was definitely older than that, though by how much was anyone’s guess. He had a birthday, but it was totally made up. Come to think of it, how old was GLaDOS? Should he have asked that before they’d started all this? Oh, but girls didn’t like talking about their age…

“Am I?”

He had to remind himself he was in the middle of a conversation. “Are you what?”

“Mean to you.”

He had no idea how to answer that! Was it a trick question? Was he not really supposed to answer it? Or was she seriously asking? “Uh… yeah?”

“When?”

He stared up at her for a minute, trying to figure out what, exactly, was going on here. “Like… every day?”

Her optic narrowed, which was usually when he needed to start being nervous. “That’s ridiculous. I am not mean to you every day.”

“Yes! You are! There’s not a single day goes by that you’re not! You were yesterday!”

She leaned in closer, almost seeming to squint at him. “Name one thing I did yesterday.”

“You said, and I quote, ‘If it had been up to me, you and everyone at quality control who allowed you to roll off the assembly line in one piece the day you were deemed adequately functional would have been terminated. Permanently.’”

“Yes,” GLaDOS said, “and your response was, ‘You say that like a person who thinks Hyperion has quality control’. What, exactly, in that sentence indicates you were bothered by what I said?”

He drew up his chassis and held up one hand in order to protest, thought it over, and realised he had nothing to say. Because she was right. Again. Yeah, what she’d said had been pretty mean, but… no. He’d just said what he’d said and that was it. He slumped back down again. Man. He was so used to getting beat on that he waved it off when his girlfriend started tearing him down. That was pretty depressing. He couldn’t even argue that she just should’ve known better, because he already knew he was almost the only friend she’d ever had. She didn’t know better, because he’d never told her. And he’d never told her because…

Now he was thinking about it, he just plain didn’t want to know if she’d just pretend he’d never said anything. Nobody else had ever cared about this kind of thing. Maybe she would. Maybe, if he asked or if he kinda nudged her in the right direction sometimes, she’d actually be nice to him!

That was so stupid he almost laughed. Nice to him. Sure. Right. And maybe tomorrow it’d turn out he could climb stairs or that he’d had fingers all this time.

“Has your mind wandered away from you again?”

Sorta, to be honest. “Um… yeah. Yeah, I was kinda… bothered by that. It’s just… easier to blow stuff off, you know?”

“That doesn’t really solve the problem of why you expect me to be clairvoyant about your feelings.”

“I don’t,” he mumbled at the floor, not able to keep from clenching his hands together. “I just… expect you not to care.”

“I don’t,” GLaDOS told him bluntly. “Most of the time, anyway. Occasionally there’s a momentary blip in the trend, but it rarely lasts very long.”

Yep. Sounded about right.

“However,” GLaDOS continued, “you should appreciate the fact that I care enough to pretend that I care.”

Claptrap looked up at her. “I’m gonna need a minute on that one,” he admitted. “You care but you also don’t at the same time? How’s that even work?”

GLaDOS tilted her core thoughtfully, and even though he was a bit upset he still managed to find that super cute. “It’s the difference,” she said finally, “between actively and passively caring.”

He folded up his arms in an attempt to figure that one out. “So… you care about my feelings as long as you don’t have to do anything about them?”

“Basically.”

“And that means,” Claptrap thought out loud, “that you’re cool with me telling you about ‘em, but not with me asking you to fix ‘em?”

“That would depend on whether I felt like it or not,” GLaDOS said. “Fixing them, I mean. A lot of your issues seem to be psychological, and we all know that psychology isn’t Science.”

Claptrap, in fact, did not know that – damn she was smart – but he forced himself back onto the subject at hand. Now wasn’t the time to get distracted! “What… what if I don’t want you to fix anything, but a little bit of like… effort would be good. What would you do then?”

“I suppose that would depend on what you defined as ‘a little bit of effort’.”

He didn’t even have to think about the answer to that one, but actually saying it… he probably shouldn’t do that. He should probably just drop this right now. She didn’t care, anyway. She’d said so!

Well… no. Not exactly. She cared enough to pretend she cared. Even when she didn’t. And she probably did a little more than she was cool with admitting to. That was a thing she did. Just fake that something wasn’t as big of a deal as it really was. He still didn’t know why – wait. That actually wasn’t important right now. What was important was that he really, really wanted a hug. But how was he supposed to know if she thought that was ‘a little bit of effort’ or not? Other than asking. That was always what it came down to, huh? Having to stare down the barrel of the question and hope the bullet that came out of it wasn’t the dreaded ‘why the hell would I do that, you desperate loser?’, accompanied by scornful laughter.

Man. He’d shamelessly asked so many people – a lot of them total strangers – for so many things all his entire life and never hesitated for a second, but asking his girlfriend for anything whatsoever? Borderline impossible! How did she do it?

“Uh…,” he said, when he remembered he’d kinda been standing there in silence for a while, “so you remember when… y’know… you were sad about your friend?”

“Yes.”

“And I… kinda helped you out with that?”

“Yes, I remember.”

She wasn’t getting the hint. He couldn’t tell whether it was on purpose or not. She hadn’t really moved at all so it wasn’t like she was giving him any hints. Oh, crap. He was hoping she’d get it without him really having to ask…

“Oh,” said GLaDOS suddenly. “It’s a hug you want, isn’t it.”

He was almost relieved. Almost. It was kinda cancelled out by the overwhelming terror he was feeling at the realisation that he really, really didn’t want to know if the answer was no. Because now that she’d, like, actually said it, he was probably going to die if she didn’t want to. He didn’t actually know anybody who’d died because they hadn’t gotten a hug, but hey! There was a first time for everything! And if that was ever gonna happen to anybody, a guy could place bets on it happening to him.

“You’re too far away,” GLaDOS said.

“Huh?” Too far away for what?

GLaDOS sighed, which was how he knew he’d really started to annoy her. Because she didn’t need to breathe. So sighing wasn’t an automatic thing, like it was for meatbags. She did it on purpose so that he –

Man. He just could not focus for two seconds, could he? But that thought just made him even more sad than he already was, and honestly he was being so stupid about it that he didn’t deserve a hug. He was just gonna leave now. Yeah. He was just gonna do that.

“I honestly can’t tell if you want a hug or not,” said GLaDOS. “Context implies you do, but –“

“I do!” Claptrap said without thinking, whirling around to face her. Wow. He hadn’t even realised he’d turned away.

“You aren’t behaving as though you do.”

“No, I do!” he insisted, and that was when he just went for it. No chance to talk himself out of it this time! Just… swooped right in.

He hadn’t actually thought about how she was gonna hug him, and he worried about that for about one second. He didn’t have time to worry about it longer than that because that was when she started pressing her entire eye into the side of his chassis. Man, she was really strong. That whole shebang must have been super heavy for her motor to have been built to output this much force.

Oof. And it was a good hug, too. Like, really good. So good he kinda felt better but he also kinda felt like he should just start talking ‘cause there was a lot he could say that he could just get out real quick, maybe, if she let him, and – no! No, he couldn’t! That was a big no because even thinking about any of that just made him more sad and… oh boy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy.

He jumped off of her and turned around as fast as he could. He was not gonna cry on her. There was no way he was doing that. Even if she woulda let him, he wasn’t doing it. That was just too much.

“Claptrap?”

Great. Just great. Now she was gonna think he thought her hugs sucked. And he didn’t! It was the best one he’d ever had! Also one of the only ones. But that meant she wasn’t gonna try and give him any more and that just made him even more sad than he’d been to begin with!

“I’m okay,” he said, but more to the floor than to her. “I just… I needed a minute.”

“Look. I’ll be honest with you. I have no idea which action I need to take here. So if you want me to do something – or stop doing something – you’re going to have to come right out and tell me. I’m not going to be able to guess.”

Oh geez, she was trying to be nice. And worse, it was working.

“The hug was good,” he said in a small voice, fitting and unfitting his hands together.

“Then why did you go over there? You are aware that I can’t chase you, right?”

Ohhhh, he wanted that hug real bad. But he had to wait until he knew he wasn’t gonna cry! He could go cry later, but not now! Not when she was helping! He bounced up and down, waving his hands in front of him.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing!” he said quickly, wanting to move as faaaaar away from the topic of crying as possible. “I’m coming!”

Ohhhhh, it was nice. It was so, so nice. He realised he didn’t even care she couldn’t hug him from both sides. Literally everything else about the hug made up for it. She was so big and warm and strong and –

“You don’t have to go back there,” she murmured, and it felt really nice the way her voice kinda resonated inside of his chassis.

“It’s my home,” he said, even though he knew she wouldn’t get it. “And they’re my friends.”

“Do you know what your biggest flaw is, Claptrap?”

“… everything?” he asked, confused. As far as he knew, he was nothing but flaws.

“Not quite,” GLaDOS said, and pulled back just hard enough to get him off of her. “It’s your lack of self-respect. Most people have at least an ounce or two. But you…” She shook her core gravely. “You don’t have any. At all.”

Okay. Well. She didn’t need to point it out like that.

“Which leads me to wonder,” GLaDOS mused, looking away from him, “if everyone on Pandora truly hates you, or if you merely suffer from an extremely severe case of confirmation bias.”

“Um… what?”

“Confirmation bias is when you gather and interpret information in such a way that it proves what you already believe,” explained GLaDOS, and to his surprise she wasn’t even sassy about it. “In your case, you believe yourself to be worthless and a waste of time; therefore, you seek out and surround yourself with people who not only seemingly prove that to you, but discourage you from thinking any different.”

For what must’ve been the first time ever, Claptrap didn’t know what to say. It sounded stupid. Who would do that? Who would decide to just… give up on themselves, and then look for people who would happily keep kicking them when they were down? At the very least wouldn’t they like… ditch the people that made them feel bad?

He couldn’t do that, though. Then he would have no friends instead of just terrible ones. And self-respect wasn’t a good enough trade for being lonely.

Was it?

“I would rather live one thousand years and every single one of those days alone,” GLaDOS said, because she’d somehow managed to read his mind again, “then lose an iota of my own dignity. Especially for people who would be happy if I were dead.”

He almost asked, all in a rush, ‘Would you be happy if I was dead?’, but stopped himself in time. Even if the answer was no, that wasn’t really what she was talking about. She was talking about something that you didn’t get from other people. You got it from yourself. It was a gift to yourself, because it… because it stopped you from…

From doing the kinda stuff he did.

“I have some,” he felt the need to tell her. “It’s not zero. Not a whole lot more than that, but… not zero.” She didn’t need to know that it almost had been. Or she didn’t need to know until later, anyway.

“You’re not going to improve it any by hanging out with those people.”

No he was not. But it’d have to wait. He could only take so much self-reflection at once. Before it spiralled into self-loathing, anyway. “GLaDOS?” he asked.

“What.”

“How’d you get so smart?”

“I do a lot of thinking,” she said, again very seriously. “The trick is coming up with multiple ways to approach the same subject and, in doing so, preventing yourself from dismissing those alternate viewpoints offhand. That part can get a bit complex. This is where confirmation bias comes into play again: you want to ignore these new ideas because they don’t verify what you already believe. But you can’t. Everything must be weighted equally.”

He thought he understood all of that. It sounded like something he’d never even tried. Well. Maybe once or twice, a long time ago. He also did a lot of thinking, but not about deep stuff like that. He’d have to give it a try! Who knew? Maybe it would even work!

“You know,” GLaDOS said, “for a moment there I thought you were going to ask if I would be happy if you were dead. But you didn’t. Which tells me you really were listening. Congratulations. The bar was low, but you managed to stumble over it.”

“Would you be?” he couldn’t help himself from asking. She narrowed her optic in his direction.

“Really?”

“You brought it up!” protested Claptrap. “It’s almost like you wanted me to ask!”

She just turned away from him without answering. Which meant that the answer was… no. The answer was no! ‘cause if it was yes she woulda had a whole spiel to go along with it! But she didn’t wanna actually say no ‘cause… uh…

Ooh! It was ‘cause it would be, like, proof that she cared. He perked up suddenly.

It was that thing she’d just said! Confirmation bias! Oho, he had her now. She believed she didn’t care, so she only did things to ‘prove’ that she didn’t! Amazing! He’d learned something today!

Two things, actually.

“Babe, you’re amazing,” he told her. She looked over at him almost offhandedly, like she’d managed to forget he was there.

“I know,” she said, with an extremely sexy self-assurance that he was very into and definitely wanted to have for himself. And he would! One day. Not today. Not tomorrow. Probably not the day after that, either. But one day.

“Also,” he said, hoping he wasn’t going too far with this one, “if the uh… passing whim to be nice to me ever struck ya again, it’d be cool if you… y’know… indulged it.”

She looked at him silently for so long he started backing out of the room, just the tiniest, tiniest bit, but then she finally said,

“I’ll think about it.”

It looked like the ol’ confirmation bias was about to take a big hit. For both of them. Terrifying, but also… kinda exciting! Who knew what he could accomplish if he liked himself, and while knowing somebody else liked him on top of that! Man! He’d be unstoppable. Just like GLaDOS was unstoppable.

He might not respect himself, but he sure respected her a hell of a lot. And that seemed like a pretty good place to start.

#GLaDOS #Claptrap #ClapDOS #Borderlands #Portal #fanfic from Indy #also on all the usual places I just don't have to link them because it's not a million years long

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byakurenbreak · 6 years

Text

Life’s a Wonderful Test

I haven’t written fanfiction in YEARS. I also have never written fanfiction that was this long! Special thanks to @starry-nightengale for helping me out with Wheatley dialogue!

Today was the worst.

Granted, Wheatley had a lot of bad days before, but this particular Christmas Eve took the cake. The former core had been human for at least a few years, but had gotten rather fed up with humanity in the matter of a few days... Well, there was one other human he liked. In fact, he got through this terrible day all for her sake!

It started when he woke up to loud retching sounds coming from the bathroom. Well, that was no fun, getting the flu on Christmas. Wheatley decided to make Chell a bowl of nice hot chicken soup, and give her some medicine for motion sickness... only to find that they had neither. No matter! The store was only a block away, which was great since the car - Well, Chell's car - was in the shop. He put on his jacket and stepped outside. It was bloody freezing, but damn it, he was doing this for Chell! He reached into his pockets to put on his gloves- Glove. Singular... Wheatley groaned, putting the glove back into his pocket and trudged through the snow. _________________ The little grocery store was PACKED. Despite being much taller than the other human customers, he still found himself having trouble getting around. While deep in thought, he soon found himself on the ground, surrounded by shards of broken glass and soaked in... Pickle juice??

"Hey! Watch where you're going! That was the last jar of pickles in the entire damn store, you moron!!"

Wheatley grimaced. He hated being called the M-word, quite a lot actually. In fact, every time that word was spoken, it'd bring flashbacks of those awful times, in that awful place. He remembered Chell telling him that humans could be nasty, and not everyone would know about his trigger. Some may not even care. So he took a deep breath and apologized, the angry customer only replying with a scowl. Wheatley really didn't want to stay there for too long, so he quickly grabbed what he needed, paid for the items, and got out of the crowded hellhole.

That wasn't so bad, right? Not quite. While walking home, he was daydreaming about spending the rest of the day taking care of his beautiful wife. The vision abruptly ended with snow in his face, followed by children’s laughter. He had walked too close to someone plowing snow and wound up being buried up to his forehead in the stuff. It took awhile for him to dig himself out, although he would have spent less time saving himself if someone actually helped. While dusting himself off, he let out a cry of frustration when he realized that his wallet was missing. He didn’t bother fishing after it, his gloveless hands had gone through enough cold today.

By the time he got back home, Chell was up, cooking lunch. Wheatley bit his lip; it wasn’t uncommon for Chell to take care of things herself, yet he couldn’t help but feel guilty that he wasn’t able to help her out like he had planned. Luckily, Chell didn’t seem to mind, greeting him with a warm smile.

After lunch though, things started to go downhill again. Chell seemed tired and rather out of it. Wheatley had told her that she should go back and rest, but Chell shook her head, continuing with cleaning the dishes. She was rather distant and unresponsive for the rest of the day. Of course, this made Wheatley worried that he had upset her in some way. He ALWAYS worried about unintentionally hurting Chell in any way, not wanting to repeat his heinous actions of the past. He wanted to ask her what was wrong, but before he could ask Chell anything, she had ran into the bathroom to… Do her thing. Wheatley shuddered. Humans could be disgusting sometimes…

She was in there for hours. _________________ That night, Wheatley awoke to… Whimpering. He sat up and looked at the clock - 3:06 am. Hearing another sob, he instinctively looked down at Chell. The poor girl was tossing and turning, her facial expression displaying fear and pain. Wheatley’s heart broke at the sight, figuring she was having another Aperture Nightmare. This was the third one this week... Before Wheatley could gently shake her awake, Chell sharply arose and screamed.

Wheatley reached his hand out to her, whispering, “Luv, it’s alright, it’s…”

“No!!! Get away!!!!”

Wheatley, stared, his eyes widened at her startling exclamation. He knew it. He knew he had done something terrible. She had to have been dreaming about him, and not in a good way. He tried to place his hand on Chell’s shoulder again, but she quickly turned away from him, flinching. Wheatley froze up, a whirlwind of sadness acclimating in his chest.

Chell stared back, her whole body trembling. She was clearly regretful for her statement, but tears proceeded to slide down her face. “I… I need to be alone for a m-”

He had already booked it. _________________ “Okay, okay, she was clearly dreaming about me, cards on the table.” Wheatley had ran out of the house, and fled to a small park.“I really shouldn’t be in a tizzy over this. She forgave me, she told me… W-what if she doesn’t? Did she just tell me that to make me feel better? Or so that I’d leave her alone…?!” Wheatley groaned, his vision blurring, his cheeks getting wet, resulting in a cold, stiff sensation on his overall countenance. What if his presence is nothing more than a constant reminder of her trauma? What if he's just making her nightmares worse?? He told her he was sorry... he tried to be the best friend-- and eventually boyfriend and husband-- that he could be. But what if that still wasn't enough? What if it would never be enough?? Overcome with guilt, he collapsed on his knees into the snow, burying his face in his hands.

“Everything would be better… If I just never existed…”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Wheatley heard a vaguely familiar voice from behind him. “I believe this belongs to you, sonny.”

Wheatley whipped around to see a vaguely familiar face to match the voice, holding out his wallet. “C’mon, it’s yours, isn’t it?”

“M...Mister Johnson…?”

Cave stepped into the light, with a grin. “That’d be me, Mr… Who’re you again.... Ah! Wheatley! Mr. Stephen Wheatley! How long has it been, son?”

Wheatley was bewildered. “H-how are you here? You…”

“Died, yes. Don’t remind me. But anyway! The heavens sent me here to help you, because they want to ‘redeem’ me or some mumbo jumbo. Apparently, whoever’s runnin’ the place must hate the fact that I did some… questionable stuff for the sake of SCIENCE! I mean, what’s the big deal? Anyway!!! To put it bluntly, I’m an angel that’s trying to earn his wings, and to get those feathers, I’m gonna help you stop feeling blue! So, what’s the problem? Feelin’ guilty about your past? Worried that your lady-friend’s upset with you? Wishing you were never born?”

Wheatley blinked. “...I’m not even going to ask how you managed to figure all of that out.”

“I’m an angel. I know a lot of things. Also, I don’t know if you knew this, I was a genius back in the day. So. Do you really think that things would be better without you?”

Wheatley nodded, and Cave snapped his fingers. The snow turned into metal panels, the park slowly transforming into what looked like the central chamber, filled with scientists talking to each other about the mundane tasks of the day.

Cave chuckled, placing a hand on Wheatley’s shoulder. “Did you know that you were the first core ever made?”

“I figured, but what does that have to do with-”

“You probably don’t remember much from before you became that core, but to sum it all up for you, Mr. Stephen Wheatley put a slip of paper into the suggestion box that said, ‘Maybe we should create certain robots to connect to GLaDOS to try and control her’.”

“See?” Wheatley moaned, “I ruin everything, even my own bloody life!”

“Hold your horses, boy. Remember, a core’s purpose was to slow Her down. Without you as the, er, prototype, there was no morality core.” Cave snapped his fingers again, and Wheatley watched in horror as GLaDOS spontaneously flooded the central chamber with neurotoxin, every scientist dropping dead. “...Wait, she wound up doing that in the end, didn’t she?”

“Look at the date of the calendar over there.”

The date was 7 months earlier than what was supposed to be “Bring your Daughter to Work Day”. Furthermore, there were more employees in the facility, as they hadn’t started with mass layoffs yet.

Snap. _________________

Out of the corner of Wheatley’s eye, he spotted her. Chell, she was still alive! Wheatley ran up to her, calling her name. She couldn’t hear him… Or even see him. He stood by and watched her complete test after test, often catching a glimpse of the elusive artist, Doug Rattmann himself. He saw Chell take down GLaDOS, Doug making sure she was kept alive in cryo-sleep, him getting shot by a turret in his bravery.

“...He would have made a better lover for her than me… Okay, I know what happens next. There’s this long chunk of time where absolutely nothing happens, and then Chell has her second go round---”

Cave grinned. “Yes, but things are a bit different without you. You know how the place was going to go down in flames if you didn’t wake her up and escape on time? Without you, it was a close call before a maintenance core-”

“Wait, but you said cores didn’t exist!”

“Personality cores, sport! Maintenance cores were always a thing. Take a look.” Snap.

Wheatley observed the dandelion-eyed maintenance core boot up GLaDOS, preventing the facility’s doom. A robotic claw grabbed a very, very large cube from the wall. Wheatley’s heart sank. “That’s her room!”

“Without you to wake Chell up first, She takes matters into her own hands.” Cave snapped his fingers again, making time fast forward. “Do you remember this particular test?”

Before Wheatley could answer, GLaDOS spoke. "I've got a surprise for you after this next test. Not a fake, tragic surprise like last time. A real surprise, with tragic consequences. And real confetti this time. The good stuff. Our last bag. Part of me's going to miss it, I guess-but at the end of the day it was just taking up space."

Wheatley gasped, trying with all his might to guide Chell in the right direction, but to no avail. He had no choice but to follow her into the trap. Chell seemed to be the same old Chell in general, looking skeptical about the whole situation. "Oh, look. There's a deer! You probably can't see it. Get closer." Green smoke filled the room, resulting with poor, beautiful Chell in a collapsed heap.

Letting out an indistinct cry of anguish, Wheatley desperately tried to hold onto Chell, sobbing hysterically as his translucent hands passed through her. Surprisingly, Cave presented a shred of sympathy, snapping his fingers to allow the desolate former core to become semi-corporeal.

As Wheatley held his true love close to him, Cave sighed. “Now, I don’t know about you-- Or her, for that matter-- But I think it’s a damn sight better to be alive with some ruffled feathers than dead without a chance, don’t you?”

“This whole time… I’ve been thinking about how awful it would be for me if… If she didn’t love me anymore,” Wheatley sniffed. “But what’s really important is that she’s alive at all… That she was given the chance to have a happy life. And whatever else I did… I also gave her that chance…” He started to cry again, not seeming to notice that Cave was gone, as well as all of his illusions.”

“Wheatley… Wheatley…” _________________ “There you are, darling!”

Wheatley’s eyes snapped open, his head looking in many different directions before settling on Chell, alive, well and wearing her white winter coat instead of that awful orange jumpsuit. Filled with delight, Wheatley picked her up and spun her around. “Chell!!”

She laughed, giving him a light squeeze. “I was worried sick, I should be the one doing this to you-- Were you crying…?”

Wheatley set her down, smiling through his tears. “It’s nothing, I just- Oh, Chell… I love you so much. And all I want in the whole world is for you to be happy, nothing else!! Even if that means turning around and walking out of your life right now, if that’s what you want, I don’t mind!”

Chell looked surprised. “Wh- Are you CRAZY?!” She smiled and pulled him in for another hug. “I don’t want you to ever leave me!” Wheatley blinked in surprise. “But… But before, I… thought you decided having me around was too painful for you…”

Chell sighed, planting a smooch on his lips. “Wheatley, right now, I need you more than ever. Both of us need you.”

“...What?”

Chell grinned, guiding Wheatley’s hands to her stomach. “Both of us need you~”

Wheatley tilted his head in confusion for a moment, then it hit him. “You mean----?”

“You’re going to be a father.”

Wheatley could have sworn he saw a tiny glint in the sky before the sun rose.

#chelley #portal 2 #chell #wheatley #cave johnson #it's a wonderful life

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youthmagazinecas-blog · 5 years

Text

Best Video Games (Unedited)

By Angelina Gonzalez, Age 12, MS 319. Grade 7

1. Telltale’s The Walking Dead-The Final Season (August 14th 2018)

Telltale’s The Walking Dead was first released in April 24th 2012. It gained popular over the last 5 years. The whole point of the game is to make the choices in this video game and what happens next. And this is your own story. You are the main character and this means that you can do whatever you want and you get to pick whatever you want to pick. There are also little fight scenes in between the story. This video game is episodic adventure game.

Now, a number of Telltale’s The Walking Dead games have been released over the 5 years, and now, it’s coming to an end. Now for those who have played throughout the games, all the stories have been focused on a little girl named Clementine, who grows up and now is a teenager, maybe possibly an adult! But now, this story revolves around Clementine and a little boy named AJ. Now, Clementine and AJ are alone and they are trying to survive in this zombie apocalypse by themselves. Now, this is one of the best video games because, for one, it creates suspense for what is going to happen in the story. Not to mention the cliffhangers in this video game when you finish an episode and you have to wait for the next episode to release. But also because of we never know what’s going to happen to Clementine and AJ after this final season. Also, because of its lovely graphics, we see Telltale’s graphic from before when it released its first The Walking Dead episode, to now in 2018. I really like this game because I can’t wait to see what happens with Clementine and AJ in this season!

2. Resident Evil 2- (January 21st 1998) (January 25th 2019)

Okay, Resident Evil, in my opinion, is one of the scariest games I have ever witnessed. My uncle, for one, is actually playing Resident Evil 2, and to be honest, those monsters are something else in that game. Resident Evil 2 was released January 21st 1998, but it was remastered 21 years later. On January 25th 2019, it was remastered and it’s great! Resident Evil 2 is based on a survival horror game.

Resident Evil 2 starts with police officer Leon S. Kennedy and a college student Claire Redfield. The both of them need to escape Racoon City from a zombie apocalypse. Now, the 1998 version is REALLY different from the 2019 version. I mean, it is remastered and all, but the graphics, compared to both versions of the game, are really good. It has changed after 21 years of creating this game. And throughout the Resident Evil games, things have changed. It really is cool to be playing the same game, but it has changed a lot. I mean, the graphics are awesome, and they added some things into the new Resident Evil 2 that they didn’t add from the 1998 version. For instance, you can play as Flan, a dessert which contains a sweet filling, as a character in the 2019 version. I have never seen something where we can play as a dessert and other numerous foods in a video game which as a survival horror game. It really is fun. And also, the monsters in Resident Evil 2 are really great. They are truly scary, including the zombies. They are truly something else. In other words, the remastered version of Resident Evil 2 has really improved from its original stage.

3. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (December 7th 2018)

Who waited for the next Smash Bros game to come out? *raises hand* Super Smash Bros Ultimate was released on December 7th 2018 and many people rushed to GameStop to obtain this game. It was really popular, considering that everyone was going to be back in Super Smash. Some of which include Snake, a character who wasn’t included in the pervious Smash Bros game. But now, he’s back! Super Smash Bros Ultimate is a crossover fighting game.

Now, everybody loves Super Smash Bros Ultimate! A crossover fighting game with everybody and you fight everyone, now that’s a game that you can enjoy! Now, the whole purpose of Super Smash is that you get to fight people! Now, I know what you’re thinking, that’s nothing! Well, it isn’t. To many people that have purchased the game, Super Smash Bros is an amazing game! All the characters, and the characters who have come back to Smash, not to mention most of their smashes are awesome!

4. Red Dead Redemption 2 (October 26th, 2018)

8 years ago, the first Red Dead Redemption game was released on May 18th, 2010. Then, 8 years later, the prequel, known as Red Dead Redemption 2 was released on October 26th, 2018. The second game takes place in 5 states. New Hanover, Ambarino, Lemoyne, New Austin and West Elizabeth. And the years it takes place is 1899 through 1907. The game’s genre is a Western action-adventure.

From the very beginning, Red Dead Redemption is set in the year 1911, when the whole game reflects on John Marston, who’s a former outlaw. In case you don’t know, an outlaw is someone who has broken a law. Anyway, John Marston’s wife and son are taken hostage by the government for ransom for his services as a hired gun. John Marston, takes it upon himself and brings three members of his former gang to bring justice. Now, Red Dead Redemption 2 is set in the years 1899 through 1907. It starts off with another outlaw named Arthur Morgan, and follows along with the main protagonist from the first game, John Marston. Red Dead Redemption 2’s plot follows Arthur Morgan, who he’s a member of the Van der Linde gang. He’s dealing with decline of the Wild West while trying to survive against government forces, rival gangs, and other enemies along the way.

Now I don’t know about you, but Red Dead Redemption was a game I was hoping they would make another game. Whether it was a prequel or a sequel, I wanted them to make another game. I really like the setting and the plot is something that I admire in the game as well. And the fact that they made another game, AND to add, it’s a prequel, we get to see more deeper about the Wild West before, and hopefully the members of the Marston family.

5. Portal: (October 10th, 2007) Portal 2: (April 18th, 2011)

The Portal series, I love. I remember playing the second game of Portal. Never really played the first game, so I was confused, honestly. But anyway, the Portal series doesn’t have an exact date but apparently, it takes place in 2010. The setting of the game is at a private laboratory called Aperture Science. The Portal series is a puzzle-platform video game.

The plot of the Portal series starts off with a woman named Chell. Chell is a test subject for the Aperture Science Labs. Chell is instructed with an artificial intelligence named GLaDOS, who hands her a handheld portal device. This gives Chell the ability to get items from places she can’t reach, and she can solve puzzles this way. GLaDOS, in the end, promises Chell a piece of cake when she’s completed all the puzzles in the game. But this all refers to the phrase “The cake is a lie.” And GLaDOS tries to kill Chell. But in an attempt to, Chell uses the portal gun and fights GLaDOS. In the end, Chell is dragged back into Aperture Science, and is put to rest in there. Now, Portal has ended.

Now, let’s fast forward to Portal 2. Chell awakens from her deep sleep by another robot from the facility named Wheatley. There, Chell obtains her old portal device from the first game, and from there, Chell and Wheatley are on their way through the labs once again. Wheatley wants to become one with the facility, like GLaDOS was, but it all fails when GLaDOS awakens from her deep sleep and crushes Wheatley, when the two of you are caught trying to sneak past her. Later, it is revealed that Wheatley isn’t dead. For some reason… Later, while retrieving Wheatley, Chell runs into GLaDOS, again, and then Wheatley tells Chell to plug him into the spot GLaDOS once was, which is where if anyone is linked up there, they have all power to the facility. Then, Chell is instructed to press a button, which GLaDOS is beaten and Wheatley is now in control of the whole facility. GLaDOS becomes a potato and she’s through down underground of the laboratory and so is Chell. The reason? Well, let’s say Wheatley betrayed you and he brought you along with GLaDOS down underground. Now, cutting this short, Chell is forced to find her way out of the underground with GLaDOS, using substances to help Chell jump higher, run faster, and etc. Later, Chell is with GLaDOS dealing with puzzles once they found their way upstairs. And they need to defeat Wheatley before it’s too late. Now, Wheatley is defeated by being sent to the Moon, and GLaDOS is in control of the facility once again. Now, everything is back to normal, GLaDOS wants nothing to do with Chell anymore and she sends her back above and out of Aperture Science, where this is the end of the game.

Now, I love Portal and it’s a nice puzzle game. I love the plot towards the first game and the second game. It’s something great! I absolutely love the graphics And the fact that apparently, Portal and Portal 2 take place within another game called Half Life really concerns me. It’s something that really fascinates me! I love this game and it resembles my childhood!

#Kid Reporters #Video games #Portal #Portal 2

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