To the lovely Anon who sent me an ask weeks ago (let’s face it, at this point, it was months ago) about my favorite scene to write in my Portal 2 fic -- I finally have your answer.
Yours was literally the first ask I have had in years, and I was so excited and sat down right away to reply -- then got interrupted 2/3 of the way through, went to save my reply as a draft to finish later ... and then discovered asks are a one-time deal. I didn’t know that they only stay in the ask inbox if they’ve been replied to, and I couldn’t figure out how to get your question back.
Anyway, if you’re still out there, please know I am terribly sorry that I never responded to your question, and please also know that your kind words meant (mean!) SO much. (And also please PM or send another ask to let me know you’ve read this? Because I honestly feel like shit about it.)
My favorite CDaSH scene to write and why:
I have two favorite scenes (of course).
Scene 1: Chell recognizing the school bus name tag that Wheatley’s been carrying around in his pocket for decades.
There are a lot of layers here, probably many that only stand out to me -- not only because I wrote the fic and therefore know where all the secrets lieth therein, but because I work in education and I’ve worked with kids with selective mutism. I freely admit that there was some writer self-insertion with the interactions between Wheatley and Chell, and the approach he uses to helping her communicate without pressuring her to talk.
Anyway.
Chell recognizes her old name tag and connects the dots. She realizes that she and Wheatley were brought together long before GLaDOS, and that their connection had been far more powerful than what she initially assumed -- they weren’t just acquaintances of convenience, let alone faceless cogs in a very, very pointless wheel, who ultimately would probably die for nothing.
Moreover, Wheatley keeping the name tag signals to Chell that their friendship had been just as important to him, despite the amount of time that had passed, as well as the age difference. He didn’t perceive her as being just another little kid, he recognized that in some way she was a kindred spirit, and that he had accomplished something significant by helping draw her out of her shell simply by being himself and trusting his instincts. Chell speaking to him is one of the few successes he’s ever had in his life.
The name tag itself also represents a role reversal -- throughout 98% of CDaSH, Chell is the one keeping Wheatley safe. But as a child, he (briefly) was her protector, which in turn informed aspects of Chell’s personality as she grew up. And perhaps subconsciously Wheatley holding onto the name tag was another reminder to himself that he wasn’t a moron, and that there was a point in his life where he had been able to stand guard over someone who was not yet able to fend for herself.
From a writer-ly perspective, what I enjoyed most about that entire arc was trying to convey a lot of MEANING! and EMOTION! and FEELS! in a single scene without explicitly spelling everything out for the reader. I don’t know if I actually accomplished that, but it seems to have worked overall, and the story as a whole is one that I am really proud of.
Scene 2: The first one takes place towards the end of the story, where Chell and Wheatley are facing the room filled with turrets, and they come up with the idea of knocking them over with a weighted storage ball, bowling ball style. It’s not a particularly emotional or noteworthy scene, but it was one of several instances in CDaSH where I had written myself into a corner and had no clue how to get myself out of it.
A bulk of CDaSH was written at work (hush), and I remember sitting at my desk, surrounded by all the things I actually needed to be doing (I PROMISE THEY REALLY DID GET DONE, AND WERE COMPLETED ON TIME), stressing over how the hell I could get Chell and Wheatley out of that chamber and through the door without having to do additional retconning, or resorting to a stupid solution just to be able to progress to the next part of the story. (If I’m remembering it right, this also coincided with a reviewer on FF.net making a legitimate point about the story entering into crackfic territory because of the Jeopardy scene.)
It’s rare that I get inspirations that come out of nowhere, and somehow a Eureka! came my way and did me a solid. The hard part was trying to convey what I was seeing in my head in a way that made sense to the reader.
I hope this wall of text was worth the wait, Anon! Thank you again for being such a wonderful reader.
Listening to OMAGAH next to the Charles River watching life. ❣️🌈🤘🎻🎺🏞️ #BeCalmBeBraveItllBeOk #BeCalmBeBraveItllBeOk at #GUSter #OMAGAH #GUSterrhoids #CDASH #ComeDownAndSayHello #SpicyV #Voravut #BostonLife (at Boston, Massachusetts) https://www.instagram.com/p/CAQGISTAtf_AfxXPZ6B9G1qR8RWTEdXDVL3xD80/?igshid=14vq7lxmfiafk
I dunno if whoever has been reading CDaSH cares (and no worries if you don't), but just to give you some context why there was a five-month lag (other than my life temporarily going to shit)...
Chapter 7 spent most of those five months in a state of 80% completion, but as I said in my AN - I didn't major in English (but I have three degrees in psychology. Over-educated and underpaid much? Yep). My literary grammar skills aren't up to par, which left me agonizing over every semicolon, "has/had," use of present/past tense, etc. It's also not a linear chapter, and what made sense in my head was no guarantee that it would make sense to the reader, so I kept writing and re-writing, and then eventually just said to hell with it and crossed my fingers that folks would be able to figure it out. Even even though my story is "just fanfiction," I still want to give you a product that is as close to professional as I can make it. Compounding all of that is my lack of a beta reader, and although my husband and family are happy to read what I write, none of them know Portal. (Although kudos to my husband, who does play Co-op with me when I ask him.)
Research is the other factor that delays my updates. I've put in more hours - many, many more hours - exhaustively pouring over Portal lore than I did on the last lit review I wrote before I dropped out of my PhD program (which would have been my fourth degree in psychology - Overeducated, underpaid, and an idiot much? Yep!). Re-watching walkthroughs; reading level-by-level descriptions of old and new Aperture on the various Portal wikis; researching the background of Borealis; going over Wheatley and GLaDOS's lines time and time again, not only because I'm trying to nail their cadence and style of speech, but also searching for elements that make the story as close to cannon as possible...Then I stay up late at night wondering if anyone has picked up on the little details I've dropped along the way - silverstreams immediately recognized the references to Lab Rat (yay!), but there's other stuff I've tried to incorporate that I worry readers are completely missing, and the effort to go the extra mile is ultimately a waste of time on my part.
Plus, the pragmatic part of myself feels dumb investing all of this time in a story that won't generate anything for me other than pride and affirmation when I receive follows/favourites/reviews (THANK YOU!!). CDaSH takes away from the time I could be spending on my own original work, which I do want to publish. Eventually. Someday. Maybe. Blah.
Hm. This post turned out way more complain-y than I ever intended, but I guess I just needed some space in which to vent.
OK, back to chapter 9...and writing reports for my real job.
Oh oh oh - I'm going to post this in ch9 but just in case any of these folks look at this in the meantime... THANK YOU to steph, snailing-along, guest (Dec 26), guest (Dec 12), Anonymous (Aug 13), Tsau, Guest (May 29), Anonymous (May 22), and Awe-struck - I am far behind in responding to all of the reviews people have left me, but I have no way of sending you a PM. Thanks for taking the time to leave me a note :-)
OMG! I think I know who left those things! It was Doug Rattman, wasn't it? See, the thing is, after the LAB RAT comic and stuff, my brother thinks that Rattman is still alive, but lost in the condemned section of Aperture to keep away from GLaDOS. PLEASE tell me I'm right!
Ack! C'mon, Anonymous, you know I can't tell you if you're right before I've posted the whole story!
However, I am in complete agreement about Doug still being alive. I think Valve left far too many hints within Portal 2 to suggest otherwise, no matter how ambiguous the ending was to Lab Rat. I am on the fence about whether a Portal film will ever materialize (and also on the fence about how I feel with JJ Abrams* being at the helm), but if it does, I hope we get the definitive answer to Doug's whereabouts.
*FWIW, I like most of stuff, I just am a little leery given that he's doing Star Trek, AND Star Wars, and now possibly Half-Life and Portal...It just seems like he's becoming the wunderkind of re-written franchises.
The reviews folks have left me on FF.net have been lovely to read, and many times make me wish I could reply back - and sometimes I do, but I don't want to bother people, and other times the reviews are from guests, and so I have no way to say thanks. I did read up a little on FF.net etiquette, but there didn't seem to be a clear consensus on the matter...so I've turned to tumblr as the solution.
Regarding the Morse code line in Chapter Three - this is a reference that was lost on me until I started doing research for the story. When Wheatley starts babbling in Spanish after he becomes WheatDOS ("I don't even know what I just said! But I can found out!"), the translation of his line is, "You are using this translation software incorrectly. Please consult the manual."* So that's what the dots and dashes in CDaSH mean. I mentioned it in an author's note because I didn't want readers to think I had copped out and just typed a bunch of random dots and dashes and called it Morse code.
*Disclaimer: I'm basing this on the information here and don't know if their translation of Wheatley's Spanish is correct.
Tsau's review - I totally did not clue into the "Percy W." connection until you pointed it out, which is pretty damn brainless on my part given that I love HP. Fact Core as a prefect at Hogwarts...wow, that'd be a rabbit hole of a crossover...! (Has anyone written this? And if so, can I read it? Hermione vs. Prefect Fact Core - oh, man. SOMEONE has to write this.) And yay for Monty Python! No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
As for Chell's selective mutism - I've worked with kids who struggle with this and as a result probably know more than the average bear about the disorder, but the scope of my familiarity with it ends there. I am extremely cautious when writing about this aspect of Chell's history - CDaSH and Portal are fictitious (duh), selective mutism is not (duh^2), and knowing that one of my readers has personal experience with it makes me want to tread even more lightly. I don't mention this as a complaint, but in recognition of the fact that authors often create characters that struggle with shit that they themselves (the authors) have never experienced, and as a result, they write it all wrong. (That's a really piss-poor way of saying the following: I've personally never struggled with selective mutism, I'm writing a character who has, and if I am ever off the mark, please speak up and tell me.)
A couple people have noted that CDaSH starts out as a typical what-if-Chell-caught-Wheatley fic - of which there are many, and not all of them are page-turning reads. It's hard to wade through the fics that are well-intentioned but poorly-written and find ones that catch your interest (which is why every time I get a follow I run around the room dancing - among the not-quite-2k Portal fics, how on earth did you find my story?). As far as opening chapters go, CDaSH doesn't exactly hook the reader. And aside from sticking an author's note at the start of Chapter One that says, "THIS GETS BETTER I SWEAR PLS KEEP READING" (which, let's be honest, would make us all click the back button right then and there), I don't know how to solve the problem. Then we segue right into Chapter Two, which is a lot of stage-setting that might turn off a reader who wants to get right to the good stuff with present-day Chell and Wheatley. So thanks for sticking with me and making it on to Chapter Three!
