14: ITS MY LIFE! – Chapter Three

Title: ITS MY LIFE!
Author: MarissaTheWriter
Media: Video game
Topic: Portal
Genre: Listed as Adventure/Drama…
URL: IT’S MY LIFE! : Chapter Three
Critiqued by Ghostcat

Welcome back, fellow visitors to the dank and ominously dripping basement of literature!

Those who bothered to read the last installment of the Portal fanfic, ITS MY LIFE! will remember the “gripping” cliffhanger ending.  For those who don’t want to fiddle around with all that tedious reading business, here’s the condensed version; our heroine Marissa is on the airless surface of the moon, fighting a false Chell (who is really an android version of Glados, the sentient computer system who sent her to the Moon in the first place) for the shattered (yet still fully-functioning) remains of Wheetly (Marissa’s robot-ball baby-daddy) while an asteroid heads straight for them. I’m hoping the asteroid turns them into a fine incandescent mist, but with fourteen chapters to go after this one, it doesn’t look likely.

Commence countdown!

Five…

Four…

Three…

Screw it.

Blast off!

Chapter 3 MEETIN WITH CHELL

There is a short Author’s Note regarding the reviews the fic has received so far; MarissaTheWriter calls those who are writing bad reviews “flamerz” because she has thus far received a (singular) good review, indicating to her that “pepole” really like her story and everyone else is just a mean old troll. She also tells those who are leaving “consertive” criticism to tell her exactly what she is getting wrong (so very, very many things) or they are as bad as the “REAL TROLLS!”

I’ve read through the reviews; those “good” reviews are very clearly sarcastic in nature. I should know; I’m an expert in sarcasm. There are a few who are leaving her genuine constructive criticism but she usually jumps all over them defending her sterling masterpiece.

Marissa survives the “asterood” strike; (dammit) although she does injure her “every place” but that’s okay because the injuries are never mentioned again. Wheetly manages to get “all broken”, even though Terminatrix Glados was beating on him non-stop during her little verbal exchange with Marissa in the last chapter and he was broken several times during that interlude. He’s a tough little robot-ball baby-daddy. Terminatrix Glados gets pushed into space by the blast (remember that) and it is assumed that Marissa and Wheetly were also knocked off the moon by the impact, since they are suddenly falling towards Earth.

You know, this would be a really good time to develop the robot power of “stopping.”

Marissa thinks really hard and another one of her situation-specific powers manifests itself – a “magic” shield forms around them, protecting them from the incredibly high (approximately 2300 degrees Fahrenheit; I looked it up) temperatures associated with re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.  It’s a good thing Super-Terrific Mary Sue has both magical powers and robot powers; an ordinary, non-magical robot or person trapped inside an uninsulated sphere hurtling through the atmosphere would have melted like a gummy bear in a blast furnace.

As they “falled fast” towards Earth, Marissa sees the “Portal Labs” and wraps herself around Wheetly to protect him. I hope her squishy meat-sack makes a nice landing cushion for the metallic robot-ball who has thus far proven to be incredibly resilient.

Not once during the entire fic does the author refer to the setting, the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, by its proper name. (She doesn’t refer to ANYTHING by its proper name.) Instead she uses the name of the game, Portal, adding more cracks to an already fractured fourth wall. Given how often the company name is repeated during the game (the portal gun is actually an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, the Companion Cube is the Aperture Science Weighted Companion Cube, the flaming pit GLaDOS is dropped into at the end of the first game is the Aperture Science Emergency Intelligence Incinerator, a robot-ball like Wheatley  is actually an Aperture Science Personality Core, etc…) I can’t help but come to the conclusion that if MarissaTheWriter has played the games, she paid absolutely no attention to anything and died many, many horrible deaths. That thought makes me happier than it should.

They land with a huge “crush” directly in front of Atlas and “P-BODY”, “(Thanks CONSTRACTIVE CRITISIM GUYS AN NOT TROLLS)” who are smoking yet more unspecified drugs.

The author’s penchant for sprinkling random Author’s Notes, for the most part in ALL CAPS,throughout the fic was tedious at first. Now it’s just aggravating.

The looks on their “feces” ( :snerk: ) are “classic” when they see Marissa is still alive (double-dammit) and has found Wheetly. Atlas wants to know what she is doing there since it is their turf and he tries to punch her but her magic shield “broked his hand.” Atlas cries out “Imposable!” at this development and she kicks him backwards. Marissa first stares at P-Body and then glares at him so hard that he “pooped robot stuff” (eww) and runs away.

“Suddenly without warnin” ( :sigh: ) a girl drops down through the gaping several-stories-deep hole (or “whole”) made by Marissa’s magic shield as they landed. She is wearing a jumpsuit like Marissa (this is the first time her clothing, or anything about her, is described) and looks just like her “but a little less pretty an hot.” (Of course she is.) She knows immediately that this is Chell.

Chell smiles at her and then begins to “dance crazy” and sing.

“SHAKE IT BAKE IT BOOTY QUAKE IT ROLL IT A ROUND!” Chell sung as her danced an shake butt”

If you have a hard time picturing the Booty Quake, just click here to see what the author is talking about. Be prepared to question the state of today’s animated television (if you don’t already.)

Wheetly gets sad-looking ( he is a robot-ball – he has no face) and tells Marissa that Chell has suffered “brane” damage and  “cant solve tests no more that’s why Glaods let her go befour” (Hey, that kind of rhymes!) but he had forgotten to tell her. Considering they have only been reunited for a few minutes, most of that time spent fighting Terminatrix Glados or hurtling through the atmosphere wrapped in a mystical bubble, it is not without reason that a few things might have slipped his mind. Marissa is understandably upset at hearing that the woman she has just found out was her sister has brain damage.

“I cried some tears at my retorded sister shakin her butt all crazy an stuff like on the Sym-Bionical Titan show. I got out a magum pistol an went up to Chell head to shoot an pet her out of her MISERY (which is also a movie). The gun went off like boom boom boom an Chell falled down with blood from her headhole. “Im sorry my sister.” Wheetly was cryin an I started cryin to becos it was a really sad day.”

I have the sudden urge to be much nicer to my sister.

So Marissa reacts to the news of her recently discovered sister’s mild brain damage, manifested by nothing more serious than inappropriate dancing, by ventilating her brain pan with a high-powered (and previously unrevealed) handgun. Her unexpected and unwarranted execution of her only known sibling makes Marissa very sad.

Once she finishes weeping (“After all the tears came out”) Marissa gets up (after not sitting down) and goes looking for Glados so she can have her revenge. (Remember Terminatrix Glados, last seen floating off into space after the asteroid strike on the moon at the beginning of this chapter? The author doesn’t.) Since Wheetly is unable to walk, being a robot-ball, (although he probably could travel using the ceiling mounted Management Rail like he does for most of the game) Marissa places him inside her jumpsuit. This pleases Wheetly, since her “chests is so big an squishy!” It makes him “happied” (I don’t even want to know), which makes Marissa happy, despite having just murdered her only known family. Content, they go off to exact their vengeance on Glados. (Who is still floating around in space somewhere.)

Shockingly, they find Glados “listinin to her dumb goth emo music”, having never left the “Portal Labs.” She is less than thrilled to see them.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT YUO ALREADY STOPED ME FROM SEWISIDING AN STOPED MY REVANGE?”

As I pointed out last time  Marissa didn’t stop Glados’ suicide, she only reanimated her with one of her situation-specific powers afterwards. And, according to the gameplay I’ve watched from  Portal 2, GLaDOS has a black box quick-save feature that records the last two minutes of her life and forces her to relive them over and over until she is rebooted. Since that would mean an eternity of weeping, cutting herself, and listening to depressing music, I would think GLaDOS would be happy to have been rebooted.

Marissa tells Glados that since she put Wheetly in space and made Chell do the Booty Quake – oh, and by the way –  tried to kill Marissa as well, that she was going to kill her. Her body then begins “glowin electric” and she uses her brand-new fight power “MEGA PAWNCH” to punch Glados’ head off in one blow, killing her “for real this time.”

That brings the death total for GLaDOS up to two – once by improbable suicide and once by MEGA PAWNCH. (Three if you count “floating off into the nothingness of space” as a death.) Will she return from the dead yet again? Probably.

Wheetly turns off the “dumb emo goth music” using his “science powers” ( :sigh: ) and they are both very happy now. Marissa then remembers that she had forgotten to tell Wheetly that he somehow knocked her up.

“Wheetly you need to no that Im….. pragenant!” Wheetly looked at me with shock an aww. “Marrissa this is good news we can have robot ball/humon baby an live happily ever after for ever now!” I was sooooo happy I hugged Wheetly an we almost made a twin baby right then an there when Atlas an P-Body show up.”

I’m almost (completely) positive that isn’t how you get twins.

Atlas yells at her, calling her a “b****” and takes out “a guns.” “[-Body” takes “one of the gun” and aims it towards Marissa, who powers up her magical shield. As she does this, something strange happens and she falls over, “brething” hard. (But “brething” is one of her “speshul” robot powers!) She is puzzled by this and asks Wheetly what is happening to her. He gets scared-looking (or “scarred lookin”) even though, as a robot-ball, he has no face. At all. None. Atlas and P-Body “lolled” at them and are getting ready to “shoot us up” when someone “raised up” from behind them and “hitted” the two “robojerks” over the heads with a frying pan. Because all scientific research facilities have random kitchen implements just sitting around.

And who is this mysterious figure; is it The Shadow?

Batman?

Darkwing Duck?

Nope; “It was … CHELL!” ( :gasp!: )

That would be the same Chell who was last seen growing cold in a pool of her own blood after her sister shot her three times in the head.
Oh, but that’s not all.

“Chell you saved us!” I congradulated her. “Marrissa you made me Left 4 Dead (AN: LOL) you b**** so now get ready to die!” Lookin closer I saw Chell was right, she was a zombee now! Wheetly made some growls to stop her but Chell didn’t care an tried to bite me but accidentally bit Atlas instead so he became a robot zomboy!”

What. The. Hell?

If a lifetime of zombie movies has taught me anything, it’s that a head-shot is the only sure cure for zombie-ism. Chell had her head preemptively blow into high-velocity impact splatter by three shots from a  Magnum pistol of unknown caliber a few minutes earlier; there’s nothing left to turn into a zombie. Unless Chell has special “head regeneration” powers. (Which isn’t possible since she’s not the “speshul” sister.) And since when are “growls” any sort of deterrent to any attack, zombie or otherwise? Is the robot-ball baby-daddy a dog now?

That chapter ends with the same “TO BE CONTINUED?” as all the chapters do right after Zombie Chell attacks and bites Atlas, turning him into a robot-zombie. There is a single sentence Author’s Note in ALL CAPS below it; it seems MarissaTheWriter is running out of things for Marissa (The Super-Sue) to do in the “Portal Labs” so she might be visiting other Valve games in future chapters “MAYBE IF YOU WANT?”

Me no want. Me no want very, very badly.

I have no idea why this author chose to write a fanfic for Portal, she seems to have only the vaguest grasp of the game-world and almost no knowledge of the characters. Her understanding of past, present, and future tenses is likewise very shaky.

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