reasonablysunny

fic rec… monday?

Gah! I guess I actually have a couple of followers now! That’s pretty sweet. Kind of unexpected. Tumblr! Who knew? Hello, all.

So that means I feel a little more excited about recommending this story. I’ve been meaning to, but it seemed pointless to recommend it to the few people I knew who had been following me already (since I’d told them about it before).

Things Have Changed Since You Left the Building by squeequeg (I see your literary pun and I like your style, mate) is a fic set directly after Portal 1 and Half-Life 2, Episode 2. Chell has escaped from the Enrichment Center. She doesn’t really know who she is, she still can’t speak (it’s probably shock), and the world has apparently been invaded by hostile aliens. But at least no one is trying to kill her with deadly neurotoxin. Yet.

I really can’t recommend this story highly enough. I totally love Portal 2, but I’ve always wondered what it would be like for Chell to have escaped into the main Half-Life universe, and it also heavily features my favorite Half-Life secondary character…

I haven’t made any embarrassing posts about my love for Barney Calhoun so far, because I haven’t really got anything to say about him, other than OMG why do I find him so attractive, but I love him. And I love his characterization in this fic, the way he interacts with Chell (since he has experience dealing with totally mute total badasses), how they develop a friendship that’s totally true to their characters, and how they repeatedly save each other’s asses from the Combine and then - you guessed it - GLaDOS. Who is also amazing in this fic. 

So basically, read this story if you like Portal, or if you like Half-Life 2, or if you like good things. Just read this story, please. If you read it, pain will not harm you. So there’s that.

(Next week, hopefully I’ll be able to rec and review Erin’s epic fic Blue Sky, but I’m a loser and haven’t finished it yet. Because it’s 187,000 words. That’s a lot of words. Like, woah.)