Being Human Or, A Scientific Study on the Behavioral and Social Aspects of Homo Sapiens in its Natural Habitat Facilitated through the use of an Aperture Science Personality Construct
is a Portal 2 fanfic written by Doombly, aka Sue Mary and MarrissaTheWriter. It is not to be confused with the television show of the same name.
One day, GLaDOS discovers that she doesn't understand humans outside of what they do in test chambers, and not understanding all the potential variables is the first step on the road to bad science. So she decides to place an AI into one of the frozen human bodies she has and send it out to study humans in their "natural habitat". Unfortunately the only AI that's suitable for transfer is... Wheatley. Armed with a computer chip that allows her to talk to and see everything Wheatley does, GLaDOS sends him out into the surface.
What follows are the humorous recounting of Wheatley's attempts to socialize with humans and adjust to his new body, coupled with GLaDOS snarking on human culture, tons of bizarre cameos ranging from the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to Christian Weston Chandler himself, plenty of shout outs to internet memes, and a dash of shipping.
After several failed attempts at a sequel, the story had an Ask-Wheatley tumblr created for it. Unfortunately, as Doombly had lost the password for it, it fizzled out shortly after being created (and eventually was automatically deleted), and the author has largely moved on to writing stories for fandoms such as BioShock Infinite, Five Nights at Freddy's and Star vs. the Forces of Evil.
Being Human provides examples of:
- Ambiguously Brown: The tumblr recounts an attempt by Chell to find if she had any living relatives. She had a DNA test taken and the doctor only replied that her ethnicity was unknowable as she had "more blood in her than a mosquito".
Wheatley took this to mean Chell is a vampire.
- Big "NO!": Lampshaded, Chell attempts one only to remember she's mute and thus cannot.
- She does finally let out one in the finale after becoming Suddenly Speaking.
- Captain Obvious: Wheatley mentions that "doesn't think (his nose) should be all crooked and bleeding like that".
- Cloudcuckoolander: Pretty much every character in the story to some degree, but "Colossal Chris-Chan" takes the cake. Between calling GLaDOS a "slanderous troll", demanding to play "vidya games" in the middle of tests and ultimately covering himself in repulsion gel and attaching turret legs to his head to become his "super mode", he makes Wheatley seem competent.
- Culture Clash: From Wheatley's Tumblr. He mentions that Chell played snowball fight, and interprets the ball as a personality sphere figurine.How would you like it if I made human shapes out of snow to throw at people? I don’t think you would at all. But that’s just me.
- Deconstruction: Of some of the standard human!Wheatley and "Chell finds civilization" story cliches. Notably upon finding civilization, Chell and Wheatley are immediately arrested and put in an insane asylum.
- Expy: Gabe Wellnew, a store owner/conspiracy theorist who takes Chell and Wheatley in, is this of Valve CEO Gabe Newell. He even collects knives.
- When talking about Wellnew on his Tumblr, Wheatley inserts the photo of Newell in front of the Half-Life 3 logo.
- When talking about Wellnew on his Tumblr
- Groin Attack: The first thing Chell does upon seeing Wheatley is to kick him in the groin.
- Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: The "Ask Wheatley (About Being Human)" tumblr.
- Hidden Depths: GLaDOS has them, its never outright stated, but strongly implied that these depths are due to Caroline being Chell's mother.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Wheatley looks like Stephen Merchant, its taken to an even further extreme in the Tumblr, where Merchant also exists. Naturally, Wheatley thinks Stephen Merchant's an impostor bent on stealing his identity.
- In a later post on the subject, Wheatley posts a picture of "his flatmate" to intimidate Merchant; its a picture of Gabe Newell.
- Even later, he, after seeing a picture of Karl Pilkington, thinks about the Ricky Gervais Show and The Office as belonging to an alternate universe him.
- Musical World Hypothesis: The upcoming sequel will apparently be a musical, its not yet been described how this will be explained in-universe.
- Naked People Are Funny: Wheatley doesn't understand the human compulsion to wear clothes. He certainly didn't need them when he was a core...
- Short Title: Long, Elaborate Subtitle: The story's full name is Being Human Or, A Scientific Study on the Behavioral and Social Aspects of Homo Sapiens in its Natural Habitat Facilitated through the use of an Aperture Science Personality Construct.
- Shout-Out: To dozens of internet memes. Wheatley's favorite show is My Midget Horsey: Companionship is Enchanting, and he plays World of Angry Farms, an "MMOFPSRPGRTSTD Point-and-Click Browser Game. Don't ask me what that stands for because I don't know."
- In the Being Human universe, GLaDOS wrote Cupcakes (Sergeant Sprinkles).
- Chapter 12 features an EPIC. RAP. BATTLEOFHISTORY!!!!
- The entirety of chapter 5 is a homage/shout out/crossover with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
- Wheatley quotes the popular "Wheatley is the best at flirting" video in an attempt to woo Chell. It goes about as well as one can expect.
- Half-Life is a documentary series about the combine war, the third episode of the series was canceled in favor of reality television.
- Suddenly Speaking: Chell regains her ability to speak at the end of the story thanks to Jerry the nanobot.
- The Cake Is a Lie: Chell absolutely freaks out when she finds a cake. In the tumblr Wheatley says her favorite show is Cake Boss.
- The Internet Is for Porn: Wheatley's attempts to research human romance on the internet leads to him trying to woo Chell by describing the act of reproduction to her. Its quite clear what he found.
- The Power of Love: GLaDOS lets Wheatley go after she realizes that Chell really does love him. Wheatley points out how Out of Character that is for GLaDOS.
- Third-Act Misunderstanding: Gabe mistakes the sounds of Chell and Wheatley fighting the party escort bot for them having sex, allowing the escort bot to capture Wheatley and incapacitate Chell.
- Too Dumb to Live: Wheatley at times, especially in the earlier chapters before his Character Development kicks in.
- Wheatley ate a Candy Land board game once, he "was sick for days".
- Unusual Euphemism: Wheatley really likes Chell's "fleshy personality cores".
