Art Appreciation
Happy holidays, @verytxred! Hereās your (very late) @portal-secret-santa present. Hope you like it! I also have it here.
Wheatley was an appreciator of the fine arts. Classical music (though from his skimmed reading, he was fairly certain heād also enjoy the Romantic period), paintings, novelsā¦ He took his time in consuming it. As a robot with access to Apertureās database of artāthat is to say, access to all good artāhe had the capability to appreciate all art in a matter of seconds. However, he preferred to appreciate manually. It helped him pass time. After all, there wasnāt much to do up in space. Not that one would guess it from his unwitting companions.
The Space core, of course, was having a blast. Had been for about a month now. Wheatley, personally, didnāt think much of space. From what he could tell from all the art heād appreciated about the subject, the only thing that made space interesting was the mystery of it. Once one had been looking at the same stars for any more than a week, the mystery was gone. Super novae were a spot getting slightly brighter and vanishing. Black holes were a patch of space with no light, much like the rest of space. The most powerful destructive forces of the universe looked exactly as boring as trampled grass. Well, no matter what Wheatley or impressionist painters thought of space, the Space core was utterly entranced. He had even taken up naming stars (and maybe constellations, though that was vague from Wheatleyās perspective). Wheatley wasnāt sure if it was Spaceās trajectory or excitement that kept him spinning, but the motion fit the mood either way.
It had taken a long time from Wheatley to realize the Adventure core was moonlighting as a satellite too. He was so far ahead from Wheatley and Space, he had barely been audible. Once Wheatley had spotted him and they properly set up a line of communication, the surprisingly interesting monologue had him occasionally tuning in. Apparently, āRickā was patrolling the moon to protect earth from an alien invasion. Wheatley didnāt have the heart to tell him aliens werenāt real. Not since his first attempt had been quickly thwarted by Spaceās scattered statistics, anyway.
Sometimes, between great works of art, Spaceās cartographic pursuits, and Rickās Bond-ish pick-up lines, Wheatley would be properly aligned to look at Earth. He couldnāt see much of anything through the atmosphere and all those thick clouds. The blue-green-white marble didnāt bring him all that much comfort. It was pretty, no doubt, but aside from museums and historical structures he now knew the names of, he had no emotional connection to it. It was a blurred-out masterpieceāsomeone some whereās magnum opus or coup de grace (if he was using the term correctly)āand the smudge in the corner of his camera.
Often he thought, maybe space suited him better.
This is wonderful! I absolutely love it! Thank you so much, and Merry late Christmas!!
