#beyond black mesa

[sixtyune]

Not sure if this was an intended joke, but the opening of Beyond Black Mesa and the way its characters’ profile pictures being round always give me the impression that we are actually communicating with the characters through the opening of a can of beans (instead of, canon-wise, Darnold’s computer)

#hlvrai #hlvrai au #beyond black mesa #beyondblackmesa darnold #was only one page into this AU but it looks like fun #kind of shitposting

[lowpolyskeletonz]

Today I decided to count every Gordon created by @year2000electronics that's public and "official"

If i am counting correctly this is 34 gordons! Including all official hlvrv + y2kvr gordons (concidered adding unofficial nightmare forms but didn't for my own sanity)

Prevelent fanfic gordons

Beyond black mesa

And a few gordons based on other media-

What I decided to count and not count is basically nonsense. This is just how my brain did it. 34 whole gordons. If BMFE has a Gordon I might cry /j

#bones jangle #hlvrai #y2kvr #hlvrv #Beyond black mesa #So. Many. Gordons.

[transalfredpennyworth]

guy so touch starved every tiny touch makes him feel like a thousand tiny knives are being stabbed into him

#like think about it. #gordons hev suit being so bulky and big that it masks most sensation and so he hasnt been touched in like. a while #i dont actually know how long their whole. being trapped in black mesa and beyond lasted. but whatever #and so after he finally gets it off any kind of physical contact is mildly agonizing and simultaneously addicting

[internetskiff]

Something about Gordon Freeman that's extremely fascinating is how he was basically forced into the "Messiah" role by complete accident. Dude was on his way to work, caught in an extremely awful lab accident, and he was just fighting for his life so brutally that he ended up taking down an entire army, making the other less capable or equipped scientists assign him as the one that would go in and take down the Nihilanth - I mean, they basically didn't have many other options, or at least not many better options at their disposal. The whole time he basically doesn't have much of a say in any of it, which means he was practically railroaded into becoming the G-Man's employee by pure circumstance.

Doesn't get any better in Half Life 2 either - the surviving Black Mesa staff have turned this man they potentially sent to die into a legend amongst the resistance movement. The Vortigaunts chant his name as they draw murals on the canal walls. The Lambda - a symbol of both the Lambda Labs but most notably the symbol on the HEV suit - now symbolizes liberation. Therefore, of course, the man who bears this symbol is the liberator. By the ending chapters of Half Life 2, Freeman commands entire squads of rebels, appointed the leader regardless of how good a tactician he actually is - if they die, they died for him, not because of him. As long as he gets to the Citadel and breaches it's wall, all those deaths would be worth it - once again, others send him into a near-inhospitable environment to take down a near-invincible threat.

I think that despite us being in control of Freeman for most of the series, the real protagonists of the story are the Vance family. Eli, too, was right at ground zero when the Resonance Cascade occurred. He is the leader of the Resistance. It's very possible that he's the one who spread word of Freeman throughout City 17. The fall of Nova Prospekt AND the Citadel occurred as a result of Eli's capture. In the Combine's eyes, the Vances are a threat equal to, if not greater than Freeman himself. That, and the Vances have something Freeman doesn't - agency. They're beyond the G-Man's control. They're beyond the Combine's control. Their actions are completely their own, with no third party to control every single step they take. Over the course of the Episodes, it feels as though the dynamic shifts, with Alyx becoming a much more vital figure. The Combine are specifically after her now, because she carries the code capable of disrupting the portal through which the Combine could send reinforcements and finally consume Earth. In both the Epistle 3 script and in Half Life Alyx it ends with her basically taking Freeman's position under the G-Man's employ. She quite literally takes the role of the Main Character away from Gordon. This, of course, is nothing to envy, because it's been repeatedly shown that any character assuming this role in the series ends up being reduced to nothing but a pawn for those who control them. It's an extremely fascinating spin on the linear nature of the games, canonically acknowledging you're doing nothing but marching along a path someone else made for you. Despite being the one free man, you're not offered much of a choice.

#hl #hl2 #hl 2 #half life #half life 2 #gordon freeman #alyx vance #eli vance #the combine #g man #gman #the gman #rambling #had thoughts on this for a while but only recently managed to formulate them

[sciencewife]

Happy Resonance Cascade Day, Cave Johnson is laughing at Black Mesa from beyond the grave

#He would so roast Breen for being the combine’s puppet and black mesa for doing science that really messed up the world #He’s like “sure I’m a horrible bastard but I didnt open a portal that let aliens take over the earth” #“Or be the figurehead for humanity’s new miserable existence” #“Resonance cascade. You’re supposed to be scientists!” #Portal #portal 2 #Cave Johnson #Black Mesa #Half-life #hl #half life #Resonance cascade

[year2000electronics]

hlvrai thoughts on my brain. i feel like coomer and benrey have some very similar Fears. i think they both don’t want The Video Game to end. but as for why? well for both of them it’s different

looking at coomer, it’s clear in his fight scene that he wants to escape the game; that he’s terrified there’s nothing beyond black mesa. he needs his life to have meaning and is horrified when he perceives it has none, at least not compared to gordon.

benrey constantly tries to get the group to head back and asks them to stop shooting at him not NECESSARILY because he’s at the Horrible Whims of the Game’s Code or anything, but because going forward would be literally advancing the plot. which is further to The End.

i feel like coomer and benrey could very reasonably share the same belief- one that coomer expresses in his ending speech (“and now i imagine you’ll turn [the video game off]. move on with your life.) coomers view of The Player has become quite optimistic, but throughout the speech he’s still not so transparently begging The Player to take the science team with them and not leave them here. and so benrey could easily not want the final battle to come to a close because he too believes that after the game ends, the player will move on

but UNlike coomer, i don’t think benrey wants to escape. i think he LIKES the story of the video game. i just think he wants to keep it going FOREVER. like he says in act 4- “i just want to play games with people, man”. he clearly ENJOYS antagonizing gordon and being a security guard, it’s fun for him, so that’s why i could never buy the Reluctant Antagonist Benrey idea. he always says gordon needs to calm down too so clearly he doesn’t take much stuff very seriously, which could definitely include his own sentience as an ai

so yea. i think both coomer and benrey don’t want the story to end, but coomer wants to escape the story and benrey wants to embody the story

#hlvrai #headcanon #dr coomer #benrey #does this make sense at all. idk #may those who accept their fate be granted happiness. may those who defy their fate be granted glory.

[xenaliens]

Could you draw Freeman’s mind in different outfits? I feel like he would wear edgy metal mosh pit clothes but I want to see you put him in cute outfits!!

heyy sorry it took me so long to do this. ill get to the other ask in my inbox too but. gulp ramble below for designs and overall ideas + garfield mind

for one. apologies for not coloring anything. im rlly sick. but hey. hes a baddie. wut can i say. anyway how i characterize mind usually is prominent in how i design his clothes which is why its fun 2 draw him in stuff that i wouldnt usually assume he’d wear on the daily but things he’d still look GOOD in

imo he seems like how asker headcanoned his outfit style to be but like. hes specifically pretentious about it. hes a gatekeeper in my eyes but also at the same time is so hypocritical abt it

but yea. i think he’d moderately be in a punk / overall metalhead genre, just toned down when hes lazy (which is everyday when in black mesa but ok.) and he doesn’t really variate beyond that, aside from maybe grunge/skater stuff sometimes…

he doesnt really fuck w/ tripp/baggy pants bc they make him stumble. his body aches enough he doesnt need to fall over to make it worse damn!

dont see him being too big of a fan of dresses but if he did wear them he’d probably look good. his hair is brown trust i just color shift stuff a TON. ask me abt it <3

#half life #gordon freeman #barmey calhoun #barneys mind #buttermind #freemans mind #gordon freemind #barney calhoun #mindverse #freemanverse #freeman’s mind #barney’s mind #fm

[angrycheesegirl]

Honestly it's kind of wild to me how much of our understanding of Half-Life 1 comes not from the game itself, but through retroactive continuity from HL2 and its Episodes. The nature of the Resonance Cascade and its consequences, the true motives of the Nihilanth and the importance of Xen, even our basal understanding of the Gman as this cosmic force with malicious intentions all comes from a Post-HL2 understanding of the lore. Because if you look at the original story of Half-Life as shipped in 1998, everything felt so... contained. There's no real sense of a larger world beyond the events taking place at Black Mesa; extremely little is explained to the player, and what does get explained is usually indirect or flat-out cryptic. You can tell that while Valve had interesting concepts for HL1, the larger world simply was not considered during development.

In a Post-Source world, it's easy to forget how goddamn weird Half-Life is in comparison to its sequels, but I think it's worth looking back on if nothing more than as a time capsule.

#half life #half life 2 #black mesa

[deepfriedseagullfeet]

rewatching hlvrai is interesting cause i never realized that there was this side plot where dr coomer realizes that hes in a video game. the "theres nothing there" quote when he looks beyond the walls of black mesa. the "every time you go to sleep my body is ripped apart atom by atom" thing when tommy and gordon are fighting the clones. the very end when theyre in the final area and he brings up video games and is like "what would you do if you realized everything around you was fake" quote. its kinda interesting

#anyways. coomer was always my favorite character i love this strange boxing grandpa #hlvrai #dr coomer #life with seag

[delafiseaseses]

Half Life 1 is an interestin' game (and the themes go to the entire series, so, uh, spoilers for all of it).

It's a game where there's a certain inevitability to things. Gordon will have to push that crystal into the anti-mass spectrometer. The second he got on the Black Mesa Transit System it became inevitable. Hence why the first time we see G-Man is on that journey.

But, even if it wasn't Gordon, it'd've been someone else. Breen was pushing for it, G-Man was involved in it and his "Employers" were counting on it and who knows what other forces were involved too.

Half Life 1, and Half Life overall, is a linear game series. Most linear games are, when you think about it, inevitable stories. Tram rides. Half Life subtly alludes to this fact. Even the final "choice", also done on a tram, isn't really a choice at all "Do as I say or die".

In Half Life 2 G-Man just outright says it, "Rather than offer you the illusion of free choice, I will take the liberty of choosing for you...", even that illusion was something he was no longer bothered with.

Even with G-Man's is partially impeded by the Vortigaunts, he finds the perfect moment to get to Freeman and to taunt Eli. Unforeseen consequences.

The Vortigaunts blocked G-Man from Freeman, so he went into the past and took Alyx. "A previous hire has been unable — or unwilling — to perform the tasks laid before him. We have struggled to find a suitable replacement. Until now." even linear time cannot stop G-Man from getting his way. Alyx may've been around in 2 and the episodes, but she was already doomed to be the next 'hire'.

The capture was also an 'illusion of choice'. He offered Alyx a "choice", asked her a question "What would you want nudged, Ms Vance?", but he already knew what he would do "What if I could offer you something you don't know you want?".

Though, there's another part right before that line that I cut out "Too large [a nudge], given the interests of my employers.", G-Man is the most powerful singular thing we ever get to see. He's still working under something else.

And, who knows, maybe they're working under something else too.

Gordon got on that tram before he was even playable. G-Man got on his tram offscreen. Whatever is beyond him... must've gotten on a tram too.

An isotope doesn't choose its half-life. The rules of reality dictate it. A half-life character doesn't choose its existence, either. It is dictated for them.

Hmm, a little off-topic conclusion aside: it's really no bloody wonder The Stanley Parable started as a Half-Life 2 mod, is it?

#half life #half life 1 #gordon freeman #g man #g-man #half life 2 #wait you can also spell 'half life' with a hyphen #I should do that too #half-life #half-life 1 #half-life 2 #half life alyx #half-life alyx #eli vance #alyx vance

[mysticstronomy]

DO SHADOWS APPEAR ON THE MOON'S SURFACE??

Blog#325

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2023

Welcome back,

The moon is utterly familiar. We see it all the time, in the blue sky during the day, among the stars and planets at night. Every child knows the outlines of the moon’s lava seas: they trace the Man in the Moon or, sometimes, a Rabbit.

This familiarity goes beyond appearances. The moon is actually made of Earth. According to modern theories, the moon was born some 4.5 billion years ago when an oversized asteroid struck our planet. Material from Earth itself spun out into space and coalesced into our giant satellite.

Yet when Apollo astronauts stepped out onto this familiar piece of home, they discovered that it only seems familiar. From the electrically-charged dust at their feet to the inky-black skies above, the moon they explored was utterly alien.

On the next sunny day, step outdoors and look inside your shadow. It’s not very dark, is it? Grass, sidewalk, toes–whatever’s in there, you can see quite well.

Your shadow’s inner light comes from the sky. Molecules in Earth’s atmosphere scatter sunlight (blue more than red) in all directions, and some of that light lands in your shadow. Look at your shadowed footprints on fresh sunlit snow: they are blue!

Without the blue sky, your shadow would be eerily dark, like a piece of night following you around. Weird. Yet that’s exactly how it is on the Moon.

To visualize the experience of Apollo astronauts, imagine the sky turning completely and utterly black while the sun continues to glare.

Your silhouette darkens, telling you “you’re not on Earth anymore.”

Shadows were one of the first things Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong mentioned when he stepped onto the surface of the moon. “It’s quite dark here in the shadow [of the lunar module] and a little hard for me to see that I have good footing,” he radioed to Earth.

The Eagle had touched down on the Sea of Tranquility with its external equipment locker, a stowage compartment called “MESA,” in the shadow of the spacecraft.

Although the sun was blazing down around them, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had to work in the dark to deploy their TV camera and various geology tools.

“It is very easy to see in the shadows after you adapt for a while,” noted Armstrong. But, added Aldrin, “continually moving back and forth from sunlight to shadow should be avoided because it’s going to cost you some time in perception ability.”

Truly, moon shadows aren’t absolutely black. Sunlight reflected from the moon’s gently rounded terrain provides some feeble illumination, as does the Earth itself, which is a secondary source of light in lunar skies. Given plenty of time to adapt, an astronaut could see almost anywhere.

Almost. Consider the experience of Apollo 14 astronauts Al Shepard and Ed Mitchell:

They had just landed at Fra Mauro and were busily unloading the lunar module. Out came the ALSEP, a group of experiments bolted to a pallet. Items on the pallet were held down by “Boyd bolts,” each bolt recessed in a sleeve used to guide the Universal Handling Tool, a sort of astronaut’s wrench. Shepard would insert the tool and give it a twist to release the bolt–simple, except that the sleeves quickly filled with moondust. The tool wouldn’t go all the way in.

The sleeve made its own little shadow, so “Al was looking at it, trying to see inside. And he couldn’t get the tool in and couldn’t get it released–and he couldn’t see it,” recalls Mitchell.

“Remember,” adds Mitchell, “on the lunar surface there’s no air to refract light–so unless you’ve got direct sunlight, there’s no way in hell you can see anything. It was just pitch black. That’s an amazing phenomenon on an airleuss planet.”

(Eventually they solved the problem by turning the entire pallet upside down and shaking loose the moondust. Some of the Boyd bolts, loosened better than they thought, rained down as well.)

Originally published on universetoday.com

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, August 26th, 2023)

"WHAT IS THE GREAT SILENCE??"

#astronomy #outer space #alternate universe #astrophysics #universe #spacecraft #white universe #parallel universe #space #astrophotography

[decks-writing-blog]

Whatever the Fuck Benrey is: Chapter Four: Didn't Matter

Chapter One

Previous Chapter

~

Benrey wasn’t tired but Gordon clearly expected him to go to bed. Normally he wouldn’t have but there wasn’t much else he could do. He wasn’t allowed to play on the Game Cube anymore because Gordon needed to sleep and apparently couldn’t with it on. And so, with a sigh, Benrey lay down on his side of the bed to stare up at the ceiling.

It was the perfect time to think. One of Benrey’s least favorite activities but maybe he could figure out a way to fix Gordon’s hand. The security officer uniform had been thrown out along with everyone else’s old clothes – excluding the HEV suit, that Gordon cleaned and put in a cardboard box – so getting that role back wasn’t likely to be an option anymore. But even outside of his having given it up at Gordon’s order because of the hand thing, he would still feel better if he could fix said hand thing.

And so he lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, mentally going over everything he knew about human anatomy. Which beyond the physical layout of their bones that he copied for his own form and when creating his skeleton dudes, wasn’t much. There had to be something he could do though, right?

The answer came to him upon accidentally dozing off when his brain kindly replayed part of the first conversation he’d had with Gordon about his hand never growing back. In the dream they’d had the talk while in Xen and had been playing poker for some reason but it was close enough. Human limbs didn’t grow back but they could be reattached once lost.

Shaking himself the rest of the way awake, Benrey sat up and turned to look at Gordon. He’d rolled over to be facing Benrey. His face wasn’t calm as it should’ve been but instead scrunched up, his whole body tense and twitchy. Not a peaceful sleep then. Lucky him, Benrey was here to wake him from it.

He reached out to shake Gordon’s shoulder. “Wake up, buddy. ”

Gordon jolted awake with a loud gasp. He scrambled backwards, lifting his gun hand. Before it was all the way up though, he fell off the bed, landing on the floor with a thump and dragging the blankets with him. Benrey crawled over to look down at him. The fall hadn’t seem to bring him out of his post nightmare panic as he was still breathing heavy and his eyes roving around wildly.

Benrey took a deep breath and let out a stream of blue sweet voice. As always, Gordon calmed down immediately. Not many people responded to it as strongly as he did, making it another reason to like him.

By the time Benrey’s note ended, Gordon was starting to catch his breath. “That’s… very pretty.”

Him saying it was pretty was nothing new but not many people had nice things to say about it so Benrey was allowed to bask in that a little, right? “Eh, yeah, it is.”

With a groan, Gordon shifted before finally sitting up. Using the bed, he pulled himself to his feet and scrambled at the nightstand until the found his glasses. “Ugh, what happened?”

“You were having a nightmare so I woke you.” Benrey grabbed the blankets and pulled them back up onto the bed. “Also, I got good news. I know how fix your hand.”

Gordon raised and eyebrow but didn’t say anything as he sat on the edge of bed. Probably an invitation to continue, right? So pushing the pile of blankets on his lap to the side, Benrey shifted to sit next to Gordon, his legs hanging of the edge.

“You said, uh, that your hand can’t grow back but it can be reattached, right? So all we gotta do is go back to Black Mesa and find it, right?”

“Well, thanks for waking me and for the thought I guess. That won’t work though. It’s gotta be reattached like within a couple hours, I think. It’s been days, it’s probably rotted by now if something hasn’t eaten it.”

“Oh.” That was fine though because if reattachment was an option with one’s own hand why wouldn’t it work with someone else’s? “Just take my hand then.” He held up his right hand. “Chop off your gun hand and then put mine there instead. My hand grows back so it’s… uh, not a problem. If you want I can even do this.” He shifted his right hand to be about the same size and shade of brown as Gordon’s, even doing his best to mimic the nails and way the palm lightened. He did a pretty damn good job too even if the didn’t get all the little lines on the palm and fingertips quite right. In his defense those were impossible, there were too damn many. What purpose did they even serve?

Gordon stared at it in silence for a few seconds. “That’s a pretty cool trick and I appreciate the offer but I don’t… it doesn’t work like that. I don’t think hand transplants are a thing.”

“What? Why not?”

“I’m pretty sure they’re just not a thing people do.”

“Well, why don’t we try it and see what happens. I got, uh… magic healing powers or whatever so maybe it’ll work for us. You got a… a hatchet or something somewhere? Probably need towels too because it’ll get messy.” Benrey stood to start looking for one. “Or I could use my teeth. I can make them pretty sharp. Never bit through bone before though so that might…”

“Nope, absolutely fucking not! You’re not chopping or worse biting any part of me off. Don’t even fucking try it.”

Benrey turned to look at him to see he’d stood too. “Why so mad, bro? I’m trying to help.”

“I’m not mad.” True to his word, the emotion in his voice had settled down some. “I’m just… a bit freaked out because you just casually offered to bite my arm off.” He held his gun hand close to his chest as he turned his body away slightly. Did he think Benrey would try to bite it off without permission? “That’s a scary fucking thought, dude. Don’t bring that kind of thing up like it’s no big deal.”

“How else am I suppose to stick my severed hand to yours though? I don’t think it’ll attach to skin or… or your gun. So I gotta like… give it something to attach to.”

“Maybe drop the idea or at least it put on hold until we find a surgeon willing to try it so I don’t have to live through my hand getting cut off again. That shit hurts, man, like a lot. I know you probably don’t feel pain or whatever but… I’d rather keep the gun hand for forever then go through that again, all right?”

“So you can’t uh… just choose to stop feeling pain then?” Probably it was Benrey’s own fault for never paying attention before now. In his defense though, how was he supposed to guess humans were so fragile and pathetic? Maybe he should be disgusted with them for being so weak but… he didn’t really care. He disliked most humans anyway and Gordon had always been one of the few he did like, knowing he was soft and fragile didn’t change that. If anything, it made him like him more in a way because now he wanted to protect him.

“No, no I can’t. So, again, thanks for the offer but right now, it’s a big fucking no thank you.”

“Damn, okay.” And so Benrey would continue to feel bad and not be allowed to put the security officer uniform back on even if he ever did find a new one. He took something way from Gordon and couldn’t fix it, so it was only fair Gordon be allowed to continue to take that away from him.

“Good, glad we’re on the same page, finally. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’m gonna play the Game Cube for a bit. I’ll keep the volume low so you can sleep if you want but I just… don’t wanna go back to bed right now.”

They’d played all their multiplayer games earlier and neither had had the chance to start the single player games. So instead of asking to play with him on one of those, Benrey pulled both chairs over so he’d be able to sit next to Gordon while he played. It wasn’t often he got a chance to watch someone else play something.

After choosing a game and inserting it into the Game Cube, Gordon settled into the chair Benrey had brought for him with a mumbled, “Thanks.”

***

“Mr. Freeman, are you sure you wanna go back to Black Mesa? I mean, uh… I mean we just got out and it wasn’t very fun when we were there. Especially for you, I think… right? You lost your arm and, and almost died like… a lot of times. Why would you wanna go back?”

Tommy was right, Gordon didn’t particularly want to go back, especially not after only maybe like four hours of sleep last night. If he was planning on suggesting this today he should’ve gone back to bed. But he’d already had one nightmare about losing his hand, adding the idea of Benrey biting it off to his mind could’ve far too easily resulted in returning to an even worse version of that dream. So instead he’d been stupid and played games for the rest of the night while Benrey watched and now he was regretting it because the only thing he’d done today was eat breakfast and step outside the hotel and he was already tired. The dessert heat that was starting to properly set in wasn’t helping. But alas, the longer they put off this reconnaissance trip, the harder it would be to get themselves to do it and so…

“No, I don’t particularly want to go back but we have to. We’re still trying to get in touch with someone who can give us some kind of compensation and to let us know what are jobs are if we still have any. We also should look for survivors and actually fucking help them if we can.” He looked pointedly at Benrey who didn’t even seem to be paying attention but whatever. Gordon had checked again with him before stepping out of their room and made sure he still didn’t have a gun. Not that that made him not dangerous, just less so. Though to be fair, he’d been far from the only one causing problems in that realm. Granted most of the people they’d killed had been clones so… it wasn’t as bad it as could’ve been. “I mean we know Darnold is probably still alive, right? So we should retrieve him even if he is the only one.”

Maybe Darnold would be able to do something about Gordon’s gun hand too since he was the cause of it. Probably not but in addition to being a living person and thus worth saving, it was more than enough reason to go back for him.

“I guess you’re right, huh? We got teleported out but not everyone’s so lucky.”

“Exactly.”

And so they went back to quietly waiting for Bubby and Dr. Coomer to return with the promised car. Hopefully they weren’t stealing it but Gordon wouldn’t put it past them. If so they would at least hopefully have the decency to do it in such a way that Gordon wouldn’t know for sure that it was stolen and thus he wouldn’t be considered complicit in the theft should they be caught.

It wasn’t a long wait as not even a full minute passed before a car rolled out of the hotel’s parking lot and made it way over to stop in front of them. Bubby was driving and Dr. Coomer sat in the passenger seat. The car was the same bright blue sedan that Gordon had somehow forgotten about seeing on Xen. His brain had been so shot at that point he’d likely have chalked it up to an hallucination if he wasn’t seeing it again here. He wasn’t going to ask though because digging Bubby’s secrets out of him wasn’t an adventure he was ready to embark on yet.

“Hello Gordon!” Dr. Coomer said as Bubby rolled down the window at Gordon’s gesture for him to do so.

“Yes, hello to you too, Dr. Coomer. Now Bubby, could you move to the back? I would like to drive.” It should help keep him awake and give him something to focus on that wasn’t bad thoughts.

“Hell no. It’s my car, I’m driving. Get in the back.” Without seemingly any button press from him, the back door clicked and swung open as if motorized. “I can’t believe you made me roll down my window for that.”

Gordon took a breath to insist he at least be allowed a turn at driving sometime during this trip but… let out it with a sigh instead. Arguing with Bubby was like arguing with a cat over dinnertime; useless, but unlike a cat, Bubby had the means to enforce his will. Besides, he was already rolling his window back up, again seemingly without any button press or crank. Did he control the car with him mind? That’d be pretty cool.

Tommy was already climbing in, sliding all the way to the far side. Very much not wanting to sit in the middle, Gordon turned to Benrey, gesturing him to go in. “You next. We, or you and Tommy if he volunteers instead, can swap for the window seat on the way back if you want.” It was only fair since the middle was always the worst seat. “As long you don’t put any glue in my seat this time anyway. If you do that, all bets are off and you’re getting shoved in the trunk for the return trip.” Not a threat Gordon could ever hope to enforce but it was the thought that counted.

“I’m outta glue. Used it all last time ‘cause I didn’t think I’d get another opportunity. What a waste.”

“Nope, not a waste. You got your laugh and now we don’t gotta worry about that anymore, a win-win. Now hop in the car.” Gordon gestured again.

Surprisingly Benrey obeyed without any further prompting. Gordon slid in after him, pulling the door shut behind him. Inside was pleasantly cool, yay for good air conditioning, and the seats were about as comfy as car seats could get. Which wasn’t very but it would help make the long trip there and back a bit less awful even if he did have to sit shoulder to shoulder with Benrey the whole time.

***

Tommy’s road games were fun for maybe a grand total of five minutes after they left the bounds of Tuefort. Not that Benrey had been able to participate much anyway being stuck in the middle back seat. He should’ve insisted they get a Game Boy or PS Vita before setting out on this road trip. Except he hadn’t even been given time to think about it. The others had all decided they were going without consulting him and then had just assumed he’d come with. A correct assumption because even if he didn’t want to go personally, if the rest of them were, he might as well too since he had nothing else to do, but it still would’ve been nice if they’d included him in the conversation.

Another reason he’d have liked to be consulted was, despite their intended destination, Gordon hadn’t put he HEV suit back on, nor had he even bothered to bring it. Benrey hadn’t thought much about his safety before but that was before he knew exactly how weak humans were. It was a miracle he’d survived and the fact that he did was probably due solely to the HEV suit because unlike the rest of them, he was just a normal human. So Benrey would’ve told him to put it back on if he’d been given the chance because him dying and staying that way would be a bummer. Too late now though, he should’ve paid better attention to their breakfast conversation.

About an hour into the ride, Gordon fell asleep. At first just slightly slumped towards Benrey. But then the bouncing of the car over the less than perfectly maintained road brought him closer and closer until he was leaning into Benrey. His height meant that his head rested against the side of Benrey’s instead of on his shoulder as was supposedly supposed to happen when one person fell asleep on another. Benrey didn’t care though, he was just sitting here doing nothing anyway.

He cared a bit more though when Gordon stole his arm. Hugging it, he pulled it to his chest. Gently trying to pull his arm out failed. Meaning if Benrey wanted freedom, he’d probably end up waking Gordon. Which… he couldn’t do, right? Because that was one of the rules for having a pet; when it fell asleep on one’s self, moving enough to wake it was wasn’t allowed. That’s what everyone who had pets always said anyway. Benrey had never understood why but he’d also never had a pet before. And he still didn’t quite get the point of such a law but Gordon was his pet now, right?

He’d taken responsibility for making sure Gordon didn’t steal anything during their journey through Black Mesa. And now because of how weak and fragile he knew Gordon was, especially without the HEV suit, Benrey was taking responsibility for helping keep him alive. Which, as far as he knew was how having a pet worked – unless the pet was immortal, like Sunkist but she was a special case – which made Gordon his pet and thus he wasn’t allowed to move enough to wake him. Meaning he was stuck like this for the rest of the trip.

Not necessarily a the worst thing though. Gordon was warm, soft and… so much touching was a lot but not an unpleasant ‘a lot’. Benrey had never been touched this much before. It was new and thus he was content with it continuing for a little while.

~

“We’ve made it black to Back Mesa!” Coomer said, jerking Benrey out back to the present. “Again!” He climbed out and slammed the door behind him.

Gordon stirred, hugging Benrey’s arm a little tighter but somehow didn’t wake.

“Oh, I hope my Beyblades aren’t too covered in zombie goo.” Once out, Tommy closed his door much more softly.

Benrey wanted out too but… Gordon. What was he supposed to do? Could he pick Gordon up without waking him? If so, that wouldn’t count as breaking the law, right?

“Wake him up or push him out,” Bubby said, making no move to get out himself.

“I can’t. He’s asleep. You’re not allowed to wake your pets up when they fall asleep on you. It’s illegal.” Benrey even kept his voice low because he was a good pet owner.

Bubby cackled. “That’s real cute but we got stuff to do.” He pressed down on the steering wheel’s horn, making seemingly the whole car vibrate with a blaring beep louder than any horn in any of the car games Benrey had ever played.

Gordon jerked awake with a loud gasp, shooting up and finally letting go of Benrey’s arm so he could raise his gun hand. That was fine though because Benrey wasn’t the one who’d woken him so no laws had been broken. “What the fuck man?” His gun hand remained up but he seemed aware enough to know there was nothing to fire it at.

Bubby let go of the horn. “We’ve arrived so stop cuddling your boyfriend and get out of the car.”

“What? Boyfriend? I don’t have…” He cut off as he looked Benrey. “Oh, you mean… No. We weren’t. … Wait, we weren’t cuddling right?”

“Nah, not cuddling. You were just sleeping on me and uh… stealing my arm.” Which now felt awfully cold.

Gordon grimaced before quickly turning away and scrambling out of the car. Benrey followed. The door closed automatically behind him.

“Hello Gordon! I hope you had a nice nap,” Coomer said. “As you can see we’ve arrived at our destination. Where do you suggest we begin looking for survivors?”

“Oh, um… actually yeah, I did a have a nice nap, thanks. I feel much better now. First, I think we should…” Gordon cut off as he turned around. “Where’s the car?”

Benrey turned to look too. Where the car had just been, Bubby stood alone between the tire tracks. “We don’t have time for this. Let’s go.” He set a quick pace as he started for Black Mesa’s entrance. To keep the place secret, the building wasn’t much but it was intact. Meaning the secret elevator in its basement would probably safely take them to the living area.

As the rest of them set in to following Bubby, Gordon fell into step with Benrey. “You wouldn’t happen to know what’s up with Bubby and that car, would you?”

“Nope. Got no idea.”

“It’s just, assuming you were made in the lab like he was, I thought you might like… I don’t know, have the same powers or something. I guess that’s stupid though, huh? Why would they make two beings with the same exact powers? Obviously they’d want to change things in their next unethical experiment.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty stupid. It’s kinda rude to assume we’re the same just ‘cause I might’ve come from a tube too.”

“It’s not… you know what? Sure, that was a rude assumption. I’m sorry I made it.” At the building now, Gordon pulled them to a halt before entering, grabbing Benrey lightly by the elbow to stop him from continuing in. “But, uh, before we go in, you really know nothing about where you came from? Like you have no idea at all if they kidnapped you as a baby or an egg or whatever or if they literally made you in a tube? No one ever mentioned it to you or around you? Really?”

“Uh… if they did I don’t remember it.” Benrey had already told Gordon he wasn’t sure if he was made in the lab or not yesterday. Why was he bringing it up again? Benrey had certainly found himself a pet who was bad at listening, huh? Maybe he should try to train him better. How did one train a human though? “Do you remember when you were born?” It was ‘born’, right? Or did humans hatch from eggs like birds? What did it even mean to be ‘born’? How did it differ from hatching from an egg?

“No but I know what I am and I know who birthed me and on what date and in which state and city. Heck I even know the hospital. Where you came from and what you literally fucking are, are like… important things to know, man.”

“Well… I don’t know any of that stuff ‘bout me.” Nor did he really care. “What’cha gonna do ‘bout it?”

Gordon stared at him in silence for a few seconds, his face unreadable. “Nothing, ‘cause I can’t do anything. But we’re gonna talk about this more later.”

Before Benrey could ask what more there was to talk about, Gordon turned and headed into the building. It was nice that he was paying more attention to Benrey without Benrey even needing to do anything but why’d he have to be so weird about it? Why did he care about what Benrey was or where he came from? Those things didn’t matter… did they?

Next Chapter

#hlvrai #frenrey #benrey #hlvrai gordon

[prinnamon]

[Start ID. Tags that read: #one of them is confirmed dead btw #shephard saw colettes body in xen #who knows what gina is doing #i think abt them sometimes #raging lesbians. End ID.]

Hi, Hello, and Welcome To My Twisted Mind! i don't mean to correct you @freeshephoun but i noticed your tags on my other silly half-wife post and i wanted to let you know hahahaheehoo it's worse than that :) i hope you don't mind me using you as an excuse to talk at length about cross and green and their ambiguous fate

(low-poly blood/corpse screenshots from the game and lots of text under the read more!)

[Start ID. A screenshot of what appears to be Gina Cross in a red HEV suit dead in one of the Displacement Cannon locations in Xen. End ID.]

in Opposing Force, a corpse bearing a striking resemblance to Gina Cross but wearing a red HEV suit can be found in one of the Displacement Cannon locations.

[ID in alt text.]

according to a tweet by Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford in 2018, it is indeed Gina Cross. Colette Green's fate is unspecified, but he suggests maybe G-Man found her useful enough/had enough compassion for her to put her in stasis like Shephard.

Opposing Force did come out before Decay, so considering that changes were still being made to Decay's story during development, far enough along that there are some voice lines and animations for the scrapped missions, it's likely they had no thoughts about anything that would happen in Decay's story when they decided to include Dr. Cross's dead body as an easter egg in OpFor. so, despite the confirmation by one of the people most likely to be considered An Authority on what happened in the expansions, the canon-icity of this is... slightly debatable? especially considering that (iirc) "Gina Cross's" body can actually be spotted in multiple Displacement Cannon locations in OpFor. so unless there was a wild teleporter accident that created multiple instances of her who all died in different spots... okay, wait, i said that as a hypothetical and a joke but now i like that a lot as a narrative device, fuck.

but you get what i'm saying. whether or not this is "canon" is dubious because you'd have to reconcile a lot of contradictory story elements in order to explain how one can accept this as true.

...

CHAPTER 7: RECONCILING A LOT OF CONTRADICTORY STORY ELEMENTS IN ORDER TO EXPLAIN HOW ONE CAN ACCEPT THIS AS TRUE

[PT: Chapter 7: Reconciling a Lot of Contradictory Story Elements In Order to Explain How One Can Accept This as True /end PT]

if you choose to take Pitchford's tweet as canon, what's especially strange (and tragic, i'll explain) is that Gina has never been shown wearing a red HEV suit anywhere else as far as i'm aware. she wears an orange suit when you see her hologram in the training program in Half-Life and Opposing Force, and she wears a tan/ivory suit in Decay.

[Start ID. A scan of a posed render of Colette Green (left, standing) and Gina Cross (right, crouched) from the Half-Life PS2 manual. Colette Green wears a red HEV suit and Gina Cross wears a tan one. End ID.]

red is Colette's color, which i imagine is probably the source of the initial confusion. which could lead you to conclude that, although this is gina, she's wearing colette's HEV suit. it would explain why she's alone. her suit may have been damaged beyond repair, and it wasn't enough to protect her, so she had to take Colette's as she went off on her own for one last desperate mission that required Gina to enter the Xen even after they and Dr. Keller thought they had successfully sealed the dimensional rift.

so, yeah, picture that. they only had one working suit left. so only one of them could go. and it had to be Cross because of her experience. and even despite their best efforts, despite Green giving up her hazard suit to give Cross the best odds, she still failed.

we know based on the ending of OpFor that the detonation of the nuclear bomb in the car park would have killed anyone still stuck at Black Mesa after a certain point, as Green and Keller almost definitely were if things went back to shit after the end of Decay, which they would have had to if Cross managed to end up dead in Xen. it doesn't make sense to say that they'd then just go "acceptable losses!" and book it, since they took so much responsibility upon themselves throughout Decay's story, so i feel they probably stayed and continued to dedicate themselves to damage control up until the very end. and, like, how would they have known about the bomb? communications were out. probably nobody except Shephard, the black ops team, and that one security guard would have been aware, realistically. so, even if Green and Keller would have wanted to escape and save themselves, there's virtually no way they'd have had enough advance notice to get out of there.

but since Colette's effort was admirable enough for her to deserve a reward in the G-Man's eyes (or maybe just to be kept in reserve in case she's needed later, depending on how you read G's motivations), she, like Shephard, was placed in stasis. and if she ever wakes up again, she'll presumably be without Keller since Pitchford makes no mention of him, and she'll definitely be without Gina.

OR if you don't want to engage with the tragedy of any of this, you can just say that the dead Ginas found in OpFor are uh. y;know. copies of her that were created somehow when she and Colette got caught up in the harmonic reflux after sealing the dimensional rift! which is sad for the clones—and oooky spooky because (mario voice) who REALLY died that day? and who came back??—but otherwise, all three of them got out of Black Mesa together.

I think about them. i think about them a lot. whyyyyy why why why WHY can't dr keller and the half-wifes be from an expansion people have easy access to like blue shit and opposing fart. screams and cries and throws up!!! no actual hate towards Blue Shift or OpFor; i love them, i just wish Decay was also two dollar and on PC

Gina Cross's page on Combine OverWiki was the main source for all my information. i also sourced the screenshot of Cross dead and the scan of Cross and Green's posed render from there. hopefully this post makes people realize that there is interesting shit going on with these characters that is worth exploring.

my final message: dear entire world, include colette green in your drawings of the freezer crew chilling in stasis (nonthreatening suggestion)

#i look forward to the release of the unofficial half-life decay: solo mission on steam so i can finally play it #let me know if i typo'd or misspoke in this. i proofread it before posting #worked on this for longer than i meant to. it was originally going to be a short reblog LOL #it turned into essay-length Decay propaganda and deserved its own post #prinna's posts #half-life #half life #half-life: decay #half life: decay #half-life decay #half life decay #gina cross #colette green #half-wife #half wife #hm. unsure if it's fair to tag opposing force. well Yeah because gina's corpse is an OpFor easter egg and i talked about it at length #opposing force #hlop4 #op4 #opfor #half-life opposing force #half life opposing force #half-life: opposing force #half life: opposing force #however i will NOT be tagging keller because i barely talked about him and did not show any pictures of him #and that would feel unfair to the 2 keller fans i know have got to be out there somewhere

[internetskiff]

Breen's unfortunately pretty underrated amongst the Valve antagonists, which I suppose is understandable compared to the likes of GLaDOS or The Administrator, but just like those two I feel like there's plenty of things to talk about when it comes to him. He seems like a very conflicted character, especially if you take into account the BreenGrub account and Laidlaw's Epistle 3. First of all is, of course, the leadup to the Black Mesa incident, with the G-Man seemingly making an offer to Breen which seemingly involved overloading the Anti-Mass Spectrometer while processing an extremely pure sample of Xen Crystal - and yes, while it's pretty obvious that the order to overload the systems was very intentional and motivated by whatever deal they struck, I believe that when it comes to the aftermath he may have been sold on a lie. Considering his actions as Administrator of Earth being entirely in the interests of keeping Humanity from feeling the full force of the Combine, I don't think "Becoming the de facto leader of all of Earth" was on his agenda. Perhaps G-Man promised that whatever their deal would entail would bring about a prosperous future for humanity, perhaps all he promised was the possibility of establishing contact with another sentient species (which is something he technically did provide), or perhaps it was something else - there's simply way too much room for speculation there, I think.

A little detail from a HL:A newspaper implies that his position as Earth's administrator wasn't exactly handed to him on a silver platter, instead he had to go out of his way to reach out to the governments with information on how to communicate with the invaders, at which point, already beaten down by Combine forces, they simply gave him the all-clear to speak for all of mankind. This still begs the question of who, or what, gave him the knowledge of how to speak with them - however, it's safe to say if they didn't, Earth would've been left a smoldering pile of rocks and withered carcasses. Once again, he acts with Humanity's best interests in mind, having to choose between the lesser of two evils - it's either enslavement or extinction. He simply chose the option in which Humanity would survive, even if just for a little while longer.

And ever since, we're watching the aftermath. He's trying to talk the last generation of Humanity down, so they may either pass of old age or be absorbed into the Combine - at least if that happens, something gets preserved. Once again, the alternative? They'll just wipe the slate once they get the local teleportation technology they desire. Breen sees no other way than to go along with their demands. He's eventually proven wrong, of course, but he refuses to see the Rebellion as anything but a suicidal march towards the extinction of the human race, and he sticks to that belief up until he is killed by Gordon at the tip of the Citadel. Of course, this doesn't make him a good person. Not at all. This belief has lead him to seek out and destroy anyone who tries to resist. He shows no sympathy to them. He paints them as fools. He himself believes it so. This intense hatred for anyone who resists is seen perfectly in how he treats the Vance family. He views them as fools. As narrow-minded rabble in the streets, senselessly struggling against a tide beyond their comprehension. He's willing to send off a father and his daughter into a world far beyond simply to use them as a bargaining chip. Listening to the two comfort eachother as they're almost raised up to a fate surely worse than death, the only expression on his face is that of pure contempt and annoyance. He's a very fascinating character that I wish Valve would explore again if they ever do another Half Life set during a time period in which he was still alive. He's a coward that easily bends to the oppressor, yet in the end he only does it to make sure something survives. He's cruel to those who resist because he's completely convinced they're going to get everyone killed. He is the Combine's perfect puppet.

haha anyhoo so why was he straight up serving on the magazine covers in HL:A like what was up with all that

#hl #hl2 #hl 2 #hl:a #hla #half life #half life 2 #half life alyx #breen #dr breen #wallace breen #the combine #universal union #gman #the gman #g man #g-man #rambling #think about him a normal amount. sorry

[yikes-strikes-again]

i always thought it would be fun if kleiner modified chell's portal gun to work on surfaces outside of aperture. of course, this begs glados' response. so i uberducked it text under cut!

GLaDOS: You have got to be fucking kidding me. I, the most advanced intelligence in the observable universe, have spent the past [unintelligible] years developing a dual portal gun model that is beyond improvement, with the single limitation that it can only be used on surfaces painted with moon rocks, and you're telling me some dipshit from B L A C K M E S A managed to find a workaround in a single afternoon with equipment he got from the trash? ...Unbelievable. I don't have to kiss up to that troglodyte Kleiner (who couldn't even retrieve his own test subject from wherever he teleported him) just because he made my gun work on dirt. He's probably huffing paint fumes in a shack somewhere with that Calhoun meathead...God I fucking hate Black Mesa

#portal #half life #hl2 #glados #kleiner #uberduck #lmao #yikes original tag #yikes audio tag

[year2000electronics]

Help, I forgot the name of one of your hlvrai blogs aaaaa

The Darnold and Forzen trying to escape one, I wanted to tell a friend about it but brain said “nah, Forgor the name”

beyond black mesa! (@beyondblackmesa)

#mothra answers #it’s unfortunately been dormant for a few years now but maybe i’ll give it a big send off one day