#maybe? i use his hl2 design here

[airyesart]

whoops more barney! i think the harmonic reflux is cool

[ohnoitsz1m]

Okay since the fandom seems to be agreeing with me lately now seems like a good time to talk about it. Gordon Freeman being a trans woman is so real and important to me and it has narrative significance.

THIS IS AN INTENTIONAL TRANSFEM READING OF GORDON FREEMAN. I AM NOT CLAIMING THIS IS VALVE'S INTENTION, I AM POINTING OUT AN OVERLOOKED POSSIBILITY AND ATTEMPTING TO START A CONVERSATION.

Specifically, at least during the events of the games, she's closeted or maybe her egg hasn't even cracked yet.

At every turn throughout the games she's pushed into being something she's not, something that doesn't come naturally to her. She never asked to be the One Free Man, she never asked to be saddled with the responsibility of being Humanity's Savior, she didn't go into the job expecting to be fighting for her life against aliens and humans alike. She was a theoretical physicist from the start, but that was taken from her. Her labcoat and ponytail traded in for an HEV suit and a crowbar. Sure the suit was part of her job, but it's not like you sign up under the impression it'll be power armor to defend you against the US military. It's essentially an armored hazmat suit. It's lab equipment turned power armor.

In HL2 she loses her ponytail and gets a new suit explicitly designed as power armor. There's no place for her as a scientist in this world, she needs to either man up or die. So she does what she has to to survive and becomes the soldier the world demands her to be- the savior everyone tells her she is.

She's never given a choice in any of this, had she not taken the g-man's offer he would have left her to die on Xen, from the second the game starts it's decided that she's not going to be the theoretical physicist she was meant to be, some unfathomably powerful outside force has decided this for her, possibly long before she even set foot at Black Mesa.

The game quite literally holds Gordon's autonomy juuust out of her reach and punishes her for trying to reclaim it (see: hl2 ep2 reaffirming that G-Man still has power over her despite the Vortigaunts intervention, aaand hl:a ending where Gordon is replaced by Alyx as the G-man's employee.)

Okay so what does that Mean for her tho? How does this relate to the trans experience? Why is she specifically transfem? Ok so here's where the actual interpretation starts.

So I imagine, pre-rescas Gordon would probably have been close to her egg cracking. (Remember! A lot of us didn't know until we were older!) She's thriving in her chosen field, got her labcoat and ponytail, he HEV suit isn't replacing her lab clothes, it's part of the uniform. It's PPE! She's in her element. She's experiencing who she really is, what feels right to her. This is right to her.

Then the rescas happens, you could read this as turning off the TV iykwim. The HEV suit become something else, instead of the protective lab equipment it was designed to be it becomes armor, concealing who Gordon really is, and building up a false masculine image that would later be reinforced by G-Man, her coworkers, and the rebels. From the lack of her ponytail to the HEV mk5 being literal armor, Half-Life 2 really tries to cement this identity for her. She couldn't be herself if she wanted to, the world doesn't NEED Gordon Freeman the theoretical physicist. It needs Gordon Freeman the One Free Man. Nothing about her new identity is her own, it was forged out of doing what she had to do to survive and built up not by herself but by everyone around her. Basically pressure into remaining closeted for ones own safety.

G-Man, I feel like adds a lot to this reading, being a primary force associated with Keeping Gordon In Line, threatening and punishing her for deviating from his design, and quite literally tells her that he's chosen this For Her (see: HL2 ending, ep2 intro, heart-to-heart, hl:a ending). G-Man is the patriarchy. Pushing her into a masculine role, taking away her autonomy and identity with violence, threats, and punishing her for even considering stepping out of the role that was decided for her.

NOW. Now..for rambling about my own writing.. I have these old screenshots from rambling about her a while ago. This is specifically about a post-canon Gordon Freeman, egg cracked or beginning to crack. This is a timeline where she's given the space to figure herself out. She doesn't turn off the TV here.

Imm suuuper tired (only had 3 hrs of sleep) so ill leave it there. I hope this was coherent, I am open to further discussion on the topic

I will say tho: this post is specifically about transfem Gordon Freeman, amab nonbinary works too, but my point is, this is NOT the place to discuss TME (transmisogyny exempt) Gordon. Make your own post about it, please.

[thebenriksai]

Welcome! Welcome to the official "The Benriks AU" page!

ABOUT AU:

Our AU - is a load of headcanons that adds new characters to original setting and a new background to the existing ones, connecting it all into one story.The story follows a plot parallel to the original with some timeline differences.

The main characters are members of the second science team: a determined girl Nicole - a former employee of Aperture, not yet fully self-aware barista Toby, who is just starting his hard way as an AI, and two sisters: Lee (younger, more active) and Alex (older, more passive), with whom… something is clearly wrong.

Our AU is mostly very similar to the original HLVRAI series in terms of cascade resonance times. We have times before the cascade resonance and after, in the HL2 timeline, which has additional characters. Our original characters are carefully written into the original HLVRAI series, for example, they are used to explain some off-screen and unexplained moments.

RULES, RIGHTS AND TERMS:

Likes: YEAAHH LET'S GO!!!

Reblogs: YES PLEASEEEE

Comments: Yeah, feel free! :)

Ask: Please! We are always here and we are happy to answer!

Using our art: You can use it, just mention us! Please, do not sell or use for commercial purposes. Do not use for AI content :)

Requests: Yeah, feel free to ask something!

Collabs: Maybe, depends on what you gonna offer.

Characters use:

Alex and Lee. Feel free to use 'em as you want. I understand that art can be really different and sometimes unstoppable, It's just useless to try to stop people, haha. I gotta mention that we have our canon ships, but you can headcanon them as you want. And please, remember that they are not humans at all, our rules just not working with them (age, mentality, body, organism in general).

For Nico and Toby:

You can do and draw anything you want with them (if you want ofc-), but within the SFW, please. If you have any questions about characters or themes - pm me freely!!

Memes, eye-straining colors, crossovers and challenges are cool and welcome, as well angst and some blood, too (you know emotional art with idea of moral choice, etc, ii love it).

Just don't turn them into minced meat, please

(You can a little bit, hehe)

PLEASE, NO NEGATIVE, AGGRESSION, BULLYING AND CRITICISM. WE ARE TRYING TO CREATE A COMFORTABLE PLACE FOR EVERYONE HERE!

ABOUT US (AUTHORS):

Heya. I'm Alex, my nickname is Blue Opal. She/Her. I am the original creator and author of this AU. Alex in our AU was named after me. I'm 19 y.o. student in university. My kinnies are Benrey, Tommy, Queen (Deltarune), Pearl (Steven Universe). Mostly Benrey hahah. I'm multifandom person, but now sitting in HLVRAI fandom. I don't have any experience with all that social media popularity, all my previous blogs and groups were just archives to myself. Now I'm working on this project with my friend, I put all my love and soul here. Thank you for all your interest, we appreciate it. :)

Ao3

Hello everynyan! Im Pigel0n. Second author. Currently studying at university, i draw a bit, design a bit, but mostly just thinking about art ideas and funny little stories to draw.

Pronouns are she/her if needed, but you can call me Pigel for short.

[breadknight-likes-things]

Game Journal 03/28/2020: We Don’t Go To Ravenholm, But I Sure Did.

Ravenholm is probably the most often referenced part of Half Life 2, and for extremely good reason.  It’s rare a game takes such a hard shift in tone ,like this section of Half Life 2, and actually pulls it off.  So when you play one that works as unbelievably well as Ravenholm, it sticks with you forever.  Ravenholm itself is a lot like the other environments you play through in HL2.  It’s obviously Eastern European, it’s run down and it’s largely uninhabitable to human life.  The key twist here though, is the horde of bloodthirsty, horrifying headcrab zombies that dominate the entire town. You actually see The Combine “Shell” a few locations  early on in Half Life 2 but at that point it seems like a minor annoyance.  So they launched a big metal tube full of 2-3 head crabs at you? So what?  Those things barely do any damage and are easy to kill.  Ravenholm, however, is the extremely grim endgame of what initially seems like an ineffective plan.  Ravenholm, while maybe not thriving, was obviously a place people could live in peace, but as it is now the only things there are corpses, living corpses, the remains of the aforementioned “shells” and one unhinged preacher hunting down the zombies and laying his flock to rest.  It spells out the grim effectiveness of the Combine’s strategy when you see a place this decimated, and frankly haunted, by the same minor annoyances you shrugged off two hours ago.  Clearly this strategy works, and after all, if the Combine care little for the health of the actual world they’re now lording over?  What’s creating small pockets of zombie infested towns really going to harm in their long term plan?

Ravenholm also culminates in having to go down this hole, which, is the very definition of “Nah, I’ve heard this urban legend before!” It’s a jarring shift in tone, and for a solid hour to hour and a half, Half Life 2 turns into something more closely resembling a horror game.  Ravenholm is dark, claustrophobic and full of the scariest enemies in the game.  The only person on your side even seems unhinged himself (Though ultimately he does seem to mean well).  It also helps immensely that, right before this section of the game, you’re given the iconic “Gravity Gun” and Ravenholm is explicitly designed for it’s use.  It’s much easier to deal with enemies not firing guns at you with stuff like barrels, crates and even buzz saws pulled from the wall, and it’s always a lot of fun.  There’s even an achievement given to you if you play the whole section without using any other weapon, and while doing so gets difficult near the end, I honestly think you owe it to yourself to play through it that way.  Hell you just owe it to yourself play HL2 in general, please do!  Then someone buy me a VR headset so I can play Half Life Alyx, I’m starving over here!

Random Screenshot Of The Day:

I swear I used to do like twenty squats every morning before Ring Fit, I better get swole from this!

Stray Game Notes:

- Not game related, but uh, they redesigned Google Podcasts and it’s way harder to parse and navigate?  I know complaining about re-designs is cliche, but it’s annoying! - I’d say “Man, Ravneholm really stands out among the incredible sections of Half Life 2!” but that’s really selling the game short because pretty much every section of Half Life is on part with this one, including my favorite section I’ll cover tomorrow: Highway 17. - Turns out when you do 150 squats in the span of an hour, among all the other exercises, you’re legs feel like they’re going to explode an hour later.  Even when there’s a fun video game involved!