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[borealisglados]

Wait a second... why does Nadra’s art resemble Disney art..? 

This wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t used Nadra’s art. 

[borealisglados]

Hi glados

Who are you? 

[borealisglados]

of course im talking about that graffiti screenshot im not a fool

so Valve had released three new in game screenshots for Half-Life: Alyx on their twitter. the most important one (aside from the one that features our lord and savior ERROR) is this;

under a bridge, classic blue truck on the edge, headcrab on a stick in the back, and of course, the fucking beautiful graffiti on the sides of the tunnel that are just, glowing in the dim light. for reasons outside of graphics and map structure, this is the most important screenshot we've gotten lore wise. here's a good run down as to why.

first, the graffiti on the far left;

depicted is a large Citadel placed in between a Vortigaunt and a tall skinny human. the interesting thing is that the Vortigaunt and Citadel have their own defining features to them, such as the Vortigaunt's individual small eyes placed above their big one in the center of their head, and the Citadels ropes connected to the ground and the small outward unfinished parts that havent been constructed yet. however, the person on the far left has no defining features to them.

people have speculated that, because what is depicted is a Vortigaunt and the Citadel, the human figure might be Gordon. this could also be because the figure itself is bulky, so you'll see it more as a male figure. however, I have high speculation myself, from analyzing the little details we had on them, that the person is Alyx.

similarities they share is not only what seems to be the crooked belt she has around her hips, which is even crooked in the same angle as her actual belt, but also, the crudely drawn Black Mesa symbol on the chest.

of course, this is only an analyzed assumption, but i believe that since the game is literally going to be about Alyx, it's safe to guess that its her.

as for what the entire image is suppsoee to mean, that can't be made certain just yet. it could be a foreshadowing to the Vorts getting her and Gordon out of the Citadel in the beginning of Episode 1, but then I don't understand why Gordon wouldn't be depicted in the image as well. alternatively, it could just be a general depiction of her reaching the Citadel later in-game once you've seen this graffiti. nothing is concrete, though.

next, is this;

depicted, on the top of the wall is the honeycomb like Antlion's ness, surrounded by Antlions. at the bottom is a group of Vortigaunts reaching towards one that is resting on the ground. behind that resting Vort is what looks like a pile of eyeball spheres. what they actually are is unknown.

the graffiti as a whole is much more important than what it can be first guessed. if you were to remember the Antlion mission in Episode 2, where you are to collect extract from the Antlion's nests with a Vortigaunt on your side, the Vort mentions that their kind used to perform 'husbandry' with the Antlions' larvae. meaning they farmed it for the extract.

what should be noted is that this is an 'ancestral practice', meaning a pre-evolved version of the Vorts commonly farmed the extract, which then got passed down to their more evolved counterparts. they likely couldn't continue the farming due to the Combine invasion of their homeworld.

as well, the Vortigaunt says it 'dissolves false veils that divide the vortessence', and that 'all this you(Gordon) shall witness when-', then is cut off. then, when at the table, the Vort that traveled with you eats the extract, and they, including the others around the table, begin to glow purple and gain blue eyes. the same energy is seen in the beginning of Episode 1. the vortessence that is 'divided' described by the Vortigaunt is that shared energy they use when doing very powerful things, such as bringing people out of a frozen time state, stopping someone like the G-Man (albeit having to use over 10 of them to hold him back), and bringing someone borderline back to life by connected them with a lifelink of another human.

i think it's extremely important that we recognize, as well, that this piece of information is very, very briefly mentioned in Episode 2, and could've been easily forgotten about. but it wasn't. so you can have high hopes that they bring back other briefly mentioned details that you may think they'd forgotten. what this also means, obviously, is that this particular piece of lore to the Vortigaunts' history is going to be very important, more than we thought it was before.

one last detail, if you look above that wall, you can see what looks like eyeballs on that curved part of the under bridge. however, it looks much more different brightened up;

they seem to be relatively flat disks with an iris and pupil lookalike style on the flat part, and they are coming out of the wall by a thin rigid stem to keep them attached. they almost loon like satellite dishes, without the signal spikes. they could also resemble cameras. it seems that they also look similar to the pile of eyes behind the resting Vortigaunt at the bottom of the wall. still, what they fully are is completely unknown to use.

to add some more speculation, i would like to add this screenshot from the trailer in relevance;

me and my bf have soeculated this being a Vortigaunt made base, due to its structure and the eye image on the door.

what it actually is, in terms of the area and who inhabits it, are not confirmed. but, i believe with the graffiti on the wall, which already look to be done by the Vortigaunts due to its telling of their history, this could very well actually be a Vortigaunt base.

finally, as you can see in the whole screenshot, there are orange rhombus shapes around variously placed glowing green large dots, and coming out the wall, in the best way i can describe it, look like vertically squished down mid-eruption volcanos. i, personally, have no clue what this is supposed to mean, let alone what it actually is. so there's nothing i can really say on it other then, artistically, it looks cool.

thats all i can really get out of the image. a reminder that all of the speculations i made are not concrete to what could actually be in the game's story. as well, i don't claim any of those speculation to be fact (even though i probably wrote the sentences in a way that makes it look like i claim them as fact but i'm a big stinky doo doo brained ADHD chick so just bare with me here man i'm trying).

if there's anything that i might've missed or you believe i have speculated incorrectly, or you just have general theories of your own that you believe in strongly, i'm open to reading them.

[borealisglados]

Oh is that the petit angel? the one that hated one of the girl cats from Aristocats and always used weird Christian statements while defending their childish behavior? 

What’s worse? 

A: A mental case who spouts mangled christian verses

B: A child of christian faith who foams at the mouth when other people like what she hates

C: A Child of christian faith who disregards the 8th commandment

E: All of the above

I’d go for E, all of the above. 

[borealisglados]

It’s so creepy how Katie’s long gone at this point and under Toby’s influence, and remarks on how her nephew is the spitting image of her sister, and with the fact that Toby forced her to kill her sister and brother in law, poor Hunter! 

Requested by rirpraque

[borealisglados]

Hey mami. 

[borealisglados]

I made my own aesthetic. How does it look? 

[borealisglados]

Hey there. 

[borealisglados]

Just breathe. 

[borealisglados]

I’m looking so far until i see the clouds. 

[borealisglados]

How you doin?

[borealisglados]

When you realise you got styleeee

[borealisglados]

I’ll add onto the headcanon and say that Gman’s birds are running loose in Aperture and GLaDOS is raising the offspring

I think about the crow on his shoulder and how their name is Crowley a lot

[borealisglados]

[borealisglados]

Okay, not a big fan of the ponies since I personally think it’d be better represented with the actual characters but I love the idea. 

I have a headcanon that Alyx’s mother had Chell with an Aperture employee. 

I did a My Little Pony-Portal X-Over…Am I cool yet? … What? I’m quite the opposite of cool for doing this? Oh…okay.

((It’s Caroline and Judith as a baby…personal headcanon is Judith Mossman [Half-Life 2] is the daughter of Caroline and another scientist back at Aperture Science. Caroline gave up him and her baby a couple of years before Cave Johnson got deathly ill, and her partner and daughter left to Black Mesa…

It’s dumb, I know :c ))

[borealisglados]

Is it just me or does Old Aperture look just like the Citadel from HL2?

[borealisglados]

She Is A Gem...