#hl talk

[freeshephoun]

"gearbox expansions arent canon they dont line up with the first game" you are so wrong. it makes me mad how wrong you are.

[electronicneutrino]

My favourite half life headcanon is that Gordon does not know how to drive because he took the train to work every morning, to explain why he drives like...that...during the vehicle levels

[shmorp-mcdurgen]

Whatever dude

[francescamagali]

ₛₜₒₚ ₘₐₖᵢₙᴳ ₛₑₙₛₑ, ��ᵣ. ᶠᵣₑₑₘₐₙ...

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[bynetime]

More alyxposting, idc if it flops I’m looking for the two other Alyx stans in existence…..where are you guys please I’m so lonely

[captainsalmonid]

thought about lewis realizing arthur's arm is gone for the first time

[crianpy]

this has opened up a lot of new possiblities

[thisdastampdoesnotexist]

[cowboybarney]

SOMEHOW FINISHED (kinda) MY GORDON COSPLAY!!!! If you see a certain someone at ctcon please say hi :D

[grapefruit185]

idea i had for Barney riding the scrapped "combine cavalry" horse from hla into battle. i was gonna render it to look like pro resistance propaganda art. might come back to it some day idk

[freeshephoun]

please please please tell your adrian headcanons im so curious!!!!! and also maybe gordon and barney if you like :]

oh boy this is gonna be a lot. apologies for any misstypes in advance!!

click to read my thoughts on the 3

okay ffirst off shephard! shes tfem which is why i will be using she/her for her. also ahes filipino-american. shephard is autistic and mute and struggles to understand the people around her sometimes. it makes her upset when she doesnt.

its a reason why she is better with aliens. they dont work like humans do and it is easier for her to connect with them even when they dont speak the same language. and the bond she has especially with spore launcher is indescribable.

spore launcher (or spore for short) is a creature she found in the black mesa facility. its an alien that, when you feed it something, it can spit it out and it works basically like a grenade launcher. at first shephard had no idea what to do with that thing. he gave it a little pat on the head and it chirped and since then theyve been best friends. you can not tear them apart.

shephard has a lot of little cat scrstches feom spores spikey exterior aswell as some acid burns here and there. it comes free with having an alien friend/pet.

Shephard also managed to get spore into stasis. everything else was taken but she could keep spore. also coming to stasis ive got some thoughts on it.

while gordon was basically in a coma in stasis, Shephard wasnt. she didnt even have a choice what to do. she was just taken and detained. and since she was detained, gman didnt put her to sleep. shephard has been in that osprey for all this time. awake. if it werent for spore she would've probably gone insane.

being in stasis also fucked up her feeling of like everything. ypu dont get tired, exhausted, hungry or thirsty. you cant even feel pain or die.

(cw sensitive topic, bit similar to sh) in an attempt to feel anything she sometimes did some stupid shit. mostly punching or slamming her body against walls or purposefully touching spores acid. that reeeeally fucked up her perception of pain and her tolerance and it still shows afterwards. (cw end)

outside of stasis she still struggles with the perception of pain. it is pretty dangerous and she basically relies on gordon or barney to tell her hey you got fucked up bad we should get you first aid.

and sometimes when she sees it she spirals down into this specific feeling where everything feels like stasis again. when was the last time she ate? why does it feel so alone again why is it so quiet? why is akl she can hear her own mind?

shes going thru it🔥🔥

jumping a bit shephard doesnt like physical touch. shes very sensitive to it and gets overwhelemed by too much physical touch. her lovd languages are acts of service. she isnt good at comforting someone or showing her care for someone so openly. its more that she guards you when around you. makes sure youre safe. you need a moment of alone time? she will make sure no one bothers you.

my friend wrote a scene that describes it perfectly so ill quote it: "In the distance, the parade could be heard. At the entrance of the alleyway, Shephard seemed to stand guard, occasionally looking back at them as the parade passed by."

for tthe other 2 and their love languages: barney is the physical affection guy. giving and receiving. hes also good at comforting people just by being there. gordon on the other hand is good with giving words of affirmation. its his love language. and on the receiving is quality time (shephard too i forgot to mention)

they are very dear 2 me.

also their fighting styles. ive thought of it before and how it differs. gordon thinks, finds an answer that works and then executes it. shephard thinks a little but she mostly just acts on instinct. and barney? hes jus tlike yeah no thinking is for nerds watch me solo this guy. hes silly like that

my friend (again) made smthg that portrays this very well: "Gordon would calculate the triangulation before he threw a grenade over a wall. Shephard would stand on a box so she could throw it over the wall without hassle. Barney would just lob it and pray"

gordon is a very sarcastic man. barney understands his saecasm oerfectly but shephard struggles to do so which is why gordon avoids sarcasm around her.

shep and barney on occasions have their 5 minutes. kind of like zoomies. it usually ends in chaos because they tried something stupid again. which is why gordon rarely allows them in his lab. actually never. but barney will still come down when it gets late and gordon hasnt even been up to eat something and basically force gordon to stop for the day.

how? he just scoops gordon up and carries him out. batney is a security guard who survived the resonance cascade, the 7 hour war, manages to get through as underciver civil service despite the hard security measures of fhe combine aswell as fighting agains the combine and staying alive for all these years. that man is strong.

he wwouldnt mamage to carry both gordon and shephard though. thats what shep does. she carries them both with one arm.

this also reminds me shephard needs a routine. she can not do without one. you will see her follow the military training camp routine eeveryday. if she doesnt do it it messes up her whole day.

also wwhile i will draw them a lot probably in their hl clothes and not hl2 clothes, if thes would have ever met its definitely in hl2 or after. i jsut dont like drawing barneys combine outfit thats why.

Shephard was thrown into the hl2 universe by gman. maybe ill even incorporate return 2 ravenholm im this if i ever elaborate on that more. she builds up her own wa yof living there. the camera drones dont manage ti actually detect her due to her gas mask. they detect humans by having a face and if they don't? thats not a human then. she doesnt know that though.

she made herself st home in an outpost outside of city 17. it used to belong to the residtance but got raided by thr combine and has since then become abandoned. at ome point shephard manages to boot up the equipment there. she gains access to a lot of old information that was stored in this outpost.

the resistance of cours enotices shit wait an old outpost was activated again whats going on there. they send a group of people to investigate but urrm uh yeah didnt work out. shephard had a little ace up her sleeve (spore and her acid). but eith that they hope to confirm it is at least not the combine because they have never used that alien species as it completely ceased to exist after the black mesa incident.

im not too sure abt thid though the way this goes might change very well depending om what i feel like.

anyway uuh sheohard goes into the city to restock some supplies. she has some good connections at this point and has heard from the resistance. and well when she goes there to restock she meets barney.

this is btw like a place where they help out citizens who are struggling, often wanted by the combine. they live off donations, mostly coming from the resistance themself.

when barney sees shephard, this guy in a fucking military uniform hes just like. boy you coming with me now. and drags her to the resistance thingy there.

or something like that. not too sure about that at all. again might change however i feel like it

also i definetly forgot a ton of things but ive been writing this for 1 1/2 hours now. if you want to know more about specific things feel free 2 aks i LOVE sharing my freeshephoun thoughts with people

also as a treat here i drew them as the power piff girls once

[girl-named-matty]

Basically what was going through Sebastian's head when he called MC ignorant ^^

[shmorp-mcdurgen]

gee wiz, it sure is cool that Gordon survived the resonance cascade, I sure hope he's doing well

Finally decided to give Gordon a ref for my au Aftermath (which i've talked about here. Once.)

Also bonus:

[arealtrashact]

Nobody ever asks you the real questions, like whether or not you think Homelander likes Skyline Chili?

No. But I think he'd tolerate it if Ryan were to request it for dinner. And by 'tolerate it' I mean he'd allow a server to place the bowl in front of him . . . where it would remain untouched and cold.

Just like that taco bowl in season 3.

[internetskiff]

A tidbit of Half-Life lore that always fascinated me is that the machine that causes the Resonance Cascade and basically kicks off the events of the entire series is called the "Anti-mass SPECTROMETER" - spectrometers usually doing.. exactly what it says on the tin, measuring the spectrum of something (light spectra for example). So basically, instead of the entire incident being kicked off by a deliberate teleportation experiment gone wrong like in a cliche science fiction horror story (which iirc that was what they originally went with in early development), the whole incident was kicked off by a "relatively" mundane measuring device (by Black Mesa standards, at least). It's such a good subversion of tropes methinks, especially for a videogame from 1998. The teleportation experiments still happened, of course. They've been happening for a while. They've been dissecting fauna from the other world, studying it, setting up outposts - they were pretty close to finding their footing in Xen, and in any other videogame at the time the Lambda Labs would be the root cause of the problem, and their teleporter device would be what causes a tear between realities. But nope! It's merely the precursor. Shit only hits the fan because of an otherwise normal sample measurement gone wrong.

It adds a degree of believability to it, methinks. A device being pushed to it's limits by staff racing to meet a quota - it almost sounds like I'm describing the lead up to a real life nuclear accident, doesn't it? Hundreds of lives cut short by a rushed sample measurement? The G-Man planted a particularly pure sample, but I really do wonder how much it's purity actually played into the whole disaster. It seems like it was IMPERATIVE that the Spectrometer was also pushed to it's limits analyzing it. I mean, even one of the scientists says that boosting it to 105% is a "bit of a gamble" so they knew it was a risky move to stress the system like that. The Lambda Core Teleporter operated swimmingly - meanwhile a mere spectrometer was the weak link the G-Man targeted. Half Life 1's lore is a lot more sophisticated than people give it credit for imo.