#hlvrai meta
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Rewatching hlvrai commentary and thinking about “The Hazardous Environment Suit was designed to never come off!”
Yeah it’s a funny line but it’s always stuck with me for its potential for both in universe and metatextual implications.
Because on one hand, Black Mesa designing the HEV suit to never come off implies that the people in the HEV suits will never have a reason to have to take them off, and will never leave the facility. Which is disturbing enough on its own.
And then you consider that Black Mesa is up to some horribly morally dubious shit and it’s possible that anyone who puts on a HEV suit is just straight up doomed!!! Black Mesa is going to eventually kill them!!! And they’ll never have to take it off.
But where it gets interesting is the metatextual shit because that’s what HLVRAI is known for.
Gordon is the only (living) character to be seen in an HEV suit in the series (I specify bc of the dead guy they find on Xen) and Gordon is wearing the suit the whole time, even before the point that he’s supposed to have it on.
The HEV suit protects him from radiation and toxic chemicals but it does not prevent the removal of his arm with a knife, which is an event that happens in this version of the game.
(Side note: love whump fics where the hl copy is a game but Gordon still loses his arm. tasty tasty trauma)
Gordon spends the whole series in the HEV suit, the whole game, and even when he leaves for the party at the end, it’s still on him.
There’s never a reason for the player to have to remove the HEV suit. There’s never a reason for Gordon to take it off, not even in the end. It never comes off.
And after the game is over?
You could say the impact of the game stays with him, and he will never truly be able to take the suit off
#hlvrai#hlvrai meta#kiki talks#gordon freeman#this post is very slapdash#but i hope you get the Point
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He’s more than you think! He’s got maximum pink! 💫
#uhhh other bosses King Dedede Meta Knight… Kracko?#and a secret boss post Benrey ofc#hlvrai#kirby#hlvrai x kirby#hlvrai gordos feetman#hlvrai benrey#hlvrai dr coomer#hlvrai tommy
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Regular text conversation between Benrey and Gordon
#benrey#gordon feetman#hlvrai#I originally made this specifically for the meta. au but this works so well with canon that i feel comfortable putting it in the main tag#hlvrai au#metamorphosis au#hlvrai metamorphosis au
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half-life vr but the ai is self aware // road to hell (reprise)
#hlvrai#moth flies#does this make sense. i dont care#i had to get the thought out and this is the only way i know how.#candace voice mom mothra is posting hlvrai meta again
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I’ve been rewatching some HLVRAI again lately and since I’m still pretty deep into TOH I made Hexsquad dress up because of it
We’ve got Vee as Darnold, Gus as Tommy, Hunter as Bubby, Willow as Dr Coomer, Luz as Gordon Freeman and Amity as- uhm, I mean The Collector as Benrey
Looks like the Collector took Amity’s place there, he’s a better fit for Benrey anyway I suppose, wonder what he did with Amity though...
Oh, right, she’s playing Sunkist now
#The Owl House#TOH#HLVRAI#Hexsquad#The Collector#Vee#Gus#Augustus#Porter#Hunter#Willow#Park#Luz#Noceda#Amity#Blight#Meta#MetaTheTrifox#MetaLatias#MetaLatias5
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Doctor Coomer: Look, Gordon! Updog!
Gordon:
Coomer:
Gordon, unwilling to leave a meme hanging: ... What's "updog"?
Coomer: A prank in which you use the word "updog" in a sentence as if it was a word which the other person is expected to know, and when --
Benrey, talking over him: N'much, dog, what's up with you?
Gordon: (cracking up OOC)
#meta#shenanigans#meta shenanigans#half-life#hlvrai#half life vr but the ai is self aware#wayneradiotv#doctor coomer saying things#doctor coomer#gordon freeman#benrey#updog
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Thinking. I agree w all the headcanons that gordon is JUST as much as a victim/character in HLVRAI as everyone else 100% and everything IS genuinely real to him as the protagonist(controlled/thought up by a player) but I also think that, aside from being a blank slate that got projected onto and now has to deal with that, his only actual job programmed into him was immersion.
Which is why he reacts so badly when shit goes weird
#hlvrai#half life vr but the ai is self aware#gordon feetman#IF THIS DOESNT MAKE SENSE IM SO SORRY. ITS 3 AM!#goob.txt#i have so many thoughts on the metaness of hlvrai and the post-canon but i have no time to execute it well!
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i love sharing the autism with my besties its like the ultimate form of love to get into a fandom your bestie is Normal about
#i autismed two besties into hlvrai they chose their classes in rtvs and valve universe respectively#luke and ambrose if you see this i am staring at you with my big ol autism eyes and commencing clown to clown communication with you#meta
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what is the plot of hlvrai
what if half life 1 happened but gordon was textually "someone playing the game in vr and roleplaying as gordon" and also the vr game had self-aware AIs mixed in with the regular npcs
so you've got a very vocal and very short-tempered gordon just trying to leave black mesa with the "help" of four AIs - Bubby, Dr. Coomer, Tommy, and Benrey, who have their own weird quirks and help or hinder gordon along the way. mostly hinder, especially in benrey's case - he's a security guard and has made it his life's mission to annoy gordon nonstop, and he is very good at getting on his nerves
as the plot progresses, dr coomer (who is the most visibly "glitchy" AI and was intended to be a tutorial npc of some sort that got some flags busted) becomes aware of Being A NPC In A Video Game and that gordon is the player character, bubby backstabs gordon and throws the canon plot off the rails, and benrey becomes more and more of a problem until the science team make it to xen and have to face him down
it's also an anything-goes improv, which includes things like "black mesa hosts wikipedia and is using the donations to fund itself", "tommy is g-man's adopted son and g-man is trying to get him to chuck e cheese for his birthday", "one of the soldiers kidnaps tommy's immortal dog that he made after having previously tried to trick tommy by offering him a beyblade with 3 bit-beasts", "gordon is constantly haunted by skeletons only he can see", and . A LOT. a lot happens in hlvrai and it's all very funny
it's weird and meta and silly and does a lot with its medium in a way i greatly appreciate
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how does chronicles of benry tie into gordon streamman, if at all? is it like a joke stream benry does randomly for april fools day or is it actual lore?
It's got lore, but it all hinges on which Chronicles you're talking about: Holly Edition or Scorpy Edition. If you've seen them, you know that they have VERY different tones.
Spoilers for both streams and for existing Streamman works below. Prepare for rambling.
Events from Holly's version have been referenced obliquely in Don't Spell Memory Without Me, and will be discussed further in future stories. Memory establishes that Benrey does not have any pre-game history aside from what others "remember" about him, and being the only one with no past upsets him. At the end of the story, Benrey sets off with Tommy to talk about inventing a backstory, "mentioning something about a dairy farm." Since the Hollowtones Chronicles of Benry stream is established to be a story/movie being told by Holly from Benrey's point of view, I've interpreted the ideas present in it as Benrey's fantasies, or the backstory that he's created for himself. Heck, maybe he's even gone into gmod at some point and fully acted the whole thing. You can play dolls sometimes buddy it's all good
That leads into Scorpy's take on Chronicles, which is rather more... abstract. For the record, I adored watching this stream in real time. Surreal horror that makes you unsure if you should laugh and defies you to find meaning is my jam. That being said, I don't think this stream works as something literal that could just occur in a Streamman story. If I wanted to interpret it as a literal experience Benrey has, it makes a fascinating character study. Perhaps some sort of dream journey or Silent Hill style physical/psychological journey of self-reflection, perhaps due to data fuckery. Maybe even between the game being shut off and being brought into the new program.
However, I'm not currently interested in interpreting it like that. I think the stream is far more interesting when read as a meta-commentary on trying to catch lightning in a bottle for the second time. HLVRAI was such a smash hit, and people are still hounding RTVS for a sequel or a return for the characters. As a creator, that's difficult to handle. The pressure of living up to your own success, of being able to give the people what they want. What if it's not what you want? You might still love your breakout hit deeply, and love the attention it gives you, but will you always be able to feel that way? What are you sacrificing to chase the feeling it gives you? Are you making this sequel because it has worth on its own, or because you want to feel that way again? You can never feel exactly that way again, whether you're the creator or the fan. "How do you know when it's time to let go?"
That's my reading, at least. Yes I took lecture notes during the original screening. I have the heart of an academic, but the constitution of... not an academic.
Anyway, I do think some elements of the stream can worm their way into Streamman, both literal and nonliteral. The theme of recapturing something impossible cuts me very deep, so I like to reuse it, but I also think I can use some of the locations and surreal imagery within the Streamman setting. I haven't brought it up before, but Benrey's house in the home program is a lawless land. He likes to experiment with programming and create his own little domain, the place is much bigger on the inside. One day Gordon could go over to return something that Benrey left at Tommy's and walk inside to find a gmod map full of crucified amonguses.
...man I really dedicated one paragraph to the stream that I'm actually using and then a fuckin' essay to the one I'm not lol
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20 credit hour semesters are not good for the speed of active progress on personal projects, but I've got that One Meta Thing I Have Yet to Name rotating in my mind for a bit, and I have Thoughts.
Anyways. It's weirdly hard to accurately get across what I mean when I talk about this thing, but I think the difference between canon and fanon Benrey HLVRAI really encapsulates it by virtue of being such a stark contrast. I'd be hard pressed to find a better example of how fandoms change characters to slot more cleanly into that common perception. Benrey's in such a unique position; he's an inhuman villain canonically "lusting over" the protagonist the whole time, he has a lot of interactions with other characters, a blank slate for a backstory, a lot of very memorable and dramatic moments. It would be difficult to deliberately create a character better fit to becoming the fandom's favorite. Also, by design he is completely fucking nonsensical and absurd. He is tied so, so tightly to Scorpy's sense of humor. iirc Holly talked during an interview for a podcast about how Benrey makes a more terrifying (and hilarious) villain because of that complete sense of like... you absolutely cannot understand him, you absolutely cannot reason with him, he is talking about how "SONY CEO JACK TRETTON HIRED... a Nintendo CEO Reggie and they built a big... BOMB" and he is going to kill you.
Everybody rewrites Benrey. I'd argue that you kind of HAVE TO, if you want to write anything remotely serious with a character like that. It's very commonly noticeable with the other characters too; HLVRAI has a story, but moment-to-moment, commitment to the bit and "what would be the funniest thing to say or do here" takes priority over developing a character that works in more serious contexts. (Side note and clarification, this isn't a criticism of HLVRAI, it's a lot of fun, it's just another way that the source material and fandom find themselves at serious odds, and if I had the time and energy I would be writing out another long post about the tone side of how fandom changes things.) Some characters hew more closely to canon characterization in fanfiction- Gordon as the straight man translates easily, and Dr. Coomer plays ball with tone shifts very well- and the author's own balance of interest in the source material vs the fandom plays a big role as well. But I have never, ever seen a Benrey I could mistake for the canonical Benrey. (Not that the canonical Benrey could really WORK in a text medium, imo. Live improv in GMod is his natural environment and specialized niche.)
Which brings me back to my own project, where the characters are the fanon versions of a nonexistent children's cartoon being eventually exposed to the nature of their reality. Fanon interpretations are obviously something I'm thinking a lot about as I'm developing characters, both in terms of general inspiration and as research for making them really click as something you would see scrolling through your dashboard. But as wonderful of an example Benrey is, that very same extreme absurdism makes him difficult as a model for the changes people make to make unique characters fit a mold, because that would imply a world where something like THIS
youtube
could be the main villain's speech from a children's cartoon.
actually that fucking rules
#teuthis talkin#save#just because i want to go back and tag this once i have an actual name for the project#hlvrai#i.... guess?#this is ostensibly about my own thing but i spend most of the post analyzing hlvrai#Youtube
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do you have an idea of how gman and gaster met..
if not, may i suggest that they met at some kind of laboratory
OK bear with me here. and skip to the next paragraph if you dont care about worldbuilding enough lmao.
depends entirely on whether or not they reside in the same universe. hlvrai is somewhat compatible with undertale, except for the uh. moral implications. we could argue that because the people they killed were not sentient beings, it does not affect the inherent message of undertale. however, the message in undertale is still about questioning the actions one takes in a videogame and giving you, the player, an apropiate response for the way you choose to engage with it. hlvrai, on the other hand, does not have this as a central theme at ALL. killing clones and bootboys is funny here and death is about as meaningful as it is permanent. which is to say not very lol
so different universes, then! which is good, because both our boys have been shown to exhibit SOME level of interdimensional awareness.
gman would be on a job, a couple universes over, where a centuries-long magical barrier was lifted just a couple years ago, thus freeing the civilization that was trapped inside.
human scientists are working with monsterkind to use magic for the betterment of everyone. one of the lead researchers for the magical division? you know it babey!!!! its gaster!!!!!!!! rescued by the ambassador of the monsters some years ago, up until then trapped in the nonexistent purgatory of the game's code, he's already made strides in the field. due to his meta-awareness however, he is spotted by the elusive interdimensional employers.
enter gman. he's tasked to assess the meta-aware characters, whether or not they were supposed to be aware in the first place, and keep tabs on them in case they become dangerous.
he's not supposed to be noticed, but as gaster trips one day and struggles to maintain his physical form, he steps in and helps him out. he's not about to let the poor guy melt, dammit.
they hang out for a while, just sitting on the floor, but once a human researcher walks in and asks who gaster is talking to, he finds that the man in the suit has vanished without a trace.
the following days, gaster is determined to make the mysterious man show up again. he knows his mind was not playing tricks on him, he had felt another soul with him during the few minutes they conversed.
it works. they keep meeting. they go on a date...
and of course canon-typical shenanigans ensue. but i haven't thought that far out.
TLDR: anon you are so right they do meet at a lab lmaoooooooo
#sorry for the late reply i had. thoughts about this#goolatta#gman#gaster#hlvrai#undertale#gary coolatta#PLEASE continue to send these asks!!!!! u can send them to my art blog as well if you wish!#i will not pass up an opportunity to talk about goolatta
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hi maybe dumb question. if i watch HLVRAI should i play (or at least watch a playthrough of) regular Half-Life first? like i dont think i NEED to but is the experience Enhanced by knowing the normal version?
no absolutely not
hlvrai was my entry into half life and i actually found half life to be more enjoyable for having watched it because it's kind of also a walk thru. like portal, half life is a puzzle solving game but unlike portal it's also extremely rife with jump scares (its a horror game). so having watched hlvrai first i was kind of pre-prepared for some of the horror elements of the game, had a rough idea of how to solve the puzzles, and kinda knew where i was supposed to be going and how to get there. it's obviously very hard to solve puzzles and navigate a maze without a map when its jump scares constantly
id say that if you intend on playing half life and want to go in with zero spoilers, dont watch hlvrai first. but you don't need to have played half life to understand hlvrai
in fact im sure there's an argument to be made that having played first impacts your understanding of hlvrai, either positively or negatively. hlvrai at its core is about the ai becoming self aware to the point half life becomes corrupted. the fourth wall/meta elements are def more prevalent in the uncut version, but are present in the cut version too
i could go on about hlvrai's story telling method and the psychological horror it gets into but thats getting so far away from your question sorry its just i was thinking about it last night. anyway the answer is no
#i think playing half life first Changes your experience but idk if thats good or bad#i think its up to each person
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Alright!
So G-man's species is known as Space Worms, but their real names are unpronounceable to other beings as Space Worms have no vocal cords and body language is very important to their speech. Space Worms are capable of shape-shifting and general reality distortion as they are multidimensional beings. Most Space Worms work for the writers of a story, making sure the story being told is going as it should. G-man works for the writers of the Half Life story.
G-man has an alright relationship with the other Space Worms, he doesn't talk to them much anymore. He does occasionally go back to the White Void to greet the Wormlings (young Space Worms). He loves children, and he is very caring. He is usually the one who teaches the Wormlings how to use their abilities, and finds them homes so they can learn more about the universe they will later watch over.
He is fascinated by life in general, but he loves humans especially due to spending so much time around them. While he does study how humans have evolved and changed, he would much prefer to talk to real humans to find out how they think and work. He is quite emotionally attached to Gordon, Alyx, and Adrian simply because he talks to them often.
He has two adopted children. They are both from Half LIfe VR but the A.I. is Self Aware because that's how I got into Half Life also he just...has a canon son in that series. His son Tommy is a human that can teleport short distances and see further in the timeline do to a sort of radiation from being around G-man so much. Benrey, his other son, is a sort of glitch in the universe. He cares about them both immensely, he had always wanted to care for someone.
Of course, since he has kids he has a house. It's a large, empty place, barring the rooms his children would be in and his lego room. The lights are rarely ever on, and it can get a little cold due to the size, but he likes it.
He has a cat named Midnight who he just adores. She's a very clingy cat too so he doesn't mind.
G-man loves music and art and just creation in general, it's so human to him. He can play the accordian, lyre, and trombone since they all interested him. He also writes poetry occasionally, and he loves building things with lego. He's made a scale model of Black Mesa, and is working on a model of the Combine Citadel.
G-man is mostly adverse to physical touch unless he is very comfortable with that person, but if he knows you well he accepts it. It's just do to sensory things.
He loves sharing and acts ! It's his love language! If he likes you he'll want to show you things he think you will like. He'll help you to show he cares. He also sometimes just wants to sit next to someone and show them pictures of his kids and his anthroplogy research or play them a song, just so show he cares.
Aaaaa I love it this is incredible the lore is so cool<333
My G’ is also very fond of the arts and creation, and while I consider the G’ in HLVRAI a separate being from the one seen in HL whom I usually talk about (they are both Overseers and close friends, HL!G is an uncle of sorts to Tommy!) the idea of him adopting Benrey too is absolutely adorable~
Love how the meta theory is incorporated here, I find that stuff super interesting ahh
Wonderful all around, thank you for sharing!!!
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That's probably because people enjoy writing stuff where 1/6th of the cast isn't relegated to single screen with no way to physically interface with the world. Not everyone likes meta-narrative stuff and that's not a bad thing.
Yeah I know, that's why I made it clear I'm not trying to be the fandom police. All I'm saying is that I find the themes of HLVRAI really interesting and I wish I could find more stuff delving in to it. No part of this is an attempt to be adversarial.
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Ich habe 68 Mal im Jahr 2022 etwas gepostet
Das sind 43 more posts als 2021!
62 Einträge erstellt (91%)
6 Einträge gerebloggt (9%)
Blogs, die ich am häufigsten gerebloggt habe:
@metalatias5
@metalatias
@metalatiasgravityfalls
@pra370r1an
Ich habe 66 meiner Einträge im Jahr 2022 getaggt
Nur 3% meiner Einträge hatten keine Tags
#meta – 61 Einträge
#metalatias – 61 Einträge
#metalatias5 – 61 Einträge
#metathetrifox – 57 Einträge
#toh – 46 Einträge
#the owl house – 46 Einträge
#hunter – 29 Einträge
#golden guard – 26 Einträge
#gus – 20 Einträge
#tricerafox – 19 Einträge
Longest Tag: 112 characters
#and i have caused a bottle to spray all over myself like that before due to dropping it on the corner of a table
Meine Top-Einträge im Jahr 2022:
#5
Aladarius with a self-indulgent happy flap-ador and my witchsona Jacky with the smug little expression of young Eda from Them's The Breaks Kid
122 Anmerkungen – Gepostet 27. September 2022
#4
The return of 'Hunter and Gus get really into MLP'
Totally not just an excuse to draw Hunter in a too-small MLP shirt
(Yes, it is and it was actually inspired by this little scene from Playing With Fire)
https://youtu.be/J9ngUgrV5Go
Also Hunter not having a belly button is just another little fun Grimwalker weirdness headcanon and this was a good opportunity to show that off ;)
195 Anmerkungen – Gepostet 15. Juli 2022
#3
I’ve been rewatching some HLVRAI again lately and since I’m still pretty deep into TOH I made Hexsquad dress up because of it
We’ve got Vee as Darnold, Gus as Tommy, Hunter as Bubby, Willow as Dr Coomer, Luz as Gordon Freeman and Amity as- uhm, I mean The Collector as Benrey
Looks like the Collector took Amity’s place there, he’s a better fit for Benrey anyway I suppose, wonder what he did with Amity though...
Oh, right, she’s playing Sunkist now
Vollständigen Eintrag ansehen
197 Anmerkungen – Gepostet 24. September 2022
#2
Vollständigen Eintrag ansehen
290 Anmerkungen – Gepostet 3. November 2022
Meine #1 des Jahres 2022
A clean-freak and his beloved slobs~
This was my first time drawing Darius, Eberwolf and Alador and I really like how they turned out, though Darius was harder to draw than I expected
413 Anmerkungen – Gepostet 26. Juni 2022
Hol dir deinen Tumblr-Jahresrückblick 2022 →
#tumblr2022#Jahresrückblick#Mein Tumblr-Jahresrückblick 2022#Dein Tumblr-Jahresrückblick#year in review#my 2022 tumblr year in review#your tumblr year in review
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