What began as an innocent fanfiction titled Half-Life: Full Life Consequences (by an allegedly nine-year-old kid with the handle squirrelking) was turned into something great as soon as a YTMND user found it. In mockery, he did a dramatic reading of the story. It was a hit. Naturally, seeing that squirrelking had created other fanfics, most notably in the same storyline, other YTMND users had a crack at the dramatic reading thing. Over time, these narrations were turned into animations, but the most impressive series of animations came from machinima artist djy1991 using Garry's Mod. Thus begins the most famous telling of John Freeman's story.The first half of the saga tells the story of Gordon Freeman's brother, John Freeman, who rushes from his job to rescue Gordon Freeman in Ravenholdm. The second half, entitled "Hero Beggining [sic]", takes places some time later, during which the Combine have succeeded in conquering the human humen race. Henry Freeman takes it upon himself to continue the legacy and lead the resistance against the Combines.Original writing:
These videos make up the most popular adaptation of the Full Life Consequences saga, each having been featured on numerous gaming websites. They combine dramatic readings performed by other users and music from the album Production Music from Ren & Stimpy, creating a distinct Soundtrack Dissonance. The first video combined the low audio quality of the narration and the upbeat music to create an old-time radio drama feel. Subsequent videos strayed from this design for more straightforward presentation. Several line readings from it have been adapted into not one, but two surprisingly awesome and well madeDrum and Bass tracks by a professional DJ known as Renard (under the alias "Furries in a Blender"), neither of which would sound out of place at a rave.Full Life Consequences was sufficiently popular to inspire a Live-Action Adaptation; see the results for yourself. There was also a few animated adaptations of the first chapter, a Flash animation one by Vegeta897, and another by amazingtrout. The latter uses a very similar formula to Djy1991's machinima, and both actually predate it by at least half a year, although you probably wouldn't tell from the YouTube comments.Video by Gaz6231:
Asspull - The characters have an uncanny tendency to find wepon on the ground just before entering a battle zone.
John Freeman put the laser gun on his motorcycle and his machine gun and his rocket gun that he found on the side of the motorcycle.
And also, when John Freeman is stopped by the headcrab zombie police officer, he's able to shoot him in the head with something, despite apparently not having a weapon until he gets to Ravenholdm.
Brainwashed and Crazy - After Gordon Freeman becomes a headcrab zombie, the Combines come and put science in him to make him live and strong and big. He is slain again when John Freeman kicks the science off his face.
Bloody Hilarious - "Then a big rocket came down and blew a guys arm off and legs and head and killed other people too."
Breaking the Fourth Wall - John Freeman discovers how to beat the next boss by.. looking it up on an internet FAQ.
But for Me, It Was Tuesday - Inverted. The Dark Man knows EXACTLY who John Freeman's wife is and what happened to her, despite her not having a name and him technically being on some sort of genocide mission.
Came Back Wrong - Gordon Freeman returns as headcrab zombie goast in What Has Tobe Done, and as a Combine in Free Man.
Darker And Scarrier - The second arc involves the future of the human humen race, unlike the first arc that mainly revolved on revenge. The main threat of the first two chapters were the bosses and the zombie goasts, which are nowhere to be seen in the second half of the saga spearheaded by the takeover of the Combines.
Decoy Protagonist - Hero Beggining, the next-to-last part of the FLC series, follows Henry Freeman shoting at Combines, throwing stiders with gravity guns, and eventually climaxing with John Freeman's appearance (out of a portal in the sky) yelling "Combines leave my son alone".
Determinator - John Freeman braved the Combines' assault of machine masheen guns and rockets to try to disable the tower and save mankind humenkind. At one point, John Freeman is backstabbed by a Combine, but not only does this fail to slow him, but John Freeman pulls the knife nife out and brainsbranes the Combine with it.
...One rocket hit John Freeman but he got up... Yes, very determined.
Deus ex Machina - At the end of Hero Beginning and at the start of Free Man, John Freeman pops out from a portalbackflips out of the sky to tell the Combines to leave his son alone.
Diabolus ex Machina - After killing the final boss, the "next boss" appears out of nowhere and step on Gordon Freeman.
Dying as Yourself - In his final moments, Gordon Freeman is free of both the Combine "science" in him and the headcrab.
Engrish - The author says he started speaking English a short time ago in his profile. This shows a lot.
Episode Title Card: Always consisting of official Half-Life artwork with John Freeman's head taped onto Gordon's body (and Henry Freeman's head taped onto Alyx's body when he appears.) Quarter-Life parodies this by having Gordon's head taped onto his own body.
Everybody Laughs Ending - Subverted. "The laughed overed quickly" when John and Gordon were attacked by the next boss.
Also, John Freeman in Free Man. "John Freeman, Saver of Humens". * sniff*
Hop Spot: In Hero Beggining, humankind seems to be winning, only for more Combine to come, and surround them. Subverted by the fact John Freeman comes afterward.
Improbable Aiming Skills - Averted. The ResistanceArmy led by Henry Freeman is described as successfully hitting Combine troops "sometimes". That would make sense, seeing as how they were more of a mob that suddenly acquired armaments wepons.
In Name Only: The only character from the actual Half Life games it features is Gordon Freeman, and its connection to the games' canon seems generally pretty specious (the Combines and zombie goasts of the fics seem pretty different from the ones in the games).
Jumped at the Call - Gordon Freeman's email was all it took for John Freeman to abandon his workplace to go fight bosses.
La Résistance - Henry Freeman leads a mass insurrection in the third chapter to liberate humenkind.
And it gave them hop!
Lamarck Was Right - John Freeman and Henry Freeman either have a knack for acrobatics and combatting unconventional enemies or got their skills the same way Gordon Freeman got them.
Large Ham - John Freeman has no qualm with announcing his intentions to kill an evil boss at the top of lungs. Also when he addresses the zombie goasts in What Has Tobe Done:
Last Stand - In Free Man, John Freeman realizes that stopping the tower's activation is impossible, so he sends the humens off and stays to keep the Combines at bay as the humens escape.
Late Arrival Spoiler - Averted. Hero Beggining was not titled as part of the Full Life Consequences saga to hide John Freeman's surprise appearance at the end and his subsequent role in the final chapter, which restored the label.
Made of Iron - While fighting the Combines in Free Man, John Freeman is hit by a rocket, backstabbed, and shot with machine masheen gun fire, yet carries on fighting.]
There is some credence to this in that, in the Half-Life game universe, a character with full health and armor can take a whole lot of punishment, especially on lower difficulty settings.
More Dakka - John Freeman loads up with a laser gun, a machine gun and a "rocket gun" for his second journey to Ravenholdm.
Subverted in Free Man: John Freeman, needing to "kill fast" suddenly decides that "bullets too slow", so he drops his wepon and proceeds to kill the Combines in his way with his bare bear hands.
Neck Snap - In Free Man, there's mention of John Freeman barking necks as he kills Combines with his bear hands.
No Kill Like Overkill - When he encounters zombie goasts for the second time, John Freeman shoots them before running off to face his real enemy. When the zombie goasts taunt him, he then turns back, laughs at them and rockets them. Even though they're already dead.
Well they're zombie goasts. They've already been dead at least two times over.
Walk Fast - The word "run" is sometimes spoken but never actually done in the first two chapters.
John Freeman has two speeds: "Walk fast", and "backflip".
He frontflipped one time too.
Recursive Ammo - John Freeman shoots bullets from the gun, and then the bullets shoot the final boss.
Retcon - At the end of What Has Tobe Done, Gordon Freeman becomes zombie goast. When he retells this to John Freeman in Free Man, he says that he became headcrab zombie. Mind you, he did get turned into zombie goast by headcrab...
Science Is Bad - The Combines came from "science and outer outter space" to enslave humens.
Combine "science" in Gordon Freeman turns him evil.
Oddly enough, it's a tangible object, like it is in Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami, but it's unclear what it is exactly (The Djy version has it as a Metrocop mask, while the GAZ version has it as a cybernetic eye).
Gordon Freeman'(a scientist)' is actually a hero. It seems like only Combine science is bad and made you tricked, bro.
Self-Destruct Mechanism - The button the Dark Man pushes that makes the tower start glowing and eventually explode explod.
Stealth Parody - Some signs point to the series being one, such as squirrelking's writing actually becoming worse in the span of three years (See the Flanderisation entry above) and the usuage of "Do a barrel roll!" in one of squirrelking's other fanfic, Halo: Halos in Space.
Time Skip - Hero Beggining starts an unspecified amount of time after What Has Tobe Done, and some events in between, such as John Freeman's marriage, the age of Henry Freeman and how John Freeman escaped zombie goast Gordon Freeman have not been clarified by the series' conclusion.
Title Drop - "its time for me to live up to my family name and face full life consequences"
Took a Level in Badass - Henry Freeman was a grown man who still lived with his mom. Then he became the leader of a rebellion against the Combines.
Troll Fic - The saga was suspected by some to be this, as squirrelking's spelling got worse with each story. It was later confirmed to be as such as noted above.
For example, "wepon" is initially a simple misspelling of a word that he usually manages to spell correctly. A few stories later, and "wepon" pops up in all of his stories, often with fanfare.
Also, squirrelking uses the word "human" multiple times in Halo: Halos in Space. Yet suddenly, when Hero Begginings turns around, they're "humens"!
Trope Overdosed - Compare the length of the four fics combined to the length of this page.
True Final Boss - The "next boss" shows up immediately after the final boss fell.
Unnamed Parent - Henry Freeman's mother is only referred to as Mom or Wife.
Villain Ball: Information about The Next Boss' weakness can be found on the internet. Be careful what you post on Facebook, Next Boss.
Voice of the Legion - A "big Combine army with lots of striders" collectively asks La Résistance what it plans to do. In a rare heroic example, the "people" later tell John Freeman they would rather fight than let him face the Combines by himself.
We Have Reserves: The humens send many people after the button in spite of some of them getting killed, only stopping when Combines come out of the "hug tower".
But he does it so the zombie goasts will be at piece.
Wham Line: In "Hero Beggining": Combines leave my son alone!
Word Salad Title - The "full life consequences" are alluded to several times in the story but never explained in detail.
Your Princess is in Another Castle - After John Freeman kills the Big Bad of the second chapter, Gordon Freeman comes back to life as a zombie goast because "[he] got there slow".
Also, in Free Man, Combine Gordon Freeman plans to make John Freeman and Henry Freeman headcrab zombies.
The machinimas provide examples of:
Adaptation Expansion - Djy1991's version of Free Man contains about seven minutes of entirely added-in carnage, wherein John Freeman meets and then kills a bunch of Combines, hijacks a bioflyer, throws a freight train, meets and then killsGLaDOS...
Big "NO!" - Averted, Gordon's "NOO!" is quite small, especially in the dramatic reading.
Played straight in Free Man when Combine Gordon Freeman angers at John Freeman in the Gaz6231 version.
Big Red Button - Which John Freeman pushes with his face.
Body Horror - Tell me the sight of the Gmod models bending in ways that human joints don't allow isn't creepy.
It's hilarious.
The Cameo - In the Djy1991 version of Free Man, Spider-Man, the Sniper, Ronald McDonald, The Dancing Banana, Bill, Zoey, Francis, and Louis and even BILLY MAYS appear for sight gags, there ought to be a list of Cameos, you know that?
Characters from other Valve games are members of La Résistance.
Also, I don't think all of them are sight gags, I think some of these cameos are rebels.
Also also, Dr. Hax near the end of the story. He isn't the final boss because only his head is big, and his eyes are intact.
Finally, also in Djy1991's Free Man, Gordon Freechman's fellow scientist coww-orker Jimm and bad guy from the game from his other half-life fanfic adaptation Quarter Life: Halfway to Destruction are seen rising to heven with everyone else. And bad guy from the game is still doing his isotop holding pose.
Catchphrase - "It's time for me to live up to my family name!"
Charles Atlas Superpower - John Freeman lifts a train of its tracks and throws it into a ravine with his bare hands. Not the engine, not one of the train cars, THE ENTIRE TRAIN.
Mythology Gag - In Djy's adaptation of Free Man, after the world's peaceful, Grigori appears next to a bear when they say the people and animals lived in peace, there's a reason that Grigori is described as an animal in the Adaptation: It was a Throw It In gag in the original Garry's Mod, where Grigori was placed as an animal rather than an ally, to be fair, it wasn't that far from the truth.
Offhand Backhand - Pay close attention at around 1:45 in the Gaz6321 version of Free Man; John Freeman gets off a headshot variation.
Pragmatic Adaptation - Two ways, the Djy machinima makes the whole thing comedic, given it's narm and misspelling, good for gags. The Gaz version of Free Man manages to pull of the drama and make certain scenes work.(but it's still pretty funny!)
Rule Of Cool- John Freeman seems especially fond of pulling off improbable motorcycle stunts (particularly of the backflip variety), especially if it kills zombies in the process.
Serial Escalation - Even more visible in the Djy1991 adaptation of Free Man, where, among other things, John Freeman pile-drives a train.
Hey, if Sabin can pull it off, why not the Saver of Humens?
Shout Out - Watch the music video at the end of Djy's adaptation of Free Man until you get to "the birds and the sun was almost down from the top of the sky" and look at John Freeman's pose. Remind you of a certain other God Mode Sue?
The Djy's version of Free Man includes a music video of it.
WEPON! WEPON! WEWEPON PON WEPONWEPON!
Stylistic Suck - Some of the animations at the end of the Djy adaptation reveal that Gmod is capable of subtle and realistic movement — but watching character mods flail around wildly is more funny.
Djy's version also invokes a bit of this - this is one of the few scenes where John Freeman's face doesn't contort sporadically.
This Is My Side - GLaDOS attempts to invoke this in Djy's version. Doesn't take.
Tube Travel: How John Freeman gets into GLaDOS's chamber in Djy1911's version.
, but the most impressive series of animations came from machinima artist djy1991
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