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Live Blogs It's time for me to live up to my family name and liveblog Full Life Consequences
Valiona2014-10-18 15:38:42

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Half Life: Full Life Consequences

Hello and welcome to the liveblog for Half-Life: Full Life Consequences.

The fic is one that makes little sense, but is stupidly hilarious at times, and is memorable for its protagonist, whose badassery is the stuff of Internet legends.

The main character is John Freeman, who is Gordon Freeman's brother. I've noticed that many fanfic writers tend to like writing OC relatives for canon characters, who often have a great deal in common with them. There isn't much to John Freeman apart from his desire to live up to his family name, as well as protect (or avenge, as the case may be) his family, so I wonder if these authors make relatives of canon characters to avoid having to make up their own personalities.

In any case, John Freeman, while working at his office building, gets an e-mail from his brother asking for help. Without asking any questions or pausing to consider it, John Freeman gets going. He changes out of his office lab coat, gets onto his motorcycle, and decides to "face full life consequences".

A word about the title. If you know your physics, "half life" is the amount of time it takes for half of a radioactive atoms in a given sample to undergo radioactive decay (it should be noted that this is exponential; after one half life, 50% of the original sample is left, after two, 25% is left, after three, 12.5% is left, and so on and so forth). Naturally, "full life" makes no sense here, and neither does "quarter life", (but that's another fic).

John Freeman gets on his way, driving off a ramp to get out of his office building. He keeps an eye out for enemies, knowing he has no weapons to use against them- keep this in mind for later.

The author tries to describe the singing, but apparently gets his word order confused; the plants are singing, and "the birds and the sun were almost down from the top of the sky." John Freeman thinks it's a good day, and resolves to help his brother defeat the enemies.

You might notice that the description is fairly bare-bones here. I've noticed that badfic authors tend to skimp on describing things, when they don't wax poetic, possibly because they don't feel like putting in the effort.

Possibly as a result of this, the series is very short. The first installment is 752 words long, What Has To Be Done is 685 words long, Hero Begginning is 671 words long and Free Man is 1,158 words long. At 3,266 words total, the tetralogy is shorter than an average chapter of the fics I've liveblogged.

John Freeman is in a hurry, and gets stopped by a police officer who wants to give him a ticket. It's unclear whether the cop is someone who might have helped Gordon Freeman at some point, or part of Civil Protection, and thus an enemy (it's unclear whether this takes place during Half-Life 2), but John Freeman recognizes him as an enemy, since he "has headcrabs."

John Freeman refuses to give the cop his license, and when asked for an explanation, gives the semi-famous line, "Because you are headcrab zombie!" John Freeman then shoots the officer in the head despite being unarmed. It's unclear how John Freeman got a weapon, but a common theory is that he took it from the officer. Some don't think too hard about this fanfic, but that's the purpose of this liveblog.

John Freeman is in a hurry and desperate to help his brother, so he leaves the scene so quickly he goes at the "speed of sound." He reaches Ravenholm, and finds a vague warning against coming in there (in the second game, the Vances could have been a bit more specific about why they don't go there, but this is even less specific than that), but he hears Gordon screaming, so he decides to go in and save his brother.

John Freeman uses his motorcycle to decapitate some headcrab zombies and shoots at some "zombie goasts" with a weapon he found. He tells the zombie ghosts to leave, but they refuse, saying that the house is theirs. John Freeman feels pity for them for a moment, but blows up the house to kill them and make them "at piece"(it can be argued that killing undead is not just necessary to survive, save others, or accomplish one's goals, but is also doing the undead a favor). The Mood Whiplash is nicely captured with the changing music in the Djy machinima adaptation, with a somewhat sad song as John Freeman considers his decision, and happier music while he blows up the house. It's unclear how sympathetic we're supposed to find the zombie goasts here, but it seems as though John Freeman was the one who picked a fight with them.

John Freeman hears another scream from Gordon (who's fairly talkative for a Silent Protagonist thus far), and walks over there, while noticing how barren Ravenholm is with dead "pants" and headcrabs all around.

John Freeman finds Gordon Freeman fighting the final boss (Dr. Breen in the Djy adaptation, in spite of his status as a Non-Action Big Bad), and decides to help. John Freeman shoots the final boss in the eye, enabling Gordon Freeman to finish him off with a punch.

The Freeman brothers joke about their victory, but it's interrupted by the arrival of "the next boss" (the G-Man in the Djy adaptation, possibly a reference to how he shows up after the final battle in both games). Gordon Freeman orders Henry Freeman to get out, before getting stepped on and killed.

John Freeman, "mad and angry," swears revenge, an obvious Sequel Hook if there ever was one.

Next up is Part 2: What Has To Be Done.

Here's what I liked and didn't like. But keep in mind that, like in How I Became Yours what I liked isn't necessarily good.

What I liked

  • There's some amusing dialogue and descriptions, leading to a few memorable lines.
  • The Freeman brothers calling each other by their full names.
  • It's relatively short, making it a (So Bad It's)good light read.

What I didn't like

  • The very minimalistic descriptions cheat us out of the opportunity to see some more of the author's writing.

Comments

Delfage Since: Dec, 1969
Oct 18th 2014 at 5:25:34 PM
Actually, it's called "W Hat Has Tobe Done"
Valiona Since: Dec, 1969
Oct 18th 2014 at 6:32:26 PM
Delfage,

I see. On the other hand, I'm a bit hesitant to put the words together, so as to avoid ending up getting red links. It's also a bit more natural to type them out as separate words.
Delfage Since: Dec, 1969
Oct 18th 2014 at 7:14:44 PM
Use the "Not A Wiki Word" formatting. It's in the "Click for Editing Help" button on the top right.
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