Freeman's Mind/YMMV

Tropes in the main series:

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Among other things, he spends a lot of time looking for drugs and fantasizing about murdering his coworkers.
  • He's degenerated to Designated Hero by part 21 at the very latest, discussing his plans to climb the corporate ladder by kidnapping an executive's wife and framing his superiors.
  • Episode 27 has an Alternate Character Interpretation of the existing Alternate Character Interpretation; the neurotic Gordon Freeman, physicist, becomes the neurotic Captain Freeman, mighty pirate.
• Designated Hero: Discussed

Gordon: Alvin York killed dozens of people, and he was a hero! He didn't even want to, he was like me! Am I a hero? Eh, I don't know, I don't think it's very heroic if the only person you've managed to save is yourself.

• Ensemble Darkhorse: The series as a whole is this in Ross' works. Ross Scott used to only create Civil Protection, but it took a long time to make new episodes, mostly due to the time it took to animate everything. So he created Episode 1 of Freeman's Mind as essentially a comedy skit/experiment to give his fans some entertainment in between episodes. After he created the second episode during another lull between Civil Protection episodes, he planned to end it right there, but fans really loved it and demanded more, and now it's one of the most popular series on Machinima.
• Fanon: I know it's part of mine. Though it does receive a hairline fracture when you realize that Gordon didn't blow up Magnusson's lunch. Still..
  • Magnusson's enough of a jerk that he could have just blamed Gordon for it when, in fact, he was nowhere near it. The "Pro" might've done it in his place, and Magnusson, knowing Gordon's personality, assumed it was him. Fanon saved.
    • Or he might've just done it the day before.
• Fridge Horror: In episode 12, Gordon contemplates buying what he believes to be a scientist hypnotized into slavery by the G-man, saying that he "knows how to talk to these people" since he's been to Haiti. At first it just might seem like a standard joke, but then you realize the "people" he was referencing were slavers. What would Freeman need to deal with slavers for?
  • He's talking about Haitians, because that's where Zombies come from.
• Funny Moments: Too many to count. Enough for a page at least.
• Genius Bonus: Many of the jokes.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: At one point, a dying guard tells Freeman that a tram leads to the surface. Freeman muses over it, saying that so far the guard had spoken in annoying half-truths. He follows the tram-track, and it does indeed lead to the surface.. But not out of Black Mesa.
  • Let's see... Garry's Mod is used, alright... wait, you don't talk but you hear a voice in your head? Will we ever see the playable-game-version of THAT?!
• Memetic Badass: Gordon starts to see himself this way.

"That's why the dinosaurs went extinct -- ME!!"

• Most Annoying Sound: Freeman really hates beeping.
• Nightmare Fuel: The tentacle monster gives Gordon some, and we get to hear about it:

Gordon: Yeah, that's right, moan! MOAN! That noise is exactly what I'll be thinking about when I try to get to sleep tonight! And I'll be dreaming about you sucking out my eyes with your tentacled face while I'm nestled up against a stack of rotting corpses; then my intestines will burst with insects crawling out of them; then the screaming -- jeez, that's a long drop.

• • "Hey, that's a ladder! That means this is legit; this might actually go somewhere! I mean, it probably leads to a room filled with poison gas and a bunch of dead people that look just like me, but I don't know that, so there's room for hope, I guess."
  • "If any of these worms get in my hair, I swear to God I'm just gonna freak out. Yeah, worms get in my hair; the power fails and the lights go out; then some old guy with a raspy voice starts laughing and poking me with a stick. That would complete the experience."
  • "I was expecting to look down there and see this giant eyeball looking up at me, angry at me because I blew off its eyelashes or something, then the whole building starts shaking and I guess I'd just ball up and cry, because what do you do when something that big wants to kill you?"

Tropes in the spinoffs:

• Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: ALYX!
• Tear Jerker: Shephard's speech after being captured by the G-Man.
• The Woobie:
  • Chell, who periodically breaks down sobbing in sheer terror.
  • Shephard. He's probably the nicest person in the "Mind" series and his thoughts really put how crappy his situation is into perspective.