Half Life: Full Life Consequences

Its a good day to do what has to be done by me and help my brother to defeat the enemys.
"It's time for me to live up to my family name and face FULL LIFE CONSEQUENCES!"
—John Freeman

What began as an innocent Fan Fiction 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:

Video by Djy1991 and Icton Entertainment:

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 made Drum 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:

Solo machinimator Gaz6231 released alternative adaptations of the Hero Beggining chapters several weeks before the Djy1991 versions. They take a very different style than the above adaptations, favoring intentional Narm Charm and increased body animation over jovial mockery and lip movement. Gaz6231 himself describes it as "the Martin Scorsese to their Michael Bay". While the Hero Beggining video is clearly Gaz6231's first work, the Free Man video is much more polished and has earned its own following. Also unlike the Icton Entertainment videos, all animation, editing, and voices are created by one man. There is a bitter dispute as to which series is better, especially in the case of Free Man.

Man Without A Body did a straight-up reading with very little visual component but loads of ham, which can be found right here.

Seaport wrote a "serious" version of the fic, as further proof of the Fiction Identity Postulate, which can be found here.

Other machinmas and dramatic readings of the various chapters exist, but few of them have the notability of the above authors.

Compare Doom: Repercussions of Evil. And Peter Chimaera's other fic, Quarter Life: Halfway to Destruction. Although it may well be a cash in on Full Life Consequences, it is amazing in that he only wrote it after Uncycylopedia, an online encyclopedia like Wikipedia said he was writing it and decided 'Yeh, ok' and the Big Bad's evil plot is to destroy Dallas.

It eventually turned out to be written by Mattimer, one of the greatest trolls of our time.

Tropes used in Half Life: Full Life Consequences include:
  • Aliens and Monsters - And final bosses and next bosses and Combines. Also the Trope Namer.
  • Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene - The death of Gordon Freeman.
  • Ass Pull - 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.
  • Attack Its Weak Point - "The next boss was laughing at John Freeman so John Freeman said 'YOU WILL NOT LAUGH AT ME!' and shot a rocket at him since that was his weakness."
    • Large explosives are perhaps one of the most common weaknesses among... things made of matter.
  • Author Appeal: Motorcycles and doing backflips.
  • Author Catchphrase - Doing "what has to be done" is a common theme of squirrelking's protagonists.
  • Attack! Attack! Attack! - Some of the rebels get killed during the uprising but they keep on going because they have to do it.
  • Back from the Dead - Gordon Freeman.
  • Badass Biker - John Freeman
  • Badass Family - The Freemans.
  • Beige Prose
  • 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.
  • The Call Knows Where You Live - Henry Freeman's "hero beggining" commences after the Combines murder his mom.
  • Cain and Abel
  • 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".
  • Department of Redundancy Department
  • 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 brains branes 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 portal backflips 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.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? - Gordon Freeman kills the final boss by punching it in the face. No really.
    • After being shot by bullets in the eye from teh gun by John Freeman, mind you.
  • Dissimile - "Combines were robot things that werent robots..."
  • Downer Ending - At the end of Full Life Consequences, Gordon Freeman is killed immediately after John Freeman rescues him. At the end of What Has Tobe Done, he is reanimated as a zombie goast. The Hero Beggining arc reverses this.
  • 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.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep", Unnamed Parent: John Freeman's wife, Henry Freeman's mother.
  • Everything's Better with Spinning: Lots of backflips happen throughout the fic.
  • Facing the Bullets One-Liner - Played with in that Henry Freeman's mother delivers her last message to her son after her head was shot off.
  • Final Boss - The (not so) aptly named Big Bad of the first chapter.
  • For the Evulz - The Combines beat the humen girl in the street and kill Henry Freeman's mother for no apparent reason.
    • Actually because Mom and the girl were humen and the Combine were evil Combines from science and outer space.
  • Foreshadowing - Henry Freeman mentions the family name, but if it wasn't obvious at that point...
  • Friend to All Living Things: John Freeman notices a nest of eggs on the ground after cutting down a tree and puts them "back home safe."
    • He is even a friend to non-living things, as he feels bad about killing the zombie goasts.
  • Full-Name Basis - In case you haven't noticed by now...
    • Somehow averted only once in the entire saga.
  • Giant Foot of Stomping - The next boss's means of attack.
  • Giant Space Flea From Nowhere - the Next Boss in the first series.
  • Go Out With Smiles On Face - Gordon Freeman
    • Arguably, John Freeman as well.
  • Guns Are Worthless

John Freeman. I have to kill fast and bullets too slow

  • Heroic Sacrifice - Gordon Freeman warns John Freeman to flee just before he's crushed 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.
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight - John Freeman vs. Gordon Freeman
  • Improbable Aiming Skills - Averted. The Resistance Army 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.
  • Kid Hero - Henry Freeman (implied)
  • 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:

John Freeman. Zombie goasts, I have killed your friends at the old house and I don't want to shoot your heads. Move near the countrysides and you will be friends of John Freeman!

  • 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.
  • Lightning Bruiser - John Freeman does everything fast, but don't think he's a Fragile Speedster. See Made of Iron, below.
  • 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.
  • Moe Greene Special - Performed by John Freeman on the final boss.
  • 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.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot - Zombie goasts. Zombies that are also "goasts".
  • 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.
  • Non-Indicative Name - The final boss. It isn't actually the last boss.
  • Not Afraid of You Anymore - In Hero Beggining, Henry tells the Combine that the human race is "not scarred no more"
  • Our Founder - At the end of Free Man, Henry Freeman is elected president and a statue of John Freeman is erected in the new city.
  • Papa Wolf - John Freeman
  • Plot Hole - John Freeman is able to shoot the Headcrab Officer in the head, despite not having weapon.
  • Police Are Useless - The only authority figure to ever appear in the entire saga is a lone police officer. Who is headcrab zombie.
    • Then again, he was manning his speed trap even after becoming a headcrab zombie. That's a dedicated police officer right there.
  • Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner - Gordon Freeman said "its time to end this ones and for all!"
    • "I have to kill fast, and bullets too slow."
  • Prepair To Die - The Dark Man said.
  • 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...
  • The Reveal - In possibly the best twist to ever grace poorly written fan fiction, the last line of Hero Beggining reveals John Freeman to be the father of Henry Freeman.
  • Rock Beats Lazers - In Hero Beggining, the humen were wining against the lazers gun-equipped Combine despite having to rely on rocks as weapon.
    • It may have meant to say "rockets". But with squirrelking, you can never be sure.
      • Then again, he said "rackets" instead of rockets in Free Man...
  • Rouge Angles of Satin - In droves.
  • Sacrificial Lamb - Henry Freeman's mom.
  • 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.
  • Stuffed Into the Fridge

The Dark Man: Henry Freeman's Mom is shot in head.

  • Supporting Leader - Henry Freeman.
  • Teleporters and Transporters - "Gordon Freeman teleportaled to John Freeman and hit him with crow bar."
  • 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".
  • What Measure Is A Non Humen - John Freeman kills the zombie goasts and blows up their house.
    • 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".
  • You Will Be Assimilated - "You will be one of us!" yelled the dead zombie goasts.
    • 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 kills GLaDOS...
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever - The next boss.
  • Big Damn Heroes - John Freeman in Hero Beggining.
  • 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.
  • Catch Phrase - "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.
  • Dance Party Ending - The DJY adaptation of Free Man.
  • Even The Narrator Is Stumped by "normal people close."
  • Everything Fades: Henry Freeman's mother in the Djy version.
  • Finger-Twitching Revival - John Freeman after he crashes the dropship into the train in the DJY adaptation of Free Man.
  • Flight - John Freeman, for little obvious reason.
  • Foe-Tossing Charge
  • Funny Background Event - Loads in the Djy series, in fact they're popular in pretty much all GMod machinimas.
  • Go for the Eye
  • Guns Akimbo - John Freeman in the Djy adaptation.
  • Must Make Amends - John Freeman disturbs the eggs on a tree while test-firing the laser gun. He puts them back home safe, but the machinima disagrees.
  • My Friends and Zoidberg - "Save humens, and Henry Freeman!"
  • 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?
  • Special Effects Failure - The portals in the Gaz6321 version are a dumpster and a truck.
  • Spit Take - For Djy's video:

"STOP THE HUMENS!"

  • Stupid Statement Dance Mix -
    • 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.
  • Uncanny Family Resemblance - The Gaz6231 videos use the same model for Henry Freeman and John Freeman.
  • Visual Pun - The Gaz version has several of these.
    • So does Djy's version.
    • Gaz and Djy both do. Ex: BEAR HANDS!
  • What Happened to the Mouse? - It isn't clear what happened to The Dark Man in the Gaz version of Free Man.
    • Lending evidence to the theory that he and Gordon Freeman are the same.
  • Wimp Fight - When Gordon fights the final boss in Djy's version, the Garry's Mod models just flail at each other.
  • Yeah! Shot: The Djy adaptation of Hero Beggining provides the current page image for that trope.
  • You Make Me Sic - Appears to be compulsory in any visual adaptation of fan fiction like this.
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