Welcome! Welcome, to Shitty 17.

its a good thing hlvrai exists

I made an animatic!!

This is an homage to Human Resources Violation fanfic by the amazing @kogo-dogo!!

This story has me hyperfixating again, so I wanted to put some of my love into this, I really hope you enjoy it!! :D

"he died for our wins" - 2024, LIDL Oil paint on LIDL canvas

another one for hrv!

dreaming of making an animatic:'D

HLVRAI Human Resources Violation

Chapter 9

This is a very small part of Kogo-Dogo's fanfic Human Resources Violation, I wanted to have some fun and recreate it as a comic just to see if I can:'D

I didn't have much power in me to make it clean, but still!

If you interested in reading it, please check it out, I'm rereading it after two years and it's incredible!!

the what?.

When I was working on this I realized that Tommy was too tall, so I made him kneel

hey watch this * swaps your widely accepted fanon shapes

Hai yorokonde - hlvrai

Someone put this image under a gordon wip and I thought it was so fitting for benrey

have y'all seen this part of the commentary. I had to draw it

another hlvrai thought i can't really word right: tommy always portrayed as emotionally intelligent and emotional but i think he's 100% the opposite. I think he's kinda disconnected from his emotions and doesn't know how to express them. you can see this really clearly in "do you... want a soda?" bc gordon's freaking out super bad but tommy doesn't know what to do to make him feel better- he knows he wants to make gordon feel better, so offers him something he knows makes himself and others happy but in terms of comforting gordon... he mostly stays silent. probably dissociating. he's quiet for a lot of the series, actually! it's weird to look back on.

anyway uuhh idk how to word it but take this:

the end of hlvrai......

specifically inspired by @kilgarraara 's art since their giant funky benrey sketch was literally the first thing i saw the moment i went on twitter right after i finished watching the final act for the first time lmao

Normal video game characters! Not sentient at all

Most normal night at Black Mesa

Audio

There are some common tropes in HLVRAI fannon that get on my nerves, those being:

1. Benrey shows up on Gordon’s doorstep like a wet cat and domesticity scenarios happen.

and

2. Benrey learns that humans can’t respawn or regrow their limbs and he’s genuinely caused Gordon great pain.

And like obviously write whatever you want, im not the fandom police and I’m sure these have good angst potential or something, but I do wish more of fannon would engage with the actual themes of the series and dynamics of these characters.

Because Benrey couldn’t show up on Gordon’s doorstep, he’s trapped in a computer and there’s nothing outside of Black Mesa. And Gordon can respawn and fix his player model, he just doesn’t to maintain kayfabe. And I find that so much more interesting.

Because think about it. The physical stakes in this series are nonexistent because nothing that happens to Gordon in the game can have any real effect on his real self. But the emotional stakes are through the fucking roof because the existential stability of these AIs are on the brink of shattering and Gordon cares so fucking much about them that he roleplays super hard as a way to preserve the illusion and Benrey’s shenanigans jeopardize that.

And from Benrey’s perspective that has to be annoying because he knows that none of this is real, it’s just a game and he’s just messing around bro why are you freaking out over everything? Like I personally don’t even think that in the intended story of this hypothetical Half-Life VR game that Benrey is supposed to be this extra-dimensional threat, I think he’s just more aware from the jump and better at manipulating the game’s systems. He really was just using PAC3 for that final boss.

This dynamic fascinates me to no end and there are so many creative ways to expand on this metanarrative and it frustrates me to seen it get put to the wayside for plots I’ve seen elsewhere. Benrey and Gordon are not on equal footing with the rest of the cast and they are not on equal footing with each other and that’s so interesting.

This isn’t a story about some guy and his friends being harassed by an unknowable threat, it’s an ideological battle between an angel and a demon with everyone else getting caught up in the middle. And also they’re a little in love.

science rulez

more gordons