Welcome back to the House. We've been expecting you. This is a branching timeline of This House is Self-Aware, a HLVRAI Horror AU created by @hiraeth-starguy, now featuring crossover characters from the Half-Life series. This timeline explores what might happen if the story had gone wrong at a crucial moment. If you want to know what the True Ending to that story looks like, please check out @this-house-is-self-aware.
This House is The Bad Ending.
Read the story in order here! https://this-house-is-half-alive.tumblr.com/chrono (open in browser if on mobile, Tumblr mobile hates properly ordered tags)
Party references can be found here! https://this-house-is-half-alive.tumblr.com/party
Rules and Premise for the ask blog under the cut.
It is October, 2013. 13-year-old spirit medium Gordon Freeman has been missing for four months, with no clue of his whereabouts. Still, people have been searching for him tirelessly. Nobody goes to the Breen House anymore. Some say it's cursed, that there are evil vibes coming from that place, and something seems to repel them.
Young urban explorer Alyx Vance won't let that stop her. As she explores the House, she encounters things, discovers secrets, and meets people that will change her life forever.
Rules for Askers
This time around, you are fans of Alyx's explorer blog and Justin.tv stream, ADVance. React to her stream in real time, as she explores abandoned places. Her chat had a few rules in place, to keep things relatively organized.
You may have knowledge of events from before… but in this situation, you should not. Please keep meta-knowledge to yourself, though you are allowed to speculate what you think may be happening. Should the Whispers on the Wind be called forth, feel free to resume your old personas.
No magic!anons, introducing characters to the universe via other blogs, or trying to control the story through incessant means. This is not the same as adopting a persona for your asker, a unique voice that the characters may come to recognize.
You are in control of what the players do, to a small extent. They will listen to your requests and commands if given. When prompted, you may pick a single character (or the group as a whole) and direct them to move to a new location or perform an action.
The players have mostly fixed inventories which you can have them access at any time. In addition, all living players have a cell phone in their possession, only some of which are smart phones. However, unlike last time, players inventories are not static forever. If you think an item may be relevant to bring, you can direct a player to swap out something in their inventory between sessions.
No outright sexual or sexually-implicating asks, or asks trying to push characters together as a ship. The cast are still mostly minors, children and teenagers, even if they can say funny swears or if the ask is directed at an adult character. The characters' romantic feelings/orientations may be brought up as part of the story, but do not expect anything beyond a coming-of-age narrative.
I have the right to delete any asks that violate these rules, contain bigoted or ignorant language, or that just make me uncomfortable. Chat moderators have gotten the admin and banned you forever.
Finally, know that the ultimate outcome of the story this time is in your hands. You're not being graded on your performance or anything, but your actions will have far-reaching consequences which will affect the ending. Be smart, thoughtful, and creative in your participation.
CONTENT WARNINGS
This is a horror adventure AU, and as such this blog will contain portrayals, mentions, or implications of the following: missing children, child death, ghosts and spirits, eye contact, exploitation of fear, psychological horror, violence, grave injury (bruising and bandages with scarring), trauma, implied underage drug use, animal death. If any of these are a legitimate trigger for you, I do not advise you continue further. If you wish to persist, but find you cannot continue reading, know that there is no judgement for this. Finally, if you wish to reblog from this blog, please be considerate of your followers and mutuals, and tag triggers accordingly.
((Hi, sorry about the radio silence! Life's been really in the way these past few months, and I'm back in college with a new major in Education (on track to be an elementary school teacher). Between that, severe artistic burnout, fatigue, and just hyperfixations falling off, many of my personal projects have been put on hold for the foreseeable future. I'm hoping to come back and finish the story, as we do have a roadmap for the conclusion set out, but I can't give any answers or promises. Things will be busy for a while, but thank you for hanging in for so long through all these breaks and hiatuses, and I'll be sure that your time was not wasted when we are ready to return to showtime. -Hirae))
do you think it's possible that cement... didn't make it?
ADRIAN: What are you talking about Cement? Come on, we've gotta get you to the hospital.
CEMENT: My eyes, it's still blurry and I can't really see, I can't find the handle. Can you just... Open the screen door for me please? This isn't funny anymore.
ADRIAN: There's no screen door, just come here. Look, I'm waving my hand through it. Come on, now's really not the time to be messing around.
You kids should get home. No sense in sticking around here, just in case that bastard comes back.
MITCHELL: Yeah. This has been stupid, and dangerous, and things are going to shit, we just need to go while we can, and go to the hospital, and go home, and-
ALYX: We'll re-group, and figure this out... Will you guys still be here?
DARNOLD: We're not leaving without Benrey. And, we'll look for Gordon while you're gone.
FORZEN: He'll turn up. I think he always does.
[Forzen turns to go gather the fallen Gordon doll, and Darnold takes over letting Benrey lean on him for support.]
You did something extraordinary tonight, Benny. You stood up to that guy who looked like your dad, and you saved everyone here. Rest kiddo, there's always another night to look for Gordon.
BENREY: But... okay. While you guys are gone. I'll look for him.
