The Draconic Wizard Workshop

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#1 Awakening: Expecting the ambush, and other exotrauma

Originally posted here on October 29, 2021.

How to awaken as fictionkin in an unpleasant and scary way: a guide by Research. (Note: not recommended!)


In February of this year, 2021, we picked up Black Mesa on Steam. We'd played through the Half-Life games before, although I hadn't been as awake/active in the past, so it was mostly Tanix who was experienced with them. Given my interest in science, anything nerdy, and interesting worldbuilding, I was half-watching him play. The further he went, the more hooked I became: I really liked the game. Like, really liked it. I don't play games "with" Tanix often, so this was a little weird for me, but he just teased me about being excited to see a fellow scientist and moved on.

I was completely unaware of a building sense of unease through the game in addition to a strong draw to it until partway through one of the chapters (I remember the moment, but not necessarily the chapter it's in--I want to say it's Surface Tension?) where we stepped out of a dark tunnel into the outdoors and the light. Something resonated in me, hard, like draconic things and deathclaw sounds resonate for Tanix. Our heart raced, our muscles tensed, and I just knew: danger. There's something dangerous that we're not seeing.

I was right. Enemies around the corner, and I knew exactly where. We blazed through the encounter without issue, then paused to breathe and figure out what the hell was wrong with me. Why did I know that? Why was I so scared? Why was I so dead certain that there were people behind me that I was supposed to be protecting, kill-or-be-killed, but I so desperately didn't want to?

I jumped to fictionkin as a possibility immediately. I'd witnessed Tanix's awakening as deathclawkin, I knew what it was like for him to be dragonkin, and this felt much the same. I didn't want to just accept that at face value, though, so I urged him to keep playing and I'd just pay closer attention, see if anything sank in. After all, if an insignificant moment of coming out of a tunnel could do that to me, surely something bigger would get a reaction, too, right? I mean, look at what did that to me:



Nothing special. But I feel it. I feel the fear, the knowledge that this can't go well.

We kept going. After that, once I knew to pay attention, moment after moment started hitting me. The second assassin attack--I felt it coming, I knew where they would come from, and we nearly had a panic attack. The scientists--I felt like I'd known them before. Xen... Xen. It felt like a return to a terrifying, alien beauty. We'd never seen Black Mesa's take on the borderworld--Tanix had only ever played through the original Half-Life, where Xen looks very different. There was no reason for the familiarity.

After we beat the game, we immediately went back to the beginning, and now, paying attention, I could feel that same kind of resonance as we went through. Fear, moments that didn't play out in-game but I felt and remembered in the back of my mind. Guilt for the Resonance Cascade.

We closed the game. I had to think on it. No matter the passing months, though, I feel it, and even if I'm not strictly Gordon Freeman, whatever my experience is is close enough to qualify. I'll write up an essay or similar at some point listing canon divergences, specific things I remember, everything--but that's for another time.

For now, I'll talk about its impact on me, which has been... interesting. Day-to-day, this changes basically nothing. We watch more Half-Life videos, I guess. We replay Black Mesa fairly frequently, but only when I'm emotionally able to handle it. (We try to save every scientist. It's a chore.) Mostly, this has manifested in jokes between myself and our one friend that knows about my fictotype. He sends me memes and whatever interesting Half-Life content he stumbles upon. We avoid the fandom even more than before.

I miss my friends. I miss feeling like I was doing good work for the scientific community. I don't, however, miss anything from the Resonance Cascade onwards. I'm carrying some exotrauma from that, and I'm just relieved that I don't remember more! As much as I'd like to know more about my life as Gordon, unfortunately a lot of what ends up coming back is the bad stuff, and that's not so fun to carry around.

Thanks for reading if you got this far! I know I'm a wordy bastard. I hope your awakening went more smoothly than mine, with less heart-pounding and panic attacks.