Here are the tropes for the various spinoffs that Freeman's Mind spawned. IRAMightyPirate and CyhAnide formed a new LP channel here.
Series with their own pages:
Tropes:
- Adaptation Expansion: The last episode of Barney's mind involves Barney hijacking a plane and escaping Black Mesa which wasn't in Blue Shift. (It's filmed in MS Flight Simulator X).
- All There In The Video Description: "Who's Felix?"
- "What game is Parker's Mind really in?"
- "Are you really a girl??"
- Almost Dead Guy: Barney encounters one and he laments the fact this was the first guy who didn't try and kill him or was dead to begin with dies on him.
- Amusing Injuries: In Barney's Mind.Barney: "Oomph, Shrapnel in my BUTT!"
- Apologetic Attacker: Parker's Mind episode 6, when he shoots the technician who won't lower the submarine.
- April Fools' Day: The author of Felix's Mind pulled off a very convincing April Fools prank, having everyone think he was giving up his series with
this episode. This became Harsher in Hindsight when he cancelled the series for real. - Artificial Stupidity: In Parker's Mind, he is constantly raving about how stupid the Ultor guards are. This is subverted however, when he first fights the Mercenaries, who actually have proper combat training.
- Art Shift: The last half of the final episode of Barney's Mind are recorded in Microsoft Flight Simulator. And he jumps around several other games in an extension of the end of Blue Shift where Barney is stuck teleporting between Xen and Black Mesa in-game as well as Counter-Strike, Half-Life 2: Episode 1 (Which is also heard from the other side in Felix's Mind), and Sector C of Black Mesa where he meets up with Corporal Shepard trapped in Gordon's locker.
- Parker's Mind in episode 4, where Parker traverses through Half-Life, Doom 1 and real life.
- Axe-Crazy: Chell is slowly becoming this. She takes great delight in burning up many a Weighted Storage Cube, GLaDOS' cameras, and even a Radio when the lyrics to the song freak her out.
- Beard of Evil: Chell is convinced that her Evil Twin has one. She also thinks GLaDOS has this and eyeliner.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Felix alternates between demonstrating attraction and clear disdain for "Joni" (Alyx). Particularly when she volunteers him potentially suicidal missions while she stands somewhere safe doing little, yet is routinely given a share in the credit afterwards.
- From what he describes, Felix's relationship with Chell definitely appears to have been this.
- Berserk Button: Everyone mistakes Felix for being Gordon, much to his annoyance.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Barney's Mind Episode 15 Pt 2Barney: "What's this? Microwave, soda machine, bloodstain, plenty of soda..."
- Brick Joke:
- Remember when Gordon yelled "Sucker!" to the random guard banging on the door in the first episode of Freeman's Mind? The same joke gets shown again from Barney's point of view in the first episode of Barney's Mind, with Barney soundly thinking that he'll kill Gordon for that.
- When Shephard and Barney are talking (with Shephard in a locker and Barney pondering how to get him out), they come to the conclusion that the electrified toxic waste is "an ingredient in Red Bull or something". In Chell's Mind, Chell says "Red Bull, now with more electrified toxic waste! Red Bull gives you cancer!"
- Felix mentions Gordon Freeman's stash of gold.
- Calling Your Attacks: "BARNEY uses CROWBAR! It's super effective!"
- The Cameo: In Barney's Mind ep 1 you can hear Gordon Freeman shouting: "SUCKEEEEEEEER!" from Freeman's Mind ep 1.
- In the Special Edition version, Barney watches a camera view of Sector C, and hears Gordon say "'Sup, Fool?" to a scientist as he greets Gordon while walking past.
- Celebrity Paradox: Present in the spinoff Barney's Mind. While chattering away at attacking soldiers, he asks them if they play various video games, including Counter-Strike. When you consider what game that was modded from...
- Cloudcuckoolander: Pretty much a must for any mind series but Chell is especially note worthy.
- Companion Cube: Chell names her portal gun and has conversations with it (where it seems to talk back in a british accent). Ironically, she has no love for the actual companion cubes, and will gladly destroy them when the opportunity presents itself.
- Crossover: Barney and Shephard meet each other at one point. And at the end of the 5th episode of Chell's Mind, Chell hears Barney's voice. Krimsin, Ian and CyhAnide all mentioned collaborating and borrowing jokes from each other.
- Chell appears in episode 14 of Felix's Mind, just after he had been mortally wounded by a sniper.
- Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Parker comments on a useless guard while searching for Gryphon. Said guard takes offense to the comment, causing Parker to invoke the trope.
- Doom Magnet: Every friendly (the Red-suited people) Parker meets seems to die at some point or another.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: A big part of Barney's character later on in his series is his supposed friendship with Gordon Freeman, often mentioning him and showing concern when he sees two soldiers carrying him down a hallway. In the original first episode, Gordon passes by yelling "SUUCCKKEEEERRR!!!" and Barney wonders if he even knows him.
- Evil Twin: Chell thinks the voice in her head is one.
- Expy: Harrison is pretty much just Barney in Alien vs. Predator. (Not that this is bad.)
- Foreshadowing: Barney mentions having taken flying lessons a while ago, in episode 10 part 1.
- Gratuitous Japanese: Chell will often break into Japanese phrases for no particular reason.
- Hypocritical Humor: In episode 10 (part 1) of "Barney's Mind", Barney complains how stupid scientists are for getting locked in freight trains. A few seconds later, he enters a freight train and it closes and locks on him.
- I Call It "Vera": Chell calls her portal gun "ASHPoD," and talks to it as if it were a person.
- Parker likes the Semi-Automatic rifles used by the Mercs so much he gives his own one a name.
- I Fell for Hours: Chell falls several miles via portal recursion and is utterly terrified.
- I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: Gryphon: "Damnit Parker, I'm an executive, not a pilot!"
- I've Got an X, and I'm Not Afraid to Use It!: Shephard uses this line, sort of.Shephard: I've got a half-melted chocolate bar and I'm not afraid to eat it! 'Cause it would be good...
- Jerkass: Again, a must for any mind series, but the protagonists of Ander's and Parker's mind really stand out.
- Toward the end of Parker's Mind, he starts to feel a little more for the people around him (even when he went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the mercs after they shot Hendrix), but still lives up to this trope.
- Averted by Chell, who is more psychotic than a jerk. Then again, there isn't anyone to be a jerk to.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Barney starts off cold and detached, but eventually ends up growing fond of some scientists and helps rescue them.
- Karma Houdini: Felix is starting to believe that his misfortunes are the result of the Universe actively punishing him for previously acts of jerkassery he got away with.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: From Barney's mind episode 13:Barney: "Man this alien planet makes no sense. It feels like someone is recording my every move for some sort of a TV series, and then uploading it to a website for other people to look at."
- Leeroy Jenkins: Invoked by Barney at one point, running straight for a squad of enemy soldiers.
- Left the Background Music On: Inverted, when Barney breaks out his iPod for a couple of battles.
- Made of Iron: Unlike Freeman's Mind, the games in the "spin-offs" tend to be played unmodified, with just the base gameplay, rather than changing around the damage values. This tends to make things seem a bit less realistic.
- Manchild: Barney in particular sounds like a thirteen year old boy in the body of a thirty something year old security guard's body.
- One-Man Army: Every main character, obviously. Well, except Chell. Special mention goes to Felix and his 1st season finale.
- Painting the Medium:
- Isaac Clarke (Isaac Clarke's Mind) seems to be at least partially aware that he's in a video game, often acknowledging "plot holes" as he comes across them, as well as being able to hear the background music.
- Barney, in musing about the strangeness of his situation, says that it's almost as if someone's "recording [his] every move and thought for some strange tv series and posting the videos on a website."
- Similarly, Cane's Mind (Quake IV) mentioned that people's names floating next to them comes from two seperate cybernetic implants, an ID tag in his heart, and bionic eyes, but could have been done far less invasively (and dystopianly) with NFC-enabled dog-tags and Augmented Reality glasses.
- Samus' Mind (Metroid Prime) has the tutorial blurbs be part of her ship's safety protocols, which engaged after she hit her head getting up that morning.
- Percussive Maintenance: How Barney thinks he fixed the teleporter in the Border world, and how Felix (in the newer version of the episode) thinks he fixed the third core containment machine. It doesn't go over well with Felix, though.Felix: "OW! KICK WITH THE HEEL, NOT WITH THE TOE!"
- Promoted Fanboy: In-universe example. The core Mind series group, called the "Masterminds," originally started out with just Ian (Barney's Mind) and Krimsin (Shephard's Mind). All the Masterminds that came after are pretty much one of these.
- The Quiet One: Douchebag in Barney's Mind, up until the final episode.
- Running Gag:
- Chell is starving.
- Parker hates Hendrix, and constantly comments on how ugly Capek is.
- Felix is often mistaken for Gordon.
- Barney hates bees. And stairs. Did he mention that he hates stairs?
- Sanity Slippage: Chell is obviously starting to crack.
- Schizo Tech: Parker is quite weirded out when he has to send out an encoded message, that is stored on a floppy disk, when they are several decades obsolete.
- Shout-Out:
- Barney's Mind Episode 14: After Barney rants about the Alien Grunts launching bees, he wants to know why they don't launch mollusks... or sea turtles.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Chell on the scent of the deadly goo:Chell: Ugh, it's worse than being trapped in an unventilated room after spraying an entire bottle of Tilex on every wall and rubbing my face in it! Which I have never done. Not even when I was drunk.
- Talking to the Dead: Barney's Mind episode 4: "Hey dead guy, got anything useful on you?"
- Thoroughly Mistaken Identity: The whole point of Felix's Mind; Felix is Gordon Freeman's twin brother that everyone else is constantly mistaking for Gordon.
- Too Dumb to Live: Barney has shades of this, planning to blow open a locker door (in which Shephard is stuck) with a satchel charge, and then when talked down from that, a fire extinguisher (blown up). When he realizes Shephard is HECU like the ones trying to kill him, he wants to leave him to rot. Only to be bribed by a bar of chocolate.
- Unexplained Accent:
- The protagonist of Declan's Mind is supposed to be an American black ops agent, but he speaks with a Lithuanian accent. The series probably wouldn't be as funny otherwise.
- Even Chell is confused why ASHPoD is British.
- What Does This Button Do?: Quite common in all Mind spinoffs. Except perhaps Chell's Mind, where it's more obvious as to what the buttons do.
- What Would X Do?: In episode 3 of Parker's Mind, Parker is hesitant to climb a rickety ladder due to his fear of heights but realizes he can't stay at the bottom of the elevator shaft forever. He wonders what Jesus would do — cut to a cartoon of Jesus telling Parker to stop being a wuss and climb the ladder.
