i think its fun to read too much into how tommy acts towards gordon so here we are
so like right from the jump, tommy reads as a, like, naive and good-mannered person. and, you know, he is a little naive! he gets bought out with fucking beyblades. but hes also very insistent that he knows what hes doing a lot of the time, even when gordon is being condescending as all shit and implying that hes a child. (see: the line where hes like “im not playing in the water! im testing the viscosity!”) and im inclined to take that at face value - presumably you dont get hired at black mesa without at least being on the level of, you know, a 27 yr old fresh out of MIT, like gordon freeman
and in that light, i think its really easy to read a lot of tommys behavior as straight up passive-aggressive/condescending towards gordon. gordons like, a decade younger than him, and hes going around cracking jokes about how tommys basically two kids in a trenchcoat. like, some examples:
- whether or not tommy calls him “mr freeman” or “dr freeman” is a little inconsistent, but a lot of times tommy will be calling him “dr” right up until gordon makes some condescending comment toward him, at which point he switches to “mr”. it was probably not intentional at all, but its really funny and kind of demeaning
- theres a moment where theres like, a laser/electricity/whatever, and tommy says “it cant hurt you if youre smart!” when gordon worries about it hurting him. it would hurt gordon, tho. this reads as a fantastically backhanded burn to me LMAO
- theres another bit where theyre all just straight up calling gordon stupid. (he is a little stupid for being such a puffed-up MIT boy.) tommy will also sometimes just completely ignore gordon when gordon says something demeaning to him, like hes just turning away and thinking “i am not getting paid enough to deal with this guy”
- tommys clearly spiteful at times: when they get fucked with the the military, tommy immediately jumps to suggesting they take one of the soldiers hostage, and when theyre robbing the casino in the payday stream, hes like “ive already lost 20$, let’s rob this place”. its not much of a stretch to interpret him as being spitefully condescending to gordon, too
anyway the point i am getting at here is that its not like wildly inaccurate to read him as just wanting some fucking respect. gordons really, really bossy and talks down to them a lot and sometimes literally talks to tommy like hes a dog. id think that just about anybody would get fed up with that
in that vein, please consider: tommy finally getting stern and reminding gordon that he is a 37 year old with a goddamn doctorate (maybe even multiple!) and that its dr coolatta, thank you. sure, he might like gordon, and they might be friendly towards each other, but gordon ought to show some fuckin respect for once instead of being so demeaning all the time. and, you know, gordon having a really embarrassing reaction to being put in his place for once
some other tidbits that dont really go along with this but that i feel compelled to point out anyway
- tommy swears! he says “fucking” almost right away! and he doesnt stutter very much if at all. i think that, like the “gordon feetman” thing, the whole schtick of him never swearing and stuttering a lot is like a fanon thing that got latched onto really hard fsr
- hes, like, really fast, and one of my friends headcanons him as having been a track runner at one point, which fits really well IMO
- tommys probably an excellent researcher if he makes a point to reference how many OSHA codes and wikipedia articles hes memorized, which makes it even more funny/painful how much gordon lays into him for being childlike
- tommy makes the sweet voice colors rhyme what they actively do some of the time, but definitely not all of the time. i know it can be fun to try to come up with clever rhymes for sweet voice, but the pedantic and obnoxious poet in my brain is begging ppl to just not force it if it sounds awkward. if youre gonna do it, you oughta make sure it actually rhymes, and that it scans correctly, too. sorry this is insanely nitpicky but it drives me Nuts and ive had people wonder why i would make one of benreys sweet voices orange when it doesnt rhyme with anything. it doesnt have to! dont worry about it!