If I were to make a Metroid or Metroid-adjacent game, one thing I would definitely do is bring back the feature from Super Metroid where you're able to toggle on and off certain upgrades. Tired of frozen enemies getting underfoot? Turn off ice beam. Tired of jumps making a silly noise? Turn off screw attack. And so on.
But I would frame it as Samus going into her suit computer in-universe to mess with things, so the player can turn on and off MUCH more than the upgrades. You can mess around with anything Samus would be able to, which opens up a number of esoeteric gameplay options that can be advantageous in certain situations, as well as a truly limitless number of ways to just screw yourself over on purpose. For instance, you can choose to remove the suit at any point. This kills you if you're in a superheated or vacuum area, and makes things impossibly challenging if you're not, as you can't jump well, take fall damage, and get decimated by local wildlife (but does allow you to fit through gaps without the morph ball). You can also choose to turn off the suit's life support, which causes the screen to blur and blacken and shrink over the course of a minute and a half, at which point you suffocate and die. This has no gameplay utility, and can be halted at any point by turning the life support back on, which causes her to audibly gasp. You can also turn off the in-game HUD, if you want a cleaner screen. You can engage the safety on your arm cannon, preventing it from being used. You can turn off the suit's musculoskeletal system, which causes Samus to collapse under the weight and can do nothing but shoot and slowly crawl. This gives you stealth advantage against any enemy that uses electroperception, such as platypuses. You can also have the suit dispense ration paste, which does nothing but cause Samus to emit a brief slurping noise. You can turn off the suit's radio identifier, which does nothing but prevent you from entering your ship (it has no idea who you are.) You can engage an armor lock that freezes you in place; if an enemy touches you, you tip over. You can turn off the suit's computer which blanks the menu and softlocks the game.
And finally you can activate self-destruct, KILLING YOU INSTANTLY, along with anything else in the room with you. Notably, this works on the final boss as well, which will trigger a cutscene for a "good" ending. However, instead of rolling credits afterwards, it will just send you back to the last save point, like the jackass you are.
As a bisexual, it sickens me that some people WILL keep scrolling.
reflection
Angel Dust: “D’ya ever get a weird feelin’ about this place?”
Husk: “Yeah. Sweet an sickening. Like fucking syrup.”
Angel Dust: “NEVER fuck usin’ syrup UGH.”
Niffty: “I think the floor right under the second story banister railings feels weirdest! Almost bouncy when you SMASH into it!”
Angel Dust: “Not what I meant, NFT. It’s more like-”
SOMETHING: (blurs past the open door behind them)
Door: (...crreeeeks softly on it’s hinges...)
Them: (turns and stare)
Angel Dust: “…it’s like, a cold draft, innit?”
Husk: (spooked) (fur fluffed) “Cheap as fuck place. Run down.”
Niffty: “Prime roach real estate!”
Angel Dust: “Unsettlin’. The word I’m lookin’ for is, unsettlin’.”
EYES: (blink open and glow in the shadowy corner above them.)
Angel Dust: “Creepy, even.”
EYES: (rotate 360 degrees) (still staring)
Angel Dust: “I dunno. Don’t ya just get the shivers sometimes in here? Brr.” (shudders)
Husk: “Guess the eternal pep can be kinda fucked up from the owner. No one in hell is really that fucking happy all the fucking time.”
Niffty: “I AM!!!”
Husk: “No one who’s not fucking Niffty is that happy in hell.”
Niffty: “I LOVE it here. You only got to die ONCE back in the living world.”
Angel Dust: “Once should be enough for anyone, Niffters.”
Niffty: (giggling) “Not for me! Not when it's comes to eating spiders.”
Husk: “Oh FUCK that-”
Niffty: “Think the thing watching us right now also eats spiders?”
Husk: “…”
Angel Dust: “…”
EYES: (blink) (vanish)
The Three of Them: (turn and stare)
Angel Dust: “….Husker? Any room in ya bed for guy who doesn’t wanna be alone tonight?”
Husk: “Fuck no. Anyone tries getting in my room tonight is being served a motherfucking Molotov cocktail on the house.”
Angel Dust: “I can make it worth ya while. Tire us both out so’s maybe we can get some actual sleep.”
Husk: “You think I’m gonna fucking sleep?”
Niffty: “Sometimes I eat the spiders in my sleep…”
Husk: “Niffty, I need you fucking shut up talking in that creepy little girl voice.”
Niffty: “Okay! But whyyyy~?”
Husk: “THAT’S fucking WHY.”
Angel Dust: “-shh! SHH SHHHH! D’ya hear that!?”
Husk: “Wh- don’t fucking touch me-”
Angel Dust: (strangling him a little with holding) “Husk holy shit!”
Husk: (claws out) (super floofed) “What? WHAT??”
Niffty: “Ohhh…..”
Angel Dust: “It’s COMIN’!”
Niffty: “Nooo it’s naaaw-auuuught~”
Husk: “WELL WHICH THE FUCK IS IT-!?”
Niffty: “It’s Here~”
SOMETHING: (drops in from the open window)
Them: (SCREAM)
Vaggie: “Have you guys seen- Stop screaming it’s just me- have any of you seen Charlie around?”
Husk: “FUCK! FUCK!!!”
Angel Dust: “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, MISS I CUNT USE THE FREAKING DOORS!”
Husk: “FUUUCK ME FUCK YOU FUCK ALL OF THIS-”
Niffty: “Aww.” (slumps) “Hi Vaggie….”
Vaggie: “Yeah hey… What’s got into you all?”
Angel Dust: “Into US? YoU-”
Niffty: “We’ve been terrified. It’s been fun!”
Husk: “YOUR FUCKING SHIT HOTEL IS FUCKING HAUNTED! Shit!”
Angel Dust: “You and ya rich girlfriend have hell’s worst unpaying guest creepin’ around, and ya wonder what’s up with US?!?!”
Vaggie: “Oh. So you have seen her.”
Niffty: “Ohhh…! It’s a her!”
Angel Dust: “HER WHO WHO HER YOU KNOW THE WHORE OF HAUNTING?”
Vaggie: “Sure. And don’t fucking call her that.”
Husk: “I don’t wanna fucking know I don’t wanna fucking know I don’t wanna I don’t wanna no no no fuck NO-”
Vaggie: (rolls eye)
Vaggie: “Sweetie? Can you stop with the friendship notes and come out now?”
Something: (from shadows) “I’m bi!”
Vaggie: (smiles) “Out in the open where they can see you, babe.”
Charlie: “Aww, Vaggieeee…” (slips out of shadows with notebook and pout) “You’re messing with the sterile observed conditions and data collection. They were bonding!”
Angel Dust: “TOOTS!?”
Husk: “Oh.. fuck… you.”
Vaggie: “They sure were clinging to each other at least.”
Husk: “Fuck you MORE I fucking wasn’t.”
Angel Dust: “TOOTS I THOUGHT I WAS GONNA DIE!”
Vaggie: “Weren’t stopping him from climbing you like a tree though, were you?”
Charlie: “Sorry about that, Angel Dust. I just got so excited-”
Husk: “Get. Fucked.”
Vaggie: “My girlfriend takes care of that already thanks.”
Angel Dust: “EXCITED? To be stalkin’ a guy like he’s a freaking gazelle on a shitty nature doc that skips all the fucking an’ only shows the non-sexy rippin’ an tearin’ an eatin’ alive bits!?”
Charlie: “Well-”
Niffty: “Hi Charlie! Were you watching us like bugs in a bug trap? Right before they get SQUISHED?”
Charlie: “-um no. No I wasn’t-”
Niffty: “Awww why nooooooooot?”
Charlie: “I wasn’t... trying to?”
Husk: “Oh that’s not fucking terrifying to fucking hear.”
Angel Dust: “TRY HARDER NOT TO NEXT TIME! Ugh! I’m too shaky to even make a hardness pun- AND I think this gave me STRESS WRINKLES. I WORK WITH THIS FACE! Among other body parts- I cannot fucking AFFORD wrinkles, Charmeleon!”
Charlie: “Aw guys I’m sorry! I just saw you three chatting together and.” (waves notebook) “Y’know?”
Vaggie: “I know, babe.”
Angel Dust: “NO!?”
Husk: “Fuck. No.”
Niffty: “Nope! I would’ve gone STRAIGHT into hunt and kill mode!”
Husk: “Which is what it fucking FELT like you fucking did.”
Charlie: “Ooookay then, my bad. But! You all feel better now you know it was just me, right?”
Them: “….”
Charlie: “B- because you know I’d never actually hunt any of your through the halls of my hotel. Right?”
Them: “……”
Charlie: “…you, you guys know you’re safe here and I didn’t bring you here for some fucked up creepy personal murder torture reason… right…?”
Them: “……….”
Niffty: (raises hand) “I-”
Charlie: “NIFFTY THANK YOU!! See? She believes-”
Niffty: “I felt really GREAT thinking you were hunting me for sport! Can I go back to thinking that?”
Charlie: “-that, you, oh. No that’s-” (droops) “…sure … whatever makes you happy, Niffty.”
Niffty: “YAY FEAR!” (hugs Charlie’s knees) (skitters away)
Angel Dust: “Oh yippie. Getting’ high off my ass and blackin’ all this out from my memory will make ME happy.” (flounces off) “Sweet dreams, toots! I sure as hell won’t be havin’ ‘em!”
Charlie: “I’m sor-”
Husk: “Anyone fucking needs me, don’t.”
Charlie: “Husk, I really-”
Husk: (already gone)
Charlie: “….”
Charlie: “….. fuck.”
Vaggie: “It’ll be fine.” (pats Charlie gently) “Don’t freak out about it. They’re just, shook up.”
Charlie: (tired) “Except Niffty.”
Vaggie: “Niffty’s uhhh, she seems like the exception to most things yeah.”
Charlie: “She likes being scared of me.”
Vaggie: “Well. Thrilled? By you? I mean she gets her kicks out of it, so…”
Charlie: “I don’t like being scary.”
Vaggie: “You’re not.”
Charlie: “I scared them.”
Vaggie: “Startled and creeped out a little. It’s not the same thing.”
Charlie: “Isn’t it? I’m- I hate that I'm-”
Vaggie: “No.”
Charlie: “Vaggie.”
Vaggie: “You. Are. Not.”
Charlie: “But-”
Vaggie: (takes hand) “You’re a lot of things, Charlie Morningstar. Sometimes you’re a lot of those lot of things- which I love-”
Charlie: “Heh.”
Vaggie: “But being scary just by existing? Isn’t one of them. You can be you, all the way, the whole demon princess Charlie package- and not scare anyone. I promise."
Charlie: "Tell that to my ex..."
Vaggie: "I'll carve it into his stupid fucking skull- kidding! I'm kidding."
Charlie: "I'd believe that more if you hadn't already tried."
Vaggie: "Well believe me NOW when I'm trying to say- You can get scary when someone you love is hurt or threatened, sure. That's, not a bad thing. There's nothing about you that you need to hide to have people in your life. Living with you, every part of you, is great."
Charlie: "....."
Vaggie: "Charlie c'mon- I should know. If we’re talking observed data and stuff, I’ve already got three years of it. Right?”
Charlie: “…right.” (weak smile) “I did it again though, didn’t I?”
Vaggie: “What, the intensely following around someone you’ve invited into your home trying to figure out how to make them feel more comfortable without bothering them or spooking them, working hard not to let them see how you spend hours just staring at them, taking in every little detail you can, but staring so hard they can feel it on the back of their neck anyway?”
Charlie: “And you’re sure that’s not scary. Like at all.”
Vaggie: “I always thought is was cute. Intense and a kinda worrying sign of how alone you’d been, sure, but cute.”
Charlie: “Hmph.”
Vaggie: (leans up to smooch her) “And our hazbins will too. Just give ‘em time.”
Charlie: “Our hazbins?” (grins) “Our? Oh now THAT’S cute.” (opens book and scribbles note) “Today… Vaggie.. bonded with…”
Vaggie: “I did not.”
Charlie: “…OUR- underline underline add some hearts- hazbins!”
Vaggie: “Charlie I didn’t. I barely even spoke with them.”
Charlie: “You’re comparing them to your past self and making connections between you when we first met and them now, aren’t you. You’re empathizing with them! That’s bonding! That’s ADORABLE!!”
Vaggie: (sigh) “That’s my cue to drag you off to bed.”
Charlie: “You’re adorable~”
Vaggie: “Says the cute demon lady lovingly stalking her new friends.”
Charlie: “Do you think they’ll be friends with me? I mean I’m friends with them, but-”
Vaggie: “Charlie, they’ve met you. It’s inevitable.”
Charlie: “Heheh. Juuuust like this kiss~”
(smooch)
(smooch some more)
Vaggie: “Whoa there!” (chuckling) “Save it for the bed sweetie, or we’ll never get there.”
Charlie: (giggling) “Sorry. I’m not used to not having everything all to ourselves. And I suppose making out in the public areas wouldn’t be very polite, even in the middle of the night with no one around.”
Vaggie: “Probably. We’ve freaked them out enough for one day I think.”
Charlie: “There are definite downsides to having a hotel with actual other people living in it, huh….”
Vaggie: “Worth it?”
Charlie: “Mm. I hope so. I hope they’ll think so too.”
Vaggie: “They will, babe. They will.”
-Next Night-
Alastor: (humming and happily prepping the next track for broadcast)
SOMETHING: (slowly rises up beyond the window behind him)
Alastor: (ears twitch) (adjust audio balance knob)
SOMETHING: (presses against window)
Window: (Distinctive flesh-dragging-across-glass sound)
Alastor: (stops)
SOMETHING: (fades into shadows)
Alastor: (turns)
Window: (has smudge mark on it)
Alastor: “….hmm…” (walks over) (wipes window) (smudge stays bc it’s on the outside) “Interesting...”
Alastor: (goes back to disc jockeying)
SOMETHING: (reaches up and drags finger through smudge mark)
Alastor: (stops and turns)
Alastor: “Ohoho? My my my, now isn’t THIS just droll! Who COULD have left a message here for me. On my own radio tower! Smudging my glass! (smirks and walks over) “Hmm? Something dire and THREATENING no doubt? Not something they will REGRET I am SURE ha ha ha!”
Alastor: (bends down to read) “It appears to say…”
Window: (smudge has the word ‘FRIENDS’ written through it)
Alastor: (snaps back upright) (stares) (steps back) (stares harder)
Alastor: “…how… amusing.”
Alastor: (goes back to control panel)
Alastor: “….”
Alastor: (relaxes) (picks up microphone and holds it casually at the ready)
Alastor: (reaches for a record-)
SOMETHING: (slips past window behind him)
Alastor: (turning) (Shrieking) “KKKKSSSSSSSSFKKKSST” (yeets record out through window)
Window: (shatters)
Vaggie: “….”
Vaggie: “….hope that one wasn’t important, pendejo. It’s on the first floor now. In about a hundred pieces.”
Alastor: (lowering microphone) “Oh my dear I DO apologize!” (simpering) (Glowering) “Poor thing. Not hurt, are you? Not frightened at all I hope? Really I don’t know WHAT would have happened if I had happened to HIT you!”
Vaggie: “Me frightened? No.” (tosses cleaning rag over shoulder) “The scary little smudge is gone anyway, so I’m off. Bye.”
Alastor: “Oh delightful! You KNOW ABOUT-”
Vaggie: (gone)
Alastor: “……hmmmmmm….”
Charlie: “….”
Charlie: “She’s so hot when she’s all ‘doesn’t even blink when something almost would've decapitated her if she hadn’t casually leaned back’ isn’t she?”
Alastor: (shriek is broadcast all over Pentagram city, shattering the remaining windows in his radio tower)
Me anytime I see homoerotic subtext between two characters, whether is canon or not, and it becomes my current hyperfixation
Love this
I literally cannot rest and it’s all because of this tiktok
People are like “these animals have exoskeletons and these ones have endoskeletons” but no. It’s all exoskeletons, your exoskeleton is protecting your bone marrow which is where your soul (which is you) is. The rest of the stuff is extraneous decoration that Big Pharma wants you to think is important/
i don’t know who needs to hear this today but if you want a neutral character then make a legitimately neutral character.
no more chaotic neutral characters being like “yeah i know i’m chaotic neutral but i’m going to willing join an organization that doesn’t benefit me as much as i benefit them” they aren’t neutral. they’re good.
also no more “i’m a chaotic neutral so i’m going to cause death and destruction and ruin the lives of everyone” that’s evil, babes.
i mean truly neutral. truly “i’m doing this to serve me and the few people who have proven to stand by me. if you don’t do your part to help me and my cause, you aren’t someone i want in my life” neutral. truly “i don’t care what the higher ups said, killing this guy is what i set out to do and i’m going to so it” neutral. or even “my business hinges on this guy not talking shit so, despite what you or the law says, he’s not gonna be left in a state to talk shit” neutral.
this rant wasn’t prompted by anything but me seeing neutral characters not written or portrayed as truly neutral.
You are Death. The last living thing has died. You've put the chairs on the tables, turned out the lights, and locked the universe behind you. Something whispers from behind the door.