i plan on setting up shop here and i've already made 50+ posts so i guess it's intro post time (cutting this because it keeps taking up my entire screen any time i click on my own profile lol)
hi, my name's vivian, am girl, i initially made this tumblr account just to look at stuff without being cut off but now i wanna see if i can get some kind of following just by screwing around and also scream into the void knowing there's a good chance nobody will hear me
i don't really know how to describe my personality but one of my friends once described the type of shit i write as "comically cynical of reality itself" and "I like how at this point 'She's going to start hurting people' is super foreboding but I know that's exactly what to expect so I'm just like yup she sure is" so i guess that works, i also accidentally made somebody think i was colorblind by misremembering what color something was so have that too
i'm mainly here for video games so i guess here's these you could potentially see me post about (in no particular order, probably forgetting some, may never actually bring some up lol): pikmin, mario (mainly the RPG spinoffs), OFF, metroid, iconoclasts, ULTRAKILL, terraria, shantae, pokemon, DUSK, kirby, deltarune, a hat in time, yo-kai watch, crosscode, shovel knight, and homestuck isn't a game but that too
i also try and write and want to make video games in the future so i've occasionally posted ideas for that and just generally long ramblings of me making shit up here, here's a library of all of my fucking Original Content I guess (Minus outdated versions and, like, single sentence ideas) if you're interested, send me an Ask if you want more from any of this or just more stuff I haven't talked about yet, you can definitely trace my hyperfixations with this:
Vivlore: My magnum opus despite not even being a properly written narrative yet, 70+ pages of total pandemonium across a bunch of different interconnected stories and so much bizarre shit that it's really hard to summarize, all as a culmination of ideas from almost every unironic original project I've ever undertaken, as many inside jokes I could turn into unironic things as possible, and years worth of effort into specifically this as well, general theme is a world destroyed by monsters made of negative emotion and what people end up doing with that weird physical negative emotion stuff but also one of the main recurring elements is talking raccoon dogs including one who ends up destroying 90% of the multiverse and another who becomes a demigod by drinking extradimensional leviathan blood and fights aliens so you're in for a treat with this one if you love ADHD
Pikmin: Global Survey - Alph(a) Wraith: Tried to come up with a Pikmin 5 premise for a joke project with a friend, accidentally went too serious with it, this is the most interesting part about how I jokingly wrote down Alph is dead. in the list of characters and then made an elaborate story for why and the ramifications, i meant to follow up on this but honestly this is the only idea I could really rant about that was actually like story not just Weird Shit
Omnipresence of Green & Orange Pikmin Throughout the Franchise: A Google Doc I made covering exactly this lol, they seem to almost happen in all 4 main games despite never being official (Glow Pikmin DON'T COUNT.), weird factoids like this get under my skin super easily and this was my worst nightmare to gradually uncover
Pikmin Theory - The Sparkly Wraith: Any of my posts labeled "Theories" are really just convoluted headcanons/fanfics I've extrapolated form totally unrelated canon factoids I've stitched together lol, this is the closest I got to solving Pikmin lore which I still consider a failed attempt, TLDR Sparklium is actually the fragments of an evil demon thing that tried to kill humanity before Sparklium infiltrated like every object ever and can also form into the Plasm Wraith... I SWEAR that's a vaguely sound conclusion, "CONTENT WARNING: HEY! PIKMIN" is still a great joke... a friend gave me the idea to use it
Alien Exorcist: Unfinished story idea that stemmed from an unfinished Pikmin lore theory (Not the "second theory" I mention in Sparkly Wraith, that was gonna be like the Forest Navel being nuked or something and the planet being irradiated is why humans went extinct, or something?), pretty barebones ideas I never really fleshed out, alien guy who's race actually evolved from humans is sent to a destroyed earth and there's a bunch of ghosts from Earth's extinction that are essentially fanon Pikmin Wraiths lol (because they, like, fused with a concept tied to their life, i.e. a gardener would be plant-themed), alien man exorcises them woohoo
Metroid Menace 1: Horrible, overcomplicated idea for a Metroid fangame set after Dread that tries to justify recycling old ideas instead of making new ones because I was at a complete loss when I tried to consider how to continue the series, and the other 2 Menace game ideas continue that trend. Never wrote those out, may some day, though. Follow Doppler, a Galactic Federation robot built to be a doppelganger of Samus, as they go through a space station dedicated to testing their efficacy by simulating what Samus' missions are like to someone who isn't really paying attention to the details, that just so happens to get genuinely raided by Space Pirates at the same time. Shit gets weird.
Baseless Speculation & Things That'd Be Cool If They Happened In Metroid Prime 4: Exactly what it says on the tin. Predates the Prime 4 trailers that came out in those Switch 2 videos, so some of these ideas are kinda dated, but I don't think the rotting Leviathan is still necessarily out of the picture, and also it'd be cool, dammit.
Respite: Another random story idea I didn't finish with the point originally being to just force myself to write an entire book with no planning ahead of time for what the fuck I'm doing besides the title only to finish the prologue, take a break and come back knowing exactly how everything'd unfold thus having failed lol, prophecized hero has to go stop essentially the Big Crunch by talking to a god only to fail because that god was fake and everyone dies
Kirby Theory - Painter Partizanne: I've been trying to solve Kirby lore with a friend and it's been nightmarish, but it's resulted in this bizarre headcanon I ended up forming with WAY too much evidence to support it, like I've seen people make overarching claims for genuinely important lore facets with less evidence, TLDR Zan Partizanne made the Paint Sisters (Drawcia, Paintra, Vividria) before being attacked by Kracko and that's when Hyness saved her and the Paint Sisters were "abandoned" and this ties together much more than you think
Deltarune AU Idea - New Set of Strings: What if Spamton successfully stole the soul, but got taken over by the player instead? Weird shit apparently, idea predates Chapters 3+4 but I got motivated to write out my ideas for this by the new chapters releasing
I Attempted To Rewrite Metroid Prime 4 (Or Well I Made An Outline Of A Rewrite Lol): Exactly what it says on the tin. The game's ending made me so mad I made my own.
i figured i'd at least make a post that i'm still alive since it's been a while i'm currently trying to get every achievement in hollow knight (specifically on xbox idk if it's the same on steam or whatever, i assume so). it's rough but as of writing i'm 58/63, just got 100% in steel soul and... now have to either speedrun the game or go back to godhome... dear fuck.
long pointless rant posts coming back eventually? i dunno
if only someone was around to photograph the absolutely befuddled face i made when i tried to send the original post to some friends and it was completely different because the OP edited the post to be something entirely unrelated thus making the original post only visible in reblogs
I’m sure that by now pretty much everyone who’s played Chapter 4 has noticed that the Titan we battle in the Dark Sanctuary, compared to the prophecy’s depiction is… oddly angelic?
Feathered wings and countless eyes, a battle amidst the church heights, a general fear-inducing presence… I could go on, but you get the picture. If titans are primordial embodiments of darknesss and fear of the unknown, then it’s very likely that this particular titan was shaped by fear of The Angel itself.
Though it’s not as easy to identify which traits are titanic and which are purely angelic considering we don’t even know what The Angel looks like. Even Susie’s and Ralsei’s responses to an obscured depiction are rather vague, though it may be more than a little disturbing.
Nevertheless, all depictions of The Angel thus far have been deliberately vague: the featureless doll in the hospital room, the aforementioned hidden prophecy visual, and the delta rune we’ve seen since Undertale is little more than a round blob with wings.
The identity of The Angel is similarly unknown, though possible candidates include Gaster, The Discarded Vessel and possibly even The Gamer Playing It All, given our otherworldly presence and control over the narrative as we watch over its characters combined with our actual Angel disguise in the Holiday’s house. The imagery couldn’t get more literal if it tried.
But this isn’t the only way the Angel makes its presence known throughout both Undertale and Deltarune - The NEO designs also seem to share a strangely angelic design. Why is this, I wonder?
The NEO vessel, which Spamton uses as part of his desperate attempt to reach Heaven, was built by Swatch following a certain Somebody’s abandoned dream. Thankfully, this dream seems to be awakened in a different way, thanks to Mr Tenna and what we know about the underground’s glamorous TV star.
The NEO design, having been shaped by a Lightner’s dream, may have somewhat been inspired by the imagery of angels. After all, Mettaton’s name is a reference to the angel Metatron. And this may also be the case in Undertale - the NEO and EX bodies were built by Alphys according to Mettaton’s design much like Swatch’s attempt, yet the Delta Rune has remained consistent. It’s possible the imagery of angels played a part of Undertale’s NEO design as well. And both NEO designs, much like Asriel’s ms paint art, bears the Giant Boss With Rainbow Wings visuals of Undertale’s God Of Hyperdeath. And until we came along, neither of them would see the light of day.
Speaking of which, let’s talk about Asriel for a bit. He possibly fulfills the role of The Angel in Undertale’s happiest outcome, and his name is both an allusion to Azrael the Angel of Death, and an anagram of Sariel, another angelic figure and also a Touhou boss.
What I find interesting about Asriel’s boss battle in Undertale is his self-proclaimed title God of Hyperdeath. It’s very much a consequence of this battle being one big self-insert between him and his best friend, complete with grandiose attack names and impractical weapon designs. It’s pure wish fulfillment: Asriel gets to play with them again, the monsters get the freedom they’ve always wanted, and the player gets one heck of a final battle. In more ways than one, the Angel has been met with its desire.
But there’s something about this fight that still bugs me: considering all the aforementioned angelic aspects, why is this form titled the God of Hyperdeath, when Angel of Death fits just fine? The easy solution is Asriel’s just power tripping, but that discrepancy makes me wonder if this really is the full picture regarding Undertale’s Angel.
Gerson notes that the Angel of Death seems to be another way of looking at the Delta Rune Angel. With the clear parallels between the Dark Sanctuaries and the Waterfall region, along with the snippets of the prophecy we learn in both, I think it bears mentioning how River Person plays into this idea of The Angel of Death. Considering the idea of Charon the Styx ferryman, along with the reappearance of the underground in Ralsei’s explanation of Dark Worlds as an Other Side of reality and the yet to be seen elemental pairing Death/Scythe, I think we should lookout out for any further connections between The Angel and the idea of The Grim Reaper. Speaking of which…
I need to talk about Reaper Bird.
Out of all the true lab amalgamates, Reaper Bird still eludes me, because where the heck did it go? It’s nowhere to be seen in the epilogue even though it has obvious component monsters, but the CORE is simply populated with shadowy silhouettes lacking distinct features. And in Deltarune’s graveyard, there’s no tombstone to be seen, even though all the other amalgamates with known counterparts are there. Friggin’ Everyman has a greater presence in Deltarune than this poor bird. While the memoryheads are nigh unrecognizable and missing from the epilogue due to lacking definite families, they still at least reappear in the elevator cutscene. We know where Reaper Bird came from - but it’s out of the picture entirely, as if the game forgot the bird even existed.
But the mystery of Reaper Bird doesn’t end there. Along with Everyman’s ubiquitous presence in Deltarune, the overworld sprite is oddly similar to Asriel’s chaos buster attack, and that butterfly swarm strangely resembles the Lost Souls. And both butterflies and birds are common depictions of departed souls in various myth, along with the word Psyche (meaning breath, life, or soul) being the name for the Butterfly winged goddess and partner of Eros, the feathery winged god of love and desire from classical mythology. Knowing Undertale, this may be a little intentional.
There’s also the place we find Reaper Bird - in a hallway of glass mirrors, surrounded by Golden Flowers. Right after we see Alphys’s plans to use a Vessel that is neither human nor monster, and right before we discover the location of the blue key: a chilly place initially filled with a variety of indistinct figures with rather interesting descriptiors. These things play a rather important role of the story, but Reaper Bird just chills between them, hidden in the glass until it emerges from your speech bubble itself.
And the hardmode monsters that make up Reaper Bird all have rather interesting connections to Deltarune:
Whimsalot, the mothlike knight who attacks you with butterflies, and who has a rather grim beta design.
Final Froggit, who strangely resembles the dust froggy you use to escape to ManCountry.
And Astigmatism, whose eye/smile design oddly mirrors that of the Roaring Knight, and whose design and flavour text allude to eyes and glasses.
Unlike Madjik and Knight Knight (who also have a strange connection to Deltarune but that’s another story), these monsters are never described as mercenaries in the flavour text, and when you face them all at once, a very interesting description is used:
Returning back to Deltarune’s Titan after this diatribe, I want to bring up another intriguing aspect of this beast that takes on a rather new meaning given Undertale’s Angel-related imagery.
How Ralsei described it as hatching, along with the way the fountain cracks as clawed arms and wings emerge...
The banded talons as it hatches and the feathers shed as it heals...
The initial silhouette resembling something curved and pale like an eggshell, before feathered wings unfold...
The spawn with an elongated head resembling the early stages of chick development...
…and the winged star design much like the not-so-original starwalker, found right before the first egg room.
The Dark Sanctuary Titan isn’t just angelic.
It’s avian.
And have you noticed how quite a bit of this angelic imagery goes hand in wing with birdlike imagery?
Spamton and the pipis are a sillier example, but Swatch’s involvement with NEO, Reaper Bird being called Reaper Bird, the Angel’s ubiquitous feathered wings, even the idea Kris is supposed to be The Cage with a Human Soul?
Even the seemingly one-off birdlike darkners have their relevance.
the dolphin/bird Poppups show you some of the Lightners’ interests and turn pink upon recruit like the church mizzles, the swatchling flavour text shows glimpses of Kris's past, Guei forms from hope candles and has flavour text for each of the buried amalgamates, Winglades correspond to light world quill pens - the white pen of hope perhaps? Especially considering a white feather falling from Guei is what teaches you about the money fountain in Gerson's study (which may also explain why Winglade earns you more money after battle - the only other items to do so are the silver card and dealmaker so idk???)
And don't even get me started on the holy halberd's bizarre resemblance to the Knight's weapon and nearly making a darker fountain. Or the fact that the Knight can turn into a bird and fly, while Berdly is the only Lightner thus far who can fly and appear out of Gaster-knows-where like he’s in creative mode. Or the sky mantle sharing properties with Berdly's glowy armour. Or the NEO battle combining Berdly’s rollercoaster and wired battles. Or Berdly being completely removed from the prophecy despite being vital to Giga Queen’s Battle. Or that Berdly being comatose messes with your Normal Bird librarby interactions in ch4. Or that Berdly’s desk is where the Eggroom Eggs are counted. Or the 3% chance of encountering the Rotten Fruit flavour text in the Snowgrave Jackenstein Fight. Or the heartbeat descriptions in both the titanspawn battle and Berdly’s weird route ost. Or one particular titan attack resembling an unused Reaper Bird attack. Or the scrapped Undertale encounter Larpy that was supposed to have retro-RPG mechanics much like the Jackenstein fight. Or the bird ambience surrounding the throne room where Alphys chose a vessel, as well as the shelter.
Or the room from the 10th anniversary livestream that indirectly references So Many Thinges, and the teacher is A Bird Lady Dressed Like Lisa Simpson.
I Am Actively Losing My Mind Here.
In my attempts to keep on topic I’ve cut out so much of the Weird Bird Events that are yet to be explained, but I hope I’ve made my point somewhat clear.
Just as The Prophecy, Heaven and Freedom can be tied back to the mysterious Angel… so do The Birds.
I Attempted To Rewrite Metroid Prime 4 (Or Well I Made An Outline Of A Rewrite Lol)
so i was initially going to make a post that was just like an overall review of mp4 and all of my thoughts on it and i was going to cap it off with a segment about how they could've executed the plot better but then i just kept having ideas and screw it i'm writing just about them instead, i didn't really have much interesting to say about from a review perspective that nobody else had said already, and i'll end up addressing a lot of my qualms in this anyways
obviously i'm going to be spoiling literally everything the game has to offer so if you want to feel the crushing despair of how bad the ending is yourself firsthand don't read the rest of the post lol
Big Picture TLDR: Metroid Prime 4 could've been a story about loss, and persevering forward with hope in your heart in the face of that loss. Samus' coping mechanisms, specifically viewed through the lens of the death of Adam, would be explored, and contrasted with Sylux, whose defeat and loss of his team catalyzed him towards despair, in a way that makes him a direct foil of Samus. This is then mirrored in an exaggerated way by the Lamorn losing their entire race, specifically Voloon representing hope and Tahrgun representing despair. Just as Voloon holds hope that their people's rescue will arrive and the Grievers will be put to rest, Samus holds hope that escaping Viewros with her friends will be achievable, in a way that leads her further on the path to closure, while Sylux & Tahrgun wallow in their perceived defeat and fail to move forward.
...I also just had several ideas that I just generally thought would be cooler than what actually happened.
My Vision For The Direction
okay, so, first of all, the plotlines of the lamorn, federation & sylux barely fit together so an immediate goal is making them work together, first step is centering them on common ideas, i for once managed to grasp major themes to work with which is incredibly rare for me when coming up with story ideas lol, but i think the game bashed things over the top of my head pretty easily
Lamorn is probably lament+mourn, the Grievers, the Great Tragedy, all those names lead to a theme of loss, something samus has faced a lot in her life i doubt i need to list the amount of allies that have died
Chatoyant Vooloon's undying certainty that the chosen one will arrive and Tokabi's talk of Sollan lead to a theme of hope in the face of despair
Samus having all of the GF allies while Sylux's allies are being controlled by him could makes the two not just rivals, but antitheses, opposite ideals
now let's elaborate on these themes
obviously the lamorn are not saved so despite hope you cannot save everybody, but that can serve as a motivator to samus to work even harder to save those she still has left with her, meanwhile when sylux lost his team he succumbed to that despair, pushed samus away when she offered him a hand and became a loner villain (while the one thing i enjoy about sylux's backstory besides how comedically generic it is is that sylux was always a selfish asshole, for this direction i think him disregarding his orders would have to be written out) ((edit: nevermind on rewriting that it can still work, it could be that samus blames herself for adam's death when it wasn't her fault while sylux blames everyone else for his squad's death when it was his fault))
apparently the old theory that this game takes place in-between super and fusion was confirmed in an interview? so... i hate to do this but i'm about to invoke other M, prime 4 would be samus just coming off of losing adam and would explore in more depth how she copes with loss given how often people around her die, obviously this would require her talking or at least having an internal monologue, and could potentially involve the return of someone from the other M cast, likely anthony, though giving her prior history with the prime 4 roster would work too, also adam would add another level to the mirroring of samus & sylux as adam was samus' commanding officer who died while sylux was the commanding officer that survived when the rest of his squad died
(edit: random idea, what if sylux got away with his constant raids on federation bases with the help of the Old Federation Army mentioned in Fusion but only in Japan lol and/or whatever the evil faction in Other M was called? were they the same thing, i don't remember... whatever, they had interest in cloning metroids too, and both suck, so, like, i dunno, there could be something there)
just as samus would be hope & sylux would be defeat and despair, voloon and their hope has their own foil in tahrgun, the writer of the ice belt logs, who signed off with "I am utterly defeated.", while not nearly as prominent a character that, further explored, would likely give more depth to the ideas
now for specifics on how i'd rewrite things
The Federation Troopers
I don't have too many individual ideas for salvaging them as characters besides generally making them better and having more to do in the plot and having samus actually talk with them, a great way to expand on them would've been if samus achieved mind reading powers
no ideas for myles i think he's fine i like him lol
tokabi should've had the storyteller thing explored way more than just those optional campfire cutscenes, in fact fuck it if samus doesn't narrate the game via internal monologue like i mentioned earlier an alternative could be making tokabi the game's narrator i think having tokabi as the narrator would be really interesting, also i think it was said his father's dead so that's another instance of loss to elaborate on and do things with
for duke & armstrong, kill armstrong. i'm not even joking about not liking her (even if i like actually really don't like her), like i mentioned earlier with sylux, samus lost her commander so here have duke lose one of his subordinates, play with the dynamics that result with the same loss inversion sylux has but when it's another ally instead, also given armstrong's respect for samus and how samus actually shakes her head when armstrong sacrifices herself which is one of the few times she reacts in cutscenes it'd probably hit her personally too beyond that (so maybe duke would also have known adam?)
is it just me or is VUE's log about them gaining emotions a chekhov's gun that didn't fire? like, yeah, their attempted sacrifice in the great mines and actual sacrifice in the ending, but they already had dialogue at base camp about how they're specifically programmed to put human safety over their own so not really, do what kirby planet robobot did and make them shed tears of oil at the very least
remove everybody's fakeout deaths in the great mines. that's where armstrong actually dies, all else would subtract the weight
i don't believe that every other soldier from Tanamaar wasn't warped here. give us corpses in the gf debris. don't be cowards, remember the logs for the dying/dead space pirates from prime 1.
The Lamorn & The Grievers
First problem, was I the only one who noticed that Samus failed at being the Chosen One? Voloon requested that she help put the Grievers to rest. She didn't, she only did the Memory Fruit half of her assignment. So, between that, it never being explained why Green Energy does that (I think it was supposed to be some kind of reversion to a primal state? But that doesn't really make sense to me), and the weird mention that it was only the Lamorn with psychic powers that became Grievers, let's completely rewrite the Great Tragedy: Make the Grievers zombies.
The Lamorn don't do much mourning, so the Grievers were Lamorn that died, and then, when exposed to the Green Energy (either intentionally, potentially by Tahrgun in specific as they mourned someone specific to give them more prominence, or unintentionally as a result of the Green Energy showers, or both and Tahrgun could've warned that the showers would cause Grievers but didn't or something like that), reanimated them as the Grievers, their psychic crystals reconnecting their souls to the physical world as their body was rejuvenated, but causing a sort of spiritual plague. Which then creates the problem of them killing more Lamorn which just means they're also going to become Grievers, especially given how Grievers spit green goo. Also, given how Green Energy is, like, lifeforce power that's supposed to increase growth and whatnot, it should be cancerous in large quantities like this. The Lamorn are tethered to the physical world against their will and it hurts, and if you were to telepathically communicate with them, you would hear them screaming, not just their feral roars in the physical realm but the agonized wails of their minds.
Make it a Metroid 2-style thing where you have to track the Grievers down in specific spots and exterminate them instead of them just being fucking everywhere in infinite amounts (with one exception for that chase scene in the Great Mines where there's too many to fight so you and VUE run down that tunnel, that can stay). Definitely plenty of forced wave encounters like what we got, but we were told to put them to rest, we should be able to do that. Would do wonders for exploration, too, as most of the maps leave a lot to be desired. Maybe I just like Another Metroid 2 Remake too much, though.
Also, Voloon is still alive. It's said that the Lamorn all became psychic to achieve "a world without resources", and while I assume that was referring to, like, building materials given that they ended the Machine Era to leave the planet intact, I'm sure that can easily extend to physical needs. They telepathically communicate with you throughout the game through the same mind reading mechanic I pitched earlier. Make them the hint system instead of Myles (sorry myles), as they know Viewros, they live here.
Tahrgun is alive as well, holed up in Ice Belt like where their logs are, and while not inherently hostile towards Samus deems it impossible that she can succeed, and acts as an opponent in that they could help, but chooses not to. Futility in the face of despair, as opposed to Sylux's hatred in the face of despair. Perhaps they forcibly removed their psychic crystal in case the Grievers get to them, and thus Voloon wouldn't even know that Tahrgun lives, and you'd have to, like, facilitate communication between the two to convince Tahrgun to contribute. While Sylux is too far gone, his mirror Tahrgun could potentially be saved, maybe even brought to base camp. Also, somehow make Tahrgun help Sylux. Not a full endorsement, but, like, in the same way Voloon is Samus' guide from afar, Tahrgun could give aid to Sylux (their removed psychic crystal?) for whatever incentives Sylux could offer. Given Sylux's electricity, maybe the plan is Sylux rejuvenates Ice Belt so that Tahrgun can be frozen in a cryopod? The Grievers break free from their prisons, while the surviving Lamorn flees into one. More mirror dynamics.
Sol Valley & Green Energy
Here's a solution to the Sol Valley being empty problem: It actually begin to grow into a forest or grassy field with the Green Energy showers as they continue, given that empowering the wildlife was the intent of the Green Energy showers. Plants & trees & lakes could form that liven the place up, giving you more to do as more landmarks & collectibles become available, more enemies appearing besides just the existing ones becoming angrier for some more enemy variety, and more to explore and more to see as the map evolves around you.
Also, the Varmis fight sucked and Behemoth just wasn't all that interesting, but them and the Swim Snatcher made me realize that minibosses appearing in Sol Valley is the logical conclusion of the Green Energy showers making the enemies become more powerful as the story continues. Give each piece of Betsy a miniboss that's an upgraded version of an enemy. Also please make Varmis fun.
Also, make those shrine trial things way more interesting. How? I dunno, put minibosses there as well to guard the second shot upgrades. Sand Griever Brutes, I don't know. Or 3 different kinds that are weak to the shot the shrine is dedicated to, so a Frostburn Griever Brute for fire, a new Flare Pool Griever to have it's Brute be weak to ice, and then... I don't know what kind I could come up with to be weak to electricity, the Maul Griever Brute since it's used to darkness and electricity is bright??? And then the Brutes were once the specific Lamorn the shrines are dedicated to, I love tiny touches like that.
Sylux
I was never particularly interested in Sylux before this game, I preferred Weavel & Trace and dear sollan was I vindicated in a major way, but even I can see how dirty they did him. So little screentime, too cowardly to fight Samus in person and sending fakes instead when he was there himself in Prime Hunters, looks like an idiot when he frantically jumps out of the Cruiser in Flare Pool, then his final fight being super unfun and backstory being immediately guessable. The only reason I didn't rewrite his backstory is because of how good it works at forming him into a foil to Samus even if it's not properly acted on.
Also, those are not Metroids that he has. Those aren't even Mochtroids. They only made them Metroids because they had to follow up on the Federation Force cliffhanger, and had to shove them in somewhere and fusing with creatures is close enough to their usual functionality of being leeches and occasionally stealing powers. Make those some different new force (Green Energy-related? Would require the Space Pirates not be controlled though... Unless Sylux had met one of the Lamorn sent out to look for the Chosen One and learned of Green Energy from them, got some kind of sample for his Space Pirates and specifically tracked down the Viewros artifact on Tanamaar to get more), and then make the actual Metroids/Mochtroids appear as part of his fights or immediately foreshadowing encounters with him by appearing a room or two before him.
Make Sylux intervene as the diabolus ex machina more often (maybe specifically call him out as causing the Chrono Tower forcefield & Psy-Bot attacks instead of leaving it to be assumed), the first two Sylux fights should be actually him and put the second fight in a different area instead of Volt Forge again (Great Mines to kill Armstrong?), maybe actually fight him in the intro instead of Aberax, and give him a modified Vi-O-La he mounted a machine gun to or something because we need more Vi-O-La fights, it would further him as Samus' antithesis and would also immediately make him cool as hell. Also remove the flashes of his past in-game, and make the full scene a post credits thing for 100% instead of just being in the gallery and the 100% scene being Samus with her helmet off.
Also the Space Pirates come with him, at least for a single encounter. Since they were all in spaceships and dropping down onto Tanamaar, I don't know how many would've been in the range to have been warped to Viewros, but we should definitely have gotten at least a few. Not just because I love the Space Pirates, but also since they were part of Sylux's backstory, give them just enough screentime to establish that Sylux seized control of them at least in part as revenge for them killing his squad. Given how the Space Pirates functionally ceased to be after Super, and had already been taken over before in Prime 3 (which Sylux would at least kinda know about since that was his ship at the ending cliffhanger), it'd make sense for Sylux to seize that opportunity for some payback by using them as cannon fodder. (edit: if sylux is fought in the intro, aberax could be moved to... somewhere in viewros, idfk)
With the Space Pirates comes the Space Pirate Logs, which to inject some more dark tones into the game reference experiments with the not-Metroids resulting in body horror nonsense, and maybe even begin experimenting with Green Energy (see below) and get Phazon-like results since... It is basically just Phazon. And also, Sylux himself has either been doing some morbid self-experimentation or has been completely biologically screwed in some other way due to his entire M.O. being "break into federation base and steal anything that looks useful". The Shock Coil is said to be an 'unauthorized prototype' (Old Federation Army moment?) in Hunters, so he knows his way around some illegal tech, and would probably look hideous under that armor as a result of playing such a dangerous game for however long he's been at large.
It'd be cool if Sylux deliberately used Flare Pool to harvest Green Energy or cause showers more often or something, to create more fearsome opponents for Samus and whatnot (the brutes & omega could be specifically caused by this?), thus making destroying the facility an actual plot point instead of just a consequence of Sylux crashing the Cruiser.
(edit: just learned sylux was unconscious in that healing pod the whole game besides for brief moments of consciousness which he used to control the psy-bots... that sucks so much, my ideas here would already necessarily retcon that but, like, i still need to call that out, dear god.)
A Whole New Finale
If you've noticed I haven't brought up something, I probably cover it here where I go full fanfic mode. Fuck the game's real ending, I'm tearing all of that up and we're doing something else. I... Also didn't really tie much of this into the themes I've been trying to hit, but I don't care, I physically can't do worse than what the real ending to the game is.
Chrono Tower is converted into an actual final dungeon given that Sylux seized control of it and the Psy-Bots. Space pirates & Metroids block your way, there's an Aberax rematch perhaps (or first fight if sylux replaces them in the intro), and Voloon's communications cease. The whole team actually work together to help you progress, instead of just walking alongside you, and probably wrap up whatever personal arcs they have going on in dialogue along the way.
The Omega Griever is moved to Chrono Tower. It's my favorite boss in the whole game, and I think it's already more or less perfect as is, but I think it could be given plot relevance: Either Tahrgun or Voloon become the Omega Griever. The thing I said earlier about hearing the Grievers' pain telepathically? Yeah. That was for this. (No idea what goes in the Great Mines, the obvious answer is Gravinax, the creature implied to be the original guardian the Omega Griever killed, but that's lazy. But it'd also feel less impactful to say both Omega Grievers happen, even if the actual game seemingly implies there could be more Omegas given how there's more of those cocoons. I dunno.)
Tahrgun's either been backstabbed by Sylux, or willingly offered themselves to the Grievers to join the kin they wanted so badly to see that they caused the Great Tragedy, and given their experimentations on Griever reversion, it's possible that they could've performed self-experimentation to prevent becoming a Griever that would then have the opposite effect and turn them into the Omega Griever upon death due to some kind of reaction, probably involving them having once been psychic but now disconnected if they removed their crystal, or maybe injecting themself with Green Energy to stay alive (depending on how long ago they'd have removed the crystal, that could be the only way they lived this long). Or it's just the not-Metroids powering them up, I dunno, but I kinda appreciate that the Omega Griever is that powerful without any external boost like that. Either way, you do away with them, and using telepathy you can hear their final thoughts as they finally come to terms with what's happened and eagerly await passing on to the great beyond to be reunited with their kind. Voloon is probably tied up somewhere but can be rescued to continue guiding you.
Voloon would be Sylux finding them, likely having learned by now of their aid to Samus, and both to get rid of them and spite Samus turned them into his guard dog. Your guiding star and the constant hope they provided, smothered in an instant, and Voloon was probably going to give you important instructions on how to leave that you now do not have. However, just as Voloon persevered knowing their savior would arrive, Samus must persevere too. There's people counting on her, and she's saving as many as she can. ...I guess Tahrgun survives to take over guiding Samus in Voloon's stead.
Edit: Oh, also, the thing about Grievers having been Lamorn with psychic crystals? Give the Omega Griever psychic powers. ...Which would probably limit it to being Voloon if I'm going with the plot point of Tahrgun removing their crystal... Though I guess it makes it more viable to have two Omega Grievers since Tahrgun could be the Great Mines one without psychic attacks, and Voloon is the one with psychic powers in Chrono Tower. This is a mess.
Sylux's fight is only the last phase, on the top of Chrono Tower, with way less gimmicks going on. The Lockjaw can stay, but without stealing energy tanks??? (The other characters probably actually coordinate to help you out even if they're blocked by a forcefield or something, especially Duke since he's actually a good leader so it'd be a fun point that he is the one who thwarts Sylux whose backstory is that he was a bad leader) Once he's defeated, your squad get some personal hits on him that ensure he's going to die. Like, camera from his perspective showing everyone stomping him or hitting him with their guns as they yell that this is for Armstrong, for Voloon, for Tahrgun, for everyone who died at Tanamaar, etc. In desperation he somehow gets himself doused in Green Energy (probably by some pirates) as he takes his last breaths... Remember how instead of that pod thing he has in the game, I said he got a psychic crystal? Sylux either just mutates a whole bunch due to the whole growth cancer thing, or literally revives as a Griever, and smashes the floor, causing the elevator to begin falling, and it hurdles into the very core of Viewros. There's a moment of disorientation as you regroup with the crew, and Sylux is gone. Samus gets the kind of intense visions Sylux gives her in the real game, but from something else: Viewros itself.
You know how stuff like the psychic boost ball track is said to follow irregular curves because it follows pure psychic energy? What the hell is psychic energy just doing floating around in the air like that? Viewros is alive, like Phaaze was (the first game in a new Metroid Prime saga mirroring the end of the saga that came before, or something). They didn't just end the Machine Era to protect the environment, they were physically harming the planet due to it being alive, and it granted them the psychic powers as it has a mind of its own as a thanks. I don't think the game explained where they got the psychic crystals in the actual game, so it was given to them by Viewros' consciousness. ...I at first wanted to make it a heart you fight instead for differentiation, but with the psychic stuff another brain makes way more sense and they've already had two brain mastermind final boss things in Prime games (the Aurora Units and Federation Force's Master Brain) so whatever, The Green Energy is the planet's blood, or something, by the way. ...I also don't know what it'd show Samus, actually. (Edit: Instead of being in the core of the planet, I should've said that the brain is in that spirit world we get glimpses of but never get elaboration on, and then it could just be some kind of spirit creature instead of another brain boss since it'd be the soul of the planet. The Master Teleporter backfires due to being attacked by Sylux, and brings Samus & co. there or something.)
...The brain is then fused with by the not-Metroids. Which now makes it under Sylux's control, who surfaces from the ground in front of Samus (like how the Grievers burrow out) now that he has CONTROL OF THE ENTIRE PLANET. In this final fight, all hell breaks loose as the arena is constantly reassembling itself, and Sylux is practically immortal in this state as they've had enough Green Energy to just heal any injuries, best you can do is temporarily stun him. You have to destroy the brain. It attacks using all of the psychic abilities against you: Really fast moving beams you probably have to parry or something meant to be it's own Control Beams, hurling psychic bombs and if you dodge them they get picked up with a psychic grapple and hurled again like how you can pick the bombs up after placing them, shooting strands of psychic energy that then solidify to impale you like how you solidify the psychic objects... I don't know how the morph ball upgrades would work.
You blow the brain up, and the entire cave begins collapsing, Green Energy pouring in to drown everyone (Sylux being swept away as it floods). Now that it's gone, everyone's psychic powers disappear: Samus', Tahrgun/Voloon's, and... Presumably Sylux's, he probably tries to use them before he's taken away. You have to individually rescue the crew as you escape with just your abilities from Tanamaar since none of the abilities you get on Viewros work without psychic stuff, and everyone goes to the elevator, with Tahrgun/Voloon sacrificing themselves to restore function to it. Tahrgun's been proven wrong about the impossibility of the prophecy/Voloon's lived to see the prophecy be fulfilled, with the psychic crystals defused the Grievers all probably just died instantly, the living Lamorn achieved closure, they're ready to go. Everyone else gets into the teleporter, and actually GET BACK TO TANAMAAR WITHOUT ALL THE FED SOLDIERS SACRIFICING THEMSELVES TO HOLD SYLUX BACK BECAUSE SAMUS DIDN'T THINK TO HIT HIM WITH THE CONTROL BEAM. ...Actually, given Samus has that panic attack over Ridley in Other M and these games are apparently next to each other in the timeline, it almost makes sense if she froze up in Prime 4's ending in a stupid sort of way, but I'm not seriously using that to justify it.
...Samus probably learned something along the way. Maybe. I'm now realizing I have zero idea how this adventure'd tie in to her moving on from Adam's death. I knew I was forgetting something while writing all of this! T-Talking to the fed soldiers, I dunno, I'm out of ideas and idea juice to fuel new ideas and it's 1 AM, figure it out yourself. Anyways, Memory Fruit is still planted, too, and if Sylux has to come back in the next game there's a cliffhanger scene of Sylux being resuscitated by his Metroids like how the Baby healed Samus in Super... Which probably necessitates he doesn't actually become a Griever, since he'd be like doubly dead now since the psychic powers disappearing would disconnect him, since I doubt that'd come back in Prime 5 if Samus also lost the powers.
Speaking of, I don't actually know how my alternate Prime 4 would be followed up, but at least there's themes to build off of, meanwhile... Prime 4's ending. I guess I'll hope for the idea I think I posted a while ago about the prophesied (as in mentioned in an interview about Prime Hunters however long ago) GF & Space Pirate team-up against the Kriken Empire, which I then took to pitch a Samus & Weavel team up against Trace & Sylux who sides with the Kriken to go up against Samus again, especially now that we know the Space Pirates were part of his origins. Could probably go somewhere with Weavel having been cyborged after Samus nearly killed him and the theme of moving on could persist for the next 2 games or something, for whichever game this happens in having it being adapted as forgiveness? But also I don't think Weavel should forgive Samus, that's kinda ridiculous. (Edit: I don't remember where I saw this but I just remembered once seeing someone say the Kriken were some mutation of the Alimbics? And I think that's neat in hindsight with the Grievers in mind, maybe the whole new trilogy could be various civilizations that have corrupted themselves somehow.)
(Another edit, another possible follow-up could be going back to that mention that 12 Lamorn had teleported across the galaxy to seek out the chosen one, so Prime 5 could be either looking for them as some part of a Federation mission to see if you can get back to Viewros or something, or you just happen to stumble upon traces of the Lamorn that somehow set 5's plot into motion behind the acenes)
Conclusion
I think it's starting to become a recurring theme that you can visibly read me losing steam as I write long posts like this.
Prime 4 makes me want to cry with how close it was to having a compelling story. I had set my expectations low for it after hearing people's complaints, wasn't invested in the plot or characters beyond going "that's neat" and just enjoying the gameplay, and the game had the audacity to meet my expectations the whole time before betraying me with that ending, it was genuinely offensive how stupid that was. If anyone reads to the end of my unhinged ramblings, uh, let me know what you would do differently with the plot, like how I just did in extensive detail. If you wouldn't change anything, don't tell me, I don't want to believe that kind of person exists. Liking the game is fine, but I don't want to believe people like the ending.
I think a while ago I made a post that if Prime 4 disappoints me I'd become a prolific fanfic writer entirely off of better ideas for Prime 4, but I'm getting a job soon and I want to stop thinking about this game. Maybe in the future once I've written my other higher priority things. Whenever that happens. If I do do that, note to self, I saw a YouTube comment say they think the Lamorn intentionally resemble the Metroid Prime phase 2 form and that's... I don't know what I could possibly do with that but I don't want to forget it.
if anyone is curious, beating road trip with every character doesn't do anything, you don't get a pop-up like beating every guest star in star allies or whatever cool unlock you could imagine, nothing happens at all
i dreamt people followed blogs for their local mines on here and argued vehemently about which one is the best the same way people do with football teams or something and i clicked onto one mine blog and their pinned post was that one ad of "'Mommy, why can't I play in the abandoned copper mine?' Because [name i forgot] didn't clear out the vampire bat dens." or whatever it said but the background was edited to be the trans flag
last night i dreamt i was talking to someone about sectonia theories and they said i was wrong about something and proved it by sending me a clip of the next smash bros game where they zoom in to the background of a stage and showed sectonia in her spider form putting on a rock concert and i gave up forever on trying to solve kirby lore, is this accurate would joronia play electric guitar
(this is also the second dream i've had where i abandoned kirby lore after a bizarre revelation, the first was me finding dialogue from magolor in super kirby clash where he implied the lor starcutter made the dream kingdom)
played star-crossed world, really good but not enough to bump forgotten land up in my tier list of the games i'll have to update at some point, i also don't have much to say about it? i don't know what to make of much of that and what i do it just kinda slightly adds to some theories i already have and already planned to post about eventually so this will not impact air riders posting for the foreseeable future but at least i'm caught up with the series now
i'm out of the loop on the kirby lore that's happened since star allies (i've played through the games i just completely lost track of what was going on with the overarching story because i stopped paying attention when i found out theories involving void termina gave me actual headaches, i'm being completely serious lol) and i'm kinda curious, does magolor epilogue confirming kirby clash is canon as an alternate universe or whatever have actual lore ramifications or since it's an alternate universe it doesn't really mean much, i'd normally assume the latter but this is kirby lore i'm talking about
