Personal Space Invader/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: An enemy that attaches to your character to damage you.

  • Straight: The PSI Bug clings to and damages you until you can shake it off.
  • Exaggerated: The PSI Bug, once attached, sticks to you forever.
  • Justified: The PSI Bug is small enough that it needs to cling to you to deal damage.
  • Inverted: Get Back Here Boss
  • Subverted: A swarm of PSI Bugs charge at you... and go around you as they run past.
  • Double Subverted: ...then drop onto you from the ceiling as soon as you turn your back.
  • Parodied: Every enemy in the game latches onto you, including the ones bigger than you are.
  • Deconstructed: The area PSI Bugs are from looks almost plague-riddled: all the animals, buildings, plants, and people have PSI Bugs on them. They're too ubiquitous to deal with - swat one off, and more just show up to take its place - so people have to ignore them as best they can. Meanwhile, almost everything is dying because of the drain all these parasites put on them.
  • Reconstructed: People have developed pesticides and repellant sprays to drive PSI Bugs away from civilized areas. Some lone hero trekking through the wilderness could still run into some, though....
  • Zig Zagged: The PSI Bug latches onto you, and then jumps off to launch a powerful ranged attack, then rushes you again, then does the same attack at point blank range, then jumps off...
  • Averted: Enemies are all armed and never get within close range.
  • Enforced: "This game needs to be scarier. Let's add an enemy that grabs onto the player out of nowhere that they need to shake off!"
  • Lampshaded: "Gah! Why are all the enemies here so... clingy?!"
  • Invoked: A character tricks a pursuing enemy into going through a PSI Bug nest, in the hopes they'll slow his pursuer down.
  • Exploited: A hungry character shoves an animal carcass into a PSI Bug nest, then harvests all the PSI Bugs clinging to it for extra food.
  • Defied: A character sprays himself with repellant before entering the bug-infested forest.
  • Discussed: "Ugh, I hate forests like this.... They're always full of tiny little things that grab on and don't let go!"
  • Conversed: "Man, those PSI Bugs cling onto everything! You'd think someone would've made a bug spray for them or something."
  • Played For Laughs: As the party emerges from a thicket, the Plucky Comic Relief character is covered with PSI Bugs... and doesn't notice until his teammates mention it.
  • Played For Drama: PSI Bugs are a serious health threat: not only do they inflict injury, they're almost impossible to get off and can transmit serious diseases.

Augh! A Personal Space Invader! Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff!