Nvm more carpool without any contexts quotes

WARNINGS FOR THE FOLLOWING TOPICS:

- Corprate neglect leading to death

—> Idea / Invention theft

- Death / Corpses

—> One corpse is heavily implied to have been severely mentally ill (the intern)

—> Mentions of stalking

- Experimentation (on both bugs and humans)

- Potentially other triggering subjects, if I missed one please let me know!

ANYWAY ON TO THE CORPSE TALK ITS A LONG RAMBLE AND IM NOT SORRY

also please feel free to send me any further questions about this

Enid would be something of the wasp or bee variety, since she has Sharpshooter (which goes with the Wasp theme in the game) and wasp armor— I'm leaning more towards fuzz or stinger

Rad would get an extra set of antenna, this time ant themed, that would actually work like an ants antenna do

KO would be a ladybug theme (since he has the armor and it generally just.. fits him), thinking wings, but maybe something like the shell too? I'm leaning towards the wings though.

TKO already has his whole... spider thing going on

A lot! That I have not fully gone into yet but there's definitely a lot of implications about the Haze in general that are kind of glazed over in the game?

(parasite fungus + zombie kinda things + body horror but bugs— yes there are visuals!! Also MAJOR MAJOR spoilers for Grounded— Including spoilers for the most recent update!!!)

So a lot of the stuff in Grounded has some base in reality— though some of them have things that don't exactly like up with reality (like ladybugs arent seen flying, fire ants actually bite/sting in real life etc, but the base concept is still based on reality to some degree.)

An example of this is actually the haze fungus itself, which is based off an actual fungus from real life often called the "zombie ant" fungus or cordyceps. In reality, it hijacks the hosts body, changes their behavior and within a few days does kill the bug.

The game itself implies at times that the bugs aren't always alive after they're infected— my favorite example is the Infected Wolf Spider! I happen to have some really good photos of the infected spider, though the new boss the Infected Broodmother also seems to be a good example of this (I'll elaborate in a minute on that one! First I'll talk about the Infected Wolf Spider!)

You can see here that the fungus has done significant damage to the spider's thorax, which, in a normal situation, would have killed the spider. It's also done significant damage to the spider's head and eyes! The spiders behavior also changes drastically, and it becomes hostile to everything that isn't a Wolf Spider, and it doesn't sleep. It just keeps constantly patrolling the area close to where it spawns, and it also makes completely different noises than your average Wolf Spider does (and I absolutely love the sound design but that's a different discussion!) This is actually the first bug in Grounded that truly disturbed me due to the implications of what the infection did— what we, the players, did to it by turning the haze off.

The Infected Broodmother is the second bug that's managed to creep me out, and I haven't even faced her yet! And while I don't have my own screenshots of her just yet, she looks absolutely horrible in a good way, of course! I love the designs of the infected bugs!

You can see here she's also severely infected, but it's not just her design and audio cues that tell the story of her being dead. You actually have to kill her three times to officially kill her. Not fake deaths either— she is a literal zombie spider. Flat out, you have to take her health all the way down to zero three times. These two bugs alone specifically imply the fungus has some sort of zombification properties, but other bugs imply that it at the very least, can gain control of the host at any moment. Weevils now blow themselves up, Gnats steal your stuff, Mites are assholes already but now they're assholes with bombs etc. Multiple bugs that are typically not hostile become hostile when infected with the fungus!

Now, onto the topic of Truffle Tussle! I may have gotten carried away but I love the fucked up implications the game can have when you really think about it! The mutations description is "the fungus of the haze has seeped into your tiny being fusing its power to your unarmed attacks." It essentially means that the haze has infected you, even if just a bit. Sure you're not dead (though at that point you've likely had to respawn at least once), but it's still inside you. Of course we know the benefits to the mutation is that sometimes your punches will just.. explode. But the game doesn't dwell on the possible consequences of the mutation, or any of them for that matter, and there's so many potential implications of what could happen when the haze is inside you.

I wouldn't say KO and TKO are zombies, but there's definitely going to be some downsides to having the haze inside of them, for both of them! And it'll definitely scare the shit out of them when they learn that they do have the mutation, both because the implications of having the haze inside you would realistically be terrifying, and because they don't get that "MUTATION DETECTED" notification that you get when playing the game— they just see it happen. One day, one of them punches a bug and it explodes. Eventually their sca.bs do detect the mutations! But not until way after they've been active for a while, and even then they might not immediately see the mutation listed on their sca.b as they're usually busy trying to stay alive.

Also I'm not sure if people noticed this, but TKO's extra eyes are purple and swirly like that of the infected bugs in grounded! Which is just a small reference to the Truffle Tussle in his design.

Here's the Infected Broodmother's eyes for comparison!

They would punch. Everything. Power Fist or not, punching stuff till it explodes is possibly still both of their strategies.

Also maybe Enid gets access to a bow and arrow and gets Sharpshooter? I feel like it would be a neat tie to Elodie or something.

Oh yeah they both get Lil Fist eventually! KO also has a black ant sword for when he needs a weapon and a stinger spear for poking things at long distance /hj

Look at those eyebags!! He needs a nap!!! Tuck him in and give him a kiss on the head!!!!

He gets as much sleep as he can! It's just.. not very good, poor child misses sleeping in a bed 😔 he sleeps in a lean to sort of like this

(yes I built a rough example of how they would probably be living for a while to explain this to a friend)

She has not! There's so many layers of surprise!

-PKO's existance

-the exploding

-the fungus

-the spiders

-the extra eyes

-the bug armor

-and also the powerlessness :)