#grounded!ko

[carpooltherapy]

Yk i need to post these old memes-

Nvm more carpool without any contexts quotes

My ass forgot to add @convexfuss in here cuz it drew these as well

[here-to-cause-suffering]

OKAY SO GROUNDED SPOILERS AND ALSO OK KO SPOILERS BECAUSE YEAH

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

So it's known that there's several corpses in the game— most of which come from Ominent workers!

The Biomedical Engineer (Name: E. Ferrier) — Who was found in the Sandbox, chasing Tully. "The blundering scientist flees across the desert, and the rasined engineer follows!"

The Entomologist (Name: J.K.) — Found under the grill, and had been planning to bring fire back to the group.

The Compliance Officer (Name: A. Miller) — Found near a power outlet, and had been keeping track of the illegal things Ominent had been doing. She died climbing to see something closer.

The Intern (Name: Exhaulted Nugget B. Stava) The intern is known to have been sharing lunches with ants, and then slowly claiming himself to be the Ant King, and later on the Creator. This is actually my favorite corpse, as he seemingly knew he was going to pass away in his sleep. His last notes are pondering what the reader is doing, why they're small, and if things are any better in the tiny world. It's the only death to have made me and my friend actually think "Oh.. That's sad.." when we read the notes.

Special Forces Officer (Name: D. Reid) — was there to help protect the others and keep them alive in the yard while laying down the groundwork for Project O.R.C.

Toxicologist (Name: D. Spencer) — Died in a pond lab collapse, and hat deemed the Koi fish less dangerous than the intern for some reason.

Health And Safety Officer (Name: R. Weiner) — Died being stabbed in the neck by the Wasp Queen after attempting to chip her with an O.R.C. Receiver. They state that the bugs REALLY hate being chipped as well.

It's worth noting that few of them specifically died alone (the compliance officer, health and safety officer, the entomologist, the biomedical engineer, and the intern respectively) but some of them died in labs (specifically the Toxicologist and Special Forces Officer.) This is important because for the Toxicologist it's safe to assume other people were in the lab too, but couldn't be recovered amongst the wreckage. The others died on missions from Ominent, which typically related to stalking Wendell Tully or working on Project O.R.C. with the exception of the Intern, who they just abandoned and left to the ants. (Side note, the Entomologist had similar ideals to the Intern and disliked them splitting up!)

These are the known people who died. There are more deaths that are caused by Ominent. This is canon. They include an unknown number of missing teenagers— at least four. This is stated in the beginning of the game, but reinforced later on with the Milk Carton that shows the photos of four other, missing and presumably dead, teenagers.

They talk about how the enbiggening process is more dangerous and complicated then they realized, well, they had to find out somehow. They have to have experimented on someone. And do you know what happens when you do the enbiggening process wrong? You explode.

There's no direct body count for Ominent, though the count has to be over eleven (the amount of Ominent corpses, plus the known other missing teens) It's also worth noting that there are three unnamed corpses in the Red Ant Hill which could be the other missing teens— they have no Ominent items, but have Rotten Bee Armor instead. They could also be random shrunken people too.

There's also another corpse, or... corpses— if you count the many, many bugs, which is found near an Intern Note. In a cave, known as the Ant Totem Cave. This cave is full of ant heads stuck on sticks, an abandoned back pack, and one human skeleton stuck to a wall and arranged into a disgusting amalgamation combined with any parts. The ground is also covered in ant blood. It's safe to assume this is a teen, as they have an abandoned back pack.

This adds up to anywhere from eleven to fifteen known deaths caused by Ominent in some way, shape or form. This doesn't include the bugs that Ominent experimented on and killed as well. Or the fact that Ominent was going to terminate the main four kids in the game Grounded too, only for one scientist to throw them into the yard before they could.

You may ask: How does this play into the Grounded!AU?

Oh boy it. It doesn't go well for poor KO, TKO, Rad, Enid and Dendy. These corpses are still there, though due to being in a different universe their locations may be different! I haven't worked out where all the labs are exactly yet, as Boxmore isn't exactly the same as Tully's house (side note: I am thinking of having a Sewer Lab (maybe in place of the Pond Lab?) and still having a Haze and Hedge Labs somewhere else)

But during their adventures traversing the terrifying backyard / parking lot of Boxmore, and the various labs all suspiciously labeled POINT and POINTINENT, they come across the various corpses— taking their badges, notes and photos for clues as to what happened, and what led to them being small. This.. This really just becomes a normal thing for them, and they're mostly unfazed by the skeletal remains. At first it's shocking, but when you stumble upon your fifth corpse, most shock has already gone away— especially when you've killed things yourself.

Either way, they manage to use these to piece together that Pointinent is stalking Professor Venomous, as well as bits and pieces of what Project G.L.O.R.B. is and some of the experiments that had been performed on Ants, Spiders, Bombardier Beetles, Ladybirds etc. They learn what the G.L.O.R.B. Bugs are weak to, which helps them later on with the G.L.O.R.B. Soldiers... Maybe a little too well.

Regardless, Pointinent has caused more deaths than Ominent has— though the number isn't yet known, they are equally neglectful, if not more, with their own employees. Ignoring any morals they used to have in pursuit of their goals of tracking down Professor Venomous and being the strongest and best "heroes" while collaborating with Shadowy Figure.

[aus-full-of-suffering]

Thinking about giving the rest of Grounded!AU crew big related mutations too— since a majority of them have an association with a specific bug! Not just tko :3

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

Dendy I'm not sure about yet actually, I don't even have an armor set for her yet even. I was thinking of giving her the koi scale helmet though, because I just love that helmet tbh.

[here-to-cause-suffering]

OP what were the implications of TKO's Truffle Tussle Mutation?!

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!

[aus-full-of-suffering]

so anyway. them. my children

[here-to-cause-suffering]

Hear me out. Lil Fist for both KO and TKO.

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

I hadn't thought about Enid doing a bow with sharpshooter though 👀 she could do that and have a spider dagger (with assassin) for close range combat!

[here-to-cause-suffering]

dear cob Grounded!KO need some SLEEP!

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)

[here-to-cause-suffering]

has carol even met pko before the grounded au happens 😭 that's another layer of surprise to the whole thing

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 :)

She's.. Got a lot to unpack!