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.
- Downplayed: The PSI Bug only briefly stays attached before losing its grip.
- Justified: The PSI Bug is small enough that it needs to cling to you to deal damage.
- Inverted: The only way to defeat the PSI Bug is to cling to it.
- 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.
- The PSI bug doesn't deal any damage: it just clings to you and whispers sweet nothings into your ear.
- 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."
- 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..
- 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.
- Give a PSI bug sixty seconds, and it's a part of your body. Give a PSI bug sixty minutes, and you're a part of its body.
Augh! A Personal Space Invader! Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff!
