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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|'''Buffy:''' You and bug people, Xander. What's up with that?
'''Xander:''' No, but this dude was completely different than praying mantis lady. He was a man ''of'' bugs, not a man who ''was'' a bug.
|''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', "What's My Line, Part Two"}}
Sometimes, when you want a [[Grotesque Gallery|really scary]] monster, a [[Attack of the
Well, you call this guy. He isn't just ''one'' bug
{{examples}}▼
Monsters like this aren't always the most lethal, but are often very hard to hurt. Trying to punch one is like trying to punch water (only far more disgusting). In some cases, they are almost impossible to kill, because if even one of the creatures that makes up its body survives, there is the possibility that [[From a Single Cell| it will return]] (though it may take a while). [[Kill It with Fire]] is often your best bet.
An extreme version of the [[Totem Pole Trench]]. See also [[Combining Mecha]] for the mechanical counterpart of this trope.
Just don't confuse him with [[The Worm Guy]], or [[Earthworm Jim]].
▲{{examples}}
== [[Advertising]] ==
* An ad for [[The BBC]] had a head made of disembodied heads. People complained.
* This [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OHY-2bv0vk Duracell Ultra commercial] accidentally evokes this trope. Anyone else thinks that these little pink Duracell Bunnies look like...a mass of squirming maggots?
* There's a recent{{when}} Prius commercial that centers on a human...made out of dozens of tiny humans. The horrifying beast gets out of bed, brushes its "teeth," etc. Yes, a link to it or something might be more informative, but really, you don't [[Body Horror|want to]] [[Uncanny Valley|see this]].
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Beelzebub in ''[[
* ''[[Naruto]]'' has Shino Aburame and the rest of the Aburame clan, who while not made of bugs, house swarms of energy-draining beetles in their bodies since sortly after their birth - perhaps even more disturbing than simply being composed of the insects. A "[[Me's a Crowd|Bug Clone]]" technique also exists, in which the user creates a clone of himself out of those beetles, more true to this trope.
** {{spoiler|Orochimaru's ''true'' true form (yeah, he seems to have a lot of those) is that he's made of snakes, while being a giant snake himself. What do the snakes look like? Well, they certainly don't do anything to take away his reputation as a creepy boy watcher.}} Even before that was revealed, it was evident he was made of {{spoiler|snakes}} when he got cut in half and had them spring out of his halves to pull them together.
** Tsunade's Summon, Katsuya the Slug, could dissolve into many smaller slugs, each of which talks and behaves like the original.
* Mrs. Robinson in ''[[
* Arachne from ''[[Soul Eater]]'' hid herself by turning her body into 3000 spiders that spread across the world, and then hid her soul inside a giant Golem.
* In ''[[
* In Hayao Miyazaki's ''[[Princess Mononoke]]'', a demon in the beginning appears as a giant, moving mass of worms. [[Body Horror|You don't want to touch it.]]
** {{spoiler|Technically, all demons are forest gods corrupted and covered with the snake/worm things. May still apply though, since the things ''almost'' seem to compose the body of the demons}}
* In chapter 24 of ''[[Franken Fran]]'', {{spoiler|The [[Wandering Jew]]}} shows up. Despite being immortal, his original body except for his skeletal structure has long since rotted away. His curse of immortality solved the problem by constantly summoning ''[[Body Horror|insects to replace his body]]''. He's essentially an undying skeleton with bugs for muscles and organs. {{spoiler|Amazingly enough, this chapter actually has a happy ending for the poor guy.}}
* Zazie the Beast from the manga version of ''[[Trigun]]''.
** In a metaphysical sense, yes, Zazie is 'the worm who walks,' but both of its bodies are perfectly normal humans. Zazie's ''mind'' is made of
* Benisato in ''[[Ninja Scroll]]'' does have a normal body, but she can use a writhing mass of snakes to hide or [[Combat Tentacles|fight with]].
* Dokubachi in ''[[
* Borgir Bor from the ''[[Bastard!!]]'' anime/manga series.
* Gambon's mooks in ''[[Hokuto no Ken]] 2'' have speciality called the Centipede Fighting, where they hop on each others shoulder to form, well, [[Exactly What It Says
* ''[[Berserk]]'' the Godhand do not have bodies that exist [[Layered World|in the material realm]], so when they want to effect things they need to take pre-existing materials to make bodies from: Slan once made a body from troll guts and Conrad made one from a mass of rats.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* In ''[[The Savage Dragon]]'' comic, one of the supervillains is Horde, a body possessed by worms. It's later revealed that this is the wizard Fon~Ti (who granted Mighty Man his powers) who was taken over by one of Mighty Man's enemies, the Wicked Worm.
* In one of his earlier adventures, John Constantine, ''[[
* The one-shot ''[[Spider-Man]]'' villain [http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix3/thousandkingcarl.htm The Thousand] was made of an army of spiders that jumped from body to body.
** So was Ms. Arrow, "The Other."
* She-Hulk also fought a similar villain, [http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/cockrchs.htm Cockroaches!]
** And there's the Marvel character [[Immortal Iron Fist|"The Bride of Nine Spiders"]], who, when she lifts up her [[Stripperiffic]] outfit, reveals a mass of rotted, webbed flesh swarming with spiders that she can use to attack her enemies. Marvel loves their
** And The Swarm, a [[Stupid Jetpack Hitler|Nazi]] scientist made of [[Bee
* The ''[[Birds of Prey]]'' foe Entity was a nanobot swarm that consumed an industrial spy and maintained his basic humanoid shape.
* This was the first enemy of Vicki Montesi and the rest of the ''[[Darkhold]]''.
* ''Daniel X: Alien Hunter'' - Played straight with Number 7, a human-alien being made up of a colony of ants. Not only was he partially responsible for the deaths of reality warper hero, Daniel X's, family, he also is the grandmaster of an interplanetary game where alien hunters kill innocent aliens for sport, resulting in the extinction of a peaceful, furry species whose culture is based on color. The utter subversion comes from Kilgore, who happens to be Number 7's "son". Much to his "father's" chagrin, Kilgore is a sweet, loving, trusting, and very geeky alien who becomes fast friends with Daniel X. When he "dies" by being reabsorbed back into his father, this unleashes Daniel X's berserk button, and he kills Number 7 by releasing a potion that disrupts the pheremone bonds the ants use to communicate in his body.
* [[Bone]]: {{spoiler|The Hooded One turned out to be a woman who was [[Half the Man He Used To Be|cut in half]] then had her body put put back and held together by the Lord of the Locust's insects.}}
* The second [[
* The Purple Ants in Jon Lewis's ''[[True Swamp]]'' kill a man and use his skeleton as a framework to become one of these.
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[The Nightmare Before Christmas]]'': Oogie Boogie, the only inhabitant of Halloweentown who is outright evil instead of just playfully scary, is made of sackcloth sewn together over thousands of bugs (and one snake!).
** ''My bugs! My bugs! My bugs...''
* ''[[
* The Ra'azac in the [[The Film of the Book|movie version]] of ''[[Eragon (
* A character in the film ''[[
* After being released from her bonds in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: At World's End'', the sea goddess Calypso grows to about 30 feet tall then dissolves in a shower of crabs, to escape into the ocean and set the mood ([[
* In ''[[
* When the [[
* Played in a hilarious fashion in the Disney sequel, ''[[Halloweentown (
* [[Godzilla vs. Destoroyah|Destroyah]] is a truly massive example, although as its component creatures are microbes, it appears solid to the naked eye.
* In the live-action modern version of ''[[The Sorcerer's
* In ''[[Fright Night]] Part II'' the undead . . . thing . . . Bozworth spends most of the film catching, identifying and then ingesting insects. When finally killed, he bursts open to reveal he's pretty much skin, skeleton, and lots of squirming little bugs.
* ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin and the Return of Jafar]]'' has a variant, where the Genie and Abu's picnic is attacked by a swarm that spiders that pile together before turning back into Jafar. The bugs weren't his true form,
* Inverted in ''[[The Human Centipede]]''. There, you have a large borderline insectoid made up of three humans.
* The [[
* [[Played for Laughs]] in ''[[Finding Nemo]]'' with the school of fish that forms itself into various shapes. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le13by2WM70 Here it is.]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svOlz2ei4Yk This] Kollywood film, starts out as your standard Terminator robot with Matrix effects, then becomes a macro-nanobot snake made of guys
* Reedman from ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen]]'' actually transforms from thousands of tiny sphere-like Decepticons (described by the [[
* In Peter Jckson's ''[[The Lord of the Rings (
== [[
* In Book 14 of [[Lone Wolf]], one boss is an [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|armored, fire-breathing, demonic monkey]]. After it is killed, its corpse turns into a swarm of man-eating insects for you to contend with.
** Notably, the insects are an illusion. At that point, Lone Wolf has achieved a level of mental discipline that allows him to simply ignore them.
== [[Literature]] ==
* The Nesk from ''[[
** This is, in fact, [[Word of God]]. Kinda puts the fact that ants were the morph that terrified the protagonists more than any others in a new light, eh?
** Also the Valeek in the first ''Megamorphs'' book was a tornado made out of alien bugs.
Line 83 ⟶ 90:
* In Jim Butcher's ''[[The Dresden Files|Small Favor]]'', while the [[Voluntary Shapeshifter|shapeshifted form]] of Tessa isn't actually made of bugs, she is a giant preying mantis with little praying mantises instead of blood that fly out when she gets shot.
* The flying nanobot swarms in the [[Michael Crichton]] novel ''Prey'' act like a computerized version of these - they even eat carrion, as per standard maggot behavior. As their intelligence develops through the course of the book, they learn to mimic human shapes, colors, and eventually ''speech''.
** Turns into full body horror, when the main character discovers that the swarm has enveloped and taken over his wife. However, using an electro-magnet, the swarm dispell from the body, revealing his real wife (now a shriveled skeleton) who is still alive. She is able to relay her last words before the device breaks and the nanobots overtake her body again.
* Ygramul the Many of ''[[The Neverending Story (
* Some D'ivers [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|shapeshifters]] from Steven Erikson's ''[[Malazan Book of the Fallen]]''. For example, Gryllen (turns into a huge swarm of rats) and Mogora (turns into lots of spiders).
* In ''[[
** {{spoiler|They got better}}.
** Also in ''[[
* In [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Coraline (
** In [[The Film of the Book]], the Other Bobinsky ends up turning into this as [[Glamour Failure]] sets in:
{{quote|
'''The Other Bobinsky:''' Not even that, anymore... }}
* In ''The Green Brain'' by Frank Herbert, humanity has reduced nature to just a few zones in the Brazilian rainforest. Nature fights back by evolving a race of bugs that can, in large quantities, imitate human beings. The story opens with one such Worm That Walks managing to con its way past the border guards so that it can enter and attempt to infest a clean zone.
Line 98 ⟶ 105:
* ''Inside Straight'', the latest novel in the ''[[Wild Cards]]'' series, features a rare heroic version of this trope, one Jonathan Hive. He appears utterly human until he disperses into a cloud of bright green wasplike motes; he can also detach as few as one at a time, and even tends to have a few wandering about misplaced.
* While not a villain, [[China Mieville]]'s ''[[Un Lun Dun]]'' contains a passing reference to a man made of bees arguing with a bear.
** He also gives us the 'throng-bear', an unintelligent variant from ''[[
** Don't forget {{spoiler|Skool, who is a bunch of fish inside a wetsuit. He's also a rare heroic version of this.}}
* In [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[
** Also in a Discworld book (''[[
** A more comical example from ''A Hat Full of Sky'', reappearing in the subsequent book ''Wintersmith'', is [[Totem Pole Trench|the Nac Mac Feegles disguising themselves as a human (singular) by stacking themselves up inside several stolen items of clothing]].
** Borrowing a swarm of bees is a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for Granny Weatherwax in ''[[
** A minor version of this occurs in the character of Hex in the Unseen University... a 'computer' controlled by the ant colony living inside it... a similar type of machine can be seen in the Glooper in "Making Money", although that one is controlled by water and tides and the economy...
* The Vermiform in Steph Swainston's ''Castle Circle'' series is one of these.
* An assassination attempt in ''Mordant's Need'' by Stephen Donaldson features human skins full-to-bursting with cockroach-like insects that puppet the skins and then break out of their husks in order to devour their new victims.
* One common interpretation of the ending of [[
{{quote|
** Though it could merely refer to a decomposing undead corpse infested - and possibly controlled by - maggots, or perhaps a single huge worm. We'll never know.
* One of the heroes of the grail in Eric Nylund's ''[[A Game of Universe]]'' is a colony of insects which walks around in humanoid form, relatively.
* In ''The Talismans of [[Shannara]]'', Walker Boh is attacked by [[The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse]] (well, actually monsters who have taken the form of [[The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse]]). While Famine, War and Death are humanoids, Pestilence is just a swarm of infection-spreading insects moving about in a vaguely humanoid shape.
* The [[Felix Castor]] series features loup-garous, human ghosts that manage to force their way into animal bodies and reshape them into human flesh. The first novel has Felix facing down a crime boss's pet were; when he manages to exorcise the ghost steering the body, {{spoiler|it collapses into a swarm of rats}}. Even Felix is freaked out.
* A benign example from a children's book featured fish being eaten by a larger fish. They formed their school into the shape of an [[Always a Bigger Fish|even bigger fish]] and chased it off.
* The ''Ravnica'' cycle of ''[[Magic:
* In ''[[Nightside|Hex and the City]]'', a powerful demon takes the form of a huge swarm of biting flies.
* ''[[Alan Dean Foster|Kingdoms Of Light]]'' features Khaxan Munderucu, an incredibly powerful giant evil spellcaster. He's really twenty-two goblin mages in a giant [[Totem Pole Trench]], all combining their magic.
* In [[
* In Niven and Barnes' ''The Barsoom Project'', the sins of humanity make an appearance in the Fimbulwinter Game as a swarm of monstrous insect-like vermin, which assemble themselves into four giant humanoid figures to put [[Humanity
== [[Live
* Norman Pfister from the ''[[
* ''[[
* In the third ''[[Lexx]]'' movie, "Eating Patterns", the crew of the Lexx stumble onto an isolated colony of scavengers who are infested with wormlike parasites. The Queen Worm, which is roughly the size of a [[Sea Monster]], creates fake people to act as its eyes and ears on the rest of the colony.
* One scene in Disney's ''Mars and Beyond'' shows a pursuing alien transforming from a swarm of insects while chasing a secretary.
* ''[[
* ''[[Power Rangers]]'' has done this to spice up the [[Monster of the Week]]. In ''[[Power Rangers in Space]]'', thousands of all-devouring monster termites could come together to make a monster, who was pretty hard to damage because hitting him just knocked loose a few of the pests. Also, Craterites - holo-[[Mooks]] used in training simulations - came to life and terrorized town (and it ''wasn't'' the usual villains' doing.) Eventually, they came together to make a humanoid mishmosh of themselves that was [[Humongous Mecha]] scale.
* In ''[[Andromeda]]'', a guest turned out to be composed of nanobots.
* In ''[[
* Based on how he escapes being trapped in Crowley's answering machine, this seems to be an attribute of Hastur in the Amazon Prime production of ''[[Good Omens (series)|Good Omens]]''.
== [[Music
* The [[Music Video]] for
* The music video for [[
== Myths
* Partial example: Azhi Dahaka, a three-headed dragon associated with the Zoroastrian apocalypse, has scorpions instead of blood.
==
* Diana from ''[[Descendant of a Demon Lord]]'' became this after people slit her throat and threw her into a bog. Despite her 'biological integrity', she is nervous she'll fall apart (and die for real), and studied magic that would go towards preventing that (like binding). Despite that, she thinks her 'body' has enough benefits that she wouldn't exchange it for a conventional body. She also maintains a sense of modesty, such as covering her chest when it isn't unclothed.
* While they can't construct a bipedal form and go for a walk ...[[Paranoia Fuel|yet]], South American army ants regularly form nests and bridges from their own massed bodies.▼
* Blister Beetle Grubs form themselves into the shape of the female of a certain species of bee, in order to lure it into trying to mate with the bee-of-worms, which secretes pheromones to help the process along ("Hey, that doesn't look like a bee and * sniff sniff* Oh Baby..."). Then they cling to the male, transfer to the female when Real Bee-boinking goes on, all to hitch a ride to the female's nest, which is full of tender bee larvae...▼
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Man_o%27_War The Portuguese Man o' War] looks like a floating jellyfish, but is in fact a colony of countless tiny animal-like organisms known as zooids. Its tentacles can grow to twenty metres in length (ten is average) with a sting that can be very painful. Definitely not something you want to get tangled up with, especially since Portuguese Men o' War are most commonly found in large groups.▼
* Slime molds, are essentially single-celled organisms that every now and again come together to form composite creatures, up to roughly 30cm x 20cm in extreme cases.▼
* [[Pantomime Animal|Animal costumes]] that require multiple people, the most famous examples being 2-person horse costumes and Chinese New Year dragons.▼
* Evolutionary biologists believe that multicellular organisms are descended from single-celled organisms that formed 3-D colonies.▼
** Likewise, eukaryotic cells probably arose when some oxygen-utilizing eubacteria set up housekeeping inside of anaerobic archaean bacteria, creating composite protists and fungi. When cyanobacteria joined the party, we got algae and (eventually) plants.▼
*** More in the now, multicellular life (Yes, including [[Humans Are Cthulhu|you]].) tends to host multitudes of bacteria and other single cell-organisms to mutual benefit.▼
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* It's technically "the swarm of frog fetuses that crawls", but [[Mortasheen]]'s [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/ovulooge.htm Ovulooge] fits here like a glove. For a more traditional example (even though they don't quite look the part) are the Wormbrains. In their case the creature itself is merely a (Usually [[Once Was A Man|formerly human]]) meat puppet for the billions of parasitic worms living inside of it.
* The [[Trope Namer]] is the D20 version of ''[[Call of Cthulhu (
** It was based on a creature that appeared in the [[
{{quote|
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]
* In the ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (Tabletop Game)|Dungeons and Dragons]] [[Epic Level Handbook]]'', and [[Pathfinder (Tabletop Game)|Pathfinder]] Bestiary (part II), there is a monster called "Worm That Walks", a dead spellcaster that has become the [[Hive Mind]] for an army of worms - gaining insect-related powers and a great deal of additional resilience. Usually it's the evil ones that choose this method of life after death.▼
** Ravenloft has the Maggot Golem. Every bit as gross as this sounds - its body consists of flies, eggs and maggots held together with magic and usually is created from a maggot-infested corpse. Despite this, the design is actually quite clever: the living maggots that make up the golem's body continually grow into flies (which swarm around the golem, constantly) and so long as the maggots and flies can feed on rotted meat (usually provided by creatures it kills) the flies lay eggs on the golem, which hatch more maggots, creating a continual cycle that give the golem a powerful regenerative ability.
** Players can actually turn themselves into a Worm That Walks, although it carries a chance of failing and just leaving them as a rotting corpse. ▼
▲** In the
▲** Players can actually turn themselves into a Worm That Walks, although it carries a chance of failing and just leaving them as a rotting corpse.
*** As the chance of success is the number of spells the player has memorized as a percentage, savvy players elect to use ''Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer'', usually a [[Useless Useful Spell]] that lets them trade out each of their better spells for six useless cantrips to get over 100% chance of success.
** 3.5 also, in its ''Elder Evils'' sourcebook, featured a unique Worm That Walks, a really ''big'' one: Kyuss, the evil god of "green <s>leeches</s> worms that eat you from the inside out, then turn you into a super-powerful zombie under their control." And he is made of those worms. There is also a whole 20-levels long campaign outline in that book called Age of Worms. Guess who's the ''[[Big Bad|Big Bad Boss]]'' of that one.
*** Said campaign was published in its entirety in Dungeon magazine before Elder Evils came out. It's awesome.
** Also in the 3.5 Monster Manual, the Leechwalker. A bloated bipedal monster made of millions of leeches that have formed a hive mind. And it can drain a person of all their blood in seconds.
** What's worse than a druid who can turn into a giant bear and eat you? A druid who can turn into a swarm of 10,000 flesh-eating scarabs and eat you. Plus as a druid with the swarm ability you gain heavy resistance to melee and basic ranged attacks. Worse, there are some feats and magic items that turn you into a magic, resistant-to-all-damage walking colony of flesh-eating insects.
** The Worm That Walks shows up again in 4th Edition as the "Larva Mage." Not quite as evocative...
*** The Larva Mage has some cousins, too. The Larva Assassin is the soul of a [[Psycho for Hire]] given form through a swarm of hornets and centipedes. Larva Snipers were [[Cold Sniper
*** And Kyuss himself is back, one of the [[Eldritch Abomination]]s of the ''Elder Evils'' sourcebook, plus the one on the cover art.
** The [[Call a Pegasus A Hippogryph|Lamia]] from 4th Edition [[Dungeons
** The great-granddaddy of all these D&D Worms That Walk was the cifal ([[Fun with Acronyms|Colonial Insect-Formed Artificial Life]]), a rather forgettable colonial-insect monster from the 1E ''Fiend Folio''.
*** Whom they just dumped into the recent{{when}} version of ''[[
** A rare Good-aligned version appears in, of all places, the [[Eldritch Abomination]]-filled ''Lords of Madness'' 3.5 sourcebook, with the silthilar—sentient swarms with just a touch of the [[Mad Scientist]] when they fuse into their solid form.
** Roach thralls in ''D20 Modern''.
** Yet another version from 3.5, in the ''Exemplars of Evil'' book (for designing villains) is the former archmage of the Tolstoff family who researched the deceased god the Worm That Walks, learned evil spells, acquired foul magic items, and made pacts with dark entities. Eventually the deity noticed him and "rewarded" him with its filthy blessing, an attack of ravenous worms and maggots that ate his physical body but which absorbed his soul. Sealed in a vault within the catacombs beneath the mansion by his horrified daughter, he then proceeds to whisper and corrupt his grandchildren into evil servants who will stop at nothing to free him from his tomb. He later appeared in the aforementioned ''Elder Evils'' as [[The Dragon]] to Kyuss.
* ''[[
** Also in ''Werewolf'' are the Hollow Men, a breed of fomori (humans under the thrall of [[Demonic Possession]]). The Hollow Men specifically are humans who were killed and whose bodies were mostly emptied out (hence the name), the insides replaced by a swarm of small animals controlled by the demonic spirit in question. Doesn't have to be insects/arachnids; reptiles and rodents are also popular choices. They're capable of speech and can ''try'' to pass themselves off as fully human, but generally, even other fomori find them creepy as hell.
** The Azlu in ''[[Werewolf: The Forsaken]]'' are spirit-like creatures that can do something similar. In their case, only one of the spiders is really "them", so they escape by using the weight of numbers - the odds of the real one getting killed are incredibly small. The Beshilu of the same game were similar. They were rats, not bugs, but could hollow out human bodies and control them like the Fomori mentioned above.
* One of the kinds of monsters in ''[[
* [[Warhammer Fantasy]] had one introduced in the new [[Dem Bones|Tomb Kings]] warbook. A prince who murdered his family, and was executed by being sealed into a coffin filled with Neheakaran Scarabs. His body was reduced to his skull, upon which a cursing rune was carved. In the Netherworld, he made a deal with the God of Death. He promised to bring him someone who was his equal to take his place. His soul was given command over the scarabs who ate him alive, and he scours the world for his equal. But, no two souls are truly equal, and he is damned to wander the world forever.▼
* The Slaugth from ''[[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]]'' (mostly ''[[Dark Heresy]]'', but mentioned in ''[[Deathwatch]]'' too) are an ENTIRE RACE of these. The trope is even mentioned by name. Their homeworld eventually got purged by Deathwatch, but not before they have infiltrated the whole sector. They are also all [[Anti-Magic|Untouchables]], which prevents using divinations against them. This being 40k, "endearing" traits don't end at this - there are also good old [[Bloody Murder|corrosive body fluids]], ability to [[Cannibalism Superpower|consume memories of their snacks]], preferred weapons dubbed "necrotic beams" and use of part-living constructs looking almost as repulsive as the critter itself (they [[Body Horror|don't bother with trifles like symmetry, covering the entire thing in skin, etc]]) -- except the disguised [[Mobile Suit Human|body-puppets]] (on the "upside", damaging these leaves a mangled body clearly moved around by something even more gross).
{{quote|
* The ''[[Mutants and Masterminds]]'' setting Freedom City features a villain called The Collective, which follows this trope. As every other character in that entire setting, he is a [[Captain Ersatz]] of an existing comic book character. Probably Marvel's Swarm (see comic section above)
* Wyld mutants with the "Hive" abomination in [[Exalted]]. One rank in "hive" and they have a beehive or snake nest somewhere on their bodies. Two ranks in "Hive" and the nest expands to include the rest of them.
* Worm Wraiths in ''[[Rifts]]'' New West are evil ''Cowboy'' Worms That Walk. Also invoked by the [[Horsemen of the Apocalypse|Horseman]] Pestilence, which is actually a giant walking skeleton covered in bugs instead of flesh and skin.
* In [[Eclipse Phase]] one of the many Synth bodies resembles a swarm of robotic bees. They can move as a regular swarm, or combine into a roughly human-shaped mass. They're also fully playable, and far more affordable then those based around [[Organic Technology]].
* One of the possible character origins in ''[[
* ''[[Magic:
▲* [[Warhammer Fantasy]] had one introduced in the new [[Dem Bones|Tomb Kings]] warbook. A prince who murdered his family, and was executed by being sealed into a coffin filled with Neheakaran Scarabs. His body was reduced to his skull, upon which a cursing rune was carved. In the Netherworld, he made a deal with the God of Death. He promised to bring him someone who was his equal to take his place. His soul was given command over the scarabs who ate him alive, and he scours the world for his equal. But, no two souls are truly equal, and he is damned to wander the world forever.
* The D20 campaign book ''[[Grimm]]'' gave us this trope in the form of Rapunzel. Yes, that Rapunzel. Only this time around, her prince has passed away, her children are grown and she had nothing to do but return to the tower where she lived out the rest of her days. The tower, though, had developed intelligence and gotten lonely in her long absence and took measures to keep her there even after she died. Namely, having her corpse infested with a swarm of spiders that will kill and eat any who climb her hair to the tower. Keep in mind that the rules of the game are built specifically around children and boys are particularly drawn to the silky locks that still hang out the window.
** She's also one of the sample NPCs that made the transition when the game was converted to its own rules system.
* [[Scarred Lands]]: One of the monsters described in the "Creature Collection II: Dark Menagerie" are vermin hosts, former human vagrants who were cursed by one of the evil gods who was angry that they happened to pray to another god other than him to let them live another day in their dismal squalor. From this [[Disproportionate Retribution]] he had various vermin (rats, roaches, leeches, spiders) burrow into their skin, giving them [[Cursed
* ''[[Earthdawn]]''
== [[Toys]] ==
Line 197 ⟶ 199:
** The series also has enemies known as " {{spoiler|Marcus}} clones" or "Leech Zombies". These are swarms of mutated leeches which take on the shape of their creator.
** This also shows up in ''[[Resident Evil]] 5'' to a lesser extent. {{spoiler|Excella and at least two men become worm-people for a few moments... then they just go straight to being masses of worms.}}
* Ananzi, from ''[[The Black Heart]]'', is not quite one, but with the ease she produces spiderlings out of nowhere, she comes close.
* The Guy Made Of Bees from the ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'', which is [[Exactly What It Says
** When you beat him, he drops a Guy Made Of Bee Pollen.
*** You can also pickpocket a handful of... [http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Handful_of_bees them].
* ''[[
* The [[Big Bad]] of ''[[The Adventures of Sam
* Beelzebub in ''[[La
* The Hunter in the ''[[Halo]]'' series is composed of hundreds of orange-red worms called Lekgolo. Plated armor protects these worms from conventional weapons and a high-powered energy beam of doom deals with the player character. Somewhat unusual in that unlike most examples on this page, the Hunters are simply [[Punch Clock Villain]]-[[Starfish Aliens]], who are not especially malicious or sinister beyond being really good at killing you.
** In fact, when the Covenant breaks, many of the Hunters side with the Elites, which means they become human-friendly. Since the individual worms aren't advanced life forms in the same way humans and the other members of the Covenant are, they're also immune to infection from the Flood.
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* The boss of the [[Nostalgia Level]] in ''[[Castlevania]]: Dawn of Sorrow'' is Bat Company, a pack of red bats that assumes various forms as one. [[Dracula]] himself is often shown moving around as a pack of bats.
** Also the reoccurring Boss Legion is a giant Sphere of Zombies covering a giant monster.
* Arakune from ''[[
* Beelzebub from both versions of the ''[[Mega Ten]]'' games Raidou Kuzonoha is a massive fly concocted from a swarm of other flies. And incidentally, one of the best demon summons in the second game.
* [[Big Bad|Death Adder]] in the arcade version of ''[[Golden Axe]]'' merges together from maggots in a pile of corpses. [[Nausea Fuel|Eeeuuugh.]]
** Actually, according to the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX7WoSRHt3U CD version of Golden Ax] Death Adder is an amalgam of hundreds of '''snakes'''.
* {{spoiler|Zouken Matou}} from ''[[Fate/stay
* All the enemies from the Subspace in the Subspace Emissary mode for ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]: Brawl'' are constructed of "[http://super-smash-bros.wikia.com/wiki/Shadow_Bug shadow bugs]" {{spoiler|extracted from Mr. Game & Watch.}}
* The Pain from ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 3''. While the real one is not composed of bees, he is able to control bees by having them sting him until the bees think that he is one of them. To make matters worse, he grows, within him, [[Bee
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'': ''[[Twilight Princess]]'':
** The mini-boss Deathsword (who, as the name suggests, appears to be a lich wielding a large sword) of Arbiter's Grounds disintegrates into a massive swarm of scarabs after being defeated.
** Armogohma, a truly spectacular and terrifying [[Giant Spider]]. After you beat her the first time, she disintegrates into an eye with legs and a swarm of smaller spiders, which you have to fight off while [[Go for
** In the spinoff ''Link's Crossbow Training'', the Dark Nut miniboss at the end of level 8 breaks apart into a swarm of Keese when his body is damaged.
* The very first boss of ''[[Metroid]]'': ''Other M'' is a swarm of purple bugs that form a body around a larger bug that makes up the eye.
* Atticus Thorn, the [[Big Bad]] of ''[[The Haunted Mansion]]'' video game.
* The Ultimate form of the [[Shape Shifter]] mage subclass in [[Dragon Age]] is a swarm of bees. Taking a master level in Shapeshifter turns them into parasitic insects.
* In ''[[
* ''[[
* In a more spiritual way, Ermac from ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' is this. He is the gathering of souls lost during Outworld's various wars, brought together to serve Shao Khan. As a result, Ermac never uses singular self-referential pronouns such as "I" or "me", instead opting for "us" or "we", in a sense allowing his body to speak on behalf of all the souls that he carries.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* [http://www.weregeek.com/2009/06/15/ This] ''[[Weregeek]]'' strip.
* While it isn't entirely clear, one of the [[Big Bad]]'s lackeys in ''[[Dead of Summer]]'' may be one of these. He summons a swarm of insects seemingly out of nowhere (the art suggests they either come from around him or ''inside'' him) to attack {{spoiler|[[The Protomen
* Gavotte, the head of the''[[Skin Horse]]'' department, is a sentient swarm of bees. She (?) is surprisingly congenial and enjoys having a cup of tea with her employees, but they're often somewhat unnerved by the disembodied voice and the offers of free honey.
* ''[[Dilbert]]'' had [[Pointy-Haired Boss]] [https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-07-29 mention] that he somehow hired termite colonies disguised with clothes and makeup… three times in a row. The readers, of course, pointed out that employees as organized, hard working, goal-oriented and adaptable as termite colonies probably were the best hires in his department, or maybe in that entire corporation.
== [[Web Original]] ==
* A swarm of tiny insect-like aliens able to infest humans and walk around in their skin makes up the first [[Cosmic Horror]] in the novel/webnovel ''[[John Dies
** Later, the narrator's Hyundai gets carjacked by a human-shaped pile of cockroaches.
* This is one theory behind what exactly {{spoiler|Ace}} of ''[[
* One article in [[The Onion]] is written by a pile of cockroaches pretending to be a human exterminator. The cockroachman attempts to convince people through the article it is writing to let cockroaches everywhere live and run free, but is unable to think of a compelling reason ''why''. It also laments that it knows that [[After the End]], cockroaches will rule the post-apocalyptic wasteland, but doesn't know ''when'' that will happen.
* ''[[
* In ''[[Web Original/Worm|Worm]]'', the protagonist, who has the power to control insects, surrounds herself with bugs to intimidate her opponents into thinking she has transformed into a giant human-shaped swarm, and makes the insects around her buzz and chirp whenever she talks to complete the illusion of a giant humanoid insect swarm.
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** In the Nanobots episode, the bots coalesce into a Monobot.
* In ''[[Invader Zim]]'' [[Wave of Babies|a bunch of baby-like aliens]] combine into a giant bipedal monster.
{{quote|
* In ''[[
* ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'' had a villainous [[Crazy Cat Lady]] who surrounded herself with her thousands of cats and basically made a cat-shaped [[Humongous Mecha]] out of them.
* In ''[[Max Steel]]'', the villain Bio Constrictor was made of dozens of snakes.
* An episode of ''[[Drawn Together]]'' had Vietnamese sweatshop workers assemble into a bipedal robot, anime-transform-sequence style to attack Spanky Ham.
* Similarly to the above example, in an episode of ''[[Family Guy]]'' an angry mob of wheelchair users joined together to form "Crippletron".
* In ''[[The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron]]'', Jimmy meets some [[Ridiculously Cute Critter|ridiculously cute aliens]] who hate good music and love bad music. Whenever they hear good music, they morph into nasty little goblin creatures. If they hear ''more'' good music, they fuse together into one huge alien monster.
* There's an episode of ''[[Timon and Pumbaa]]'' where Timon pays this guy to help Pumbaa. After everything he tried didn't work, he came back to the guy to get his money back, but the guy turned out to be a swarm of locusts.
* In an episode of ''[[Goof Troop]]'', Pete gets turned into a fly and is forced to train with other flies. Pete's family gets him back to change him back, but before they do, the whole swarm of flies comes to the door wearing a trench coat to attempt to steal Pete back.
* One episode of ''[[Mucha Lucha]]'' was about Ricochet, Buena Girl, and the Flea confronting a giant spider-themed wrestler named Black Widower, who has been beating several insect-themed wrestlers all over town, and is threatening to do the same to the Flea. At the end of the episode, the Black Widower is defeated, and as a result his costume comes off to reveal... ...the aforementioned insect wrestlers.
== [[Real Life]] ==
▲* While they can't construct a bipedal form and go for a walk ...[[Paranoia Fuel|yet]], South American army ants regularly form nests and bridges from their own massed bodies.
▲* Blister Beetle Grubs form themselves into the shape of the female of a certain species of bee, in order to lure it into trying to mate with the bee-of-worms, which secretes pheromones to help the process along ("Hey, that doesn't look like a bee and * sniff sniff* Oh Baby..."). Then they cling to the male, transfer to the female when Real Bee-boinking goes on, all to hitch a ride to the female's nest, which is full of tender bee larvae...
▲* [
▲* Slime molds, are essentially single-celled organisms that every now and again come together to form composite creatures, up to roughly
▲* [[Pantomime Animal|Animal costumes]] that require multiple people, the most famous examples being 2-person horse costumes and Chinese New Year dragons.
▲* Evolutionary biologists believe that multicellular organisms are descended from single-celled organisms that formed 3-D colonies.
▲** Likewise, eukaryotic cells probably arose when some oxygen-utilizing eubacteria set up housekeeping inside of anaerobic archaean bacteria, creating composite protists and fungi. When cyanobacteria joined the party, we got algae and (eventually) plants.
▲*** More in the now, multicellular life (Yes, including [[Humans Are Cthulhu|you]].) tends to host multitudes of bacteria and other single cell-organisms to mutual benefit.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Invertebrate Index]]
[[Category:Evil Is Visceral]]
[[Category:Villains]]
[[Category:Horror Tropes]]
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