The New New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

Or, you know, a horror story about Lunarian attempts to unravel the secrets of existence and imbue themselves with the power to warp reality, only to get something wrong and end up with someone who can reverse a situation with a careless word.

Sagume's got one wing, after all. That's not natural, that's not right, there's something fundamentally unbalanced about her. Maybe she's a failed attempt to reach divinity, or maybe she's a Broken Angel fallen from somewhere greater than where she is now.

But I'm not that surprised she's one of the moon's bigwigs, given that power of hers. "That's a nice everything you've got there, it'd be a shame if someone..." wait, if she calls it 'nice,' doesn't that risk making it start to suck? Poor girl can't even deliver threats properly.

edited 12th May '17 11:48:26 AM by Tacitus

What about in writing or in sign language? Is it just verbal? Her design and boss title implies as much.

She was able to use her power to create the Occult Orbs, and Hecatia implies that her power can be used on Aya's newspapers. So it's not just the opposite of what she says, it's a general power to "change the truth with words" that can be applied broadly. Somehow. Touhou is generally fairly vague about how exactly powers can be used.

Maybe Sagume is a reality warper that can illusions seem real?

Sagume Kishin:

A high-ranking Lunarian official who played a large role in two incidents. An amanojaku whose very words twist the fabric of reality. Very careful.

I wonder if this changes anything; Sagume usually covers her mouth with her hand, not only because she's deep in thought, but by covering her mouth, she's decreasing the odds that her words will cause an adverse effect on her surroundings. Like if she talked with food in her mouth, it would be too incomprehensible to translate into something destructive or constructive.

...Sagume's ability is the real reason why the Great Lunarian War, Eirin's defection and other moon related incidents happened. An entertaining thought, anyway.

"Our lunar society will last forever"
"SAGUME WHY"
"I'm just so proud of us...."

If Sagume is some of Kishin, how did she end up on the moon anyway?

I don't think she is one; a kishin I mean.

As I recall her profile simply states she's something similar, though it also throws in ghost and god as things she's like. Presumably she emigrated along with Eirin and Tsukiyomi when the Lunar Capital was first established. It's not a place I envision as having any sort of significant population growth after the fact.

Her name is just a homonym for Kishin. 鬼神 means "oni god", while her, 稀神, means "rare god".

I guess that makes but I wonder how she learned sign language?

She has no excuse not to, she's an immortal-ish being loafing around on a satellite instead of getting a real job.

Thinking about her more, I'm almost certain Sagume's "ability" is some manner of curse. Maybe even the (other, later, lesser) gods got fed up with the Lunarians and inflicted upon one of their number a condition that could cause their entire civilization to crumble if she so much as boasted about it. Or maybe it's a reminder that what they're all doing on the moon isn't quite natural, 'cause Sagume's ability more or less means the whole universe is against her.

Maybe that explains the wing, too? Something that was put upon her, symbolizing how the Lunarians have elevated themselves beyond mortality but are still falling short of divinity?

"That's for your asshole moon friends tying up us gods with giga rope, ya jerk!"

Femto rope, not giga rope.

Curse your pedantry, cursesssssss

Edit: I didn't actually remember it had a specific name. I was just being vaguely mocking at the super advanced chrono engineered shrine rope.

edited 17th May '17 7:15:07 PM by Bocaj

The Lunarians are rather stuck up what with the whole god sealing thing but Sagume was going to purify Gensokyo.......is that bad thing?

"Purify" here means "removing any traces of life and death". Or in other words, annihilating everything in Gensokyo. So yeah, pretty bad.

That said, Sagume seems like a massive Draco in Leather Pants in the fandom. She was going to commit mass murder, but people love her because she's cool. On the other hand, the Watatsuki sisters were just doing their job, but people hate them just for being a little racist.

Literally the closest character to Hitler.

Toyohime was going to do the same thing as Sagume except on a smaller scale so she's not exactly driven snow.

Also she engages in illegal pet importation

I wonder what the moonfolk would've done if Reimu hadn't stopped Sumireko from breaking the barrier. They'd have been stuck on the moon, fighting unstoppable fairies, with no place to escape to. Sagume very nearly doomed the moon with her plan.

edited 18th May '17 7:47:13 AM by Enlong

I don't think Sumireko really had much to do with her plan, tbh.

They intended to have her stir up the urban legend manifestation incident with her own shenanigans until the Faked Moon Landing rumor could take hold, as well as establish a link to the moon by activating the Lunar Capital power stone, right?

I just watched all of U Li L stories on youtube and it doesn't look like Sumireko even knew anything about the Urban Legend incident. The only important part she has in Sagume's plan is to get the Lunar Capital Ball into Gensokyo.

Oh for sure. Sumireko was a complete unwitting pawn who was doing her own thing. She's only connected to the lunar invasion because Sagume, master of balls, snuck her the Lunar Capital stone.

It's not like most of them were fighting. The majority of the Lunarians were residing in a Dream!Lunar Capital in the Dream World, right? Most of them didn't even know that anything was going on.

The impression I got is that the whole operation was a top secret covert op. Which is why we had the special forces bunnies instead of the uniformed ones.