The New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium!

are you implying you expected common sense?

Just another passerby

So basically you're saying that Wriggle considers no one a threat?

"If you kill me, another queen of insects shall rise up! And if you kill her, another! We are the creatures of eternity! We are the insects!"

Well, lacking long-term memory. Bugs are incapable of long-term projects, they are only able to live in the moment. So that makes sense.

Well, ants and bees and such do get involved in long-term projects... I guess it takes a central queen to build such a hive around... In the past, I suppose the queen of insects must have been Abaddon, queen of the bee-ants. But fireflies just aren't cut out to be administrators.

I imagine Wriggle spends a lot of nights directing the fireflies and other insects of a night like a ghostly choir and dance troupe... just because it's beautiful.

Couldn't "relief" be taken to mean that she's asking for donations to support insects? Someone should check the original name.

I doubt she's that kind of a leader... if she does use her people for her personal gain and strike down any opposition,*

^{not that opposition is even possible given how brainless they all are}

she'd at least convince herself that it's for their own good.

Some good thoughts in there. I like the reasoning for why her opinion of humans must be pretty low. Although again, logically speaking she shouldn't be able to remember any of that... Well, I guess it's possible that insects that grew beyond a certain age start growing a sort of basic youkai consciousness, even if they're not developed far enough yet to grow a humanoid body...

Growing senile is a strange concept for a youkai. Especially one so young-looking.

That last paragraph brings out some pretty heavy guns! I'm not sure if it's appropriate to see Wriggle as a metaphor for the oppression of women, but I can't say it's not an interesting thought. Worth considering.

What is this about?

And then picdump. May God have mercy on my soul.

Oh, that's even better than the current character sheet image. I guess I should put up that one instead...

I really like this one. It's not the first one I really like here, but I guess it's Wriggle-like enough that I bother pointing out how much I like it.

Ooh, she even has a conductor's baton!

Not sure about the execution, but that is a fascinating concept.

... so why is it that I can't think anything but "hot" when I look at it?

Another one! I guess it's kind of a common idea.

I'm gonna be over there dying now if you don't mind

Now all this talk about how the only insects involved in long-term projects are the sort that live in hives/swarms/colonies, it's gotten me to think- What if Wriggle's memory improves when she's in a group? It's a little rough, but it may deserve some thought.

edited 22nd Sep '11 2:56:27 AM by Pulse

I sure said that!

I think the theory was that insect relief is where you pay Wriggle some money and she keeps the bugs away from you for a set amount of time.

If this is the case, she shares Mystia's talent for extortion.

'What lovely skin you have. It'd be a shame if anything were to bite it, wouldn't it...'

Song of the Sirens

Hm.

Hive insects are supposed to have a hive mind, right?

Maybe she has a hive mind herself. Maybe her mind is capable of tapping into those of her followers, like some sort of online server, and maybe that's how she can send signals to and control them... And maybe she could even use them like external harddrives to store memories...

Well, that's a beautifully tragic concept.

Granted, I was just kind of thinking that Wriggle's got some bizarre psychosis wherein she can only remember so far back in relation to how many individuals are around, insect or not.

But yours is much, much better.

edited 22nd Sep '11 4:06:56 AM by Pulse

I sure said that!

Why do you find it tragic?

This song.

you'll then have a grave in the clouds where you won't lie too cramped

So, though she's so adamant about insect rights, she has no compunctions about violating them for her own usage.

you'll then have a grave in the clouds where you won't lie too cramped

What a terrible idea. It's even less reliable than cloud storage, because at least with that you can't lose a bunch of your data if some random person happens to have their house fumigated.

Oh well. I suppose no-one ever claimed Wriggle is the sharpest tool in the shed.

edited 22nd Sep '11 5:04:04 AM by SuperDimensionman

With all the fanartists, who "forget" that (sometimes very conviently), one could easily really forget that.

Wriggle has power over insects, but I wonder, does she also have power over other insect youkai?

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

A thousand memories, scattered away by a thousand winds...

The greatest days of your life... The worst times you've ever had...

They just all vanish.

I sure said that!

On the other hand, you could say that Wriggle has a thousand identities based on whom she's hanging out with.

But, I didn't even think of it that way. That is kind of beautifully tragic. Or was it tragically beautiful?

Oh shush, you.

Region-blocked. ._.

One has to wonder if any others exist. If so, would they also have the power to control insects? That seems like kind of a power that a queen of insects would have, but Wriggle doesn't seem like that much of a capable queen. If, say, a cockroach or something turned youkai, that would seem like a more powerful leader than a little firefly girl...

Oh, unless you mean non-humanoid insect youkai. Which may or may not exist. Those are probably ones she really has to talk to first to establish a connection with.

The concept of Wriggle as a "hive queen" got me thinking, do you think she gathers up her nonyoukai firefly companions and does a little lightshow with them? (maybe charging for admission...if she remembers to)

The idea that Wriggle is the youkai and such because she is the only one who lived long enough for youkaidom seems pretty sad to me. If she remembers, I bet she gets lonely.

Wriggle probably doesn't realize that using her powers to control other insects goes against "insect rights". I guess as long as they aren't getting squished?

Don't PM me. We don't like being PMed.

In this scenario, I wonder if the future insect queens would also be Wriggle Nightbug or if they'd have their own names and personalities. I guess it depends on how Wriggle herself came about.

Now, for your delectation and amusement, I will shamelessly resurrect some skits I made for the previous thread!

Yreomyr proposed that her minions collect coins and other shiny objects for her without understanding what they're good for.

I proposed the idea of Wriggle trying to up her sense of dignity and majesty by talking like a Jack Kirby supervillain.

edited 22nd Sep '11 5:47:41 AM by Durazno

That first skit reminded me of something I just want to get out: As far as I am concerned, Wriggle ain't stupid. Just forgetful and maybe a bit absentminded.

Wriggle trying to be a supervillian was pretty amusing though. She could pull it off at least in style.

Don't PM me. We don't like being PMed.

She has a cape. That's a beginning, if anything.

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

"Wriggle had grown so rich, she wanted to retire. She took me to her nest and she told me her secret. 'I am not Wriggle Nightbug', she said. 'My name is Riley. I inherited the hive from the previous Wriggle Nightbug, just as you will inherit it from me. The youkai I inherited it from is not the real Wriggle Nightbug either. Her name was Cummerbund. The real Wriggle has been retired 15 years and living like a king in the other side of the forest.'"

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Hm...Wriggle...what to say...Well, despite being the so called ruler of bugs, she still has their weaknesses. She's oddly aware of all of her shortcomings though (being attracted to Eintei's bug trap, knowing that she only utilizes short term memories). In fact, she kind of embraces them (I think one of her lines in Inaba was "I'm a bug, what do you expect?").

Insects in general are short lived though, so I do wonder how one of them survives long enough to become a youkai. I don't think fireflies have queens or any structures where one member outlives the others.

I kinda wanna mention this because I find it funny how it stars Wriggle, Wriggle, Wriggle, Wriggle and Wriggle. Kind of interesting multiple personas there...

Fawriel has drawn my attention to the "German comma" and I cannot unsee it.

Bar the idea of charging visitors for watching, that's kind of what I've constantly been trying to say and what two of those pictures already depicted. Which probably means it's a good idea, just not a particularly new one. Though charging for it does seem like something she should do.

Bewitching Kaiseki has a story pretty much about that, too, by the way!

1. Hmm, she might. I wouldn't be surprised.

2. Yes, actually. Insects have no sense of self, and their very nature means that they are expendable and it doesn't matter if one of them dies so long as their hive or species does. So yeah, Wriggle would think nothing of manipulating her insect brethren, so long as they survive.

(Not saying that she would sacrifice a single bug for anything, just that she won't mind impeding on anyone's free will because, well, they don't have any.)

Approved.

Rabbits, foxes, cats, and really any animal besides turtles and maybe some others, all don't live long enough to become youkai, really. That's just one of those laws of magic you have to accept. A watched pot doesn't boil, and a watched animal doesn't grow over a hundred years old. It's all very quantum-magic-like.

I wish that article would give just a liiiittle bit more info on what the hell that is.

Moonrunes explain all! Or rather, you'll have to decipher them first.

It's better than the article on the other wiki though. That one's just one giant picture in the middle of the screen.

edited 22nd Sep '11 9:04:26 AM by hassanico

the joke

my head

edited 22nd Sep '11 9:12:23 AM by JacktheSnowman

Just another passerby

The wages of her insolence turned out to be a lot higher than she expected.

I should add that the skit about money doesn't mean to paint Wriggle as stupid, just unused to human civilization. After all, the idea of an inherently worthless medium of exchange is kind of weird, isn't it?

Well that pretty much tells me that it's a Touhou Project derivative work starring Wriggle Nightbug. ... And then I noticed the navigation frame at the top. Which eluded me because the site obviously isn't optimized for my tiny netbook screen. Urgh!

...

Well, now I know what the interface looks like and that Cirno is a baka...

... Oh, hey. The character sheet is interesting. Apparently, the different personalities of Wriggle are even depicted by different artists. Including the one from Akatsuki Dou.