The New New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

Wriggle Nightbug:

A firefly youkai who has dominion over insects of various kinds.

In days long past, Wriggle was a terror, no one dared to question her authority. Nowadays, recent inventions have kept her at bay. She also isn't as awesome as she was back in her glory days.

Ruining people's crops is the best she can muster on a good day if angered.

My interpretation of her position in Team 9 is thus: She's either a Sarcastic Devotee, or the only sane youkai of the bunch. Like, if Cirno comes up with some plan, she's the first one to know that it's not gonna so swimmingly. But she will still go along with it because it's kinda fun(Not so smart at all, eh?).

Wriggle uses an Insect Deck(But of course!). She uses it a lot more effectively than Weevil Underwood. Yes, it's a jab against him, because I don't like him at all.

I was going to argue pestilence and what not - I doubt people in Gensokyo wear Off

But destroying crops would really be a huge blow to such a small community. Much more than attacking people directly.

So wriggle is a firefly youkai? I always what kind of insect she was?

Yup, hence her boss title being "A Bug of Light Wriggling in the Dark"

Also, fireflies are more likely to live long enough to become youkai because people don't tend to kill them.

When will we get a butterfly youkai? -soulful longing sound-

Anyway, rumors that Wriggle's butt is glow in the dark are unconfirmed at this time.

Thanks, Aya. Now we all know who to blame when Wriggle rules the Earth.

I imagine Wriggles Message delivery/wake-up-call service was... not very well received. I imagine it went under when they started giving free samples and just waking up random people at the crack of dawn by covering them in a carpet of centipedes and cockroaches.

Yeah. It's one of those things that seems like a joke until you're staring down at an empty bowl.

Compared to the other childish characters like Cirno, Wriggle's notable feature is her terrible memory. Cirno may be easily distracted, but Wriggle forgets stuff she learns within like a day or less.

She discards any information she's not using anymore.

In the totally canon forever Inaba of the Inaba's Inaba, we see that includes the location where she was trapped previously.

Her judgement or her brain's judgement on unimportant information that can be discarded might not be great.

I've found that I kinda latched onto that bit of weirdness and otherwise deviated from canon when conceptualizing Wriggle. From her Imperishable Night dialogue she sounds fairly aggressive, hot-blooded, the typical brash weakling we've seen every other game - which certainly helps her get lumped with Team ⑨.

But youkai or not, she's still unlike anything we've seen before, isn't she? We've had cat youkai and bird youkai, and then there are the undefined fantastic objects such as Yuuka and Yukari, which look human but aren't. And somewhere in between is Wriggle, an animal, but a whole different genus (or whatever the taxonomical term is) from the likes of Mystia. Her mind works differently, as we see when she quickly discards unneeded information.

I imagine her to be fairly stoic, quite hard to rile, and dispassionate about the loss of individual buggy kin (even if she does bemoan the fate of her kind in general). Not terribly imaginative, but the sort to adapt another's idea in a way that doesn't quite work out. Her present human appearance was probably the result of another's recommendation, and the androgyny comes from Wriggle not quite understanding human genders. Wriggle probably has a great list of things she just doesn't get, anything more complicated than simple day-to-day survival. She knows about predator-prey relationships and the general status of insects, and that's about it.

Some of which flies into what we see in the dialogue and official sources, but shrug.

Also, something I found in the process of looking up Wriggle:

edited 26th Dec '14 9:29:51 PM by Tacitus

I like your thoughts

(Also she's the master of the midair slouch)

Interesting quote. I think that implies lots of people are dying.

Fireflies usually symbolize the souls of the dead, so if there are a lot of them...

edited 27th Dec '14 4:40:43 AM by Starx

More like fireflies going extinct, since thing that become obsolete in the Outside World enters Gensoukyou

Not entirely confirmed. Also... we don't exactly disbelieve in fireflies, now do we?

Remember old, unused objects also get into the border. We don't disbelieve in Atari consoles, are we?

edited 27th Dec '14 10:48:55 AM by ninryu

Just 62 years at the soonest before we can get a video game tsukogami

Electronics can't become tsukumogami anyway. They're repelled by electricity or something. That's a part of their modern myth.

I reject that reality.

Its not like electricity is flowing in unplugged appliances.

Too late.

I DON'T SEE ATARI IN THERE

Atari is there, but it's not as immediately obvious.

Also, Wriggle, she of the midair slouch. She always struck me as someone who emits coolness while also being a total small fry. Like, she isn't even faking it, she just doesn't realize her place (this may or may not be related to her selective insect memory).

As Akyuu states in PMiSS, Wriggle's power to control bugs make her a massive, massive threat far beyond what her level of power would suggest, but both her in game showing and the fact that the folks Akyuu interviews don't know who she is implies that she isn't aware of this application.

The age old question: Do Wriggle's pants light up?

I used to think that they shouldn't under the mistaken impression that only male fireflies did the butt-light, but then I spent some time on Wikipedia and learned female fireflies can light up too. On the other hand, there are some species of firefly that use pheromones to find mates rather than butt-lights, but the example breeds given by the article live in the US.

All that to say, yeah, Wriggle's butt totally glows in the dark. Usually when she's trying to land a date. Who is inevitably confused because that's the only signal she's sending.

edited 27th Dec '14 9:43:20 PM by Tacitus

So how many eggs have Wriggle laid in the span of her lifetime? Does she remember her children at all?

I thought of that too, but given the context of that conversation, I can't imagine Reimu caring that much if having more fireflies in Gensokyo means they are going away in the real world. Kind of like when those whatever things went extinct in the 3 fairies manga.

However, it would make sense for Reimu to care if something bad happened to the outside world. Which in Japense myth, fireflies represent the souls of the dead. Refer to this link for the myth. You can do a search for other links about firefly myths in general.

Hmm. Maybe Wriggle should put a few levels into necromancer so she can live the legend? Or is she content to live in a magical world where not necessarily every myth is true?

A weird question, though not as uncomfortable as wondering how many litters a "child" youkai like Chen squeezed out before growing her second tail.

My guess would be that the answer's "however many larvae a firefly produces in her normal lifetime," as I don't imagine that Wriggle's done much reproducing since gaining her humanoid form. We haven't seen her adopt a bug form, so that probably rules out breeding with baseline fireflies (yuck), and she doesn't seem the type to socialize with humans. Plus we haven't seen any half-youkai running around with antennae...

Anyway, whatever offspring Wriggle produced prior to becoming a youkai are long dead and forgotten. Such is the way of the bug.

More Wriggle stuff than I expected, especially given what had risen to the top of the sort:score_desc result - group shots, stuff with Yuuka, and depictions that overcompensated her feminine attributes tended to dominate, while what I was looking for was given an "average" rating by the community. The fact that Wriggle stuff doesn't seem to be rated very highly also skewed results.



On the left
Big happy flower
Watercolor
A bit rough
Cape all a-flutter
Cloak of stars
Staff of office
With her vicious attack butterflies
I wonder if Gensokyo would use spell cards if it had TV as an alternative?
How bizarre, she's not in a school swimsuit
Can see why she'd go with the boy clothes
A different adaptation
The gender thing frustrates her
For all we know she's the oldest in her cast herd
Some youkai are entrepreneurs, others take it easy
Good for something other than eating
Darkness and light
This is how they look to mushroom'd Marisa
Their annual winter project is keeping Wriggle alive for another spring
Wriggle contributes
Perfectly contributes Wriggle's attitude of stoic resignation to her friends' shenanigans
They should know the value of numbers
Unexpected, but cute
This infamous pairing
And the reasoning for it
Wriggle abuse
Underlit
Feisty little one
Particularly androgynous
Not at all impressed
When the night lights up like that, you remember just how many minions she has
The staff-lantern combo is definitely win
High kicks and short shorts
Boot to the head
Those are her kickin' boots
The hive queen
Wriggle Pawnch?
Well that's a different kind of lighting source
Rough but intense
She mad
Big bad bug
Head looks a bit more buglike
Hand looks a bit more buglike
Even bat wings would be an improvement
Chitin and leather
Let the bug hunt commence
What, she summoning something?
Oh
I don't think that's a throne...
Not just a nightbug
Each skittering sensation across your naked legs, every sudden bite from an unseen source, are at her command
Persona!
Nope
Alright, this one's a guy
I guess even bug monsters have loved ones
One of her most famous portraits
The anti-Rumia
Always embarrassing when it happens in public
Draws her own emphasis lines
Fey bug spirit
Exulting in the light
Older, hugging pillow
Petal danmaku?
Urban firefly habitat
Flowers
Girl in green
Perhaps the best
I'm now hearing "Stickerbrush Symphony" from DKC2
Another perfect summer night
Cute lil' bug
Think she's got the right idea
Piko piko?
Om nom nom
Just gotta rub herself all over it
Follow that roach!
Death or glory
If you have the power, use it
Still my favorite

edited 30th Dec '14 9:48:43 PM by Tacitus

The night sky is bright and lovely, thanks to the cries of insects. Especially fireflies.

See the Glow

Night Battle

Insect Superstar

Insect Rock

Majestic Night

Insect Vibes

Western Night Breeze

Wondrous Night

Rise of Firefly

Insect Rondo

Firefly Thoughts

Firefly Feelings

Soulful Firefly

Well, I don't think the holidays are solely to blame for the dearth of bug talk. Now'd be a good time to share any last minute Wriggle thoughts before we move on to the Sealing Club tomorrow.