Merli

Merli in Lily's Mansion.

**Merli** is a major character in *Silylily - The Story*.

Created by the gods as an "evil" fairy meant to keep balance in the world, she spends her life battling her "good" sister Lapis. She seeks to go against societal expectations of morality by doing what she believes to be right. When Lily from anim.o.v.e is brought into the family conflict, Merli stops at nothing to defend her from Lapis. She acts as Lily's mentor and teaches her about the nuances of good and evil, eventually giving her life to save Lily.

## Summary

### History

As a pair of fairies, Merli grows up alongside her "good" sister Lapis. She devotes her life to spreading evil wherever she goes. Her standards for evil become based on whatever opposes the status quo upheld by people in power. This leads to an unending war with her sister. Lapis receives help from the police department while Merli keeps to herself in an evil lair. Apart from this lifestyle, Merli continues her fairy tendencies, granting wishes to people and playing tricks on them in doing so.

Upon meeting Lapis and Merli at the same time, Lily wishes to become a "popular vocaloid." She decides to give her wish to Merli, aligning herself with evil in the eyes of Lapis. Merli grants Lily's wish by making her the most popular vocaloid among fish, but Lily does not mind this. Lapis later commits to the task of bringing Lily to justice by any means necessary. Upon learning of Lily's darkest secret, the good fairy builds an army to take her down, planning to make Lily confess to her misdeeds herself.

During their unending battle, Merli captures Lapis' friend Violet and interrogates her for information. She also continues to associate with Lily, occasionally hanging out with her and joining her on adventures.

### Friendship with Lily

After deciding to go on a camping trip in the cursed Execrated Forest, Lily invites many of her vocaloid friends to join her. Merli is among them and is placed in a group with Kagamine Rin, Meiko, Yanhe, and Xin Hua. Merli forms an unexpected bond with Xin Hua after they share secrets. She is also able to help her team with her magic powers, using them to start a campfire. During a stormy night, Merli and her campmates are captured by a "wild cat" that turns out to be a possessed vocaloid named Nekomura Iroha. Once all of the campers are captured, a battle ensues and Iroha is cured of her possession. They all escape the forest together while being pursued by Indefinable Shadow Beasts.

Merli is later invited to spend a night in Lily's supposedly haunted mansion, a cash prize being offered to anyone who can make it through the night without leaving. Unlike the others, Merli stays out of trouble, but a masked "monster" begins picking the guests off one by one. Upon learning that Iroha gave Lily the house, Merli calls the cat-girl to find out who she got it from. Reception is cut before she can receive an answer, but Merli persistently hunts for the monster with a group. Her group is picked off one at a time until Iroha arrives at the mansion with the knowledge of the person who gave her the mansion. Before she can say anything, the monster attacks and forces them to disperse.

When Rin and Merli are left as the only uncaught guests, Rin learns that the monster is the same person who gave Iroha the house. Merli protects herself with a tiresome shield spell for long enough to hear the monster's identity before Rin is captured by it. Worn out, Merli goes to Lily with the information, but they are both caught by the monster soon after. It turns out to be Lily's ex-girlfriend Luna. Lily makes up with Luna in the nick of time and everyone is able to escape the mansion before it self-destructs. However, the guests are left enraged by Lily's refusal to pay them.

### Partnership

After a battle with Lapis, Merli is imprisoned inside a lamp, which winds up in Lily's possession. Lily accidentally releases Merli, who promises to give Lily a genuine wish in return for saving her. However, Lily is arrested by Officer Yukari before she is able to make the wish. Once Lily and kokone break out of prison, they hunt for Merli and catch her in a butterfly net to wish their names clear. Later, kokone is arrested along with Merli before the wish can be made. In prison, kokone makes a wish on behalf of Lily, wishing the police were after Namine Ritsu instead. As a result, kokone and Merli are freed.

After interrogating Violet and learning the location of Lapis' kingdom, Merli arrives just in time to save Lily from her sister. Merli takes Lily to her secret lair and offers the vocaloid the chance to join the fight against Lapis. Not wanting to succumb to evilness, Lily declines the offer, but later comes around and accepts it. Merli trains Lily, teaching her how to be rebellious. They start an army of their own, recruiting Sukone Tei, MAYU, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn. When Merli wishes to have less murderous villains on her team, she and Lily agree to bust the semi-evil Iroha out of prison.

Lily and Merli approach Iroha's housemate Hiyama Kiyoteru for help, citing his demonic powers that are held back by his glasses that were blessed by goddess LUMi. Kiyoteru declines, not wanting to unleash his inner evil. Lily and Merli are still able to go through with their plan, but face conflict when Harley and Ivy are taken down by Batman and the two of them are cornered by Yukari. Kiyoteru shows up just in time to unleash his demon and fight Yukari. This allows Lily and Merli to rescue Iroha before escaping with her. Kiyoteru is later killed by Lapis for helping them, inciting his student Kaai Yuki to avenge him.

Lapis later initiates another attack on her sister by cutting Lily's connection to the outside world through social media. Merli brings Violet to Lapis' castle to have her open a locked barrier, then she and her army battle Lapis and her minions. Lapis unveils VY2, a sword blessed by LUMi, but she loses it during the scuffle. Lapis is forced to flee with Violet and her minions, but Prima shows up afterwards to tell Merli's army where they have gone. She claims to have been watching Lily and reveals Lapis is now seeking VY1, another one of LUMi's artifacts. Since gods cannot directly intervene against "good" fairies, she sends Lily and Merli on a mission with a select group of others in order to find VY1 before Lapis can. Prior to the mission, Prima informs Merli that VY1 can only be used once a sacrifice is made. Merli agrees to make it, wanting to save Lily from her sister by any means necessary.

### The Final Battle with Goodness

Merli, Lily, and sixteen others are brought aboard a vessel by Prima, where they are then taken underwater. She debriefs them on their mission to find VY1 and defeat Lapis, who has set up a castle in the abyssal plain. Lily is placed in charge and given VY2 to fight with, as Lapis has built an army of fish to fight alongside her, Ritsu, and Violet. After leaving the vessel, Merli leaves the group to scout ahead, but everyone is soon split up when a giant anglerfish attacks them. Merli later comes across the ancient ruins that hold VY1. She rescues the group of Lily, kokone, Cocorobo, and Iroha from Lapis and Violet, but Cocorobo is captured and VY1 falls adrift. Merli continues to guide the group in the search for it, but when they settle down to camp, she and kokone are kidnapped and imprisoned inside Lapis' castle.

They, along with everyone else, are later rescued when Lily invades the kingdom with help from Ritsu, who is soon killed for betraying Lapis. They destroy it from the inside before making a getaway, but Yuki runs back inside with VY2 to kill Lapis. She is successful and VY2 disintegrates from the act, but Lily tells Merli that Lapis was killed in the castle's destruction. Soon, Violet takes over the ocean and controls the fish to fight for her. This forces the sacrifice to be made. Merli tells Lily about her and Prima's agreement before reflecting on her satisfaction with life. She revels in the fact that she will die surrounded by friends who will fondly remember her, while her "good" sister will be admonished for as long as she is remembered. At peace, Merli gives her life to open the vortex that imprisons Violet for all eternity.

After her death, Lily dedicates the final chapter in her journal to Merli. She also frequently talks to her, as if requesting guidance in times of trouble. A statue is erected in Merli's likeness in the "Vocaloid Garden of Legacy." The plaque beneath it reads **Merli - Savior of Humanity**.

## Characterization

Prior to her debut in the series, Merli was a popular character featured in memes on silylilyanimove. Several followers of the account regularly paired her with Lily, and following the surprising popularity of a joke comic that featured the two as a couple, silylilyanimove's admin decided to include her in media more frequently. While her appearances were minimal at first, her magic powers made her an outlier from other characters in the comic series. In Lily's Mansion, the "death order" of the characters was randomly generated, but she was generated to be the sole survivor. This enlarged her role in the series mythos. Following the decision to feature Aoki Lapis as the series antagonist, Merli was upgraded to a role as a major character in order to fight back against her sister. Even though the character remained popular, the decision to make her a main character was met with mixed reception. The first comic to feature her actively alongside Lily set a record low number of likes and retweets for a silylilyanimove installment. As a result, the admin decreased her lifespan as a main character, but kept her relevant to the overall series.

After struggling to create a follow-up, going through countless story ideas, the admin created Lily's Twitter Problem as a quick comic to bring the series to the Deep Sea Lily special. This would mark the death of Lapis and the imprisonment of Violet, concluding Merli's storyline before a "soft reboot." Merli was intended to survive, but would fade into the background as the series followed a different direction. However, when the character intended to die at the end of Deep Sea Lily was not requested on the special's recruitment post, the admin figured Merli would be a better candidate to fill their role. As her significance was intended to decline after the death of Lapis, they found it more powerful to end her story arc altogether. This would also allow them to utilize her death to further develop Lily.

## Trivia

* Despite being Lapis' sister, Merli does not share her last name.
* Lapis and Merli are seen together during The Unheard Voices. It is unknown why this is the case.