random notes;

[toofarisnextspring]

- VA voiceclaim: Noto Mamiko
- While it's not something they bring up very often, only to those very close to them, they do have a Chinese name - Lian, written with the character 莲 (lotus). Their surname is written with the character 琳 (beautiful jade).
- they are not Christian: they're a Chinese Buddhist.
- I haven't quite figured out exactly when their family left mainland China to move to Singapore, except that their maternal grandparents were definitely in Singapore during WW2 and Japanese occupation. There is very definitely a lot of generational trauma about a lot of things, both to do with mainland China and Japanese occupation.
- A really good PB for Michael's former appearance before being overwritten with the appearance they had used for Miha in the Paradise AR MMO is the main character from The Gender of Mona Lisa, except with purple eyes.
- Said appearance was basically Michael's secret, repressed desire for their own ideal appearance, as they were still presenting only as male at that point (though as a pretty, somewhat androgynous boy). The one (1) benefit they got from being caught up in the "Paradise bleeds over into the real world" and being nonconsensually made into the Demifiend was basically magical transition. The tattoos were very much not their idea, though.
- Arthur Bell, a British expatriate to Singapore, was given what was supposedly a second magatama (*the kind that would turn a human into a Demifiend, not like Michael/Miha's multiple magatamas) by G.H. Knight, supposedly meant to turn him into a second Demifiend to take the responsibility of choosing a Reason and being the architect of the new world from Michael Lin, on the grounds of "we shouldn't have made that poor abused child carry that burden." Both men knew that doing so meant murdering the true Demifiend - Knight, for all his pretty words, was not pleased with the path Michael/Miha were taking and knew they would not choose the "correct" Reason, and thought of them as a loose end that needed to be tidied up. (and Knight killed himself, so that he wouldn't even have to face the consequences of his actions, once this plan was set in motion). Bell was in agreement with the Law-based Reason that G.H. Knight wanted.
- Unfortunately, the second magatama was not a true magatama, and instead had been engineered by the Crawling Chaos, who wanted a stillborn world. Instead of turning Bell into a legitimate claimant to the role of Demifiend, it made him into a false Demifiend and worse: a Beast of Calamity- Beast VI-L, False Messiah of Emptiness, Nega-Reason.
- While Beast VI-L was still nascent, Michael/Miha sensed something amiss and attempted to get hold of Night/Misaki and their half-brother Masaru, but both of them were busy with important stuff Elsewhere, so couldn't be reached due to being mostly dead. They waited for as long as they could, but realized they couldn't wait anymore, and went into battle against the newborn Beast VI-L, out in the Strait of Singapore. (which...fucked Indonesia over, even more than it already had been due to Law taking over Singapore and Malaysia. Unfortunately.)
- As the Demifiend, they were powerful enough to take on a Beast. Unfortunately, this was not a fight they could walk away from alive, because truly winning by unmaking Beast VI-L required a willing act of self-sacrifice, and died shortly afterward, choosing their Neutral-aligned Reason shortly before their death. Unfortunately, though they had chosen a Reason, they were not able to convey it to the avatar of the Great Will due to being dead and the creation of the new world could not be completed.
- Misaki and Masaru had to make some pretty shitty deals, give up their humanity, and cause another apocalypse in order to even get the possibility of completing the creation of the new world back on the table, something about magical wish-granting world trees and tree-for-alls.
- for twenty years, Michael/Miha were dead and in stasis in one of the trees (the world tree of Tokyo). When the Eighth Night managed to make several miracles and not only win the Fifth and final Holy Tree War but also beat Beast VI-R and the Crawling Chaos in order to complete the creation of the new world, they were revived, and helped sing the new world into being. While they were dead, the trees were updating them on what was happening, in what amounted to being a very long dream.