I HATE RUAN MEI EVEN MORE NOW | Honkai Star Rail 1.6 Story Quest 

That's a good way of looking at it! Glad we're getting free Ratio

I don't play HSR anymore but dang the character writing is very contrasting in this game. In genshin, everyone is either good guy or bad guy with "redemption arc" or else they die or never become playable (signora dottore)

Honestly I think it is entirely purposeful especially since it goes beyond that. Ruan Mei claims she isnt distrustful but she wants you to forget about ever meeting her. This is a sharp contrast to every Ratio tweet after this quest. He’s presented as someone who, despite being a genius, is easy to get along with BECAUSE he’s always trying to learn and wants to teach others (something which inevitably means offers the implication that he clearly doesn’t get along much with people on the same intellectual level). The quest is very much about first impressions and seems to do so by effectively giving the Trailblazer character growth.

Diona in HSR ?!

@@NightmarAkashi Literally though, what if she's a Foxian so she's also a 'cat' person? XDDD

Yep

Screwllum 🔛🔝

Screwllum radiates the "i gotchu homie" vibe whenever we got caught up in these geniuses schemes.

Yep exactly

I feel the same way when comes to tingyun and luocha. So many speculations and I don't know which one is right. Tingyun is death for real or not. Luocha is good or bad guy. The story is kinda mess up.

Thank you! I love Ruan Mei as a character but that doesn't mean I have to like her personality. I've also seen people saying that people who don't like Ruan Mei just dont "get" her. No, I "get" her. I just don't like what she did.

@@madamaonyx8844 ye hahaha I think those people are the ones that don't get it 😂😂 did they mean I should like her for putting the entirety of the space station in danger and having us clean up her mess and not even remember doing so? I'm supposed to like her for that? The fact that she hides it from Herta and Screwllum says enough. She knows she fucked up, and does not want to take responsibility. And I hate her for that. But I totally buy that there would be people who would do exactly that if they could, which makes Ruan Mei's character believable.

Yeah exactly. She is an interesting character, but honestly I'm more indifferent towards her - I didn't find anything that could make me like her. As you said, she lacked the charm to charm me with.

Yeah, it's what made me hate her even more

Worst part of it all for me? We're gonna forget abt her and whatever she did, ANYWAY. If we WILL forget her anyway, let me be rude to her, at least, on top of allowing her to strip me of my freedom for choice and non-consentual drugging.

Big this. Lot of people going 'oh, she is just evil', and I am like.... is that a bad thing?

@@ahrim_ It mostly has to do with her writing than her being "bad", from what I can tell. There are other morally grey/unempathetic characters in the game that're well-liked such as Herta, but Ruan Mei is highly divisive, especially with how the game forces the player to just go along with it and having no other choice in the matter, even in the end.

she's not interesting thats about it, theres nothing about her that makes u wanna know more

​@@Relevart9169sounds like a you problem, as I personally have lots of things I want to know of her more, just as much with Screwllum and Herta!

​@@oceanicGrimalkinthat's kinda the point? Ruan Mei more or less had control over the situation. The Trailblazer was essentially just there to deal with it faster. The Trailblazer can't outwardly antagonize her as she's part of the Genius society alongside making the SU in which the Trailblazer canonically likes. Or even the very least TB respects Madam Herta, and the other people in HSS so they wouldn't want to ruin their friendship with them as they'll 100% keep Ruan Mei on their side because again.. She's a genius society member.

Nah he only deepens the daddy issues

That's just your biases taking action, the way you took what was written, Trailblazer probably feels pity for her, seeing how destructive her personality is for others and herself included, basically I feel like the trailblazer wants to fix her, I mean, she's clearly broken, or has 0 social skills.

Unlike sampo or kafka, the "players" are forced to like her. This is one of the weakness in her lore, other than that, she's a very good villain that's pretending to be morally grey.

Right?! Love the pop culture references HSR keeps doing, but Geri's Game takes the cake

Exactly someone gets it

Different take how? She does mad scientist shit. She creates life and ignores it if it doesn't satisfy her, drugs people without warning, bribes us in sim uni to prevent Herta from finding out the changes she made, almost gets us killed and wants to become into a fucking Aeon. Bitch is cray cray. Maybe she gets character development later becomes kinda good like with the messages we have with her during the event but now she is a bad person if not downright evil. Mind you just cause she is a bad person doesn't mean you shouldn't pull or use her. My mains are Kafka and SW I'm not gonna deny the shit they do just cause they are allies against the antimatter legion.

What makes someone a "bad person" though? Ruan Mei experiments on sentient beings, such as giving us drugged cake that dorced us to tell lies and included a memory alteration substance all without our consent. Likewise, she creates, discards, and destroys sentient life on a whim with explicit evidence that this causes distress and harm to those beings. On top of all that, she's almost exclusively in isolation. She doesn't publish or share the vast majority of her work (both due to most of it being illegal and fear of discovery by Polka). She even admits that most of these experiments with sentient life is to satisfy her own curiosity or to provoke emotion in her, so its not as if she has some greater moral goal in mind with it all. I don't know about you, but with the possible exception of Dr. Primitive, Ruan Mei seems to be the least moral Genius Society member (and yes I'm including Polka here too).

How is she not a bad person when everything she does is bad

@Dia_D_Auth bad word choice on my part. Let's say she's not a villain or traditionally evil at this point. If she continues or amplifies her actions, especially if she continues to have little to no remorse, then we might have a larger problem on our hands.

Ironically screwllum is the most sane one

@@jerryeljeremy7790Yep Stephen Lloyd too, the kid is amazing yet introverted LMaoo

​@@jerryeljeremy7790a literal machine who literally have the similar interest- organic beings But actually have good manners, aint no way, Nous, ik you want to choose people who wants to seek the truth, but not Ruan Mei Polka bit questionable too😭 tho in my memory she kills heretics(?) Of GS

@@idontspeakjapanese6289yeah but … he’s literally a kid who still lives with his parents.

Yea, no. So far the Genuis Society is a lot more likable compared to Ratio who just comes across as a know-it-all.

She's just morally black

Same she reminds me of princess bubblegum from adventure time minus the mental breakdowns and more brutal abusive methods in experiments.

You should explore the data & computers in the new region. A document clearly states following: 1. Using abundance drugs to prolong (like mara struck) cats, to immortalize them so that they survive experiments. 2. Experiments to turn 'herself' into an Aeon. 3. Experiments to see how much torture the desserts could endure. And so on...

She’s not grey at all. Just because someone in all technicality is neutral doesn’t make them grey. She’s straight up an equivalent to evil. Her actions align with what an evil person would do for the sake of being evil and is too dangerous to be disregarded as grey. Neutrality isn’t about not choosing sides, that is contradictory to being neutral. It’s just a shift from good to bad depending on self interest, she’s selfish, most neutral characters are selfish intents but just because other characters like this are grey doesn’t mean she is. It just so happened her selfishness risked the harm for everyone on the ship, that’s not grey and if she was intended to be a grey character then it’s just uninteresting to try and justify such actions because of a sole technicality of being neutral. When a neutral character causes too much damage, any kind of intent based neutrality can get thrown out the window in my eyes because she has gone too far. She’s a genius but using sociopathy as an excuse for her actions isn’t a cut for something so extreme especially when all it takes is a look at some social norms from even a logical perspective to realise this, so all that’s left is that she’s incompetent and got in her own way. With morally grey characters you’re able to at least defend them in some regard. She has no defendable actions and is just straight up bad. No reason to make a bad guy seems like a better person when that clearly isn’t the case. If a character’s greyness is only based on a mere technicality of neutrality then I think that’s a boring and terribly written “grey” character. Especially when most grey characters that you think of focus on their intent and perceptions of good and evil. Just because she refuses to participate in moral thinking on a logical and is incapable on a feeling level doesn’t make her “grey” as a character. She’s just down right evil due to the extremes of her actions.

@@thederp9309 the purpose of her experiment was not to create harm or chaos in the ship tho, which is what being "evil" is about, the perpetuation of suffering. Her purpose and intention is 100% just research. it doesnt matter how it happens or how she achieves it, just that if its possible in a research setting, she'll end the universe if she could. which is honestly much more interesting than whether a character is good or evil lmao

I totally agree, and wanna add that I think Kafka Knows she’s doing unethical things. While RM (I’m dyslexic srry) is- I am biased I loved cats and was almost teary when we had to walk through all the sad cake cats. If she’s gunna be a villain I do think that could be cool. Like a beautiful scary smart ass villain could rule, but she’s not for me. Especially when she touched TB without asking. I wanted a Smack Hand Away option, even though I know that was supposed to be charming or something. Violate personal bubble and mean to cats you created? No thank you

@@Dantalliumsolarium Yeah. There are other morally grey/unempathetic characters like Herta, but people like them because of how they're written. I also wish there are options that aren't just leading to the same thing. It's as if the game forces the player to just go along with it and expect everyone to just like her.

I agree, tho with kafka the story and charas r fully aware shes an insane war criminal and treat her as such

@@jsaturn4422 Yeah. And even Herta said ahead that the Genius Society members are likely to milk you dry and trick you into thanking them for it, Herta's just more direct with her methods often- not all the time, but she's blunt frequently.

Making those cute cats miserable cuz of her was def them going HARD on the "hate this character" train, and it worked, she's badly written, boring and uninspiring with no redeeming qualities. Its weird how they can go from Kafka to whatever ruan mei is

To be fair the drug does make the Trailblazer forget about what happens

@@jarrodtan5712 not right away though. It only makes them forget after some time passed, not immediately

Honestly I didn't want the cake at all because I found her suspicious, and so I declined at first and then I had to take it which pissed me off a bit and then she made it so that we could only say good things about her, and then we become her assistant but not by choice and then when we're still upset about it she goes I'll just reward you more! with WHAT near death I mean unless you talking to me or whatever is your "reward" I don't want it! But yeah I hate the fact that we had no say in it we couldn't even get angry at her for nearly getting us killed and having us clean up her mess.

Idk why we shit on the TB when you can literally tell that they were super fucking pissed after almost suffering a near death experience from the boss fight and we go over to ruan mei immediately afterwards to demand answers. Like one of the dialogues just basically said to ruan mei that "you didn't have to lie to me" during the questioning. We DID tell her off. We DID basically accepted the fact that we would forget her for what she's done to us. There's really nothing that TB could have done better in that quest. In fact I'd argue that TB was incredibly pissed after the entire situation

keep spamming this but the quest is terribly written. We don't forget immediately after eating the cake. The fact that we could ignore Kafka's and call her out but not ruan mei? a side character in this story? that's what so bad about this. @@juggernaut_naive-sn1zs

Fr dottore atleast looks cool and have quite personality 💀

I think ruan mei is better than Dr.MEI or mobius from honkai impact 3. I don’t really know how to feel about her chara. I guess i’m just neutral for now.

There wasnt an antidote, she said that "it will just wear off" in the end.

She probably did see that though. Additionally, she’s already seen TB’s potential for testing through the Simulated Universe. She’s probably had this planned for a while. Agree on the Trailblazer thing though. I quite liked the quest but the lack of an actual reaction from them felt… off. Kafka’s quest lets you outright skip it out of disdain, but this one doesn’t even let you tell Ruan Mei off for what she did.

We don't really have a choice to respond negatively a lot, tbh. We can't even turn down her cake even though some of us were already sus about her since her trailer.

@@oceanicGrimalkin I wonder why they decided to even make that a choice. They could’ve just made TB jump on it because yummy food, instead of giving us the illusion of choice. HSR is usually great about not doing that, so I wonder why they chose to do it here.

@@captainblue5096 Idk either. If there were a few more branching dialogues, tricking your way around the anti-truth serum by trying to do other things like writing down the truth or something can be clever, I think. At least make it possible for TB to call her out in the end.

I don't want to be forced to simp a character x.x

@@materla4102same and boy do i have news for you in penacony regarding being forced to simp for a chara

@@armslitter oh man, who are we going to be forced to simp for now?

@@materla4102 Firefly (she was introduced by sunday in the live stream) She also pilots Sam ..

@@armslitter I see, I'm not up to speed still

I wouldn't say terrible personality more like a questionable gray character if anything she's more like a tamed version of princess bubblegum.

@@justsomeguyworkingatmcdona6817 Eh, moral greyness and terrible personality don't have to be mutually exclusive. She's a divisive character, for sure. She may not be terrible in personality for you, but to others, it is.

@@oceanicGrimalkin I guess you're right the guy probably Doesn't like cold, calculative, emotionless and distant types.

Great *design*? Her design is so boring

She is nicknamed the mad scientist. The genius society aren't exactly saints in their regard. The only sane ones I've seen is herta and screwllum. But people like polka kakamond or Mr. Primitive who has problems of their own

Well even if after the boss we indeed call her out, it's very limited A big issue is at the end where we can't chose to idk, be mad about what she did ? We are forced to be act "friendly" toward her in the end message And it's quite annoying

Idk why we shit on the TB when you can literally tell that they were super fucking pissed after almost suffering a near death experience from the boss fight and we go over to ruan mei immediately afterwards to demand answers. Like one of the dialogues just basically said to ruan mei that "you didn't have to lie to me" during the questioning. We DID tell her off. We DID basically accepted the fact that we would forget her for what she's done to us. There's really nothing that TB could have done better in that quest. In fact I'd argue that TB was incredibly pissed after the entire situation

Like what the other commentator said, Kafka's more direct to the Trailblazer while Ruan Mei is basically leaving us with 2 vague options with the same end result. We did have the opportunity to call her out. Not sure if you misread the last part of the quest or not, but Trailblazer did in fact, call her out about her "lying" to them. And why wouldn't they do that? Spending the entire time in the space station to do an investigation only to end up in a boss fight that could have almost put the Trailblazer to death there - this is some motive of a morally grey character. They were left after the fight feeling betrayed and pissed off. Me personally, I would be pissed at her for putting me in a situation like this. There was nothing much the Trailblazer could have done here. They were left with no choice to try Ruan Mei's cake, and that "anti-truth serum" basically prevents them from talking anything regarding her. I love her kit and I think she plays a big role in the meta as a break support, unfortunately her personality leaves more to be desired. Let's not forget her abandoning her creations all for the sole purpose of "buying milk" - that's just a hard pill to swallow.

@@juggernaut_naive-sn1zs That’s a fair point. Those lines served their purpose well. I think it was the last few lines that killed it for me, especially the “I look forward to new stories with you” or whatever. Additionally, the messages with her and the Express meetups are very cordial, not how I’d expect someone to react to someone who used them for science experiments waltzing into their own home so-to-speak. You’re right that it’s there though. Didn’t account for that. It’s been a bit since I played the quest so I don’t remember it all clearly atm.

​@captainblue5096 To be fair, if TB is cordial to them afterwords, couldnt that be because, as Ruan Mei said, that they forgot about the bad things she did to them once the anti-truth serum wore off?

@@shadowbuddy8034 Oh shoot you’re right. Somehow failed to take that into account. My bad. There’s actually an interaction where TB tells Ruan Mei that they’ve forgotten something about her after the quest so there’s that as proof. So yeah that’s a valid point I overlooked.

Wait, where did you find out some of her creations killed themselves? I honestly can't remember if I discovered that or missed it 🤔 Either way, I'll adopt all of those adorable little kitty-cakes!

⁠​⁠@@sairi_aFrom her logs. It also makes me feel bad reading about the kitty cakes. She wants to seal them in the seclusion zone after realising they’re failed experiments. The fact that she labels it as subject disposal is depressing to say the least.

You just explained morally gray. She wants to fulfill her wish and her own interests. She's not good or evil.

But I get what you mean. She is kind of boring.

@@2k3d bland, raw, and boring :D

​@@2k3dmorally grey doesn't mean bland

Tbh same I want SW but didn't have chance I guess she's fine 🤷

Fr I'm worried if they add Mobius in star rail.

I played HI3 too and I don't think it's appropriate to compare her to all three of these characters. Her story and character are close to Mobius, but still worse written. Let's be honest, a lot of people liked Ruan Mei because she hot (for someone??), not because of her story. In HI3, you can hate Mobius and Otto, but admire how well they are written and respect that.

@@_natalie_723 inappropriate to compare characters that exist in the same multiverse? Uh - yeah. Whatever you say (rolling my eyes)

I've never played the previous Hoyo games, but I guess something similar to Bondrewd (also a complicated scientist character) from Made in Abyss in terms of immoral actions?

@@_natalie_723Actually it’s very appropriate to compare her to them; it’s Honkai. I’d also compare her to Dr. Mei on a lesser sense as there are slight similarities in terms of personality; imo she’s more a mixture of Mobius & Dr. Mei. General personality of Dr. Mei and mad scientist aspect from Mobius as, if you read through the files in the Secluded Zone, you can see the amount of fucked up shit she’s done to test subjects.

But the TB wasn't trying to call her out, they canonically like her.

@@Himomo3 That's the point. There is no choice *other* than being forced to like her just because TB does, even if the player feels the opposite.

@@oceanicGrimalkin Well, my point is that TB is not a self-insert character. You can feel however you want, but the TB's character is written in a certain way and that includes liking Ruan Mei.

@@Himomo3 Then making choices for the game is moot then. TB is their own character, but just like Harry Du Bois from Disco Elysium, it's us who chooses what happens and the MC is mostly silent.

The main difference between them is that Dottore is someone who specifically is willing and eager to step over the corpses of whoever he needs to kill in order to achieve results in his experiments, while Ruan mei isn't going out of her way to try and harm people in the process of experimenting its that she literally doesn't care about consequences and potential dangers which is a different kind of detached fucked up mindset 😐

@@sneakretster Psychopath vs sociopath. Both of them aren't morally gray

@@sneakretster Actually there's a hidden bit of information in the game that indicates she tortured one of her creatures as a test.

@@Ivy-jq6di oh don't worry, I'm not trying to justify her being morally gray, I despise her and she's definitely just a bad person similarly to dottore who I also hate🗿

Yeah.. ikr. She reminds me with her. She don't even realize what she is doing can be bad. Just look at the lemon guy. 🤣

Bro, she is just a narcissistic grandma. She made her dolls look like young girls because of her self-awareness about aging.

@@VovaMykytenko She can probably age backwards if she wanted.

@@lazaruslong697 "Herta: This is Madam Herta, or better known as member 83 of the Genius Society. In her childhood, she solved the solitary waves theory and the Spark model hypothesis. In her adolescence, she found the Sigma Baryons conversion method. In middle-age, she proposed the Herta sequence and published a paper on de-aging. Herta: In her senior years, she managed to reverse her own age via de-aging, and went on to solve the mystery of the imaginary leakage phenomenon, and even captured and sealed a stellaron. Madam Herta has saved the planet she was on from destruction 19 times and has met the Aeons twice." Her true appearance might be similar to Nahida considering her personality. She reminds me of Purah from Breath of the Wild cuz she also reversed her aging. It's up to the devs to decide what appearance to go by.

Yeah She's an awful person but she can't be said to be evil Evil means wanting to harm, hurt and destroy. And most of the time taking pleasure into that While she doesn't want to harm people, it's just that she takes actions without caring if it causes harm or not

boring u ass

Same here, the two main points that really brings her down is her potentially harming Trailblazer from the troubles that she herself created, and the lifeforms that she failed to take responsibility for creating them. P.S: Do you love the critters? I do, a lot. XD

Dude, im in my 73 pity, after that quest i just got so mad, im deciding i'll save these pulls of DanIL

@@liandoaethend2403 Im saving for Kafka haha XD

I got Dead Space vibes

@@DarkSeraph that too

Alian isolation vibes

I already regretted getting her. Only pulled for another harmony 5*, I dislike her character and personality from the start.

For me, it’s basically “you are on this team because you are useful, not because I like you. The second that stops being the case, you’re out.” At least with the others in my team, I actually like them

You know, i have * almost* regretted pulling for Luocha, but the way his personality is taken, and by how he cares (probably a ruse, but im coping) im still holding the rope of hoping hes not evil

I pulled her because she is meta that's all

​@@crimsondemon6231that's a low mindset to have. Waifu > meta

Meta- fantastic. Design and personality? Meh

Perhaps not that true Even tho I find her design really boring because.. litteraly female Dan Heng Lot of people like it and simp for her because.. Well attractive female, what can we say I think even if she wasn't broken, lot of people still would have pulled because of simping

Shouldn't the Trailblazer and Ruan Mei have a more hostile relationship then?

If this were the case then we'd have the chance to tell her off like we did with Kafka. The devs want us to like Ruan Mei, so we don't get the chance.

​@@darsath84 I literally say in my own comment that I agree that the Trailblazer needs to have an option of us responding negatively to her. If not be negative towards her in all the options.

​@@misslethal2355 And that is exactly what I didn't like, as I said in my own comment. I said I don't agree that there is no option to respond negatively to her.

Of course it's great to have bad person and not just friendly one And TBH, most people think like you Of course lot of people dislike Ruan Mei because she is made to be unlikable but interesting But like you say, the real thing people complain about and the real thing people really don't like about this quest It's just how she get out free of any consequences, just a friendly puppy trailblazers who simp for her Sure there are some people that would complain about her being an anwful person because they want only friendly and cool characters But if they just made so that we could really be angry at her and make her think of her action and not just "you didn't have to lie to me :(" I think there would be so much less complaint and hate

Well better than worse doesn't mean good

My issue was not her personality, but the way the Trailblazer reacted to her actions. They just got drugged and then went along with whatever she wanted them to do... Really? They already gave us the opportunity to turn down Kafka, so why not do something similar here. Or just give us the opportunity to be rude or show any appropriately negative reaction at all. This was infuriating

boring evil isn't an improvement in the slightest

@@Relevart9169Especially when it’s also one that is just allowed to get away Scott free with no repercussions. At that point it’s as though Mihoyo is putting her on a pedestal in spite of amoral actions

@@_dragonflies_the turning down Kafka is companion quest tho, I mean sure they can turn down Ruan Mei but that just ends the entire main story which well imo I don’t mind if they implement that

@@Omnislash7what repercussion do u want tho? Get arrested? TB being angry at her? Need to be more specific.. if it’s TB part ok I get it, getting arrested er I don’t think u can achieve that she’s not tied to any region (she left xianzhou). Herta literally don’t care what she does so even if u report to her it’s useless and this is her space station so she’s the boss (wtv Ruan Mei action is in this story the bugs)

No. Not at all you are missing the point. It's different for example hating a character from a story standpoint that is actually sought after because they want to create a divisive opinion with this "grey" character. That hating them from a writing standpoint. I hate her because the writters forced the TB to not be able to shit on her like we can do to Kafka, sampo, etc. Instead we get a dormant TB? Totally out of character and the worst is that we keep talking with her like nothing happened after. That's what I hate of her. Forcing things is not the answer to create inmersion and that she gets scott free.

@@benjamin-pj1of oh i assumed ppl hated her because of her apathetic nature and not caring about who or what she experiments on. i actually also agree on that too, i didnt like how the MC was only upset for like 2 seconds and then forgave her immeditatly and forgot abt what happened

@@a.bygoner Yeah there is some people that don't like her becouse of he attitude which is also understandable because that's what she's is supossed to do, make you have a divisive opinion. But honestly from the comments the most frecuent opinion is the one we both have. That the TB should not have been ok with her. All we can do is complain about it in the survey so this never happens again, I dont even know how this can happen if the TB is supossed to be sort of a vessel to the players. All in all I hope you have a good day night or whathever!

People love Madara because he is well written while Ruan Mei is not. 😷

we are allowed to dislike whoever we want. villains exist to be hated, you liking them is the quirk

Oh yeah. Guy like him exist even in real life. He is eccentric guy. The funny part is Screwllum having debate with Dr Ratio. Just reminds me with Silver Wolf. 😂

Not taking a free character just sounds stupid. There’s literally no reason to do that. XD

@@magmaspacer1967 I don't like the character and he serves no benefit to my account. I'll send you my copy of him LOL :)

@@ZephyrBluePaddy It’s literally free. There is no detriment to having him. Heck if you level him a little you get standard passes for free. If you end up liking his character later you already have him, he’s super strong, and he is an imaginary dps which is only fulfilled by Daniel.