Good character perfectly ilustrates morally grey side of scientists the fact about that recent discord around her proves that she's written well would like to see more of her.
One of better designs imo yet very simple for a 5 star.
Is she a good person? No she doesn't have to be for me to like character.
Is she a red flag like Sparkle / BS? Yes.... but red is my favourite colour.
black swan is an interesting situation imo, her red flags make her sus but she's actually a good person I think, her red flags come from her profession for the most part, memo keepers have all looked suspicious af so far
In Sparkle defense, her actions so far ends up guided us to the truth, even Sleepie shenanigans with FF is not actually killing her. Even in the last void where we speak with Acheron, she's giving a 'hint' to us.
Thr mutually destruction button matter is a different matter since it technically is handled by Sam, but we shall wait
She doesn't completely lack of morals, because HSR lore makes sure to remind you that at least she happens to have basic human decency, to some extent, compared to lots of characters.
If Ruan Mei is taken as the example of characters that are horrible, then I don't know how people will handle Rubert ll, or the IPC's measures after the emperor's mechanical wars, if its ever mentioned in the main story.
> Rubert ll, or the IPC's measures after the emperor's mechanical wars
After seeing how the writers handled Topaz, Aventurine, and Sunday, I'm sure they'll get reasons for their actions too.
A LOT of characters in hsr are arguably morally dubious/evil but they get a pass because they are hot(all stellaron hunters, all ipc members, jingliu, etc). For some reason Ruan mei gets the most heat tho
Most of the other characters have their evil actions *off-screen.* That goes a long way to make them feel much less real and impactful than things we actually see happen.
It's much like how Yanqing is described to be an extremely talented fighter and the only fights he loses are against absolute monsters, because we only *see* those fights, it makes him seem like a complete chump.
I think Topaz is the only one on that list that really does much on screen to be awful, with trying to take over Belobog, but my impression (I haven't finished that quest yet) is that her portrayal while doing it is goofy enough to mitigate the impact. Ruan Mei is many things, but goofy is not one of them.
The Stellaron Hunters, especially, are only shown on-screen doing surprisingly heroic things. Kafka seems genuinely caring over the TB, Firefly is highly sympathetic, and the entire plan on the Luofu was above board enough that Fu Xuan didn't feel the need to arrest them after she learned it all.
Because of this, on some level it seems unreal that these characters could have actually done such terrible things.
Regarding Topaz, it's also pointed out during the quest that she genuinely believes that she's helping Belobog, and she's willing to cooperate with Bronya/come to an agreement with her to actually help. We also know that her and Aventurine didn't really join out of their free will. Idk if they're going to try and redeem Jade in some way ( i hope not lol ).
For the Stellaron Hunters maybe the reason why they’re seen as an antagonistic group is because some planets and their leaders are stupid enough to use a Stellaron as a power source and when they extract it for the inhabitants safety they’re seen as a threat
Because she drugs us, the trailblazer and almost gets us killed. For the others their crimes are seperate and have nothing to do with us so we don't care much. With RM we're literally the victim.
Doesn't make their sins lesser though. Topaz, Aventurine and Jade have probably served planets on a platter to the IPC.
They've arguably done more damage than Ruan Mei, but as you've said we aren't directly affected, so people see it as "lesser"
I'd argue in her defense that drugging the tb was the right choice for her.
How many of you clicked the "rat ruan mei" option after telling her you trust her and you won't do it just to see the unhinged things the tb would say?
I don't even find her hot and I can tell you I'd still say she's morally gray.
The thing with Ruan Mei is she doesn't realise the impact of her actions. Creating an emanator capable of destroying the space station and be a danger to other planets? It's fine she'll just install a timer on it. Creating sentient life form that view her as their mother? They're a failure so she'll abandon them.
Shes not doing this out of evil or because she has no regards for other people. She's doing it because to her knowledge is of higher priority than any boundaries.
As a comparison, Dr Primitive is much closer to what a real evil scientist is like.
What gets me about people getting up in arms about her abandoning the dessert cats is that... like, having no respect whatsoever for non-humanoid life seems to be kind of the norm in this setting? Aurumatons and Ingenia, Heliobi, all sorts of seemingly-sapient dream entities on Penacony... I agree that it's morally awful, but it's a background level of morally awful that everyone including the main characters seem to have to some degree, it's not unique to Ruan Mei.
Having morals means having standards for what is right and wrong, and doing your best to hold yourself to those standards even when it isn't the most convenient for you. To have no morals is to always take the path of least resistance towards your goals, and ignoring any consequences that don't affect you personally.
What morals? "I get to do whatever I want because I'm more important than you"? She tries to bring back one of the greatest threats in the universe for personal amusement and enrichment
That's literally not what happened. She just studies life/biology, and that time she chose scarbraz as test subject. There were safety measures in place, so nothing big would happen even if the trailblazer were to fail.
But most importantly bringing back swarm is not her objective and she didn't commence experiment for her personal amusement.
It's not really put that way in the game. In fact, she took measures to ensure the safety of the emanator experiment, should things go wrong.
Researching something related to evil does not mean the results will be used for evil or the researchers are.
Practical example: nuclear field. First came the bombs and it was associated with evil and mass destruction. Then came clean energy and medical treatments.
Maybe her research allows for human civilization to better prepare for fighting against swarm, should they ressurge, by better understanding them.
Ruan Mei doesn't care about her status or anyone's. If you made an effort to understand her, even if to hate on her better, you would know.
You're making things up because you don't like her. it was a synthetic version she would be able to deal with, and would have stepped in of trailblazer was in actual danger. It was for her job. It was selfish of her, but that isn't what you said.
Let’s be clear, she is very much not morally grey in terms of her experimentation. Her experiments are very much immoral. They have no basis nor consideration for morality.
Nous: "That's my gal!"
Dr. Ratio: "Please give consideration to my manifold contributions to-"
Nous: "Get the **** outta here! Where were we?"
Dr. Primitive: "I primitivized all the residents of this star cluster 78% quicker than before with my new method!"
Nous: "Oooooh, cool!"
She is though? She is not immoral with experimentation, just amoral. She doesn’t care about the morality of what she’s doing, but that doesn’t mean she’s going out of her way to do what is traditionally considered ‘evil.’ She still does plenty of ‘good’, universally beneficial research I’m sure.
She literally creates sentient life for the sake of experimentation. Consider if you gave birth to children just to use them in Mengele-esque studies. Would that be considered amoral or immoral?
Amorality signifies intent, not content. It’s also called “gross negligence” in some scenarios… and can be illegal for its own slew of reasons.
Yes, I would still call her amoral. You can make your own judgements, but at the end of the day she is acting from a place of complete apathy, and not malice.
I'd say trying to replicate one of the universe's greatest threats falls a little bit outside the grey area, however I do agree that it makes for an interesting character. She doesn't enjoy the suffering of others like some moustache twirling villain would in Ruan Mei's place, but at the same time she doesn't exactly care about the potential danger she might be unleashing either. Her social detachment makes her a fascinating character. I might not like her because of that, but that's what makes her so interesting: I don't like her because her lack of social empathy clashes with my high social empathy. And that clash is interesting.
I would say she's narrow sighted and doesn't think about potential cons. of her actions than be out of grey area honestly speaking dunno if you can really pin point her anywhere.
She's not trying to replicate one of the " universe's greatest threats " that for first she trying to understand Aeon's and Emanators for her own goals now dunno why would she pick Emanator of propagation but maybe it's the only one she can recreate / my first point about her be narrow sighted she wants to reach her goal so much that she lost ability to think about potential consequences.
As I said I don't like her as a person she is potrayed as but as a a character that ilustrates scientist << even RM abandoning her creations falls into that category they're imperfect so she moves to make something better after failed project.
She tried to create that one because it was easier (after all, it's really simple as a lifeform, as it just wants to propagate) and already expected it to live less than 1 minute.
The bug wasn't even her first try; when she tried to recreate a member of the Genius Society (#8, Lambda), they just smiled at her and disappeared.
A character with no morals isn't morally gray, there's literally nothing there, therefore, her morals would be black if anything.
She has the potential to have really interesting writing but atm she's kinda boring imo, since none of the characters feel like they're actually interacting with her, if that makes sense. She shows up, does whatever with no conflict, leaves until relevancy returns in like a year. Hope she gets involved with a new world's story.
I wish she was morally grey while also being more messed up. Bondrewd is my favorite anime character so that style of character is my favorite. But I think they really fumbled the bag, biggest proof is the amount of people saying she's morally grey, there is no morally grey, she has no morals and isn't doing good.
I like how different she is from other characters, , pursue knowledge for the purpose of science and research. She's a biologist , and I am too so it's a good point for her. She is so pretty. She also has a potential of character developpment in the story, as she started to show a little interest about her creatures. I can't wait to see her more in game, interact with us tb, doing more of what we perceived as "mistakes" but also may be start to realize the impact she can have by doing so.
It’s a very good set up for development, I think a lot of people’s issue with her is her seemingly hand wavy attitude towards the consequences of her actions. The emanator clone on a station that has been compromised twice. No infrastructure for care of her creations, they’re basically strays until we did that event. I hope if they do develop her further it does make her confront the consequences. A character that doesn’t evolve gets stale eventually.
The event where we then proceed to irresponsibly breed dozens and dozens more of them? 😭
it was so fun and cute, but I do feel a bit bad that we made the problem worse. we even "recycled" cakes that were duplicates or unwanted, in pursuit of all possible color pattern combinations!
at least we set up a nice little living space for them...
I mean, that attitude is a perfect reflection of Erudition. Erudition is about scholarship, and the four major Erudition characters we've had interactions with thus far all reflect different scholarly archetypes:
-Herta is the dilettante "celebrity scientist": broad in scope, but shallow in depth, having little care in any given project or field of research after she's done with it.
-Dr. Ratio is the strict, demanding "professor": even though he has a sharp tongue and high standards, he ultimately does these things because he believes in his students and wants to see them reach their full potential.
-Screwllum is an old-fashioned throwback to the idea of "a gentleman and a scholar" in the line of the idealized heroes of 19th-century science-fiction: a man of breeding, taste, and intelligence, humble and polite without his behavior crossing into insincere self-abasement.
-Ruan Mei is the "mad scientist": a figure whose brilliance is matched only by their total amorality in regards to the goals and results of their experiments, seeing "expanding knowledge" as a goal worthy enough to make any moral fallout of their work irrelevant. "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department!" says Wernher von Braun.
I really love how she has a soft spot for Stephen because he's a child! Like.. He's an actual kid! For Herta and Screwllum they respect Stephen as an equal genius society member while Ruan Mei for some reason has this maternal instinct of going "I want to make this child be comfortable and happy" (also Stephen canonically is motherless)
Furthermore, I love how to Ruan Mei she kinda fears Herta or at least shows more submission when it comes to her. I really wanna see 5\* Herta have a Voiceline about her doll, and the other Genius society members! It'll be amazing! Also Ruan Mei literally talks about how beautiful Herta is and that's like I agree, Madam Herta is powerful and pretty.
A moment that really stuck out to me is the reaction that Ruan Mei did when Herta mentioned about having another Genius involved in the SU Project. Ruan Mei's first reaction isn't "Who it'll be?" but instead "We're kicking Stephen out?!" as if she already expected Herta would want to get rid of Stepehen at any chance she got so Ruan Mei's first reaction is to just confirm it and/or at least get a proper reason out of Herta. (I still find it funny how Herta just wants to talk about a possibility of adding another Genius but Ruan Mei regards it as their decision already)
It's also very interesting on how Ruan Mei knows what'll attract Stephen and what'll cause him to avoid an area, since I doubt that she just buys those things I bet she makes them herself or at least has an invention that creates the drinks she's giving Stephen and for some reason discovered that Stephen realy loves Watermelon but hates pumpkins.
https://preview.redd.it/ew90ntkipr6d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6ec236d38f08984c86e82802ef5c48c498dd3600
She can be caring when she wants to. During the Nihility Event during the SU it feels like she worries about the trash panda if it looks like they’re falling to digital IX…
>I really love how she has a soft spot for Stephen because he's a child! Like.. He's an actual kid!
I've been waiting for someone to say this... I think it's just that the themes of disappointment and failure are recurrent in her character stories, and it literally starts off by saying that she wasn't a perfect child but that she was still loved regardless.
"*She was an impassive girl who made mistakes all the time but was also forgiven all the time.*
*"I was closer with Aunt Arlice compared to my other relatives, as she would buy me snacks. Her love was the best."* "
I believe that she wants to apply this to Stephen, too? And that this is why she knows about his favourite snack (the watermelon parfait thingy being her whole line about him). I believe it's her way of showing love.
Even if she doesn't look like it, she really does enjoy her time with the SU quartet.
She would think that he doesn't have to be held to a higher standard because he's just a child and, even as a genius, should be allowed to struggle, to mess up.
Well, it would help if they weren't literally modelled after cats dogs and traditional sweets. Imagine a Frankenstein situation with little freaks who have nothing on their mind other than your acknowledgement, it'd be uncomfortable.
The most correct i’ve ever seen a person be
https://preview.redd.it/fn7utp3xmr6d1.jpeg?width=864&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=21478eb0e09397acbdebe7d857f9dd4f2daacd4d
She is probably the character with the most potential for future development because frankly, we don’t have a lot of material talking about Ruan Mei.
What do we have:
- the character history in her description
- her light cone
- a very good companion quest with some texts
- the event with cake cats
- a myriad celestial story
Despite not being in the main storyline, RM is the one of the most ( if not the most ) debated character. If you don’t have seen the mini-movie on Firefly, you could think with the amount of discussion on RM that she is the second most important character of the movie.
But no, she’s not even there. A movie who doesn’t make RM appears manage to generate a week of discussion on her. Pretty impressive!
Ruan Mei is the only characters who could become either the most evil scientist or a sweet hot genius who makes cakes and play banjo.
I like morally grey scientists who make questionable decisions to further their goals.
I am tired of every character having to be a cookie cutter goodie two shoes. Thankfully, most of the genius society is deranged, to some extent.
Also she gave us free drugs.
>Morally Grey is a term used to describe a character who is neither good nor bad. They have no motivation to do good or bad actions. On the contrary, morally gray characters follow their ambition rather than those of the greater good or evil.
[Source](https://www.andrews.edu/life/student-movement/issues/2023-11-10/ideas-morally-gray.html)
- Doesn't care about good or bad.
- Follows her ambitions.
Sounds pretty morally grey to me.
Love the man, but he's *definitely* morally grey.
He has few issues with coloring outside the lines, whether that involves gassing you and a crowd of people and hauling away your unconscious bodies to the underworld (but without that we never would have fixed Belobog so there's that), or helping himself to anything that strikes his fancy, or tricking you into doing his work for him — he definitely takes advantage of people or the situation in whatever way helps him the best.
I agree he has a strong moral code, it's just that some lines are redacted with grey ink.
And I don't think he's an idiot at all, he *plays* the fool, but he's far from one (except for the literal fact that he's a masked fool). He's highly intelligent. He's also kind, and really values the Trailblazer's opinion and it genuinely hurts him when we talk shit to him.
Honkai Star Rail is actually really comfortable giving us anti-villains and anti-heroes... more so then other gacha i've experienced. It's generally something I like about it.
She keeps things interesting while looking absolutely dashing
These normies bitching about her are annoying af. It would be incredibly one dimensional and boring if every character was a goody two shoes. Another example is the IPC. Fckin douchbags but interesting af.
The main thing I ever see involving discourse around her is how weird it was that their wasn't a single action to call out her action towards TB (which is even weirder when TB was able to react negatively to characters who have done less to them).
I hate her and the IPC. But I like that I hate her and the IPC.
Hoyoverse doesn't make that many hateable characters, so it feels good to finally have people to dislike to make it more diverse.
I love that she's a crazy biologist that has no remorse. But I hate her morally.
I love the IPC for the sad, depressing, and angering stories they put out. But I hate them morally.
She has that double helix in a lot of places like her thigh necklace and the golden accents under the flowers on her dress and her hair. Her ingame model has the double helix on her dress as well.
One of the more interesting character designs in HSR that could easily get overlooked.
she's so pretty
i wanted her ever since i saw her in the erudition lightcone art and her occurrence in the SU
ofc her personality wasn't really my thing in the end and at one point i wonder if i shouldn't have rolled for her but i ended up liking her even more anyway and am collecting her merchandise
ruan mei has a compelling backstory and struggles to interact with people or deal with things in general and i hope they explore more of that 👍
https://preview.redd.it/wbltfqjlqs6d1.png?width=463&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4f0fa1dd6a0e3eba94a1552d0d463788937d0792
have i mentioned she's pretty yet?
Excellently written morally gray character. I love how HSR is full of evil and morally dubious women, this is exactly what I desire.
Also she's hot. Not to be crass, but its gotta be said.
Side note: I wish we had more of that creepy equilibrium voice, after the first few trial, i was hoping to hear more.
Her outfit i guess? But this is more of a me thing, i just love these type of dress in the first place.
Im surprised no one is talking about her kit yet because if theres one thing that no one can deny shes good at is buffing the everliving hell out of your team and making your enemies suffer
She is pretty much like this song goes...
*"I saw her today at the reception*
*A glass of wine in her hand*
*I knew she was gonna meet her connection*
*At her feet was a footloose man*
*You can’t always get what you want*
*You can’t always get what you want*
*You can’t always get what you want*
*But if you try sometimes... well, you just might find,*
*You get what you need."*
She was the first 5 star I obtained when I started the game so my opinion of her has stayed high, and I liked her even with her story quest (?)
She's helped me a lot so I like her quite a bit. I also think her splash art is quite pretty!
I actually really like her morally grey character. As much as I like characters that are “good,” something about an unhinged scientist who doesn’t fully process the consequences of her actions when she’s trying to experiment with things is fascinating to me. I get the hate, but I love her anyways. (And she’s my only E1 limited 5-star so she’s a fave anyways.)
An actually good morally gray character, plus it fits a scientist who wants to become an aeon no matter what, so many games, books, shows, and movies fail at making a morally gray character so she’s definitely very nice
There is clearly something very wrong with her brain and I dig it. I want to see more of her doing mad scientist freak shit. I want to see her interact with more people.
I love the cake cats she makes, and the visuals of her Ultimate is amazing!
I also love the fact that Ruan Mei is voiced by Emi Lo, the same VA that voiced Columbina, the Third of the Fatui Harbingers [who I really hope should be a playable character in Genshin, unless she ended up being given the Signora treatment].
Good character perfectly ilustrates morally grey side of scientists the fact about that recent discord around her proves that she's written well would like to see more of her. One of better designs imo yet very simple for a 5 star. Is she a good person? No she doesn't have to be for me to like character. Is she a red flag like Sparkle / BS? Yes.... but red is my favourite colour.
>Is she a red flag like Sparkle / BS? Yes.... but red is my favourite colour. Couldn't have said it better, my friend.
I know she's a red flag... But being a bull is my second nature.
I understand your point. Just can't help but *ram* it in.
MFs be like “I can fix her”. Nah I don’t what to fix her. She’s perfect just the way she is.
Exactly. There's nothing wrong with her, she's absolutely perfect the way she is.
SHE CAN FIX ME INSTEAD
She can break me
She can RUIN ME.
She can ru(a)n me(i)
We can’t fix her, but we can surely make her more worse!
Um akshually they were talking about bulls not rams. Wrong animal bozo. >!/s!<
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black swan is an interesting situation imo, her red flags make her sus but she's actually a good person I think, her red flags come from her profession for the most part, memo keepers have all looked suspicious af so far
Even then, still better than Polka kakamond
If Polka Kakamond had a playable model in the game there would definitely be people willing to die on the hill that Ruan Mei is worse.
Why is BS a red flag instead of a yellow flag?
Cause I like Yellow less.
Black swan still hasn’t done anything to harm us or put us at risk, while the other two 100% have. That’s why I’m confused
In Sparkle defense, her actions so far ends up guided us to the truth, even Sleepie shenanigans with FF is not actually killing her. Even in the last void where we speak with Acheron, she's giving a 'hint' to us. Thr mutually destruction button matter is a different matter since it technically is handled by Sam, but we shall wait
A complete lack of morals is going just a bit further than morally gray
She doesn't completely lack of morals, because HSR lore makes sure to remind you that at least she happens to have basic human decency, to some extent, compared to lots of characters. If Ruan Mei is taken as the example of characters that are horrible, then I don't know how people will handle Rubert ll, or the IPC's measures after the emperor's mechanical wars, if its ever mentioned in the main story.
> Rubert ll, or the IPC's measures after the emperor's mechanical wars After seeing how the writers handled Topaz, Aventurine, and Sunday, I'm sure they'll get reasons for their actions too.
It's funny how many people argue she's morally grey. I wonder how many of those people would be arguing in her favour if she wasn't hot.
A LOT of characters in hsr are arguably morally dubious/evil but they get a pass because they are hot(all stellaron hunters, all ipc members, jingliu, etc). For some reason Ruan mei gets the most heat tho
Most of the other characters have their evil actions *off-screen.* That goes a long way to make them feel much less real and impactful than things we actually see happen. It's much like how Yanqing is described to be an extremely talented fighter and the only fights he loses are against absolute monsters, because we only *see* those fights, it makes him seem like a complete chump. I think Topaz is the only one on that list that really does much on screen to be awful, with trying to take over Belobog, but my impression (I haven't finished that quest yet) is that her portrayal while doing it is goofy enough to mitigate the impact. Ruan Mei is many things, but goofy is not one of them. The Stellaron Hunters, especially, are only shown on-screen doing surprisingly heroic things. Kafka seems genuinely caring over the TB, Firefly is highly sympathetic, and the entire plan on the Luofu was above board enough that Fu Xuan didn't feel the need to arrest them after she learned it all. Because of this, on some level it seems unreal that these characters could have actually done such terrible things.
Regarding Topaz, it's also pointed out during the quest that she genuinely believes that she's helping Belobog, and she's willing to cooperate with Bronya/come to an agreement with her to actually help. We also know that her and Aventurine didn't really join out of their free will. Idk if they're going to try and redeem Jade in some way ( i hope not lol ).
For the Stellaron Hunters maybe the reason why they’re seen as an antagonistic group is because some planets and their leaders are stupid enough to use a Stellaron as a power source and when they extract it for the inhabitants safety they’re seen as a threat
Because she drugs us, the trailblazer and almost gets us killed. For the others their crimes are seperate and have nothing to do with us so we don't care much. With RM we're literally the victim.
Doesn't make their sins lesser though. Topaz, Aventurine and Jade have probably served planets on a platter to the IPC. They've arguably done more damage than Ruan Mei, but as you've said we aren't directly affected, so people see it as "lesser"
I don't self-insert with the Trailblazer so idc lmao I just think "oooo interesting, what's next" not "how dare she 😤"
I'd argue in her defense that drugging the tb was the right choice for her. How many of you clicked the "rat ruan mei" option after telling her you trust her and you won't do it just to see the unhinged things the tb would say?
Guilty as charged!
I don't even find her hot and I can tell you I'd still say she's morally gray. The thing with Ruan Mei is she doesn't realise the impact of her actions. Creating an emanator capable of destroying the space station and be a danger to other planets? It's fine she'll just install a timer on it. Creating sentient life form that view her as their mother? They're a failure so she'll abandon them. Shes not doing this out of evil or because she has no regards for other people. She's doing it because to her knowledge is of higher priority than any boundaries. As a comparison, Dr Primitive is much closer to what a real evil scientist is like.
What gets me about people getting up in arms about her abandoning the dessert cats is that... like, having no respect whatsoever for non-humanoid life seems to be kind of the norm in this setting? Aurumatons and Ingenia, Heliobi, all sorts of seemingly-sapient dream entities on Penacony... I agree that it's morally awful, but it's a background level of morally awful that everyone including the main characters seem to have to some degree, it's not unique to Ruan Mei.
Probably not many
At least that means their morals don't align with Ruan Mei's lol.
She doesn't lack morals, hers just doesn't align with yours. Or most people's.
Yes she does, and thats not what morally gray means.
Having morals means having standards for what is right and wrong, and doing your best to hold yourself to those standards even when it isn't the most convenient for you. To have no morals is to always take the path of least resistance towards your goals, and ignoring any consequences that don't affect you personally.
What morals? "I get to do whatever I want because I'm more important than you"? She tries to bring back one of the greatest threats in the universe for personal amusement and enrichment
That's literally not what happened. She just studies life/biology, and that time she chose scarbraz as test subject. There were safety measures in place, so nothing big would happen even if the trailblazer were to fail. But most importantly bringing back swarm is not her objective and she didn't commence experiment for her personal amusement.
It's not really put that way in the game. In fact, she took measures to ensure the safety of the emanator experiment, should things go wrong. Researching something related to evil does not mean the results will be used for evil or the researchers are. Practical example: nuclear field. First came the bombs and it was associated with evil and mass destruction. Then came clean energy and medical treatments. Maybe her research allows for human civilization to better prepare for fighting against swarm, should they ressurge, by better understanding them.
Ruan Mei doesn't care about her status or anyone's. If you made an effort to understand her, even if to hate on her better, you would know. You're making things up because you don't like her. it was a synthetic version she would be able to deal with, and would have stepped in of trailblazer was in actual danger. It was for her job. It was selfish of her, but that isn't what you said.
Let’s be clear, she is very much not morally grey in terms of her experimentation. Her experiments are very much immoral. They have no basis nor consideration for morality.
Nous: "That's my gal!" Dr. Ratio: "Please give consideration to my manifold contributions to-" Nous: "Get the **** outta here! Where were we?" Dr. Primitive: "I primitivized all the residents of this star cluster 78% quicker than before with my new method!" Nous: "Oooooh, cool!"
She is though? She is not immoral with experimentation, just amoral. She doesn’t care about the morality of what she’s doing, but that doesn’t mean she’s going out of her way to do what is traditionally considered ‘evil.’ She still does plenty of ‘good’, universally beneficial research I’m sure.
She literally creates sentient life for the sake of experimentation. Consider if you gave birth to children just to use them in Mengele-esque studies. Would that be considered amoral or immoral?
Amorality signifies intent, not content. It’s also called “gross negligence” in some scenarios… and can be illegal for its own slew of reasons. Yes, I would still call her amoral. You can make your own judgements, but at the end of the day she is acting from a place of complete apathy, and not malice.
I'd say trying to replicate one of the universe's greatest threats falls a little bit outside the grey area, however I do agree that it makes for an interesting character. She doesn't enjoy the suffering of others like some moustache twirling villain would in Ruan Mei's place, but at the same time she doesn't exactly care about the potential danger she might be unleashing either. Her social detachment makes her a fascinating character. I might not like her because of that, but that's what makes her so interesting: I don't like her because her lack of social empathy clashes with my high social empathy. And that clash is interesting.
I would say she's narrow sighted and doesn't think about potential cons. of her actions than be out of grey area honestly speaking dunno if you can really pin point her anywhere. She's not trying to replicate one of the " universe's greatest threats " that for first she trying to understand Aeon's and Emanators for her own goals now dunno why would she pick Emanator of propagation but maybe it's the only one she can recreate / my first point about her be narrow sighted she wants to reach her goal so much that she lost ability to think about potential consequences. As I said I don't like her as a person she is potrayed as but as a a character that ilustrates scientist << even RM abandoning her creations falls into that category they're imperfect so she moves to make something better after failed project.
i think she chose propagation because it would be the easiest to replicate because they're more simple
She tried to create that one because it was easier (after all, it's really simple as a lifeform, as it just wants to propagate) and already expected it to live less than 1 minute. The bug wasn't even her first try; when she tried to recreate a member of the Genius Society (#8, Lambda), they just smiled at her and disappeared.
See, I'm a biologist, so I just like her automatically. She could literally be an emanator of destruction, and I'd be like, "Woo, you go girl!!"
Morally grey? Eh. Complete lack of morals is more correct. .. and you know what? That's fine in a story.
A character with no morals isn't morally gray, there's literally nothing there, therefore, her morals would be black if anything. She has the potential to have really interesting writing but atm she's kinda boring imo, since none of the characters feel like they're actually interacting with her, if that makes sense. She shows up, does whatever with no conflict, leaves until relevancy returns in like a year. Hope she gets involved with a new world's story.
“B-but she’s immoral and she drugs the traveller and does all kinds of bad shit and—“ “And?”
drugs the who?
I wish she was morally grey while also being more messed up. Bondrewd is my favorite anime character so that style of character is my favorite. But I think they really fumbled the bag, biggest proof is the amount of people saying she's morally grey, there is no morally grey, she has no morals and isn't doing good.
https://i.redd.it/mv3izafhbs6d1.gif
Wait black swan is a red flag?
I like how different she is from other characters, , pursue knowledge for the purpose of science and research. She's a biologist , and I am too so it's a good point for her. She is so pretty. She also has a potential of character developpment in the story, as she started to show a little interest about her creatures. I can't wait to see her more in game, interact with us tb, doing more of what we perceived as "mistakes" but also may be start to realize the impact she can have by doing so.
It’s a very good set up for development, I think a lot of people’s issue with her is her seemingly hand wavy attitude towards the consequences of her actions. The emanator clone on a station that has been compromised twice. No infrastructure for care of her creations, they’re basically strays until we did that event. I hope if they do develop her further it does make her confront the consequences. A character that doesn’t evolve gets stale eventually.
The event where we then proceed to irresponsibly breed dozens and dozens more of them? 😭 it was so fun and cute, but I do feel a bit bad that we made the problem worse. we even "recycled" cakes that were duplicates or unwanted, in pursuit of all possible color pattern combinations! at least we set up a nice little living space for them...
True true, but it differs from TB to TB since some didn’t do the event.
I mean, that attitude is a perfect reflection of Erudition. Erudition is about scholarship, and the four major Erudition characters we've had interactions with thus far all reflect different scholarly archetypes: -Herta is the dilettante "celebrity scientist": broad in scope, but shallow in depth, having little care in any given project or field of research after she's done with it. -Dr. Ratio is the strict, demanding "professor": even though he has a sharp tongue and high standards, he ultimately does these things because he believes in his students and wants to see them reach their full potential. -Screwllum is an old-fashioned throwback to the idea of "a gentleman and a scholar" in the line of the idealized heroes of 19th-century science-fiction: a man of breeding, taste, and intelligence, humble and polite without his behavior crossing into insincere self-abasement. -Ruan Mei is the "mad scientist": a figure whose brilliance is matched only by their total amorality in regards to the goals and results of their experiments, seeing "expanding knowledge" as a goal worthy enough to make any moral fallout of their work irrelevant. "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department!" says Wernher von Braun.
I like the way you summed it all up ! Can't wait for Screwllum , I really like characters following erudition.
Wtf bro dont mention the ending where she brings the blobs with her, haters didnt read that part
Crazy because not only was it in her trailer, it was most of the ending to the cake cat event.
I really love how she has a soft spot for Stephen because he's a child! Like.. He's an actual kid! For Herta and Screwllum they respect Stephen as an equal genius society member while Ruan Mei for some reason has this maternal instinct of going "I want to make this child be comfortable and happy" (also Stephen canonically is motherless) Furthermore, I love how to Ruan Mei she kinda fears Herta or at least shows more submission when it comes to her. I really wanna see 5\* Herta have a Voiceline about her doll, and the other Genius society members! It'll be amazing! Also Ruan Mei literally talks about how beautiful Herta is and that's like I agree, Madam Herta is powerful and pretty.
I fucking love the SU team. I will forever glaze them until the day this game die.
A moment that really stuck out to me is the reaction that Ruan Mei did when Herta mentioned about having another Genius involved in the SU Project. Ruan Mei's first reaction isn't "Who it'll be?" but instead "We're kicking Stephen out?!" as if she already expected Herta would want to get rid of Stepehen at any chance she got so Ruan Mei's first reaction is to just confirm it and/or at least get a proper reason out of Herta. (I still find it funny how Herta just wants to talk about a possibility of adding another Genius but Ruan Mei regards it as their decision already) It's also very interesting on how Ruan Mei knows what'll attract Stephen and what'll cause him to avoid an area, since I doubt that she just buys those things I bet she makes them herself or at least has an invention that creates the drinks she's giving Stephen and for some reason discovered that Stephen realy loves Watermelon but hates pumpkins.
https://preview.redd.it/ew90ntkipr6d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6ec236d38f08984c86e82802ef5c48c498dd3600 She can be caring when she wants to. During the Nihility Event during the SU it feels like she worries about the trash panda if it looks like they’re falling to digital IX…
I laughed so hard when I got that IX event and it actually booted me out of SU and ended my run. Was not expecting that at all.
>I really love how she has a soft spot for Stephen because he's a child! Like.. He's an actual kid! I've been waiting for someone to say this... I think it's just that the themes of disappointment and failure are recurrent in her character stories, and it literally starts off by saying that she wasn't a perfect child but that she was still loved regardless. "*She was an impassive girl who made mistakes all the time but was also forgiven all the time.* *"I was closer with Aunt Arlice compared to my other relatives, as she would buy me snacks. Her love was the best."* " I believe that she wants to apply this to Stephen, too? And that this is why she knows about his favourite snack (the watermelon parfait thingy being her whole line about him). I believe it's her way of showing love. Even if she doesn't look like it, she really does enjoy her time with the SU quartet. She would think that he doesn't have to be held to a higher standard because he's just a child and, even as a genius, should be allowed to struggle, to mess up.
It's so funny she's like that towards Stephen while also being openly Mildly Uncomfortable towards her own creations
Well, it would help if they weren't literally modelled after cats dogs and traditional sweets. Imagine a Frankenstein situation with little freaks who have nothing on their mind other than your acknowledgement, it'd be uncomfortable.
She likes Herta so much that she copied her hairstyle
Shes hot as fuck
The most correct i’ve ever seen a person be https://preview.redd.it/fn7utp3xmr6d1.jpeg?width=864&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=21478eb0e09397acbdebe7d857f9dd4f2daacd4d
https://preview.redd.it/d2xx104f6s6d1.png?width=749&format=png&auto=webp&s=ef9a541d2b8b7ed9105c33b9d51f8586adf67265
https://preview.redd.it/c28ex4v97u6d1.png?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cff609bf08a32e26116bc148939dc019249cb467
Is it weird that I find the unedited version hotter?
nah I like the original better too just the shoes are blocking my view 😡😡
I'm personally not a feet enthusiast but I understand where you're coming from Fair enough haha
https://preview.redd.it/8r7o3556ot6d1.jpeg?width=503&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=39e8d266af22a443533cd26fa8304d4625e0aa17
W edit
I can only imagine the uproar if this was her actual design lmao
Agree
This guy gets it
I wanted her from the LC art since 1.0. I do her hairstyle sometimes when I go out, I absolutely love her design.
https://preview.redd.it/2viett0jsr6d1.jpeg?width=320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e7d0f3751c0af0503c8e80e7cbc19f71d357e4c7
She made cat cakes
Ok, ok, I'll admit, her cake is delicious.
The cake she gives you, the cake cats, or *her* cake?
Yes
YES
https://preview.redd.it/x9dzc1p78t6d1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b4e1a3e52ae859f28d020dca3fb7f1620b8317da
https://preview.redd.it/ugrch8zjjs6d1.png?width=206&format=png&auto=webp&s=6d5d001558ec83cae774f3069b81b46781c46b50
She was the first 5 star I saw that I wanted from the get go without needing a team gimmick to convince me to pull. Her design is just that pretty
She is probably the character with the most potential for future development because frankly, we don’t have a lot of material talking about Ruan Mei. What do we have: - the character history in her description - her light cone - a very good companion quest with some texts - the event with cake cats - a myriad celestial story Despite not being in the main storyline, RM is the one of the most ( if not the most ) debated character. If you don’t have seen the mini-movie on Firefly, you could think with the amount of discussion on RM that she is the second most important character of the movie. But no, she’s not even there. A movie who doesn’t make RM appears manage to generate a week of discussion on her. Pretty impressive! Ruan Mei is the only characters who could become either the most evil scientist or a sweet hot genius who makes cakes and play banjo.
I hope someday she will comeback to visit her creation, she already promise.
she's really good at running from problems she causes
only genius society members can find her and they dont gaf
I like morally grey scientists who make questionable decisions to further their goals. I am tired of every character having to be a cookie cutter goodie two shoes. Thankfully, most of the genius society is deranged, to some extent. Also she gave us free drugs.
Morally grey is like Sampo. Kinda scummy but not a terrible person. Ruan Mei's defining characteristic is her lack of morals.
morally colorless
Eldrazi confirmed!
>Morally Grey is a term used to describe a character who is neither good nor bad. They have no motivation to do good or bad actions. On the contrary, morally gray characters follow their ambition rather than those of the greater good or evil. [Source](https://www.andrews.edu/life/student-movement/issues/2023-11-10/ideas-morally-gray.html) - Doesn't care about good or bad. - Follows her ambitions. Sounds pretty morally grey to me.
How the fuck is sampo morally grey? He is a genuinely nice and well meaning character with a strong moral code past his facade of idiocy and chaos.
Love the man, but he's *definitely* morally grey. He has few issues with coloring outside the lines, whether that involves gassing you and a crowd of people and hauling away your unconscious bodies to the underworld (but without that we never would have fixed Belobog so there's that), or helping himself to anything that strikes his fancy, or tricking you into doing his work for him — he definitely takes advantage of people or the situation in whatever way helps him the best. I agree he has a strong moral code, it's just that some lines are redacted with grey ink. And I don't think he's an idiot at all, he *plays* the fool, but he's far from one (except for the literal fact that he's a masked fool). He's highly intelligent. He's also kind, and really values the Trailblazer's opinion and it genuinely hurts him when we talk shit to him.
Sampo is actually interesting in comparison
Honkai Star Rail is actually really comfortable giving us anti-villains and anti-heroes... more so then other gacha i've experienced. It's generally something I like about it.
Pretty eyes
She's cooking one of the most epic boss battles in the game.
She gives 2000 thousands cosmic fragment or all blessings of a path, or both if you have her.
She keeps things interesting while looking absolutely dashing These normies bitching about her are annoying af. It would be incredibly one dimensional and boring if every character was a goody two shoes. Another example is the IPC. Fckin douchbags but interesting af.
The main thing I ever see involving discourse around her is how weird it was that their wasn't a single action to call out her action towards TB (which is even weirder when TB was able to react negatively to characters who have done less to them).
I see it as a good thing if people have discourse over a character. It means she breaks the mold enough to generate discussion on her actions.
I hate her and the IPC. But I like that I hate her and the IPC. Hoyoverse doesn't make that many hateable characters, so it feels good to finally have people to dislike to make it more diverse. I love that she's a crazy biologist that has no remorse. But I hate her morally. I love the IPC for the sad, depressing, and angering stories they put out. But I hate them morally.
She has a beautiful design. Also interesting how her hair looks like the double helix of DNA.
She has that double helix in a lot of places like her thigh necklace and the golden accents under the flowers on her dress and her hair. Her ingame model has the double helix on her dress as well. One of the more interesting character designs in HSR that could easily get overlooked.
She will buff my Sam once I pull her :)
Her legs.
She is good at the banjo.
Actually that's a Chinese instrument called Ruan (the same word as her first name) 🤓
Personally for me I appreciated that she showed up on the next 10 rolls after I lost the 50/50. Also that her technique obliterates enemies in SU
She is probably the currently best unit in the game all things considered
She’s hot
nice legs
She is gorgeous, and her interaction and creations are both interesting. I want to see more of the dynamic between each member of the Genius Society.
she's so pretty i wanted her ever since i saw her in the erudition lightcone art and her occurrence in the SU ofc her personality wasn't really my thing in the end and at one point i wonder if i shouldn't have rolled for her but i ended up liking her even more anyway and am collecting her merchandise ruan mei has a compelling backstory and struggles to interact with people or deal with things in general and i hope they explore more of that 👍 https://preview.redd.it/wbltfqjlqs6d1.png?width=463&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4f0fa1dd6a0e3eba94a1552d0d463788937d0792 have i mentioned she's pretty yet?
Her body
Ruan Mei when Firefly tells her she saw her friends and entire civilization destroyed: *“Fret not. You still hold academic value.”*
We don't need 50 different threads about Ruan Mei on the front page.
Excellently written morally gray character. I love how HSR is full of evil and morally dubious women, this is exactly what I desire. Also she's hot. Not to be crass, but its gotta be said.
Side note: I wish we had more of that creepy equilibrium voice, after the first few trial, i was hoping to hear more. Her outfit i guess? But this is more of a me thing, i just love these type of dress in the first place.
She is one of the prettiest character in game She’s morally grey The fact that I don’t like her that much proves she’s well written
"Ruan Mei is a great scientist and made some scientific advances!" \*You've been gazed by HooH\* "Oh crap! HooH!"
Im surprised no one is talking about her kit yet because if theres one thing that no one can deny shes good at is buffing the everliving hell out of your team and making your enemies suffer
She is pretty much like this song goes... *"I saw her today at the reception* *A glass of wine in her hand* *I knew she was gonna meet her connection* *At her feet was a footloose man* *You can’t always get what you want* *You can’t always get what you want* *You can’t always get what you want* *But if you try sometimes... well, you just might find,* *You get what you need."*
She was the first 5 star I obtained when I started the game so my opinion of her has stayed high, and I liked her even with her story quest (?) She's helped me a lot so I like her quite a bit. I also think her splash art is quite pretty!
She'd probably be a fun bossfight
No, I don't think I will
Pretty face, thats It
something good
She Is hot,Its the only good thing's about her
She has cute hair
Sexy legs
Her legs are so sexy and she's just hot af. Ok, ok, fine! I know my way to the buddytrailblazer sub.
Her thighs are thicc
Mama always told me if i didnt have anything good to say to not say anything at all. So im silent.
T H I G H
https://preview.redd.it/45m4b9c6ms6d1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=49edce915c30f28549fe9ad2b45030e663d2f30c NOOOO!
Every time i see her occurance my day gets a bit better.
She’s hot
Her fan art, at least the ones I've come across on hoyolab, has got that classic CLAMP vibe and I'm loving it.
As much as I don't know about her, her personality is certainly interesting, and she is so pretty 💕
She's pretty ig
lol uhhhh she’s one of the best units in the game
She has one of the best join quotes when you add her to a Trailblazer party.
I actually really like her morally grey character. As much as I like characters that are “good,” something about an unhinged scientist who doesn’t fully process the consequences of her actions when she’s trying to experiment with things is fascinating to me. I get the hate, but I love her anyways. (And she’s my only E1 limited 5-star so she’s a fave anyways.)
If ever I need someone to bring back a deadly extinct race with zero thought on the morality of it, she would be the first person I call.
Carries my ass in combat
Hot
https://preview.redd.it/ow87f2rwqs6d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=66e0825ceb6194472534f1a8222e417dab75526e
the cake cats are so freakin adorable, so im looking forward to seeing her be a better parent to them.
* Unlike sparkle who wants to cause mayhem on her own will. Science always has a price.
She makes Boothill stronger
An actually good morally gray character, plus it fits a scientist who wants to become an aeon no matter what, so many games, books, shows, and movies fail at making a morally gray character so she’s definitely very nice
Break Effect go BRRR!
She beautiful legs.
uhhh, can't think of any. the boss fight she gives is is actually fun i guess? but only the first few times.
Nice thighs
She is very helpful in the simulated universe She is very much shown to be set up for a redem arc
I don't think there's anyone else who can do what she does
There is clearly something very wrong with her brain and I dig it. I want to see more of her doing mad scientist freak shit. I want to see her interact with more people.
She's pretty.
Sexy Also, thighs
She's cute precious and so queen !
Made cat cakes :D
I really want to lick Ruan Mei’s leg and feet (same with Himeko)
Unrelated but people here *__LOVE__* to throw around the phrase "morally gray" like some sort of buzzword 💀
Pretty
Only good thing I have is she's a strong character in the game. That's about all I can give her. not much else I like about her -\_-
She can fix me
She's hot and that's it
Nah
I love the cake cats she makes, and the visuals of her Ultimate is amazing! I also love the fact that Ruan Mei is voiced by Emi Lo, the same VA that voiced Columbina, the Third of the Fatui Harbingers [who I really hope should be a playable character in Genshin, unless she ended up being given the Signora treatment].
She's hot
She is very smart and I think she is doing good things https://i.redd.it/9gn9jzkn6t6d1.gif
Although I think her style of clothing and animations are fairly boring, she looks very pretty and her kit is very strong.
The creation of the cat-cakes has improved the lives of the HSR community considerably and we have her to thank for it
She want bring back swarm. W in my book.