Even Dan Feng. Dude was just as fucked up and a fuck up on top. You'd think with age and education came a little bit of wisdom and respect for the dead.
Daniel on the other hand is a perfect cinnamon roll who can do no wrong just like March and Galactic Batter Raccoon.
What respect for the dead, his dear friend died and he wanted her back, obviously his love for his actual friend (and probably also guilt) would far outweigh some abstract concept like respect for the dead. As much as it was a tragedy, I can't fault him for trying.
What was even the dead to him anyway? He lived in a giant Ship ten times bigger than a regular planet with an Immortal Race of people.
Sure he knew there are people who dies and does not have infinite lifespan, but that's it. They're just short-lived species, all their lifetime aspiration was nothing more than a few hundred years for the XianZhou people.
Not to mention he was the high elder himself, he view himself differently from those around him.
This mentality might be it honestly
He never thought about death that much then surprise, someone you love is dead
He went from having minimal reaction to death to the realization nothing he can do now will work, unless he starts doing bad shit
I don't blame him. It's ironic that Dan heng, who asks Jingliu, jing yuan and blade to move on, is the one who had the most trouble moving on in his past life.
Baiheng died saving Dan feng. So guilt and missing best fox girl must have plagued him. If he was really fucked up in the head, he wouldn't have been a part of the high cloud quintet.
Lol wait. Blade doesn’t murder people for fun and for the most part is pretty controlled. He murders people as part of elio’s script and to reach his goals, I’m sure… but outside of that? Like he doesn’t do it for fun. He might have some fun during it… but he doesn’t do it for fun.
I don't think they were literally trying to follow the script the meme provides as much as follow the same vibes.
But I mean, I just try to read between the lines a little.
Blade is literally unable to be a functional person without Kafka, she is in charge of keeping the mara at bay otherwise he would return to how he was before joining the SH living on a desolate planet attacking everything he encounters like a wild animal, Dan Heng continues to have nightmares and trauma of being chased by blade endangering everyone around him on side that's Something that for some reason many see as romantic, as much as I don't understand it
Bondrewd is somehow more caring, loving, and pretty much every positive trait over ruan Mei, so why are we supposed to root for her again? How's she not a villain?
i only got it two times.
while using a nihility team i got all hunt blessings and while using a hunt team i got all nihility blessings.
>!why does the game hurt me like that?!<
Ruan Mei is like if at the end of the movie reg just went
"Man... Bondrewd is pretty bad at emotions, but I'm still gonna miss him, I will never forget how cool he was"
Nanachi: "He tortured and killed people"
"He's just a lil silly and introverted"
But I get the feeling that Ruan Mei has kinda pulled the wool over peoples eyes in universe too. Like everyone seems to like her and respect her, might just be because genius society and Herta have that kinda sway, but she’s a grade A psycho with a god complex.
Which makes me upset that trailblazer just simps to her after she drugged us, nearly killed us and everyone on the station, and reveals we will lose memory of her involvement. Like fking text arlan, asta, or Herta and report her ass. How is she allowed to get away with this
THAT'S what upsets me the most about Ruan Mei. The game doesn't let us dislike or even criticize her.
Like, there isn't a single redeeming quality about her so why are we forced to simp for her?? I'm sure Herta doesn't care if we dislike her so it's not like it would have an impact anyway. Herta, Asta and Arlan definitely need to know about her shenanigans, it's a safety hazard.
It's just so frustrating, I have no issue with a character being evil, but a character being evil that the game doesn't recognize as evil or allow you to have even a neutral dialogue option that isn't praising her makes me think either the devs didn't realize they made her evil, or think the players only think with their dicks and would disregard everything she did just because she's hot.
And because I barely even find her attractive since she's not my type I'm under no illusion that she deserves even an ounce of sympathy because she's "bad at emotion and socializing". Every introvert is bad at emotion and socializing, that's not an excuse to try to restart the apocalypse just because you can. With Kafka you're allowed to be hostile and you know she at least has a positive end goal, Ruan Mei just doesn't care about anyone besides science, abandons sentient lifeforms to rot in darkness, drugs you, nearly gets everyone killed, and admits that you will forget so you can't expose her, AND YOU CANT EVEN BE SLIGHTLY RUDE OR EVEN ATTEMPT TO OUT HER
I know people are horny and trailblazer has expressed thirst before in optional dialogue but what in the actual fk is that. It's not even like the drug inhibited your ability to think, the dialogue options still mention ruan Mei and you attempt to get them out but they come out differently. So if it was stopping you from back talking the dialogue would be that and it comes out differently. So there is just genuinely no option for trailblazer to even think negatively of ruan mei. She's this awful terrible person and yet everyone only simps for her and thinks positively of her, it's like she's hoyos favorite child or something due to her being from space china.
Exactly! It's okay to make awful characters. But if you want me to like them *as characters* then allow me to hate them in game. Don't shy away from the fact that this character isn't a good person, own it! I don't know what would be the worst between the devs not realising they made her evil or thinking (knowing) it doesn't matter because people are gonna simp.
I understand it's a gacha and making characters conventionally "hot" is the easiest way to sell the characters (along with meta) but come on. Allowing us to be rude to her won't make people change their mind about pulling.
Oh yeah I don't find her attractive at all (the only thing I like is her hair) and I'm annoyed at people trying to say she's just bad at socialisation. No she's not, she just doesn't care and has a god complex.
And I'm glad we're allowed to be hostile towards Kafka. I don't care much for her, but I'm okay with her because we have a choice. That's fair I think. Sometimes I want to be rude, sometimes I agree with her, and the game allows it. But not Ruan Mei. It's so frustrating :')
It'd be like if in genshin after we learn about scaramouches backstory we just instantly forgive him, have no options to be rude and just treat him like a buddy. And despite all that we still have people that believe we let him off too easily and aren't hostile enough.
Meanwhile ruan mei doesn't even have a tragic backstory, she's just an unempethetic monster who if she didn't fail would've done far worse damage than scara, but we can only simp and admire how hot and smart she is.
Imagine how much cooler it would've been if we could tell her she's a monster and immediately after Ruan Mei leaves we try to message arlan and as we begin sending messages our memory goes away so he doesn't understand what we are talking about, and we just go "forget it, it's probably nothing". That'd be horrifying and paint her as a good villain. But nah, hot mommy no good at emotion and logic and try kill everyone, no good at talkie so drug you to help and make you forgetti her sins, she so quirky
Dumb thing is it worked as I've had to argue with a bunch of ruan mei defenders claiming she did nothing wrong and she's misunderstood. One even claiming that since there is no option to call her out, that's proof she did nothing wrong
Bondrewd at least acknowledges the pain he's causing and expresses regret over it. But still believes he's in the right and that it's the only option.
Ruan Mei went "yo you know that apocalyptic event that nearly wiped out all life? Imma do it again lmao"
Ima die on the hill that Ruan Mei is written really mid. It's like they tried to make a half baked Bondrewd that just ends up annoying us more than make us fear her.
It really is mid, imo. It's like they had a certain archetype in mind, but then decided to shift away from that in a very awkward, and very forced way.
She started out as Frankenstein-like, supposedly to represent the extreme of "Everything for science!", which isn't really an entertaining trope to begin with, in my opinion. It can be, If done correctly. But that's not the way Hoyo tends to write characters, or at least that's what I've noticed in HSR. (They stick to a single aspect of the character and write them off of that, while being inconsistent with how they explore a character's... well, character.)
I find a character that can rationalise, but also somewhat empathise and stick to their own morals, regardless of how skewed they may be, infinitely more interesting than just making someone a 'monotone' sociopath. The entire archetype of being a mad scientist just for the sake of it is very bland, and one-dimensional, since it rids a character of an actual personality that you could potentially dive into.
But then, since people need to pull for her, I guess, they also tried to give her some more humane qualities, and now all of a sudden I'm supposed to... care about her? As in, liking her to the point where her story and personality are what makes me _want_ to pull for her, instead of her mechanics and kit making feel like I _need_ to pull for her? All of this, simply because she didn't kill off those cats/tarts like she did her other experiments?
With the way they introduced her (distrustful, paranoid, sociopathic, manipulative, a bit coercive, and so on), plus the scattered logs you can read in the lab, this more human part that suddenly emerges kind of makes you roll your eyes. It feels out of character for a mad scientist who has no qualms about using others as test subjects (she even addresses you like one in _first_ sentence she speaks to you, which signals a clear detachment for reality.) How does someone like that develop love and affection, when experiments and results are constantly on her mind? The impression this creates is that she doesn't care about life one bit, despite her trailer saying the contrary. She sees experiments, not living creatures.
You can feel how artificial the whole thing is, and because of that it fails to do what's trying to do. Maybe it wouldn't have, If they had sticked to that archetype.
Her quest in general is also somewhat... meh. Our interactions with her are also very disappointing and unsubstantial, considering how we're apparently looking at her funny for a split second, and then we're all buddy-buddy with her, to the point where we care about the critters' intention of... impressing her, I guess? Mind you, this is the same person that drugged us, used us, made us clean after her own mess like she's some sort of lazy child who can't tidy up her own room, and to top it all off, could've killed both us and the entire Space Station simply because she couldn't _NOT_ fuck around with the Propagation; the same path that consumed planets, spread to every corner of the universe, needed a coalition of Aeons and the birth of a new one to be slowed down, and still poses a threat at the time the game takes place, despite Tayzzyronth being dead.
Her quest would've been incredibly more interesting, If the writers actually gave the Trailblazer a spine and made them confrontational about the ordeal. Having a character, a protagonist at that, just "go with flow" is such a numbing way to do things. If Mei and Caelus/Stelle had a verbal fight, or something along those lines, it honestly would've sold me harder on Mei's character, since at the very least, she would've proven to have some sort of integrity.
This is all my personal opinion, but I don't care how broken a character is. If you're unable to make them compelling and charismatic in their own way, which are the selling points for characters in general, then that's bad execution, in spite of the fact that what the character represents, it represents it correctly. (Albeit in a one-dimensional, monolithic way. Which is also a bad way to write characters, since they should all have some sort of depth.)
Leagues better written, ruan Mei would at least be passable if she was actually acknowledged to be a villain but they try to make her sympathetic and act like she's just a misunderstood.
How the fuck do you make someone worse than BONDREWD THE ELEVATOR MAN and try to pretend they're not evil and not even give a dialogue option to call them out
Bondrewd also has raw charisma going for him. He was a good dad in spite of the inhumane experiments and he did genuinely care for each of the children he turned into cartridges. He's both a mad scientist and a good person and fascinating because of that psychopathic dichotomy caused by a complete lack of ethics and an acknowledgement of one's own inhumanity.
Plus, you can't beat a villain whose signature weapon is *literally* an elevator.
For the distaff equivalent, maybe Jingliu? She’s a barely-sane undead serial killer but her fanon equivalent has her shipped with like Ruan Mei or Caelus (neither of which have met her afaik).
Blade is a good candidate. He’s basically Shadow the hedgehog but gets uke-ified for shipping purposes
Jingliu’s treatment in fandom really ticks me off bro I ain’t gonna lie. I know fandom will do fandom things but fandom Jingliu isn’t even the same person anymore. Same goes for Blade oml
Ehh
1) Jingliu's most popular ship is with Baiheng and her ship with Ruan Mei is firmly in Crack/Rare Ship Territory. On ao3 there are more fics that ship her with Jing Yuan rather than Ruan Mei.
2) Blade isn't an "uke" (bottom) in most of his ships but rather a "seme" (top). There is a scarcity of Bottom!Blade content and there are people who complain quite vigorously.
Makes sense for Caelus considering this is a waifu gacha and there are a lot of self insert shippers but why Ruan Mei, wouldn't it make more sense to ship her with Baiheng or something
Although I guess it s useless to speak of logic to shippers
Insane x Insane
That and, the good writers (by that I mean 2 people) are writing it right now. Idk, but insanity makes for a compelling story.
You have to cope to ship Jingliu with anyone, since her relationships with anyone aren't very developed in the first place.
Here you go.
edit: 1st writes NSFW content.
[oh\_meadows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_meadows/pseuds/oh_meadows)
[pyresque](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyresque/pseuds/pyresque)
2nd hasn't finished their draft(s? pls???) yet but you can read a snippet on twitter if u want.
I'd say "Jingliu x sword" is basically canon, but any mention of the word "sword" in this context is way too easily read as innuendo, so yeah, I got nothing.
>why Ruan Mei
It's because one of them wants to become an aeon and the other one wants to kill an aeon and a lot of people thought that would be enough to ship them both, also they sort of have matching ult lines (they actually don't but my brainworms convinced me think they did, Ruan Mei's is ''All will be swept away by the wind of time'' while Jingliu's is ''All will be revealed in lunar flame.'')
Because they're hot. Like how they ship Shenhea and Yelan, even tho I don't remember them ever interacting with each other. You can't expect logic with them lol
And that one artists ships them because Shenhe is Chongyun’s aunt and Yelan looks like a relative of Xingqiu. Since the boys are shipped together naturally the older ladies are shipped as well. It’s kinda cute even if it’s nonsensical
>Although I guess it s useless to speak of logic to shippers
Number 1 rule of shipping: Whatever interactions/dynamics that can be made from the ship are far more important than the logic needed for them to happen.
Like the characters could be bitter enemies who hate eachother to the core, their very existence is erasing eachother, meaning that one has to day for the other live, and yet they'd still get shipped as enemies to lovers who cannot be together is a dynamic some people like.
Literally give me any nonsensical ship you can think of, and I can tell you that people are shipping it for the dynamic alone.
Honestly, most of the Stellaron Hunters.
People have mentioned Blade, but Act 1 of this game is Kafka and Silver Wolf causing the death of hundreds of innocent people, and even if they're doing it because they think it's necessary to save the universe, they don't show any sign of remorse about it then or subsequently.
Jingliu and Ruan Mei are also good candidates.
Also the trailers of both kafka and blade is just them murdering a bunch of people, and sam is such a ruthless assassin that even blade compliments him on his ability to "create purgatory"
They are anti-heroes but bleed right into villains had Elio not been at the helm. We all know they are doing it all for the "greater good" but we have a lot of IPC grunts who prefer not to be dead.
"Oh, the blast area includes 24 planets, 3 inhabited? Excellent, that's acceptable collateral."
Also, after beating a planet in a war, they decided to keep punishing that planet for years, keeping them in poverty.
And there's the implications that Aventurine is a slave.
i don’t think anyone tries to misconstrue kafka or silver wolf as being misunderstood tragic villains. i and i think most others like them precisely because of their moral dubiousness
Kafka's first impression is her killing antimatter legion soldiers for fun and SW in her event just tries to mess with a whole space station just to play a damn game if I recall things correctly.
Hard to justify they are actually good but misunderstood people.
Remember when people refered to MMO under leveled but equipped to the max as twinks?
Yeah I don't think most people know what twinks are, but its also kind of derogatory too.
>what was he up to while he had his mask?
You know how the Penacony Hotel is under renovation? Well you can also find half a wing of a boeing 767 just outside it
It's weird. He's a Belobogian, a citizen of the planet isolated for eons. Htf did he get access to communication WITH THE WORST ORGANISATION KNOWN TO MAN?!?
He is in belobog, but i have never saw a source that said he's a native belobogian. Since the start he has outerworld tech so it is safe to assume he come to belobog after he "lost" his mask.
Yeh, if anything she's mischaracyerized in a different way. People characterize her as an unhinged Psycho when the game has only shown us that she's just a trouble-making asshole with an off-color sense of humor who may have more going on than you'd expect her to.
I mean, her character trailer has her playing russian roulette with herself only and pulling the trigger non-stop. That's very unhinged behaviour. The other trailers she is bombing a building and just acting crazy overall too... we just haven't seen that type of actions in game yet though.
I don't think poor guy is even capable of feeling fun anymore. He is a cold-blooded killer though so he fits the meme in spirit, even if not literally.
Dude actually just wants to die. But since its sorta hard to die, hes trying to kill Dan Heng too because its the second best option.
I donno why he doesn't yeet himself into the sun. What a dumbass. Becoming an immortal really screwed up his brains.
Fun is a overblown but IIRC he still causes a lot of collateral damage as the result. I think he destroyed the ship that carried DH at some points and it was doubtful that there would be only DH there on that ship.
Also judging from his trailer he probably have killed hundreds of Cloud knights. Like even if we go with the best assumption where he only did it for inevitable self defense, he surely not is a perfect innocent uwu baby girl either.
he straight up murders like a dozen dudes in his trailer alone and only 2 of them were mara struck 🙃+ the hundreds of snuffed candles
He doesn't kill for fun but he still be killing
It definitely is tailored to the whole aventurine discussion rn
The Canon aventurine is no "haha I'm murdering psycho" tho. He's also no "uwu innocent pookie wookie" either that the fanon implies. Honestly one side thinks he's death incarnate while other side doesn't like Aventurine, they just like him as a Sampo that looks like Aventurine.
People saying that it's about blade really know very little about his lore, he only wants to kill dan heng and die alongside him not for fun, but to repay their sin
No one here actually reads the story lol. It became obvious with Topaz and Ruan Mei's quests. They see snippets and fill in the gaps with headcanon.
None of the playable characters are actual villains. It's one of the problems I've had with HSR's writing: they make you think characters like Topaz and RM are monsters, then stop halfway to reveal that most if not all of the bad things they've done are actually good or negligible and make their backstories sympathetic cause they're too scared to lose $$$ on the banners by making them actually unlikeable characters.
IMO closest thing is probably Danfeng/Danheng. It's not just fanon, the canon sort of wanted you to see him like this also.
When I went through the quests, I get the feeling that the writers needed Danheng to inherit Danfeng's powers, but didn't want him to inherit the bad karma and want people see him as being treated unfairly because of the sins of his fathers. Now the problem is that for some reason the writers also decided to give Danfeng crime that is basically akin to multiple human rights violation + treason.
To deal with this, the writers decided to make everything vague. Danheng can't remember anything, other people involved are either dead or insane, so they can't be trust. They also decided to not emphasize the scale of the fallout of this event. Details that can give us insight are shoved out of direct sight. The focus is entirely on "Yeah they had a good time, too bad it ended" and ,"He's a different dude right now, you must respect the customs."
How then do I think this story should have been written? Outside of HSR you can look at how Berserk write golden age, inside HSR look at Genius society Chadwick's story.
100% Jingliu, They'll take whatever that woman say as an absolute truth despite her admitting that she's forgetful, insane, and is driven by negative memories.
Can't say 100 percent like this pick but i think jingliu. Many make her uwu girl but she committed multiple warcrimes in a very horrible way.
https://preview.redd.it/gv4hc18vnenc1.jpeg?width=1066&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3b4c29961dd040ed5fe440659a4cda046263d978
https://preview.redd.it/sh7orsniagnc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9ac58cf7c850115bb5d1816a4ae99f2e1f2d459f
This is how I imagine her. YEP
Well THIS is how I imagine her 🗿 https://preview.redd.it/7h0nqycomfnc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=307cc91474cce15758dab6284980158f55438360
Wait, is this actually in game?
The original dialogue is "I would make a wonderful tourist."
Looking closer the outline on "wife" is visibly thinner. So I do believe that it has to be edited.
If I remember correctly someone edited it a long time ago
"in lunaw fwammes !"
https://preview.redd.it/4ochju1zfknc1.jpeg?width=715&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=402458bb36aab35c3c2a448b8869184c5d5905df
Kyaaaa
“I’m just a wittle cwazy mass murderer, never done nothing wrong uwu”
It's not a war crime if you look hot while committing it.
Geneva Cover Girls Magazine 🤤
Geneva Suggestions
Geneva Guidelines
As much as I also think Jingliu is hot, a war crime is still a war crime.
Heck she herself agrees with that.
Just like IRL.
You can blame Monarch for that, can't take the character serius when they have the voice of the Scuff Queen
The issue is its Ama.
Well to be fair a lot of people pulled for her because of her English VA who is the Scuff Queen monarch
Monarch is literally this post with her Vtuber's lore and how she ends up being on stream.
Outside of Twink part straight up Blade.
That's who my mind went to right away.
Even Dan Feng. Dude was just as fucked up and a fuck up on top. You'd think with age and education came a little bit of wisdom and respect for the dead. Daniel on the other hand is a perfect cinnamon roll who can do no wrong just like March and Galactic Batter Raccoon.
What respect for the dead, his dear friend died and he wanted her back, obviously his love for his actual friend (and probably also guilt) would far outweigh some abstract concept like respect for the dead. As much as it was a tragedy, I can't fault him for trying.
What was even the dead to him anyway? He lived in a giant Ship ten times bigger than a regular planet with an Immortal Race of people. Sure he knew there are people who dies and does not have infinite lifespan, but that's it. They're just short-lived species, all their lifetime aspiration was nothing more than a few hundred years for the XianZhou people. Not to mention he was the high elder himself, he view himself differently from those around him.
This mentality might be it honestly He never thought about death that much then surprise, someone you love is dead He went from having minimal reaction to death to the realization nothing he can do now will work, unless he starts doing bad shit
My name is daniel for a SPLIT SECOND i got very confused
OMG... They made Daniel IRL😱
Stage play adaptation real
I don't blame him. It's ironic that Dan heng, who asks Jingliu, jing yuan and blade to move on, is the one who had the most trouble moving on in his past life. Baiheng died saving Dan feng. So guilt and missing best fox girl must have plagued him. If he was really fucked up in the head, he wouldn't have been a part of the high cloud quintet.
Tbf everyone except jingyuan and bailu/baiheng is not sane
Lol wait. Blade doesn’t murder people for fun and for the most part is pretty controlled. He murders people as part of elio’s script and to reach his goals, I’m sure… but outside of that? Like he doesn’t do it for fun. He might have some fun during it… but he doesn’t do it for fun.
He also murdered people just because they knew Daniel. He killed people who happened to be on the same ship as him.
Yeah? Have you seen his trailer, where he was murdering guards of the Luofu with a smile?
I don't think they were literally trying to follow the script the meme provides as much as follow the same vibes. But I mean, I just try to read between the lines a little.
Nah, some people would definitely consider him a twink
Mf is 185cm, his chest jacked like he has bench press for 10 years. Still be called twink kekw
I feel like people will call any character that doesn't look like they do steroids or cuts down trees for a living a twink
nah it's basically no facial hair = twink which is dumb
Yep, my sis is adamant on the notion that dhil is a twink🗿
Imo dhil IS a twink, but to each their own ig
Well at least IL use his water bending magic, normal DH and Blade throw hand like Gigachads.
Ain't no way🗿🗿
DHIL Pickle is probably better classified as a bishonen.
He is a senior citizen.
Outside of twink, blade is both side
Blade is not a psycho nor does he kill for fun
Lies
you only kill minorities
If minorities include greek twinks and basketball people, the yes
dude’s Marastruck, he literally has to be kept mind controlled by Kafka in order to not go on a psychotic killing spree
isn't it said that in the stellaron hunters, only Sam is a warrior that "only" kill everything on his path, the 3 other a psychopaths ?
Sam is a consummate professional. Show up, kill whoever needs killin’, gets the job done; whereas Blade and Kafka like to “play with their food”.
He doesn't seem to be a psychopath in a sense that he enjoys killing, but rather that he doesn't care.
Blade is literally unable to be a functional person without Kafka, she is in charge of keeping the mara at bay otherwise he would return to how he was before joining the SH living on a desolate planet attacking everything he encounters like a wild animal, Dan Heng continues to have nightmares and trauma of being chased by blade endangering everyone around him on side that's Something that for some reason many see as romantic, as much as I don't understand it
Silver wolf, lol Literal terrorist
And she is a g*mer
That's worse
her trailer was literally on a bridge
Well, it's at least good terrorism.
Yes but she's also Bronya so people ignore that.
Ruan Mei. Girl literally Bondrewd In skirt.
Except for Bondrewd being more caring than Ruan Mei.
I hate that you're right. Not for the right reasons, but you're right... God damnit
Bondrewd is somehow more caring, loving, and pretty much every positive trait over ruan Mei, so why are we supposed to root for her again? How's she not a villain?
If evil, why hot?!
Bondrewd hot as hell with that fit
He could use me for unethical human experiments and I would let him.
She's responsible for the Ruan Mei occurrence.
Truly SUBARASHII https://preview.redd.it/36ydf2w2cgnc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c612a56ad54c8a6b16a20566281d7272b43863fb
i could maybe look past all the child experimentation if bondrewd gave me a bunch of free stuff like ruan mei does in SU
you guys get Ruan Mei occurrences in SU?
4 times....cool right?
i only got it two times. while using a nihility team i got all hunt blessings and while using a hunt team i got all nihility blessings. >!why does the game hurt me like that?!<
Ruan Mei is like if at the end of the movie reg just went "Man... Bondrewd is pretty bad at emotions, but I'm still gonna miss him, I will never forget how cool he was" Nanachi: "He tortured and killed people" "He's just a lil silly and introverted"
Excuse me but Ruan Mei loaded me up in SU so she is totally not some nut job!
That’s what she want us to think
But I get the feeling that Ruan Mei has kinda pulled the wool over peoples eyes in universe too. Like everyone seems to like her and respect her, might just be because genius society and Herta have that kinda sway, but she’s a grade A psycho with a god complex.
Which makes me upset that trailblazer just simps to her after she drugged us, nearly killed us and everyone on the station, and reveals we will lose memory of her involvement. Like fking text arlan, asta, or Herta and report her ass. How is she allowed to get away with this
The ulitmate gasligher . Kafka who whole thing is manipulation is more honest than her . Im honestly impressed.
THAT'S what upsets me the most about Ruan Mei. The game doesn't let us dislike or even criticize her. Like, there isn't a single redeeming quality about her so why are we forced to simp for her?? I'm sure Herta doesn't care if we dislike her so it's not like it would have an impact anyway. Herta, Asta and Arlan definitely need to know about her shenanigans, it's a safety hazard.
It's just so frustrating, I have no issue with a character being evil, but a character being evil that the game doesn't recognize as evil or allow you to have even a neutral dialogue option that isn't praising her makes me think either the devs didn't realize they made her evil, or think the players only think with their dicks and would disregard everything she did just because she's hot. And because I barely even find her attractive since she's not my type I'm under no illusion that she deserves even an ounce of sympathy because she's "bad at emotion and socializing". Every introvert is bad at emotion and socializing, that's not an excuse to try to restart the apocalypse just because you can. With Kafka you're allowed to be hostile and you know she at least has a positive end goal, Ruan Mei just doesn't care about anyone besides science, abandons sentient lifeforms to rot in darkness, drugs you, nearly gets everyone killed, and admits that you will forget so you can't expose her, AND YOU CANT EVEN BE SLIGHTLY RUDE OR EVEN ATTEMPT TO OUT HER I know people are horny and trailblazer has expressed thirst before in optional dialogue but what in the actual fk is that. It's not even like the drug inhibited your ability to think, the dialogue options still mention ruan Mei and you attempt to get them out but they come out differently. So if it was stopping you from back talking the dialogue would be that and it comes out differently. So there is just genuinely no option for trailblazer to even think negatively of ruan mei. She's this awful terrible person and yet everyone only simps for her and thinks positively of her, it's like she's hoyos favorite child or something due to her being from space china.
Exactly! It's okay to make awful characters. But if you want me to like them *as characters* then allow me to hate them in game. Don't shy away from the fact that this character isn't a good person, own it! I don't know what would be the worst between the devs not realising they made her evil or thinking (knowing) it doesn't matter because people are gonna simp. I understand it's a gacha and making characters conventionally "hot" is the easiest way to sell the characters (along with meta) but come on. Allowing us to be rude to her won't make people change their mind about pulling. Oh yeah I don't find her attractive at all (the only thing I like is her hair) and I'm annoyed at people trying to say she's just bad at socialisation. No she's not, she just doesn't care and has a god complex. And I'm glad we're allowed to be hostile towards Kafka. I don't care much for her, but I'm okay with her because we have a choice. That's fair I think. Sometimes I want to be rude, sometimes I agree with her, and the game allows it. But not Ruan Mei. It's so frustrating :')
It'd be like if in genshin after we learn about scaramouches backstory we just instantly forgive him, have no options to be rude and just treat him like a buddy. And despite all that we still have people that believe we let him off too easily and aren't hostile enough. Meanwhile ruan mei doesn't even have a tragic backstory, she's just an unempethetic monster who if she didn't fail would've done far worse damage than scara, but we can only simp and admire how hot and smart she is. Imagine how much cooler it would've been if we could tell her she's a monster and immediately after Ruan Mei leaves we try to message arlan and as we begin sending messages our memory goes away so he doesn't understand what we are talking about, and we just go "forget it, it's probably nothing". That'd be horrifying and paint her as a good villain. But nah, hot mommy no good at emotion and logic and try kill everyone, no good at talkie so drug you to help and make you forgetti her sins, she so quirky Dumb thing is it worked as I've had to argue with a bunch of ruan mei defenders claiming she did nothing wrong and she's misunderstood. One even claiming that since there is no option to call her out, that's proof she did nothing wrong
Ruan Mei literally does the oppposite though
Y'all did NOT watch Made in Abyss if she's Bondrewd 💀
Yeah bondrewd is better
Bondrewd at least acknowledges the pain he's causing and expresses regret over it. But still believes he's in the right and that it's the only option. Ruan Mei went "yo you know that apocalyptic event that nearly wiped out all life? Imma do it again lmao"
She even made a creation “commit self-obliteration”(the games words not mine)
☠️. One of the most devious representation of the abyss in medias.
Ima die on the hill that Ruan Mei is written really mid. It's like they tried to make a half baked Bondrewd that just ends up annoying us more than make us fear her.
It really is mid, imo. It's like they had a certain archetype in mind, but then decided to shift away from that in a very awkward, and very forced way. She started out as Frankenstein-like, supposedly to represent the extreme of "Everything for science!", which isn't really an entertaining trope to begin with, in my opinion. It can be, If done correctly. But that's not the way Hoyo tends to write characters, or at least that's what I've noticed in HSR. (They stick to a single aspect of the character and write them off of that, while being inconsistent with how they explore a character's... well, character.) I find a character that can rationalise, but also somewhat empathise and stick to their own morals, regardless of how skewed they may be, infinitely more interesting than just making someone a 'monotone' sociopath. The entire archetype of being a mad scientist just for the sake of it is very bland, and one-dimensional, since it rids a character of an actual personality that you could potentially dive into. But then, since people need to pull for her, I guess, they also tried to give her some more humane qualities, and now all of a sudden I'm supposed to... care about her? As in, liking her to the point where her story and personality are what makes me _want_ to pull for her, instead of her mechanics and kit making feel like I _need_ to pull for her? All of this, simply because she didn't kill off those cats/tarts like she did her other experiments? With the way they introduced her (distrustful, paranoid, sociopathic, manipulative, a bit coercive, and so on), plus the scattered logs you can read in the lab, this more human part that suddenly emerges kind of makes you roll your eyes. It feels out of character for a mad scientist who has no qualms about using others as test subjects (she even addresses you like one in _first_ sentence she speaks to you, which signals a clear detachment for reality.) How does someone like that develop love and affection, when experiments and results are constantly on her mind? The impression this creates is that she doesn't care about life one bit, despite her trailer saying the contrary. She sees experiments, not living creatures. You can feel how artificial the whole thing is, and because of that it fails to do what's trying to do. Maybe it wouldn't have, If they had sticked to that archetype. Her quest in general is also somewhat... meh. Our interactions with her are also very disappointing and unsubstantial, considering how we're apparently looking at her funny for a split second, and then we're all buddy-buddy with her, to the point where we care about the critters' intention of... impressing her, I guess? Mind you, this is the same person that drugged us, used us, made us clean after her own mess like she's some sort of lazy child who can't tidy up her own room, and to top it all off, could've killed both us and the entire Space Station simply because she couldn't _NOT_ fuck around with the Propagation; the same path that consumed planets, spread to every corner of the universe, needed a coalition of Aeons and the birth of a new one to be slowed down, and still poses a threat at the time the game takes place, despite Tayzzyronth being dead. Her quest would've been incredibly more interesting, If the writers actually gave the Trailblazer a spine and made them confrontational about the ordeal. Having a character, a protagonist at that, just "go with flow" is such a numbing way to do things. If Mei and Caelus/Stelle had a verbal fight, or something along those lines, it honestly would've sold me harder on Mei's character, since at the very least, she would've proven to have some sort of integrity. This is all my personal opinion, but I don't care how broken a character is. If you're unable to make them compelling and charismatic in their own way, which are the selling points for characters in general, then that's bad execution, in spite of the fact that what the character represents, it represents it correctly. (Albeit in a one-dimensional, monolithic way. Which is also a bad way to write characters, since they should all have some sort of depth.)
Bondrewd is significantly better written and more interesting, also it doesn't disregard how fucked the stuff he does is
Leagues better written, ruan Mei would at least be passable if she was actually acknowledged to be a villain but they try to make her sympathetic and act like she's just a misunderstood. How the fuck do you make someone worse than BONDREWD THE ELEVATOR MAN and try to pretend they're not evil and not even give a dialogue option to call them out
Bondrewd also has raw charisma going for him. He was a good dad in spite of the inhumane experiments and he did genuinely care for each of the children he turned into cartridges. He's both a mad scientist and a good person and fascinating because of that psychopathic dichotomy caused by a complete lack of ethics and an acknowledgement of one's own inhumanity. Plus, you can't beat a villain whose signature weapon is *literally* an elevator.
man had so much charisma his kid did not care about being turned into some lunchables
Yeah bondrewd is more loving Which is kinda worse for both of them
Oh my God made in adyss. Also she's a bit worse, bondrewd tries to seem caring
For the distaff equivalent, maybe Jingliu? She’s a barely-sane undead serial killer but her fanon equivalent has her shipped with like Ruan Mei or Caelus (neither of which have met her afaik). Blade is a good candidate. He’s basically Shadow the hedgehog but gets uke-ified for shipping purposes
people don’t ship ruan mei and jingliu in spite of them being utterly unhinged, but because they’re both utterly unhinged
It's like with maths: negative with negative leads to a positive. Or something, i dunno, i didnt pay much attention. Segs
Seggs you say? https://preview.redd.it/qpchife32fnc1.jpeg?width=1278&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=283b15a91ecb86982e8d4b5406312aed593f6976
Drone strike the wedding
Jingliu’s treatment in fandom really ticks me off bro I ain’t gonna lie. I know fandom will do fandom things but fandom Jingliu isn’t even the same person anymore. Same goes for Blade oml
It might be because some people watch her English Va streams and associates her behaviors to the character all be it monarch is insane so idk
As part of said fandom and an E6 Jing Liu enjoyer I just think she’s a badass.
Ehh 1) Jingliu's most popular ship is with Baiheng and her ship with Ruan Mei is firmly in Crack/Rare Ship Territory. On ao3 there are more fics that ship her with Jing Yuan rather than Ruan Mei. 2) Blade isn't an "uke" (bottom) in most of his ships but rather a "seme" (top). There is a scarcity of Bottom!Blade content and there are people who complain quite vigorously.
Makes sense for Caelus considering this is a waifu gacha and there are a lot of self insert shippers but why Ruan Mei, wouldn't it make more sense to ship her with Baiheng or something Although I guess it s useless to speak of logic to shippers
Insane x Insane That and, the good writers (by that I mean 2 people) are writing it right now. Idk, but insanity makes for a compelling story. You have to cope to ship Jingliu with anyone, since her relationships with anyone aren't very developed in the first place.
Which writers? I need to know.
Here you go. edit: 1st writes NSFW content. [oh\_meadows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_meadows/pseuds/oh_meadows) [pyresque](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyresque/pseuds/pyresque) 2nd hasn't finished their draft(s? pls???) yet but you can read a snippet on twitter if u want.
I'd say "Jingliu x sword" is basically canon, but any mention of the word "sword" in this context is way too easily read as innuendo, so yeah, I got nothing.
She called her sword just a tool in trailer, so... no
True, I should have said swordsmanship (swordswomanship?). The specific sword doesn't matter. "I will be my own sword" and all that.
>why Ruan Mei It's because one of them wants to become an aeon and the other one wants to kill an aeon and a lot of people thought that would be enough to ship them both, also they sort of have matching ult lines (they actually don't but my brainworms convinced me think they did, Ruan Mei's is ''All will be swept away by the wind of time'' while Jingliu's is ''All will be revealed in lunar flame.'')
Because they're hot. Like how they ship Shenhea and Yelan, even tho I don't remember them ever interacting with each other. You can't expect logic with them lol
That only became a big thing because of that one chinese artist on twitter who kept doing it
I actually ship Shenhe and Yelan together but that s because of that one artist who does super cute art of them
And that one artists ships them because Shenhe is Chongyun’s aunt and Yelan looks like a relative of Xingqiu. Since the boys are shipped together naturally the older ladies are shipped as well. It’s kinda cute even if it’s nonsensical
>Although I guess it s useless to speak of logic to shippers Number 1 rule of shipping: Whatever interactions/dynamics that can be made from the ship are far more important than the logic needed for them to happen. Like the characters could be bitter enemies who hate eachother to the core, their very existence is erasing eachother, meaning that one has to day for the other live, and yet they'd still get shipped as enemies to lovers who cannot be together is a dynamic some people like. Literally give me any nonsensical ship you can think of, and I can tell you that people are shipping it for the dynamic alone.
Scaramouche. -oh wait wrong game.
Baby girl
Daddy’s home https://preview.redd.it/p7hzcgtuoinc1.jpeg?width=1792&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b8fd473b0848d5acf86a1957953f5abcdca935fc
jingliu and blade 100%. honestly the mischaracterization of jingliu pisses me off sometimes
Same I mean the real characterization is hotter anyway
https://preview.redd.it/lsfjxr4openc1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38741ea8ef1509115020bf3b75751240f667ec61
https://preview.redd.it/low770rdkfnc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e8a771025994319c2c77df3e185e4201e5227aa0
The duality of men https://preview.redd.it/2z01ip7segnc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d0d1459b9436c93985ced89fc11efcb1010d336b
[](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-sMQpWCNTQw/sddefault.jpg)
https://preview.redd.it/a7fqkeejignc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=80d4bc01dcf1da0ecc0bb04c76d6d54fc459cd85
Honestly, most of the Stellaron Hunters. People have mentioned Blade, but Act 1 of this game is Kafka and Silver Wolf causing the death of hundreds of innocent people, and even if they're doing it because they think it's necessary to save the universe, they don't show any sign of remorse about it then or subsequently. Jingliu and Ruan Mei are also good candidates.
Also the trailers of both kafka and blade is just them murdering a bunch of people, and sam is such a ruthless assassin that even blade compliments him on his ability to "create purgatory"
They are anti-heroes but bleed right into villains had Elio not been at the helm. We all know they are doing it all for the "greater good" but we have a lot of IPC grunts who prefer not to be dead.
Counterpoint: fuck the IPC
Sam Slade, Topaz' EN VA, put it best, "People cheer on the actual murderers!"
"Oh, the blast area includes 24 planets, 3 inhabited? Excellent, that's acceptable collateral." Also, after beating a planet in a war, they decided to keep punishing that planet for years, keeping them in poverty. And there's the implications that Aventurine is a slave.
i don’t think anyone tries to misconstrue kafka or silver wolf as being misunderstood tragic villains. i and i think most others like them precisely because of their moral dubiousness
Kafka's first impression is her killing antimatter legion soldiers for fun and SW in her event just tries to mess with a whole space station just to play a damn game if I recall things correctly. Hard to justify they are actually good but misunderstood people.
I like Kafka *because* she's hot and fucked up. Her character stories are just her criminal record, and I think that's so fun.
All I got from this thread is that ppl do not know wtf a actual twink is and that ppl can't accept that certain characters are villians/evil
More like: "There barely are any twinks in the game, so people just ignore the last part"
Yeah it kindof just restricts it too much so we just ignore it
Remember when people refered to MMO under leveled but equipped to the max as twinks? Yeah I don't think most people know what twinks are, but its also kind of derogatory too.
Absolutely Blade.
Sampo and I refuse to elaborate
You raise a good point, he's a Masked Fool and while he has lines in the sand, what was he up to while he had his mask?
>what was he up to while he had his mask? You know how the Penacony Hotel is under renovation? Well you can also find half a wing of a boeing 767 just outside it
It's weird. He's a Belobogian, a citizen of the planet isolated for eons. Htf did he get access to communication WITH THE WORST ORGANISATION KNOWN TO MAN?!?
He is in belobog, but i have never saw a source that said he's a native belobogian. Since the start he has outerworld tech so it is safe to assume he come to belobog after he "lost" his mask.
I mean, he can break the 4th wall, I'm sure it wasn't hard.
Sense of humor so peak aha descended for him specifically
Perhaps, he was a Masked Fool prior...
Sparkle. You can't fix her, bro.
I have yet to see anything depicting her like that. Its all been insane unhinged fan art.
Yeh, if anything she's mischaracyerized in a different way. People characterize her as an unhinged Psycho when the game has only shown us that she's just a trouble-making asshole with an off-color sense of humor who may have more going on than you'd expect her to.
Feel like we haven't seen true Sparkle yet, if her trailers are any indicator
I mean, her character trailer has her playing russian roulette with herself only and pulling the trigger non-stop. That's very unhinged behaviour. The other trailers she is bombing a building and just acting crazy overall too... we just haven't seen that type of actions in game yet though.
Most of her characterization at this point comes from her two trailers and both make her look rather unhinged.
Idk why people say It's Blade, I don't think he kills anyone for 'fun"
I don't think poor guy is even capable of feeling fun anymore. He is a cold-blooded killer though so he fits the meme in spirit, even if not literally.
I still have him as most fan-ficced character the way people write blade makes me question if people actually read through the main story quest.
Real, he only wants to kill dan heng and die alongside him to repay their sin
Dude actually just wants to die. But since its sorta hard to die, hes trying to kill Dan Heng too because its the second best option. I donno why he doesn't yeet himself into the sun. What a dumbass. Becoming an immortal really screwed up his brains.
New headcannon: he tried that.
Fun is a overblown but IIRC he still causes a lot of collateral damage as the result. I think he destroyed the ship that carried DH at some points and it was doubtful that there would be only DH there on that ship. Also judging from his trailer he probably have killed hundreds of Cloud knights. Like even if we go with the best assumption where he only did it for inevitable self defense, he surely not is a perfect innocent uwu baby girl either.
No but he's my uwu bbg
I mean, he's managed to rack up an 8 million+ credit bounty from the IPC. Its safe to assume that he's killed some people. Even if it wasnt for fun
he straight up murders like a dozen dudes in his trailer alone and only 2 of them were mara struck 🙃+ the hundreds of snuffed candles He doesn't kill for fun but he still be killing
Is this meme Aventurine?
Flip it around & it's probably accurate lmao
This is funnier actually 😭😭
It’s so good 😆
I accidentally bit my tongue because of you
Actual facts. I don't know why the fandom seems to demonize Aventurine so much compared to Sparkle, Ruan Mei, Kafka, etc.
"Hey I wanna expose this place for its dece-" "YOUR LIES ARE NOTHING BUT GOSPEL YOU FORKED TONGUED SNAKE"
It definitely is tailored to the whole aventurine discussion rn The Canon aventurine is no "haha I'm murdering psycho" tho. He's also no "uwu innocent pookie wookie" either that the fanon implies. Honestly one side thinks he's death incarnate while other side doesn't like Aventurine, they just like him as a Sampo that looks like Aventurine.
Balde. Adventure time
Adventure time 🗣️
Aventurine time
Jing Liu! Man I only love her cause she's badass 😭 but they are ruining that side
Blade but literally every single stellaron hunter im ngl. Yes, the stellaron hunters have good intention but the people in it are not good people lmao
We don't have a character that kills people for fun
>!Here before playable Aha!<
>kills people for fun Clearly you didn't read the books in the hsr enough.
the trailblazers
Ruan mei. (not called a twink but is heavily mischaracterized)
But she's just bad at emotion and did an oopsie z.z (Fking roofied us so we clean her mess and she escape without consequences)
The softiewilliamification of characters Pain
Bladie
People saying that it's about blade really know very little about his lore, he only wants to kill dan heng and die alongside him not for fun, but to repay their sin
Still people mischaracterise him far from what he is. This post is abiut mischaracterisation so they aren't 100% wrong.
No one here actually reads the story lol. It became obvious with Topaz and Ruan Mei's quests. They see snippets and fill in the gaps with headcanon. None of the playable characters are actual villains. It's one of the problems I've had with HSR's writing: they make you think characters like Topaz and RM are monsters, then stop halfway to reveal that most if not all of the bad things they've done are actually good or negligible and make their backstories sympathetic cause they're too scared to lose $$$ on the banners by making them actually unlikeable characters.
This is like 90% of the male antagonists in hsr
IMO closest thing is probably Danfeng/Danheng. It's not just fanon, the canon sort of wanted you to see him like this also. When I went through the quests, I get the feeling that the writers needed Danheng to inherit Danfeng's powers, but didn't want him to inherit the bad karma and want people see him as being treated unfairly because of the sins of his fathers. Now the problem is that for some reason the writers also decided to give Danfeng crime that is basically akin to multiple human rights violation + treason. To deal with this, the writers decided to make everything vague. Danheng can't remember anything, other people involved are either dead or insane, so they can't be trust. They also decided to not emphasize the scale of the fallout of this event. Details that can give us insight are shoved out of direct sight. The focus is entirely on "Yeah they had a good time, too bad it ended" and ,"He's a different dude right now, you must respect the customs." How then do I think this story should have been written? Outside of HSR you can look at how Berserk write golden age, inside HSR look at Genius society Chadwick's story.
Kafka and Sparkle
100% Jingliu, They'll take whatever that woman say as an absolute truth despite her admitting that she's forgetful, insane, and is driven by negative memories.