#gloomythoughts

Silence

I love Silence as a character. I am not here to disparage her but at this point, she has led all three of the Rhine Lab events with Muelsyse, Dorothy, and even Saria being small blips.

Silence’s big moments can be found in her operator record when she takes over Ptilopsis’/Joyce’s care and they can also be found in the Manhua where she continues to stand up for Joyce and for Ifrit.

In the Manhua she has already stood up to Kirsten, Saria, and Parvis. In Mansfield Break she stands up to Muelsyse and in Dorothy’s Vision, she stands up to Dorothy.

The events in Lone Trail are essentially a culmination of the events that led to the much-famed split between Saria and Kirsten. Muelsyse all this time has been caught in between them, essentially wanting to walk roads with both of them and feeling torn because of it.

Kirsten has never accepted Saria’s resignation. Saria has continued to essentially ‘defend’ Rhine Lab even in her absence. Muelsyse has tried to make both Kirsten & Saria’s dream a reality. This is impractical but she has tried.

Despite this— it’s Silence who leads this event.

In the event she gets a makeover (frankly this loses Silence’s more iconic look, and I don’t think she’d care for it or think contacts are more comfortable but that’s neither here nor there) to go along with her ‘new attitude’.

To me, there is no new attitude. As I’ve said before, she’s called out all these individuals before. She injects herself with the transmitter, but I don’t necessarily think this is out of character for her as Silence has always focused on the greater good, rather than “science at all costs” which this event has a big focus on.

She has many conversations with Jara that are essentially an exposition dump about Kirsten and she realizes that Ifrit is getting older— but this has already been referenced in her files and in operator records. This is not new information.

Her bravery in this event is treated as new and this speaks to, in my opinion, a larger problem with this event. Certain parts will hit harder if you have read the Manhua / if you haven’t read the Manhua / if you haven’t read her files/ if you haven’t played the game. But you can’t have all of those experiences at once to make the story work and you’ll need different experiences for the story to come close to sticking all its landings.

The Manhua was released six months or so before this event was released. In that Manhua you do see Silence start out as rather naive, and a little bit of a pushover who deferred to her seniors. She trusted them so she did as they asked, but by the end when we push towards a more ‘present day’ Rhodes Island and Darya is around, she has already become a far braver person, not willing to blindly trust others to do the right thing. She is taking action into her own hands then, and the Manhua already lays the groundwork for Saria and Silence’s reunion.

If you have read only the Manhua and not played the other events in the game or read Silence’s original file, this might seem like growth. If you have played the game and other events, you know that this is who Silence has been from the start. The Manhua details the past, not the present Silence who we already know. As a result, the ‘transformation’ seems much more like a makeover only.

The PV for the event made it seem like Silence was doing cartwheels and flips but in reality, her drone can now catch or help transport people. Her superpower is one she’s always had; her strong convictions and sense of what’s right.

The scene with Parvis was useful if you hadn’t examined any of the previous content. Otherwise, we do not learn anything we didn’t already know. He is ruthless, science justifies all means, etc etc. I do think Silence was a little more fierce than usual when speaking to him and that was fantastic. But it was not new or surprising to me. It was time that could have and should have been allotted more to Kirsten, Saria, and Muelsyse.

There is nothing I have learned about Silence that I did not know from the beginning.

In a way, this is a testament to the good writing the game very often has. Because it outlined everything so perfectly, Silence’s confession that she doesn’t hate Saria, that instead, she was angry at herself for relying on her and others too much— is something we already knew.

So to that end, I think she ate up way too much of the valuable ‘screen time’ that should have gone to the much more underdeveloped (in game) Saria and Muelsyse.

Ifrit, Rosmontis, Loken

It had been hinted at previously (I believe by Muelsyse or Kal’tsit) that Loken had also experimented on Rosmontis. I knew some of her history from the main story, but not close to all. As someone who does not own Rosmontis, but is a nerd and had read her file regardless and scrounged around picking up other lore that was about it.

I can only imagine how this piece played out to someone who hadn’t read her file or read random documents. It comes out of left field and frankly, I found Loken to be a bit creepy in his obsession with Rosmontis.

I don’t believe for a second that Muelsyse, who knows who he is and who genuinely cares for Ifrit and her safety— would let the two of them resolve that situation on their own given who he is and what he is capable of. She lets these two young ones on their own with this very dangerous and manipulative man who has traumatized them— in order to keep babysitting the doctor. This is another piece of a giant problem with this event.

Rosmontis sentences him to death but then decides she’ll watch the sunset with him, write him off as a note in her book and leaves. While it is very slightly tied to Rhine Lab, it felt as if Kirsten only fished him out of where he was for this specific purpose and nothing more, as if to pad the story out further. I would have much more appreciated Ifrit confronting Parvis.

It felt odd and like something that should have been in the main story or part of a vignette somewhere and with that:

Doctor, Kal’tsit, Priestess lore dump

This may just be a problem with how this event was advertised. It was sold as a huge Muelsyse, Saria, Kirsten and Silence event. What we got was very little Saria, Kirsten or Muelsyse, mostly Silence and Ferdinand, and a whole lot of Doctor in place of a sugar bowl. There to ostensibly carry the plot forward but with no real meaning. Mostly he just ate up valuable Muelsyse time with idle chit-chat and pointless flirting.

I heard there would be a ton of lore in this event and looked forward to it. I did not expect it to be this much. I did not expect it to take up so much time and have so many flashbacks of things we’ve already seen. Valuable time and word count given to things we already knew. This is something that should have been in the main story or in a Vigilo style vignette on its own.

So much momentum is lost leading up to that final confrontation with this giant lore dump and then some little funny moments with Ho’olheyak. I know this is one thing people were looking forward to.

In a lot of ways, Lone Trail felt like a ‘backdoor pilot’ to Endfield. It makes sense in some ways, but I found it diminished Lone Trail and the Rhine Lab directors. All we needed about this was what we get from Kirsten at the very end with the questions she asked and the questions she received.

Often in Arknights, they’ll refer to other events as catalysts for whatever is happening in the moment and I think they should have done that here. Make this a main story chapter/s or vignette and reference Kirsten.

And this last point— a lot of this lore is starting to really get out there. In some ways I understand and I also understand that the story is ambitious. I was not wild about the very last chapter going to different areas in Terra to discuss how this (Kirsten’s actions) affected them. I understand why it was done, I know that it shows the significance of what was done— but it also, I felt, took from momentum. Since this is not a one-time event/ story/ game— I think it could have been addressed elsewhere. To me, the story is starting to feel less ‘human conflict’ and more ‘Reapers? What are they?’

It’s less interesting to me personally, but does not make the content in itself wrong I just wish it were somewhere else. I would have appreciated it somewhere else.

The Doctor

So much of this event focused on the doctor, to an egregious extent. If the doctor will be in the event what is the point of leaving Ifrit and Rosmontis if the doctor cannot care for them and the children must also be protected?

Oh, it’s so Muelsyse can be stuck babysitting the doctor.

Doctor showed up with Kal’tsit but they separated. Why? So Muelsyse could be stuck babysitting the doctor!

The doctor’s first line is “It’s Saria you’re looking for”. Not only that, it’s also Kirsten she’s looking for. But what does she do? She spends her entire time with the doctor. Most of the dialogue is stupid and flirtatious and relatively vapid. It is often the equivalent of announcing where they now are and neither one of them taking many actions at all.

Except the doctor is fascinating and now she gets to tell them all her troubles.

Has Saria who she basically started Rhine Lab with alongside of Saria and Kirsten had an assassination attempt made against her? Is she doing really badly? Doesn’t matter! Because she’s going to continue spending time with the Doctor. I’ll touch more on this later.

The doctor is the one to talk to her like a human being. The doctor is the only one in game to be shown to give a shit about her— which does not track if you’ve read the Manhua or the events leading up to this one.

Not only that, Ho’olheyak has shown up and she’s also fascinated with the doctor. Ooh, she’s got her snake tail all over him, oh, isn’t the doctor so interesting and delicious?

This is the most egregious fan service doctor pandering shit ever and I fucking loathe it.

If you want your headcanon with the doctor and whatever operator, have fun. I mean that. I do not want it in canon and I do not want it at the expense, always, of women operators, women who have long-established relationships with other women. And if you’re about to go ‘actually’ please understand that relationships don’t necessarily mean romantic relationships.

This event took everything about Muelsyse, Saria and Kirsten’s relationship and set it on fire in order to appease doctor inserts.

Prior to this event, the Manhua was released. Muelsyse was popular in Mansfield Break (that’s when I loved her) but she became wildly popular post the Manhua. There was so much to her character. She was sneaky, but good, she was funny, she always had a plan. She was a fucking scamp working on her agenda. Post the event release? WAIFU. CONTINUE THE BLOODLINE, BROTHERS! WE NEED TO REGENERATE THE ELF RACE! Also, incel self-insert doctors love drawing art of her, making clones of other women operators so the doctor can fuck them too! Cool! Hail best waifu!

That’s what she became and that is what she basically is now.

In here she begins looking for Kirsten and looking for Saria. She meets the doctor and essentially doesn’t look back until for narrative reasons she has to so Doctor can move on to their lore dump chapters. But before then the Doctor dances with her, and isn’t that fucking special because she went to a party once and no one asked her to dance but at the end, she dragged Saria and Kirsten into a dance with her.

Over and over again characters tell us how special the doctor is, how smart the doctor is, how capable the doctor is. Warfarin wants to suck him off, Ho’olheyak is obsessed and needs him (I am saying him at this point because this is clearly catering to straight male inserts and male operators never do this), Skalter has to have him, and so on and so on. But never do we actually see any of this fucking brilliance. You can have cool characters say the doctor is amazing but none of their actions in game prove this.

In the beginning, the doctor seemed like an interesting person with a sordid past. Now the doctor has been revised to be the fucking messiah and I am so over this shit.

Jara

Jara is a really cool and interesting character. I don’t see the need for the Silence makeover but whatever. My issue with Jara in this event is that she’s there to exposition bomb Silence with who Kirsten was as a younger person. She’s also there to pointless stand up to Silence on behalf of Kirsten.

The relationship between Jara and Kirsten adds a nice element to the story— but ultimately it comes to nothing. It felt like an easy way to flesh out Kirsten, without utilizing Kirsten or anyone who she ostensibly cares about (Saria, Muelsyse). I guess it could be argued that it’s possible that Saria and Muelsyse already knew all this. It likely is that.

But overall it felt like a cheap way to add emotional gravitas with Silence, instead of, you know, actually using the time in this event to have moments with Jara and Kirsten instead in flashbacks. This game does not shy away from flashbacks, so I’m not sure why we didn’t get them now. It’s also someone harmless for Silence to have a confrontation with; one that she can come out on top of in order to prop up Silence.

I can understand that a lot of this comes down to “It’s lone trail, it’s lonely, Kirsten cares for nothing, she doesn’t get her goodbyes”. I do get that, but as a result Kirsten seems like a thin character, and what has been said about her over the years, her passion, her genius, her charm that basically entraps everyone— we don’t get to see that in the game. We just get stories from before so we can have some ‘weight’ to everything that happens when we have “Goodnight, Terra”.

This is another moment where someone can say “if you’ve read the Manhua you will understand.” Yes, but if you haven’t, what do you have? You have the two events leading up to this one saying that Saria and Kirsten were extremely close before their split and that Muelsyse was thick as thieves with her.

We don’t get any of that in this event. There is no way to know because it is not really shown. So once again we’re in this position of it hits harder if you’ve read the Manhua and also it’s more confounding if you have read the Manhua because what are we doing here?

Nasti

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this is like the Swedish “Slut” (the end) at the end of Finding Dory. I just cannot believe they did not give her another name but it is what it is I will just hate it.

Nasti is a really cool character. I just wish that we’d known more about her prior to this event in any real capacity. If Muelsyse is meant to be Kirsten’s right hand— why is Nasti here in her place? Why is Nasti here, with the same fucking dream that Muelsyse had? With the same promise that Kirsten made Muelsyse? A home.

I really don’t know what the intention was, but I’ll say this. It really felt like Muelsyse’s role was given to Nasti. Why? So Muelsyse can spend the event flirting with the doctor. Because we know fucking baby ass men (and some women) will whine and complain about a woman who isn’t 100% perfect baby waifu, or a woman who has too much agency.

We can’t have Muelsyse be working behind the scenes to help Kirsten, even though Muelsyse knew all the plans (except she was shut out of them?) and helped plot this (but was left out of them?) even though she referenced this promise back in Dorothy’s Vision. Here is Nasti in Muelsyse’s role. Here is Nasti with agency that should have been Muelsyse’s.

I really do like her as a character, but given the big fat nothing Muelsyse does throughout the event, given that Muelsyse, again, has been said to be thick as thieves with Kirsten and plotting with her for years— why is she left out of everything with Nasti in her place?

Even Ho’olheyak has a moment with her that would have seemed better suited to the rivalry established with Muelsyse in Dorothy’s Vision.

Again, it comes back to fucking doctor pandering.

Ferdinand and Justin Jr

Jesus fuck, look, I get the intention but these two uncharismatic fucks ate up way too much screentime. I get it, it’s important, Ferdinand is doing what Saria should have done long ago blah blah blah.

But on the topic of Ferdinand, we do get a lot more comradery with him and Saria than we get with Saria and Muelsyse. Saria even danced with Ferdinand years ago, even if Saria can’t stand the guy.

I will come back to this later. (And just to be clear my issue isn’t that she’s dancing with a man, shut up.)

Kirsten & Saria

From just about the beginning we have known that Kirsten and Saria founded Rhine Lab. Saria leaves because of disagreements with Kirsten, all of which are detailed (and their relationship really fleshed out) in the Manhua.

Rhine Lab begins with two idealists forming Rhine Lab in order to pursue science without any red tape. Think of all the good they can do together. When we meet Kirsten in the Manhua, she is brimming with idealism. This is the woman that Saria falls her. They share a vision so they will form Rhine Lab (with Muelsyse and Ferdinand joining very shortly after before it’s officially up and running).

From the game, we know that Saria has left Rhine Lab but that Control (Kirsten) has not accepted her resignation. This has led to too many tired ex-wife jokes at Saria’s expense but that is neither here nor there. It is very clear from the Manhua that their relationship was a romantic one, and made further clear by the boxing gloves module Saria has.

If you’ve only played the game they will tell you that Kirsten is charismatic and that Saria and her were close before the fallout. We get that in Dorothy’s Vision before a minor confrontation and we get it again here and another minor confrontation.

There is another confrontation in the Manhua that is fairly vicious but very good.

Essentially, Saria has a problem. She assumes that everyone is as good and as righteous as she is. She started Rhine Lab with a great person: Kirsten and she is Control so naturally, things must be good. She trusted Kirsten for too long. She did not investigate. In many ways, Saria was complacent. It takes much too long for her to realize that the Kirsten she knew has gone but despite this, there’s something to her that she will not give up on. Saria still wants to save her and the integrity of Rhine Lab, despite saying “I’m not with Rhine Lab” she continues to protect and interfere with Rhine Lab to ‘right’ it from its awful course. Ferdinand is doing this in his own way, and Muelsyse too is trying by basically trying to hold ‘both their hands’ and subsequently failing.

Pre the release of the Manhua all we really had was this one-sided animosity from Silence towards Saria. That’s all we really knew and that Silence didn’t trust Saria. As usual, the fandom decided they were married and ex-wives because this is how fandoms are. I too was swayed and was a Sarisil fan myself.

The Manhua, Silence’s operator records, Ptilopsis’ operator records, vignette, and content in Dorothy’s Vision long dissuaded me of that. You can absolutely take their (PtiloSil) relationship as platonic but, but you can absolutely take it as romantic, too. Their relationship is one of caring and trust and genuine closeness and even physical intimacy via touch and embraces. This is all documented in the Manhua and Joyce has long waxed poetic about Silence. So to me, this was when my SaraSil thing ended. As I said before, to me, this isn’t about ships, but I’m laying out where I came from.

I do think, looking at the Manhua, that Silence likely had a little crush on Saria. Further, she had great respect for her, especially given that Saria overheard some researchers talking shit about Silence and Joyce (who happened to hear) and Saria dragged them for fucking filth over it. Saria did not know that either Joyce or Silence were around the corner when she did this, but it made an impression on Silence.

Silence provides a feather to all her dear ones. Ifrit has one, so does Saria, so does Joyce. Saria is befuddled by the little quasi-family they’re forming to take care of Ifrit. Saria’s bedside manner is trash but with some guidance from Silence it does get much better. To me, when she looks at Silence, she sees Kirsten. She sees the same qualities that drew her to Kirsten. The passion for research, that bright, young, idealism. Of course, Parvis tricks Silence into thinking that Saria condoned everything that happened to Ifrit and it all goes to hell quickly from there.

All of the awful things that Rhine Lab is doing are mostly exposed by Muelsyse to Saria. They investigate together and uncover even more. Essentially they were all complacent and all too trusting of Kirsten. But even when this is brought up to Kirsten by Saria she essentially waves it off and says something like ‘Well he doesn’t say he’ll take it too far so that’s all.”

Kirsten and Saria discovered Saria’s calcification ‘formula’ together but as time passes Saria changes it because she no longer trusts Kirsten and perhaps rightly so because Kirsten does attempt to use it against her. But Kirsten is hurt that Saria has changed it.

This is all very resonant and emotional in the Manhua. You can see both their hurt and their devastation. At this point (and after having to nearly kill Ifrit because of Parvis’ experiments) Saria leaves Rhine Lab and they’re on different trajectories. She doesn’t bother correcting Silence on what happened because Saria is a masochist and knows that it’s her fuck up that caused this. No excuses, she has to take responsibility.

All of their (Samuelsten) history, the Manhua, the comments on their closeness in other events and files has been leading up to this moment.

We get a small flashback with Muelsyse, Saria, and Kirsten celebrating Rhine Lab and stargazing. They all seem genuinely happy.

But the moment is too quickly gone. We have spent the majority of the event with Silence or with the Doctor and Muelsyse doing nothing. Kirsten gets time with Nasti to discuss plans (plans that seem to have been tailor-made to be discussed with Muelsyse). Many people point out her charisma, but we never get to see this charisma ourselves outside of the Manhua. If you haven’t read the Manhua it doesn’t land. If you have read the Manhua and played the events— you wanted more of this moment and this history.

Instead, we are given our third confrontation. It’s not bad but it could have been much more. In the end, we don’t really see that closeness and tension we’re meant to see or feel because Saria talks to Kirsten not much differently than she talks to anyone else, and Kirsten is an immovable force. All the tenderness there was isn’t there anymore. The Manhua readers can mourn it. And with sweeping music, we can feel it a little more.

I just think that as the central protagonists who were touted in the trailer, the three founders that built Rhine Lab and cared so much about it. We’re mostly stuck with Silence who is late to the game and doesn’t have a stake the way they do, and Justin and Ferdinand who again, provided good context but I would argue it could have been done in a way to highlight the people we were truly waiting for all this time.

Kirsten thinks of Muelsyse’s flowers later, but she doesn’t reunite or speak with her. She sends Saria away. She doesn’t think of Jara. She ‘avenges’ her parents, she shows everyone that they (her parents)should not have been ridiculed. She shows the world the truth for a minute. She doesn’t think of herself as a pioneer. She wants to be thought of as a starting point, but she’s both. And in many ways, an ‘end’ of the Rhine Lab of old and maybe for Rhine Lab in general for quite a while.

Goodnight, Terra.

I can’t help but feel that her sendoff was fairly good. She did what she set out to do. We are told, in so many ways, that she’s an uncaring, selfish monster, but we know she isn’t. Saria and Muelsyse would not love her the way she does if she were. Nasti would not put her confidence in her in the same way if she was. And once again, the beautiful, sweeping music makes you kind of sit back in breathless wonder of her.

We could have kept Kirsten mysterious and still had more time with her.

Because from what the game has shown us… it doesn’t make Saria’s “If I knew everything I knew now and could go back and change it I wouldn’t. I’d still do everything the same with her.” make sense. Why? You’d put Ifrit through that again? All the other countless victims? If you hadn’t read the Manhua it doesn’t make sense. All the game has shown us is someone who is fairly ruthless and self-serving. We know she’s charismatic but don’t see it. We’re told she and Saria and Muelsyse are close but we don’t see that either. The Kirsten of the game has not earned Saria’s loyalty or Muelsyse’s loyalty. It’s the usual lazy kind of writing that doctor gets.

If the doctor /Kal’tsit etc lore had been placed elsewhere we could have really developed a lot of this but it didn’t. I’m left utterly disappointed that in an event all about discovery and breaking new ground— we just retread what had been explored before and all that there was there to uncover was left behind.

Muelsyse

I don’t really know where to start.

We meet Muelsyse in Mansfield Break. In the end, we discover that it’s just a clone of Muelsyse that has been chatting up Silence. Rhine Lab was in dire straits and here she is trying to make her own moves. In the end, Saria shows up to basically say ‘fuck you, no you don’t to her plans and that’s pretty much it.

In this event and in the next Muelsyse is more of a question mark. We don’t fully understand her motivations and they’re not explored at any length in the Manhua. All we know is that she’s mysterious, is playing just about everyone. You can’t fully trust her to tell you the truth, but you can trust that she’s good, even if her intentions and plans are dubious. But in the Manhua she visits with Ifrit and takes care of her, unbeknownst to anyone else. She works directly for Kirsten, but helps expose what’s happening behind the scenes to Saria, because ultimately she is a good person and she does not approve of the monstrous things that Rhine Lab is doing. Funnily enough, she’s the one leaking information. A good chunk of the Manhua is Saria and Muelsyse spending time together and getting to know one another. It’s like road trip adventures and their dialogue is a lot of fun and they’re very likable together. She is the one who leads Silence to Rhodes Island.

It’s something that is immediately kind of retconned in some ways because as we later learn, Muelsyse has been with Kirsten and Saria, and in their circle, pretty much from the beginning.

In Dorothy’s Vision, we begin with Muelsyse on the run, trying to contact Kirsten who does not ever bother connecting back with her. We see that Muelsyse is scared and she goes to Kirsten who leaves her on read. Later she is confronted by HoHo who stuffs her into a powersuit and stuffs originium into her mouth— basically a death sentence. Things are not looking great. We peer into her mind and see, what would appear to be, the centuries of time that she has seen, and the destruction of so much. Things she could not stop. A helplessness that she has to continue living while the world withers away.

For whatever reason, even though this is a Rhine Lab suit and even though it’s Muelsyse in the suit, Saria was ready to destroy it before the Doctor stops her. Saria shows caring for her. I call bullshit that Saria would not have been able to identify that Muelsyse was in the suit if the doctor could. This was the first troubling sign.

Later, despite just having met the doctor, despite the doctor not knowing her motivations at all, Muelsyse thinks “perhaps the doctor will give me the dream Kirsten couldn’t.” Why is she acting like the dream is over if she’s still following that dream in Lone Trail? At this point we are aware that Muelsyse has been with Rhine Lab at least five years or so— it isn’t until later that we discover that it’s been far, far longer. So why is it three minutes into meeting the doctor that she thinks the doctor will give her a dream that Kirsten cannot? It was an omen of things to come and the beginning of the pandering.

In DV she opens looking for Kirsten and getting nothing. In the PV for Lone Trail we see her featured prominently and assume we will be following her, Saria, Kirsten in this ‘final’ journey. When Lone Trail opens she’s looking for Saria. The doctor says that she’s looking for Saria. But she decides to stay put. What is she doing? Babysitting. Her goals? Whatever. Kirsten? Whatever. She can make small talk with the doctor. And I do mean it, it is all small talk and inconsequential.

Later she learns that an assassination attempt has been made on Saria. We don’t know whether Muelsyse knows if she’s with anyone or not— but we do know that Muelsyse knows that Saria is in rough shape. Her response “She’s tough! She’ll be fine.” She stays with doctor. Why? I don’t know. To babysit? To tell the doctor she’s lonely? To tell the doctor about the time she danced with both of them? But now Kirsten is hurrying off. Now Saria may be dying. But Muelsyse stays fucking put.

If you have read the Manhua this does not make sense. If you buy into the concept that she has long been trying to hold both of their hands (the fucking notion this event posits) this does not make sense. She has known these women nearly two decades— and she stays put.

What about her dream? What about her dear friends? Doesn’t matter. She’s lonely. She can tell the doctor. She can dance with the doctor. The doctor listens to her. The doctor is kind.

The doctor is the only one who does not treat her like dispensible in the entire event. The doctor is the only one who treats her like a human being with feelings and emotions the entire event. It’s by design, to prop the player character up but it is fucking nasty. It does a disservice to Muelsyse as a character— by allowing the player to believe that she would let Ifrit and Rosmontis run off to confront Loken while she hangs out with the doctor. That she would know an assassination attempt has been made on Saria and she’s in awful shape— and that’s fine, she’ll stay with the doctor. That she’ll be left behind by Kirsten just when they’re on the edge of fulfilling that promise— that’s also okay. She’ll stay with the doctor.

The writing for Kirsten, Saria, and Muelsyse in this event, guts it of so much of the emotional weight the end is meant to have if you think about it even a little. Eventually, Muelsyse does depart, ‘betraying’ the doctor so she can join Kirsten— but this is really only done because the doctor needs to get to the lore dump. Had they kept the lore dump for another day, kept the doctor for this event, I don’t have any doubt that Muelsyse would have stayed (as she was written in this event) exactly where she is.

So to recap, we have the Manhua and three events now telling us how close all three women are, but especially Kirsten and Muelsyse since Saria left Rhine Lab. We never get any of that interaction anywhere. What we see is that Kirsten has shut Muelsyse out of her plans, but again, this seems like a rewrite to make Muelsyse more ‘likable’ her role passed over to Nasti so the player doctor self insert can get a ‘nice’ girl someone worth ‘redeeming’ someone whose hand is worthy of being held. (and worth pulling on a banner for!)

Muelsyse eventually learns that Kirsten never intended to take her with her. Was she trying to save her? Maybe. It’s unclear. Saria says it’s what Kirsten what. She says it’s what she wants, too.

When they meet there isn’t any ‘glad you’re okay!’. It goes into immediate confrontation. They’re both good but Saria refuses to let Muelsyse join Kirsten. Saria will save her. She gets the upper hand, she tells Muelsyse that she’s forgotten that she’s ‘fragile’ when she’s emotional and so she’s defeated. She wants to save her, too. You wouldn’t know it from what later follows, but the end result is that Muelsyse doesn’t get her goodbyes or her promise. Her agency is stolen once again.

The promise she held on to is broken. A future for her people, a future where she isn’t lonely, a future where promises are held on to. Did Kirsten even mean it to begin with? We don’t know. Muelsyse doesn’t know. And even though Saria claims to care for Muelsyse— even though it’s Muelsyse that saves Saria when she’s crashing down to earth headed for certain death—

It isn’t Saria who finds her. Saria doesn’t even look for her. Saria who left her knowing she was ‘fragile’. Muelsyse has worked her ass off for Rhine Lab. She is abandoned by Kirsten. Discarded and tossed aside. And ultimately she is discarded by Saria too— who doesn’t fucking bother checking on her and seeing if she’s okay. If this is what she’s left with, after so much time, after so much hope, after battling all this loneliness, a loneliness that was warded by Saria and Kirsten, who again, she co-founded Rhine Lab with and has walked beside all this time? What point is there for her? Ifrit hasn’t acknowledged her really. Kirsten lied and left. Saria is saved by Muelsyse but doesn’t bother checking in with her after the fact. Instead, we focus on Saria saying she will be more honest with Silence moving forward and Rhine Lab will be better.

So Muelsyse tries to kill herself. She tries really hard and fails. And this isn’t a relief. Because this is what she has to look forward to for the rest of her days. Crushing loneliness and betrayal. The only one who looks for her, who saves her, who holds out a hand to her is doctor. So every character, every arc is betrayed in service of the fucking self-insert player character and for what? For it to not fucking matter? Because there will always be another woman that doctor has dedicated to and had their hopes placed into doctor for. Was it worth it destroying three characters completely for the self-inserts to feel fucking important?

This was a devastating event for Muelsyse. It only feels good if you, the player character, think you can woo and romance and save her. But you can’t because you’re not actually in fucking Arknights and Arturia and Ho’olheyak not to mention countless others are there, ready to ride bucket dick. This pandering means fucking nothing because in order to keep pleasing the self-inserts, bucket-dick has to be ready for any and all women because the doctor deserves a goddamn harem.

In the end, we get a quick moment with Nasti who asks if Muelsyse is being a crybaby again and to go cry somewhere else. Is this how we treat the banner character? What does it say about Muelsyse that everyone treats her like dirt? Is she so despicable? So unlovable? What does it say about Rhine Lab that these uncaring sociopaths are the ones who inhabit it?

Not to mention, I really dislike pivoting Muelsyse’s storyline to Nasti’s. Not only because she was robbed of her character, her motivations, her agency, her goddamn storyline— but it was an attempt to reform Muelsyse. To make her better. To make her lost. To make her weaker. To make her someone worthy of empathy, someone allowed her loneliness, someone whom the doctor and player would want to extend their hand to. Because anything less than perfection deserves scorn? Loneliness? Nothing?

Muelsyse and everything about her was so fucking watered down in this event. It makes her more palatable to some, I’m sure, but it makes her into the very nothing she wants to become.

Her love for Kirsten and Saria here feels undeserved and knowing what we do know of Saria and Kirsten, it’s wrong to feel that way. Because they are good (if not misguided) people, they are all close, they do care about her. Or do they?

In the end, Muelsyse wonders if the three of them even danced at all, or was it something she made up? So what— she’s delusional? She’s insane? She gave them so much of herself for what? People who never cared about her? You can reduce Kirsten to a villain if you want, even if it’s bullshit, but that’s more understandable. But Saria who cares so deeply? I don’t fucking buy it anymore than I buy Muelsyse sitting on her ass when she knows Saria is dying.

Why would the game take even that dance from her? The doctor can dance with anyone but she must dance alone?

Closing Thoughts

I didn’t hate everything in this event, but I did hate about 80% of it. That number would be substantially smaller if the doctor and Kal’tsit lore dump was removed and if we got more of the founding members and they got the worthy exploration they deserved. Because as things stand this is likely it for the next few years.

My disappointment is in that it did not follow up on what it established and threw much too much out the window in service of the doctor. It felt like all the characters outside of Silence and Ifrit were dishonored and made less.

The furniture item has a lot of fantastic lore and insight into Muelsyse— all of which is absent from her file, the event, her voicelines— that are reduced to fucking mindless flirting with the doctor.

The intelligence investigation is nice too and I would have liked to see that in the event itself. And I did like that we got to see the ramifications of the profound loneliness and isolation that Muelsyse feels. That people who try to kill themselves aren’t ‘selfish’. They’re fucking suffering and can’t imagine going on.

Also it has one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard, bar none.

But I think that’s all I have.

That’s it.