i love her lots. i don't have anything already written at length wrt her unfortunately so this is going to be just <whatever i'm thinking of> — but i see her as,, frighteningly intelligent, as lonely, as miserable. the bits with her parents in her lore are interesting. because she mentions not being as close to them as her aunt [who got her snacks -> her teacakes, using said cakes in communication; replicating that form of love], & her mother being strict... something about her sadness at their deaths centered around them not keeping their promise with her grandmother, her attempting to bring them back to life for said promise, the grandmother in her character story V mentioned as watching her, ruan mei herself imitating her grandmother (at least i see the way she combines her science w/ her love for opera & music etc very much reiterating her grma more than her parents... the same love for traditional theatre & etc)... her trying to create a form of life around the idea of <love> while neglecting herself... the kind of false motherhood there. it's so compelling. the way she treats her parents' broken "promise" here kind of overlaps with how she approaches the genius society to me, at least? "she is certain that she won't make another mistake. it's because she no longer trusted anyone, so she won't be let down again... and she won't let anyone else down again." the latter half,, is really. ugh.
also vav the newest quest i kind of went feral at the tingyun-mei bit,, the equivalence with tingyun referring to herself as a pawn in THEIR game, & ruan mei's own aspiration towards aeonhood... the lab segment where ruan mei's words are in grey-narrator-text; almost a god to tingyun. i feel like people often say ruan mei doesn't care about emotions, but that's not true? all her research centers it, & if im not wrong (paraphrasing) there's an experiment she does where she says something about a life not being able to sustain itself w/o them... ? plus her own voicelines about scientific rationality where she criticises it. her final attitude towards the catcakes where she sees their value even if she cant share their feelings... and to tingyun, she says "i believe the desire to live was born from nothing to begin with". the futility of emotions centered but also significant & vital to tingyun's "choice" that ruan mei believes she should have. which is so important after having tingyun & her identity being pulled into pieces by phantylia... aaah!! this got long, i'm afraid. thank you for sending this in, i hope this makes sense!

hi anon!! don't apologise teehee it's completely all right to ask.
i'm not sure i'd publish my thoughts publically outside specific asks perhaps because (1) bllk is very much a more trashy interest of mine so a lot of my thoughts chapter to chapter are just condensed hype culture & (2) i myself don't know if i really want to engage w/ the fandom for it T-T. thank you though,, this makes me very happy to hear!! the reason i like kiis so much is exactly because they're such perfect narrative foils!!
just as you said, they're both such good mirrors & idk blue lock very much leans into homoeroticism when it comes to its dynamics so ofc i enjoy the ship very very much. like wayyy before kaiser's backstory dropped i was fixated on that one official art for the longest time - the riches & luxury around kaiser & that dishevelled football at his feet. while isagi's one is pristine... but the mutual idealisation is what got me. for isagi, kaiser is his ideal form that he has to inhabit. for kaiser, at least pre-evolution kaiser, kaiser at the start of NEL, isagi is another rookie he has to crush to maintain his stability.
and on stability -- this is probably a minor detail on kaiser characterisation but it's what makes me really insane. because a lot of his rookie crushing behaviour is kind of,, indulging in that comfortable stasis. he needs that position of the top, and he Likes challenge (recent chs) but he's also deathly afraid of having the ground taken away from below his feet... see the facade, see the way he directs himself ,, even his makeup (his fucking eyeliner tattoo),,, all that displayed ease & hidden discomfort. that desperation with which he reworks his past is really really important to me idk. he's someone intensely avoidant (see: the milk) & i think that pours into all his current reactions so very much. isagi's retaliation reminding him of his dad makes something turn stone cold in my stomach /positive. but by reworking//avoidance -- the appropriation of symbolism. he's so directorpilled. the rose means something new & different and yet you blink and its entirely the same thing. the choking, the malice.
ALSO the kaiser genderisms!!! you're so right anon about the way he both separates himself from & enforces his father onto himself.. all while inscribing onto the neck (location of his father's violence) his mother's rose. him imitating his mother in appearance, while constantly trying to affirm his humanity through his father. & all his reactions & the extra info about him w/ these details drives me insane.
re re. security - covered this with the <stability/stasis> i mentioned in the last before last paragraph, but the contrast btwn isagi & him when it comes to that is so so nice. the facade is such a work of art,, like you said, the "self narrativisation",, the story he makes up. one of miracles... it's very reze, if that makes sense?
and nooo anon i really liked this ask it's beautifully expressed, IMO. thank you so much for sending it in & i hope i had sth of value to say despite this answer being a bit scrappy in form.. !! it is really really crazy that they put a character of this calibre (and yaoi of this calibre) in the hyperbolic football manga but goddd does it get to me. i'm not a sports shonen guy either :/ but gosh do i GAF immeasurably. i really hope it's followed through well...

ahh well, i'm afraid i didn't like it very much at all. i know people who did so perhaps don't take me at my word for this (& to others reading this, perhaps click off because i tend to be critical) but a lot of my frustration w/ jinx was alongside the mess that was the way s2 framed silco. this former point is more related to the politics of the show itself; silco's ghost implying he misinterpreted who his "jailors" were & jinx being apologetic to cait about her mom's death, saying she didn't mean to do it which.. Hiss. she wouldn't fucking say that. he wouldn't fucking say that. she hated piltover to her guts, she definitely GAF'd about the conflict, but all that's brushed away. also,, the ekko bits wouldve been cute if it weren't for the way all of s2 takes jinx's mental illness -- thinking of that interview where the writer goes "a version of powder that exists and is whole and complete" or something. it feels genuinely evil a thing to say, at least IMO. also her character just seems?? different? so bleached of what was s1 jinx in a way that doesn't honestly seem like character progression rather just lazily writing her in a way that's easier for the show to handle. which matches up with how her arc concludes, too, which?? i don't know if you've seen spoilers so i'll shy away from mentioning that but safe to say it's just,, poorly written lol. it feels like her character's been pruned of her grief and her rage and the way she reacts to tragedy, and all too hastily for me to read it any other way than character assassination. isha exists purely to make her look good, & there's little proper interrogation about how jinx would actually, feel about having a kid so dependent on her, a character who is steeped in paranoia & is intensely possessive about her relationships. like?? where is that?? where is that character trait? where is all of silco's parenting? all that just neatly vanishes?
like,, the whole thing with her being a jinx, the survivor's guilt & etc that a lot of people really resonated w in her s1 characterisation,, that compelling messiness is just,, chopped away in a horrifying sense. and that does upset me lol because she was one of my ult faves from s1. it's this manic pixie dream girlification for half of it then turned into not very well handled suicidal ideation and. its honestly a mess. the animation carries some parts of it for me, but the delight to her & her dialogues is really absent.

hiii its been so long since this ask oml we got denreze in the manga too 😭😭... but yess sure bear in mind when i think of denreze-esque dynamic im not matching in terms of vibe. some of these comparisons are Made Up By Me which is. obvious. & also bear in mind that none of these come as Recommendations some may be mid and average and even bad. however afaict of rn
- alien stage - make the exorcist fall in love - itsuwari no marigold - pet (miyake ranjou) - lookalike daughter - kasane - talentless nana - kill the villainess - destroy it all and love me in hell - challengers - shihai shoujo kubaru chan
also nothing strikes me immediately on the books front so this list feels incomplete :/. but well!

ANON I LOVE YOU dont even get me started on this i've been comparing the ivantill kiss & the denreze tongue scene since like r6. i'm not even kidding when i say the firework kiss is my primary frame when it comes to ivan thoughts 😭😭😭 theyre chillingly similar kinds of expression imo i adore ivan & reze so so much. the dynamic of twisted adoration & half formed projection & ugly violence...! you forgive your own existence through this other & give it the parts of you that you have always thought empty & because of the pretense over emptiness the giving is somehow more desperately felt & believed in. reze would do really well in something like alien stage until she burnt up all at once.