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!