PONYBOY

people who ship asuka and rei don't ship them because they actually believe that the narrative is inviting a romantic reading of them or that they have any real chemistry within the show, it's about exploring the fact that the two of them are foils who are continually pitted against each other in every possible way. it's about the fact that they actively hate each other because in the other person they see the parts of themselves they resent the most. it's about considering the ways in which their relationship could be different if they didn't find themselves in the situation they're in, if they had had the space to be normal teenagers. it's about unpacking each of their relationships to their sexuality: it's about reading asuka as a queer girl who lashes out at other girls and instead pursues an adult man and a boy she hates as a way to repress her sexuality because she hates everything about who she truly is, and it's about reading rei as a girl who has never even had the opportunity to know what true reciprocal love and attraction feel like because she's been groomed her entire life and feels a disconnect from her physical body in a way that is very familiar to survivors of sexual abuse, especially queer ones.