#reikai is surprisingly popular among you people I know I know

[seyaryminamoto]

I'll be in the minority here, but I'd be okay-ish with Rei and Renkai becoming a couple if its handled with care. This is unusual for me since I rarely go for big age gap relationships. Though, to me, its not the age gap itself, but what I call the Maturity Gap. There needs to be a balance of life experience, if that makes sense. There's 20 year olds who've lived through, seen and experienced as much if not more than some 40 year olds. But that's usually rare, so I rarely support age gap ships.

Hahaha, I understand that position, and I'll be honest, while I'm not a huuuuuge fan of age gaps, I wouldn't jump outright to condemn them every single time. Context definitely matters, I don't think every age gap involves grooming, particularly if we're talking about adults. People of different walks of life can absolutely come together to find common interests with someone who's much younger or much older than themselves, so it's not completely out of the question for me.

The maturity gap makes sense, of course. There's definitely some people who are older and do not have the maturity of their age, just as the opposite can be true, someone can be too young to be so wise... but in these cases, I honestly leave it to each person who's in those situations, (provided they're all adults (and always have been across their relationship) and aren't making their decisions under the wrong influences).

In Rei and Renkai's case, though, I don't really think it would be all that instinctive for them to become an item. In a sense, I suspect it might feel repetitive, too -- we already have Song and Rui Shi's romance, and let me tell you, getting those two to GET STARTED was not easy x'D they were supposed to plant the proper seeds for romance as early as the end of the first Pairs Tournament, but it just didn't feel right... so they just hugged and rejoiced in Rui Shi's confirmation that Myeung was alive and safe and sound. So I had no choice but to push Song as hard as I did in the second arc of Part 2 to make her act on her feelings, if for the wrong reasons, or else they would've just danced circles around each other FOREVER. So, if those two took LONGER than Sokka and Azula to get anything started? I guarantee Rei and Renkai would be that much worse x'D And as we've also seen a relationship that has similar dynamics to this one, I feel like it might not be all that interesting to explore another relationship between a commoner girl and the captain of Azula's guards.

Now, going a little further, in terms of speaking about the characters themselves... I don't think Renkai is someone who's really looking for love. Rei? Considering her background, she's looking for the stability of a family that really cares about her, and she absolutely has found that with Azula primarily, with Song and Renkai in second place. Renkai has definitely bonded with Rei and Song, but I think it's a pretty innocent bond. He wants Song to be happy and find her way to Rui Shi again, just as he wants that for Azula with Sokka... and he wants Rei to be happy, too, in the same sense. He doesn't really perceive her all that differently as he does the other two. I don't really think it would be easy for him to think of her as a potential romantic partner for himself. That's really not on his mind at all. In that sense, he's a bit like Mei Xun, both of them are just... not looking for love for themselves, at all. They're happy to support other people in their lives who want and are looking for it, but they're not exactly desperate to find it themselves.

As for Rei, I think she would need like... 5-7 years of calm and stability to finally start thinking if she wants romantic love. I really laughed while writing her first thorough conversation with Song, where she was so confused by the concept of having sex with someone she liked, and she outright asked "would I have to?" because she's just... not really seeing the appeal of the concept at all x'D so, until she finds the appeal and has stabilized sufficiently, I think she's going to focus on pursuing her academic interests, and basically making up for all the time she sacrificed/wasted due to both of her birth parents and the circumstances she was stuck in.

So... would it be possible for something to happen between those two once they're ready? Maybe, and she'd definitely be adult enough at that point where people shouldn't feel suuuuper uncomfortable with the concept, even if they aren't big on age gaps. But there's ALSO the possibility that she might meet other people and fall in love with someone else (who knows, maybe Renkai could, too!). Point is... it's not going to happen within the scope of the story x'D potential-wise, they could have a decent relationship, absolutely, but neither character, at this point in time, is looking for romantic love or needs it all that much, they're motivated much more powerfully by other things instead.