#ah yes . my favorite day to post ship art and do nothing else remotely romantic .

[ripplefields]

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY ! THE ROBOTS ARE ALL IN LOVE WITH EACHOTHER !

[thejustmaiden]

Ugh, I'm tired of my blogs disappearing from the tags! So I'm copying and pasting my answer to this ask I received and posting it again with a few tweaks! The ask reads:

"I've seen so many shippers say that sesshomaru would be such a terrible parent because he didn’t give her shoes or didn’t prevent her death and that’s why it’s not a father-daughter relationship. Yet also claim that he loved her and proposes to her (drama cd 12 year old girl) and somehow those same arguments don’t count? There’s no leg to stand on to argue that sesshomaru and rin were romantic because that’s literally pedophilia, so the only thing they can do is claim he was a terrible guardian?"

Hey anon, thanks for the ask! Hope I can help. :)

You made some great points, thank you!! By their logic, why would somebody even want Sesshomaru with adult Rin at all if he was such a terrible "companion" to her in the first place? If they really believe he neglected her that much and put her in harm's way all the time (because let's be willfully ignorant here and pretend he didn't rescue her multiple times too and eventually leave her to live a normal *safer* life with Kaede), shouldn't they be concerned that he'd be just as bad to her in a romantic relationship once she's old enough, too? That should be something that crosses their mind as well if they weren't so preoccupied with Sesshomaru's supposed lack of parenting skills.

A lot of those shippers like to act like we're only attacking them for implying they must be pedophiles or that they condone pedophilia, but I personally would never make such a nasty accusation about a person in real life. Often times they refuse to address those other serious issues we have with this ship though, because it's really just the pedophilia talk they'll focus on since that's their only easy point to refute.

Aside from the possibility of Sesshomaru grooming Rin since her time in the village, a lot of us anti-s*ssrin fans never actually viewed him as a pedophile-like caretaker to begin with during their times traveling together. The only reason we even bring that up is because we simply cannot ignore when those shippers insist that:

1. He supposedly proposes to her (even when she's still only a child)

2. He's not like a father to her anyway so that's totally acceptable

Nah, even if they're right about him not being like a father to her, that's still plain wrong!! Because then now they're trying to justify an adult male very inappropriately making a move on a young girl here! Perhaps he wasn't pressuring her or forcing himself on her like a true pedophile would do at or around the time of the proposal, but can they really stand there and say that they'd be more than okay with witnessing something like that in real life and not in the slightest cringe??

Okay, this is where a lot of them will argue that this is not real life (so I guess that means we can forgive the child grooming if it's just fiction?), or that older men courting girls soon-to-be young women was the norm in feudal Japan so then that's cool in their books, too. The thing is, even if we can tolerate all that like they do, that's not enough reason to deem it acceptable since it's more than about that. We MUST also factor in that Sesshomaru isn't just some man who took a liking to a blossoming Rin he saw from afar. No no, this man KNEW her and was LIKE a father to her, too!

We can't stress that enough really! Whether by their standards he was a bad father or not doesn't matter, because all that does matter is that he took on a role resembling that of a father- YES, even if we never hear them call each other father or daughter exactly. We also didn't hear him claim outright that he's (falling) in love with her like you all assume either, so why is one implied but not the other?! It's not like Sesshomaru is known to be a demon of many words anyway, but his actions have sure demonstrated and proven to all of us that he cares for this young girl he took in very deeply and very truly.

I mean, just look at the large portion of fan art out there for Sesshomaru and young!Rin (not S*ssrin). He's usually fondly embracing Rin or comforting her like a GOOD father or male guardian/caretaker would. So somebody please explain to me why Sesshomaru is only sweet or loving to Rin when it's convenient to your narrative but not ours? You can't just take an angle on their relationship and bend it at your will to justify him being a terrible demon father who didn't know how to protect a young human girl on one hand, but then show and share all this fan art of him doing the exact opposite on the other! It just makes no sense at all. You can't have your cake and eat it too!

So the special bond they formed over the YEARS they traveled alongside each other isn't something they can up and forget just because Rin is finally an adult. That can't simply clean their slate as if they had no prior established history between them. Their relationship is akin to one a young girl shares with a grown man who looks after her for a significant amount of time (she didn't view him as just some demon; at the very least he was her lord/vassal from the get-go).

So knowing all that we know about what they've endured together, I'd like to believe that Rin could never ever develop romantic feelings for her main male role model, because whether he was physically there for her less than Jaken was is irrelevant here. What it comes down to is that Sesshomaru is the one she really looked (up) to since that day he brought her back to life. He has protected and cared for her the best way he's been able to and in a way everyone else in her life failed to before. It's safe to assume that Sesshomaru filled that role as you can tell that she finally felt safe and loved for the first time in her life. Now if Rin were to start to become sexually attracted to this demon who basically came to represent everything she lacked in a family, then I'd be deeply troubled and concerned for her mental health. And the same thing applies to Sesshomaru.

I would hope that whenever I have children someday, that they would never become physically intimate with whomever was their babysitter back when they were little. Nah, that man would be arrested!! He was around to watch her grow up and the thought of that being sexualized or romanticized, even if it wasn't intentional, makes me sick. I don't care if she's a consenting adult who is free to make her own decisions or that he's a demon so it's different (it's not), because I guarantee you this is not an image any of us ever want to picture when you really put this into a perspective you can better relate to and understand! And I didn't even choose an example with a father. I mean, can you even imagine that? Yeah, I rather not either.....

Nobody liked it when Woody Allen did it in real life regardless if he makes excellent movies, so why would I like to see it on my TV even if it's one of my favorite characters? Nope, Sesshomaru is amazing- and yes, nOt rEaL- but not even he gets a free pass here. Nobody should in any capacity or on ANY MEDIUM (fantasy, reality, etc.) be remotely allowed to get away with such a disgusting act even if it used to be tradition. And no, this isn't just some Western way of thinking. This is a 21st century way of thinking!

Recently, another user on here nicely pointed out to me that an adult can form loving relationships with children and it not be considered a parental one. At that moment, it was like a little light bulb went off in my head!!!! Yessss, this is so true and I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier!! Because all that S*ssrin shippers like to repeat over and over again to us (as well as to themselves), is that Sesshomaru was not Rin's father. So fine, hypothetically speaking, let's say he isn't her adoptive father. That still doesn't take away from the truth that he was very much invested in the overall safety and well-being of this young girl. He contributed to her care even if it was just passing a message along to Jaken before taking off again. I was a teacher for a few years, and the love and affection I had for those children was real, even if I wasn't their parent and I didn't see them every day. That doesn't change the fact that I would've done absolutely anything in my power to keep them safe-- I would've even gone to the underworld and back!!! You know, kinda like that one character we keep discussing who was allegedly such a bad dad. 😉

So you see, you don't need to be the parent or even around all the time to love and care for a child. Bottom line is that Rin, Sesshomaru, Jaken, and Ah-Un are a FAMILY! Granted, they may be a little dysfunctional, but it's not like there's such a thing as the perfect family. They may be far from what a conventional family looks like too, but that doesn't make their family any less valid. Nothing or nobody can or should ever change that ❣