#also consider: Rin/Shiemi/Bon OT3 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sage-nebula · 8 years ago

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I wanna send BlueEx ships for the meme but I'm having a hard time choosing one. Pick your favorite between Rin, Shiemi, Bon and/or Izumo x3

Why not all of them? ;D

Rin/Shiemi:

I definitely ship this.

Aside from the fact that I’m 95% sure that this is going to be the canon endgame pairing (or at least one of them), this is one of the rare cases in shounen manga where I feel perfectly comfortable and happy with that because of how wonderfully it’s being developed. Although it was established pretty much from the start that Rin thought Shiemi was hecka cute and had a huge crush on her, their relationship has still been primarily developed in the arena of friendship rather than the arena of love interests. I mean, for starters, Shiemi hasn’t even realized until recently that dating Rin/being romantically involved with him is even a possibility; and when she did realize it, she asked him what the difference between romance and friendship was, because she honestly didn’t know (given that this would be her first relationship and they’re both still quite young!), and he didn’t have a real answer either (aside from what you’d expect from a hormonal teenage boy =P). Because of this, all of their interactions from Shiemi’s side have been steadfastly rooted in friendship, particularly since Rin was one of the first friends that Shiemi ever had (her second ever friend, actually, after Yukio), and she didn’t even realize that he considered her to be a friend at first, considering he was stupid and lied about it when Bon teased him about it right after Shiemi started attending the cram school.

And you know what? From Rin’s side, things have been pretty focused on friendship, too! While not as obvious as Shiemi, Rin also has a pretty much friendless background; he was always getting into fights and being disruptive as a kid, and as such pretty much no one outside of his family wanted anything to do with him. The fact that the other ExWires consider him a friend is shocking to him, which is what makes it so heartbreaking when they all become terrified of him a couple scenes later thanks to Amaimon’s shenanigans in the woods. But it’s because of this that even though Rin has a crush on Shiemi (and has since he saw her, pretty much), his interactions with her have still primarily been platonic. Even in instances where he confessed that he liked her, or asked her to dance—even in those cases, Rin still put their friendship first, rather than his desire to date her. They’ve been steadily coming closer as friends and companions rather than love interests, growing as people in addition to building their budding relationship. And we can see that this is only going to continue with Shiemi formally turning him down for the time being, because she feels that she still has a lot of growing to do, and wants to continue to grow as a person (and wants him to wait for her, though she refuses to say that out loud because she knows it isn’t fair—baby). So this is a rare situation in a shounen manga where it’s very, very evident that even though Shiemi is Rin’s primary love interest, she’s also much more than just his love interest, and whatever eventual romance they have is going to be one built on a solid foundation of friendship. I’m pretty sure this is going to end up canon, and I’m excited for it, because we’re seeing relationship development in this series on par with FMA, and that’s pretty hard to accomplish.

Rin/Bon:

But that said, I also definitely ship this!

I’m pretty sure that the BlueEx mangaka is going to go the typical route of only having het ships, so I don’t have any hope for this one being canon. But that said, if it was, I’d be really happy with it! This is one of those rare instances in shounen manga (so many of those) where we see an actually healthy rivalry. Rin and Bon are rivals, sure, but they’re rivals who encourage, inspire, and support each other. Even when they fight, it’s clear that they aren’t fighting with the intention to be hurtful, per se, but rather because they’re coming from opposite views and they’re both headstrong, passionate people who sometimes have a hard time seeing where someone else is coming from. This has made it difficult for both of them to reconcile with others in the past (most notably, both of their fathers—but god damn it, Bon, Rin warned you). But with all of that said, it’s also pretty apparent how they each care about the other quite a bit and hold them in high esteem. Rin has felt that Bon was super cool since the moment they met (and only had that opinion drop when he saw Bon going off on his own father, making the same mistakes that Rin himself did), and while Bon was eternally frustrated by what he saw as a lackadaisical attitude from Rin at first, the fact that Rin continually managed to succeed and so very plainly cared about all of them regardless of the circumstances won Bon’s respect, too. I also think that, as of S2E5, Rin flipping out on Bon for treating his father like that has cut deep to Bon’s core as well. I think that is what is inspiring his change of heart toward Rin after the whole “son of Satan” thing repulsed him so.

Essentially, I think these two are a wonderful example of rivals who actually boost each other up rather than tearing each other down. They have a lot of similarities and differences, and while this causes clashing sometimes I think that, on the whole, they work beautifully together. So I ship this, too. x3

Rin/Izumo:

I like this … but I lean more toward brotp.

I do think that Rin and Izumo work pretty well together. They’re both honest, blunt people, which means that communication isn’t likely to be an issue. Izumo also knows what it is to be a pariah, ostracized and looked down upon by others for being unapproachable or frightening, which I think is a big part of the reason why she was the first of the ExWires to reach out to Rin after what happened in the forest. Rin isn’t afraid to cut right through Izumo’s BS, either, which is something that she needs considering that she has a lot of it (I mean, I love her, but it’s true). So I definitely see the merits in this ship, especially since—like every other possible ship among the ExWires—it’s been developed wonderfully as a friendship.

That said, I will admit that the attitudes of some Rin/Izumo shippers have been pretty terrible from what I’ve seen. Namely, I’ve seen quite a few of them tearing down Shiemi with some pretty horrible things (everything from calling her a useless bimbo to accusing her of not caring about/being afraid of an ungrateful toward Rin, wtf), and that kind of behavior can cool me off a ship real fast. It’s fine if you prefer Rin/Izumo, but you don’t have to bash Shiemi or Rin/Shiemi in the process of celebrating your ship, you know? So I do like Rin/Izumo, but at the moment I’m more solidly in brotp territory thanks to the way some Rin/Izumo shippers have behaved.

Bon/Shiemi:

I haven’t really thought about this too much, but I think it could be really cute! I could see Bon getting flustered with trying to date someone like Shiemi, who is still pretty sweet and, well … I don’t want to say naive, but she is learning about romance via shoujo manga, so. =P (Which isn’t all that different from Rin, so hey!) I could especially see Bon trying to follow tropes to the letter, too, but getting flustered when things don’t go exactly the way he thinks they’re supposed to, and ultimately just throwing caution to the wind to just be himself. I don’t know, I really haven’t thought about it, but it could be cute! I wouldn’t be opposed, even if I mostly see them as a brotp at the moment.

Bon/Izumo:

Again, I haven’t thought about this one a lot either, but it could be cute/funny, even if I … don’t really see any romantic chemistry between them at the moment at all, heh. I’ll have to get farther in the series before I can really make a judgment on this one either way, since at the moment they haven’t interacted very much beyond insults and arguing.

Izumo/Shiemi:

EXORCIST GIRLFRIENDS. I really, really like this one because of all the wonderful development they’ve had. I mean, let’s not kid ourselves, they started off on a horrible foot. Izumo was downright horrid to Shiemi (something Paku called her out on, finally), and Shiemi took it because she was so desperate to make a real friend for what she felt was the first time in her life (because she didn’t feel that she was on equal footing with the Okumura twins). But thanks to Paku’s callout and Shiemi’s steadfast tendency to be wonderful, Izumo realized the error of her ways and has really improved. These two have had a steadily developing relationship built around the fact that they encourage and support each other. Izumo, thanks to Shiemi’s support, is realizing that there are people who support her outside of her one friend (Paku). And Shiemi, thanks to Izumo’s encouragement, is finding her own confidence and inner strength and is learning to stand back up when things get her down. I’ve also seen spoilers from a most recent chapter in which, after Shiemi makes a rather shocking declaration, Izumo is the one most upset about it, which really shows how far they’ve come, both as individuals and as companions.

So yeah, I definitely ship the exorcist girlfriends. ♥ They’ve come a very long way and I’m so, so happy that they’ve been allowed to develop such a strong, wonderful relationship outside of their relationships with the male characters. Seriously, bless Blue Exorcist, it makes me so happy. ♥

(Put a ship it my ask box and I’ll tell you if/why/why not I ship it.)

#ship meme #yume-x-hanabi #also consider: Rin/Shiemi/Bon OT3

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