#a very real and concrete development there that people are simply loath to recognize bc they don't want to

[roobylavender]

the problem with sasusaku is that sakura has no reason whatsoever to love sasuke and retain such feelings for so long, i think kishimoto wrote himself into a corner with her initial characterization and arc that he stuck with for too long

i'm going to have to respectfully disagree lol. i feel like one practice that has become really prevalent within naruto fandom over the years esp the further and further we move away from when part one was originally published or aired on television is this willful memory loss of how the relationships were actually built between team seven when they were a team. the entire point of sakura's part one arc is that she starts out with a very superficial worldview and interests that are gradually fleshed out and weighted per her and the rest of the team's traumatic experiences. sakura's school girl crush on sasuke at the start of part one isn't comparable to the very real care she has for him by the end of part one because he's a teammate she's genuinely come to know and feel protective over. the entire chuunin arc progression is particularly emblematic of that bc she understands even before naruto does the kind of strain sasuke is undergoing due to orochimaru's bite and the harm he risks to himself by giving into its whims. worry over the effects of the bite are a consistent concern for her thereafter esp once he does decide to defect. so i'm not sure what you mean when you say she has no reason whatsoever to retain her feelings for him for so long. by that logic neither does naruto. it doesn't "logically" make sense for either of them to continue caring so much for someone they barely knew for a year and a half and who proceeded to reject them by any violent means possible once he realized he would be powerless to protect them and killing them himself was a better alternative. ultimately they still care about him. they know he's suffering enormous trauma. and that aside he's their teammate and they love him and there doesn't have to be some grand justification for why they continue to keep loving him. that's kind of the whole point. they survive the trauma of their world bc they commit to love. we were alone and starved of love. kids that lived in a world full of hate. it's literally in the thesis statement