#friendship of non canon ship enjoyers

[raccoon-smiles]

There are 4 distinct types of Princesses Tutu fans:

1) Duck and Fakir enjoyers

2) Rue and Mytho enjoyers

3) Mytho and Fakir, and Rue and Duck enjoyers

4) Fuck around and find out

[stu-dyingstudent]

Sakura Haruno fic recs: ANBU

AHHHH!!!! I love ANBU fics, especially when they involve Sakura. It was such a cool concept, which was unfortunately never fully expanded upon. However, our lack of knowledge regarding the shadow corps allows for some really cool fic ideas since authors can take creative liberty on the structure and workings of the division.

In my opinion, Sakura had the most potential out of team 7 to join ANBU (at least more than Naruto). It's all about being discreet and efficient and although she wasn't strong during og, she possessed abilities that would be valuable for this. Her clever mind, chakra control, and genjutsu potential would've made her a good fit. Naruto was too flamboyant and Sasuke was too reckless and cocky, but this is just my take. However, with her new skill set from her training with Tsunade, I don't think she would be able to go down that path anymore.

Started: 2024.08.06

Last Updated: 2024.08.29

note: feel free to check out my master list which has a bunch of Sakura Haruno fic recs (all organized)!

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Masks by mads999 || ao3 || kakasaku || E || canon divergent || complete

1. Sakura's Inner is far more diabolical than anyone ever expected 2. Crows prove to be cruel mentors 3. Sakura comes to learn exactly how much she hates Kakashi (as well as how alike they are, in the most terrible of ways)

Kakashi is a hateful turd and Sakura is spiteful! I hate this ship and I'm not a big fan of Kakashi here, but boy is this fic good. One of the best character developments I've read for Sakura and she certainly becomes of force to be reconned with. The ANBU lore in Masks is absolutely phenomenal and I love the whole system that is put into place as it adds for some drama (lol). Also, can we talk about how awesome crow summons are????

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Five Kingdoms for the Dead - Evil Is A Relative Term || ffn || M || canon divergence || complete

After the Forest of Death, Sakura comes to realize that being weak is no longer an option. However, she finds that change is sometimes painful and that truth doesn't always come easy. Luckily, she'll have some help along the way.

It's been a while since I've read Five Kingdoms for the Dead, but I just remember it being absolutely great! I'll be honest, I found a lot of the mind stuff pretty confusing at times, but it was still enjoyable. Also, some great characters are utilized in this fic such as Neji, Sai, and Itachi. Makes me really wish that we saw more of Sakura and Neji working together in Naruto since I think they compliment each other quite well.

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Trials of Change - Espoiretreves || ao3 || gen || time travel AU || complete

Haruno Sakura made a promise. Looking in the eyes of her Shisou and the reanimated Hokage, she took on the most important mission of her life. Go back in time and try to prevent the 4th Shinobi War. Now, Sakura is back to her 5-year-old body, with all the knowledge and haunting memories of the future. She vows to keep her precious people safe and stop certain events from happening, without altering the timeline too much. The trials her emotions and logic put her through have her questioning her very existence, but for the sake of peace, she has to push forward. No matter what.

Trials of Change is actually apart of a time travel series and I have to say that it is probably one of the best of the genre! Now, Sakura is not in ANBU here, but she works very closely with team Ro (Kakashi's ANBU team) and it's a huge part of the story, so I'm choosing to count it anyway. I really adore all of the worldbuilding and backstories going on here in addition to the fact that there are breaks. Yes, the story keeps moving, but there are other things going on, like playdates, and not just Sakura trying to save the world. Also, if you love Shisui then definitely check this out since he has a huge role and his and Sakura's friendship is just so precious.

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bite me and see, said the fly to the spider - MirrorImage003 || ao3 || itasaku || T || non-massacre AU || ongoing

In which Sakura is not initially a part of Team 7. In which she wears her failures like armor and brandishes her fears like her most trusted weapons. In which I do what hundreds of other authors have done before me, and rewrite Sakura's story. Non-massacre AU. Canon Divergent. Slow-burn.

After Sakura's first team, consisting of the graduating class's "expendables," dies, she joins team 7 and faces backlash along her shinobi journey. Sakura doesn't join ANBU until the later chapters so fair warning that there isn't too much content in that regards (unless it updates). Nonetheless, Sakura views ANBU as vital to her career as it offers her the highest clearance she can get. Gaining her opportunities for information her civilian-born status didn't allow her privy to.

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The Sixth Shadow - thinknicht || ao3 || kakasaku || M || canon divergent - eventual time travel AU || ongoing

No one seemed to find it odd when little Haruno Sakura threw herself smack dab in front of a Chidori and Rasengan. Not even Kakashi stopped to wonder.(He really should have.)

The story of how Sakura came to be the sixth hogake despite all of the challenges thrown her way. I especially love Sakura's drive in addition to the political aspects. However, be warned that Kakashi is an absolute HATER (in the beginning), but he gets better! The Sixth Shadow is extremely long and I only just recently got to Sakura's introduction to ANBU, so I can't say too much in that regard.

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Daughter of Fire - justjstuff || ao3 || kakasaku || E || canon divergence || incomplete (maybe ongoing)

Sakura got up and didn’t bother brushing the dirt from her dress. She had a feeling she was about to get even dirtier.She looked at the memorial stone one last time, memorizing the characters without even realizing she was doing it. It would serve from that moment on as a reminder of her determination. She wouldn’t let Naruto and Sasuke join the names carved on that stone.That was her nindo.

Sakura's growth throughout Daughter of Fire is great and realistic all while pointing out aspects from the original series which were flawed and dare I say misogynistic. I struggled a bit in the beginning to justify her abilities, but overall the story is really well done and the ANBU aspects are quite intriguing.

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cut the head off the snake - itsthechocopuff || ao3 || T || time travel AU || complete

when eighteen-year-old, post-war Sakura is thrown back into her tiny, pre-Academy body, she makes a decision. she'd had a childhood once already, and this time, she's more interested in Not Dying when the inevitable shit hits the proverbial fan. so she will work harder, care less, kill more, and smile when she's done.and hey, if she ends up reviving an extinct nature transformation to attract the most corrupt, power-hungry man from her timeline, all the better for her, right?

Such a unique take on a time travel AU and Cut the Head Off the Snake executes it perfectly. Sakura decides that her first order of business is to infiltrate ROOT and that's exactly what she does. Sai, Shin, and Shisui are all great characters and team Ro is present as well. Very good!

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Flowers - Idunmy || ao3 || E || kakasaku || canon divergence || ongoing

Flowers only bloom just before they wilt When Sakura loses her fight against Ino in her Chuunin exams, she questions her ability to ever become a kunoichi, too weak to protect herself, let alone her village One wrongful promotion later and Sakura gets a second chance in the shape of a mysterious new teacher who against all odds is willing to put her faith in a young girl with potential and a willingness to fight. Or- a fix-it inspired fic where Sakura grows to be the powerhouse she was destined to become.

Flowers is a newer series (which has recent updates) and I love it! Critiques are made towards the medical ninja training, which I believe needed to be discussed and it's refreshing to see. In most ANBU fics I've read, Sakura is immediately put onto the strongest team, but here it's a bit different. She begins on a demolition squad, which not only suits her skill set quite well, but is a realistic approach to how she would be introduced to the corps. Anyway, it's one of my favorite reads at the moment and I really like where the story is going.

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names. - waterpllar || ao3 || T || gen || canon divergence || complete

There are no names or faces in ANBU. Everything is designed to be strictly formal, efficient and professional. A recently orphaned Sakura, however, learns that some regulations aren't meant to be followed, and finds a place in Team Ro after being shunned from her former teammates. (fic prompt from anon on tumblr: orphaned sakura in anbu with yamato, genma, and team ro.)

AHHHH poor Sakura. After her parents' death Sakura seeks Tsunade's help out of desperation to become useful. Under recommendation, Sakura's new goal is to make it into ANBU.

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Equinox - FM_White || ao3 || itasaku || M || anbu AU || complete

ItaSaku (Post Uchiha Massacre) AU: Climbing through the ranks of Konoha, Sakura finds herself with the invitation to join ANBU and a chance to learn from one of the most renowned and legendary ninja in the world. Despite her efforts to grow stronger however, she finds the world isn't as black and white as it looks and that some truths are easier to hide than others.

I don't remember Equinox very well, but I love most works by this author sooo. Anyway, Itachi stays in Konoha and instead it's Sasuke that goes rougue. Sakura, Naruto, and Shikamaru are newly joined ANBU members and all placed on a team with Itachi and things go from there.

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stars in our eyes as we dream of the heavens (the gods walk among us, sweet child, do not forget) - snickiebear || ao3 || kakasaku || T || age-swap AU || oneshot complete

“Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto whispered, staring at his teacher, horror plain on his face. “You’re married?” Lazily, Kakashi looked down at his gloveless hand where his ring rested, “It would appear so.”

Sakura is born in the same generation as Kakashi and turns out as a badass ANBU married to him. This is super wholesome as it's a lot of the two of them bonding with Kakashi's genin team (Sai makes three) in an effort to help them out. It's a series so you can read more of the events taking place prior to the fic.

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Anachronistic Drift  - Elesrea  || ffn || gen || T || time travel AU || incomplete

Her plan was flawless. Save Shisui. Save the world. Time-travel, Sakura-centric AU

Sakura spends years training to be sent back in time and save the world from Sasuke. She isn't in ANBU, but rather poses as one in order to keep an anonymous status on her doings both in and out of the village.

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Sakura - lilac haze || ffn/ao3 || M || minasaku || time travel AU || complete

AU. Non-Canon. Time Travel. Please see inside for full warnings. Cross posted on Ao3. On his deathbed he was granted eternal peace and place to rest for all of time. Of course that was not appealing to him. Ever unpredictable to the end he had a counter offer. One that the Sage had to consider. In which Sakura's going to have a rough time. A really rough time.

Sakura is probably one of my all time favorite fics because the emotions are just spectacular. The story is pretty heavy on ANBU and ROOT aspects, which I always enjoy, but I wouldn't say it's a major focus. However, there is an emphasis on the unfair treatment towards kunoichi. Anyway, the characterizations and storytelling are beautifully done. Please share this author some love.

Check TWs before hand!!

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Hope y'all enjoy these recs, and please feel free to send me some if you have any!!!! I really appreciate when you do :)

[gotorux]

Shipping Wars/ Fanon

tw: discourse

Shipping wars within fandoms is really started to put a damper on enjoying them.  A prime example? (Although this apply to many ships) is the Gojo/Geto ship.  These two are undoubtedly amazing characters, and their complicated friendship is a huge part of the story. But lately, some fans are taking things way too far by insisting they're romantically involved, even though the show clearly doesn't portray them that way. While their relationship is undeniably a significant element of the story, the intense shipping of these two characters as romantically involved often overshadows the nuances of their actual friendship, causing harm both to the interpretation of the source material and to the fandom itself.

Gojo and Geto's relationship, as depicted in the series, is deeply rooted in friendship, rivalry, and ultimately, tragic betrayal. Reading their relationship solely through "shipping goggles" ignores the complexities of their bond and the bigger picture of the story. It simplifies their motivations and essentially rewrites the narrative, ignoring what the creators actually put in the source material.

And that's not even the worst part. This whole "Gojo x Geto" thing has created some seriously intense hatred, harassment, and an overall toxic environment. And this happens with multiple animes with multiple ships. (Levi/Erwin, Kageyama/Hinata, Sasuke/Naruto, etc etc) People get super aggressive towards anyone who dares to disagree or points out that these ships weren't actually a couple. This isn't just about "interpretations" it’s about respecting the creators' vision and being respectful of those with different opinions. The insistence on the any non-canon ship as the definitive truth of their relationship can create animosity with those who appreciate the characters' bond within the context of the original narrative. Let's enjoy the show without turning it into a shipping battleground. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I can see how shipping is a fun part of fandom! Creating fan content, imagining alternate scenarios, and exploring different dynamics between characters, it's all part of the enjoyment.  The problem arises when we start insisting these imagined relationships are canon and attacking those who don't agree.  The key is to appreciate fanon for what it is, creative expression, while understanding that canon remains separate and holds its own importance and not to blur the lines of the two. 

[cyandreamz]

☆ Sibling moment ☆

(based off a silly hc I have, I'll explain more under cut as well as talk about this silly drawing)

So if it wasn't already obvious I've decided to hc Maya as Miles sister, why? Because Misty Fey being his mother is such a dramatic plot twist I can't help but added to my collections of hcs :D!

to be clear I don't want this to be canon (as his mom being left blank is way more fun for the whole fandom imo) I just like this hc for my personal enjoyment of AA, personally I treat all my hc's as DLC for canon :P. I also hc Gregory as Mia's dad cuz again, it's a super dramatic plot twist :P

As for this drawing I drew Maya and Franziska saying hello to their big/little brother because I thought this concept was way funnier in my head than it really is (it's cuz his sisters are same age :P). I'd like to imagine Maya really likes being Miles's sister because makes her feel more justified in mooching off him because they're already steel samurai besties, Franziska would be indifferent, since this doesn't effect her friendship with Maya (Franmaya is a super cute ship I just personally don't ship it :3) and Miles doesn't dislike having another living sister (and one dead sister), however in this image he is rather overwhelmed by the situation of dealing with two sisters at once.

Also I designed casual(ish) outfits for them all cuz I love drawing outfits! And there is something super fun about fan art of characters in different clothes to me :3. Maya's outfit is of course my favourite as it's most similar to my fashion style's (though it took a while for me to figure out what her casual style would be until I decided comfort would be her biggest priority in casual fashion) but I also really enjoyed drawing Franziska's outfit, it was the easiest one for me to think of fun fact. Miles's outfit on the other hand is eh for me, sorry I just find men's fashion very boring ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Overall I love this drawing, it's definitely janky on account of being drawn with my non preferred hand but I already plan on redrawing it in future with my left hand digitally so I look forward to that future project :-D

[tondisus]

can i get some dbh ao3 recs :0! i prefer canon compliant stuff (im a huge "he would not fucking say that!!!!" person) and any/no ships

Oh I've waited *years* for someone to ask me fic recs and I shall deliver.

Ik you technically asked for canon compliant stuff but honestly I'm the complete opposite about characters, like I look at two completely different characterizations and I'll go "oh maybe he would say both of those," I'm just generally a massive AU enjoyer.

So instead of trying to sort and struggle and figure out what to recommend, I'll just throw a bunch of stuff your way and hope at least something works!

Also I'm getting all the recs from my downloads so they're likely complete, my favorite character that I'm hopelessly hyperfixated on is Connor, I generally love a lot of angst & hurt/comfort, I'm not really into shipping and romance-focused fics that much and longer fics >> shorter fics, so my recommendations are gonna show those traits

I recommend literally any dbh fic by WayWardWonderer: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WayWardWonderer/pseuds/WayWardWonderer

They have genuinely carried my fandom experience, if I think I have nothing to read I just go back to their fics, i am so impressed how someone can write SO much great content

Accident prone: becoming human https://archiveofourown.org/works/15727149

Is a long fic post-pacifist best ending full of whump, angst, hurt/comfort, character development, just everything good. And when I say long, I mean 1.8mil words long.

Torn alliances https://archiveofourown.org/works/25009789 in which it's also a post-pacifist ending fic, except deviated Connor was shot by Markus in the church,  came back on the rooftop scene as a machine, and deviated there thanks to Hank. From there it explores what happens after in about a million words.

Sanction https://archiveofourown.org/series/2226099 is a series that also features the Markus-killed-Connor-in-church-but-he-survived-what-happens-now type story, the prequel has Connor & Carl interaction which while rare, is very precious to me in this fandom, and the sequel has some awesome angst about the Amanda takeover and it's potential consequences/meanings

Detroit 07 https://archiveofourown.org/series/1473497

Is a series that really focuses on the dpd police department and their interactions post-pacifist ending, the characters are basically built from nothing by the author so this could be a non-canon-compliant type of fic but I listed it anyway cuz it's an awesome series what can I say

Cutting ties https://archiveofourown.org/series/2738356 is a series of fics more about Connor and his struggle with deviancy and android kind, I honestly started reading this for the Connor & North friendship cuz damn i love those two and their interactions

Deviating and Solving Crime with 100% Human Detective Connor https://archiveofourown.org/works/29270769 is abt Connor being deviant the entire time but staying undercover as a detective in the DPD, super hilarious imo, loved the characterization of basically everyone, probably the longest 5 + 1 type fic I've read

File not found https://archiveofourown.org/works/32842771

Is an au fic of the game timeline where Connor is simultaneously deviant and machine, he has to delete memories of himself letting deviants go to hide his actions from cyberlife, and Hank is hostile at first, which is a fun part.

Reset https://archiveofourown.org/works/15118730/chapters/35054933 is a classic time-travel fix-it trope, 8 months after a failed revolution, Connor goes back in time thanks to Kamski and, well, fixes stuff. Sassy Connor is my beloved fr he's so awesome.

I'd probably have more recs (seeing as I have over 350+ downloaded detroit fics) and would know more specifically which ones were the more canon-compliant ones but the hyperfixation is sporadic and comes back every few years and it just came back very recently again, so I don't remember completely what all fics were about and how much I liked them (why did I not make summaries and list thoughts why past me why were you DUMB) but the ones I listed are hopefully very readable 👍

Hope you find something here you like / haven't read yet :D

[panharmonium]

Hi! I love your Naruto thoughts and meta posts with all my heart and I want to ask your thoughts on something that has been on my mind literally since I was 13: what do you think about the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura? I went from being a hardcore shipper when I was a teenager, to being against any romantic relationship in Naruto after finishing the anime when I was in my early twenties. Nowadays I'm very into platonic love and depictions of friendship and I think the anime's obsession with forcing the "romantic interest" curse upon the main female character robbed us of... so much. There are a few wonderful moments in the anime where Sasuke and Sakura acknowledge each other, but because she's always "the girl with the crush", her actions are so often interpret as irrational or selfish by the fandom.

Hi @riemmetric!  It's great to talk to you again! Sorry it's taken me so long to answer this; RL has been making demands of me lately and it took me way longer to finish writing this up than I wanted it to (then again, I knew from the minute I read your original ask that my reply was going to get long, so I suppose I should have predicted a delay XD)

It's funny, my sister once asked me to choose between Sasuke or Sakura for an “unpopular opinion” meme, and I ended up doing Sasuke solely because I think the negative fandom opinions about Sakura are so unhinged and divorced from the actual text that I wouldn’t even know where to start.  People are entitled to dislike whatever characters they want, obviously, but there are some fandom takes that are, for me, so obviously rooted in bad faith viewings/readings that there’s no urge in me to discuss them.  That said, since you asked, I’m happy to go into my own thoughts on this a bit, with the disclaimer for other potential readers that I only write about fandom things for my own personal enjoyment, not as a contribution to The Discourse. If you don’t like Sakura, great!  I have no interest in changing your mind. Please consider this a sincere invitation to scroll on by and go enjoy whatever parts of the fandom appeal to you.

In general terms: I love Sasuke and Sakura’s relationship as much as I love all of the relationships in Team 7.  If we’re talking about them specifically as a romantic couple, then I probably fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, because I do like them together in a post-canon (to be clear: non-Boruto) setting, after time has passed and they’ve continued to develop individually and reconnect with each other, but I also wouldn’t exactly call myself an intense “shipper,” in the sense that I have no interest in pulling things out from the text and incorrectly citing them as evidence that Sasuke has hidden romantic feelings for her during the canon period. He cares about her in the canon period, just like he cares about Naruto and Kakashi.  That’s not up for interpretation; it’s the text.  But Sasuke during the canon time period does not demonstrate specifically romantic interest in anyone.  

[A note before people who might ship Sasuke with Someone Else emerge to rail against this statement - please just scroll past and continue enjoying fandom in whatever way is most fun for you. It is cool to ship whatever fanon thing you want; I think that’s great!  But earnestly citing any loving or emotional thing Sasuke does re: various characters in this story (yes, Sakura included) as indicative of specifically romantic love isn’t supported by the text. I know there are always going to be enormous subsets of any fandom who insist that it is, and I'm certainly not going to barge into anyone else's space to complain about that (because other people having fun together is harmless and none of my business), but I'm not obligated to indulge it on my own blog, either.]

Anyway, that said - the reason why I love Sakura and Sasuke’s relationship (from here on out I’ll use “relationship” in a general, non-romantic sense) is precisely because Sakura isn’t just “the girl with the crush.” Sakura has an arc when it comes to Sasuke, and its trajectory moves in the exact opposite direction of “irrational” or “selfish.”  She specifically goes from “the girl with the crush” to “the girl who steels herself and tries to put her personal feelings for Sasuke aside for the greater good” to “the girl who knows she can’t put her feelings aside, but who also knows full well that Sasuke doesn’t reciprocate them, and who still wants to save him regardless, because he matters to her as a person and a friend.”

[I'm putting the rest of this under a cut to save everyone's dash, and also to emphasize once again that this is a personal post on my personal blog which I wrote in response to a question from a personal acquaintance, the full content of which no one is obligated to read. I am not sending this post to random strangers and forcing them to look at it. I'm not even putting it in the character tags. I'm typing it up on my own blog and putting it under a cut. If you already know that you don't like Sakura, but you still click the link/read the post and then feel an urge to comment and complain, I am going to copy-paste this disclaimer and remind you that I specifically recommended that you scroll past and go have fun with fandom in your own way. Thanks in advance for responsibly curating your own fandom experience!]

So, from the top:

1. the girl with the crush

Sakura is, obviously, completely obsessed with Sasuke at the beginning of Part 1.  She’s also deeply clueless about him and his history (bizarre though it is, the story seems to indicate that she initially doesn’t know what happened with his family, the same way young!Obito is initially clueless about Kakashi’s father).  But what I like about Sakura and Sasuke’s Part 1 relationship is how this changes over time.

The critical scene that kicks this off happens right at the beginning of the manga, when she and Sasuke are talking by that bench - she complains about Naruto and blames his behavior on him being all alone/having no family to scold him; and even says she’s jealous that he doesn’t have parents to nag him all the time.  This obviously triggers an outburst from Sasuke, who tells her she has no idea what loneliness means and that she “makes him sick”/she’s “annoying” (importantly, the exact same thing Sakura said to Naruto in anger earlier that day), which in turn prompts Sakura to reassess herself and wonder whether she’s been making Naruto feel this terrible all the time, too:

From that point on, it’s a process of her putting little pieces together.  She still has a MAJOR crush, and she still acts like a twelve year-old, but as we approach the end of Part I, Sakura actually has a more accurate grasp on Sasuke’s current state of mind than Naruto does.  Naruto is initially excited to fight Sasuke on top of the hospital, because he feels like Sasuke’s finally acknowledging him, whereas Sakura is the one who immediately recognizes that something is wrong about this situation.  She is also the one who, after this fight, is concerned that Sasuke is really unwell and might do something drastic like run off in pursuit of the power Orochimaru promised him, but when she communicates this to Naruto, he assures her that this would NEVER happen:

(Sakura isn't convinced, though, because she goes to monitor the exit out of the village anyway.)

I’m not criticizing Naruto for his response here.  I ADORE hearing him say that Sasuke is too strong to need Orochimaru, with such perfect confidence - I love seeing how much respect and admiration he has for Sasuke underneath all their fighting, because that’s the whole reason he’s always baiting Sasuke and yelling at him and claiming “you're not so great!” He looks up to Sasuke; he wants to be like Sasuke; he thinks Sasuke is awesome! (It’s that Obito @ Kakashi behavior, you know?) But the fact remains that he is clueless about what’s actually going on with Sasuke in Part 1, and he remains clueless(ly optimistic) for a long time.  

(Eg, when he catches up to Sasuke during the retrieval arc and Sasuke climbs out of that cursed seal coffin, Naruto waves at him and calls "Come on, let's go!" as if Sasuke has been successfully rescued and is now going to come running home.  Even in Part II, when Naruto hears that Sasuke killed Orochimaru, he beams and immediately says, “So he must be on his way back to the Leaf Village!”  And everyone else in the room is like, “....,” because they know better.  Naruto doesn’t yet fully understand [or doesn't want to accept] the extent to which Sasuke has willingly chosen this path, and it’s not until after Jiraiya’s death/the Pain attack/the Five Kage Summit that Naruto really starts to understand Sasuke more clearly, which is something he himself admits.)

Sakura, in Part 1, has access to more information about Sasuke - she’s there for his first dissociative monologue during the bells test, she’s there for the curse mark’s placement, she’s there for his first violent transformation in the Forest of Death - she is, in fact, the unwitting catalyst for it (“Sakura…who did this to you?”), and her compassion is the reason Sasuke is later able to overcome the curse mark’s influence - so she has a more accurate/complete picture of “how he’s doing,” for lack of a better phrase, whereas Naruto, who doesn’t know about the curse mark in the first place, is still in the dark.  This means that Sakura is able to accurately discern that Sasuke is struggling more than Naruto realizes, and specifically to predict that he’s going to run away.  

(This dynamic is then interestingly flipped in the back half of Part II, since at any point after the Five Kage Summit, Sakura doesn’t have access to extremely relevant [if currently questionable and unproven] details that would in any other circumstance inform her behavior).

Of course, just because she has more info in Part 1 doesn’t mean she has some kind of miraculous insight into Sasuke’s every thought and feeling.  There are parts of her attempt to convince Sasuke to stay in the village that are as clueless as any of Naruto’s assumptions, and they showcase the kind of magical thinking common to childhood - like when she says that if he stayed with her, she could give him happiness, she’d do anything for him, even help him get his revenge - this idea that she herself can do something to make him feel better, that she can love him powerfully enough to defeat his pain - obviously none of that is rooted in realism.

Is this part of her approach irrational and immature and inadvertently self-centered?  Of course it is!  But it’s no more irrational and immature and inadvertently self-centered than Naruto’s stated plan to drag Sasuke back to the village even if he has to “break every bone in [his] body!” 

Hating on Sakura for her Part 1 attempt to convince Sasuke to stay in the village while simultaneously lauding Naruto for his feels like a bad faith misread of what is, to me, pretty clear narrative intention.  The story doesn’t at any point intend for us to see her begging him to stay as a selfish or conniving attempt to get something she wants.  She’s begging him to stay for the same underlying reason that Naruto is: she cares about him.  She thinks he’s making a mistake that will only cause him more pain in the end (she’s right) and she wants to make it so he feels less pain right now (she can’t.  But she doesn’t understand that/isn’t able to admit that, and she’s willing to try ANYTHING that might help).  

It’s critical that this farewell scene is set in front of that same bench from their first important confrontation - she references that day and how angry he got at her, and this time she tells him that she understands his reaction.  She’s learned things and she recognizes how insensitive she was being back then (“I know what happened to your clan, Sasuke”), even though she still can’t fully grasp all the complexities of the situation. She tells him that him blowing up at her back then helped her understand what loneliness actually meant (as opposed to her previous shallow understanding of it), and she challenges him about his choice right now: "So that's it, you're choosing the lonely path?" And when she tells him that she'll be very lonely if he leaves, we're immediately shown a panel of Sasuke thinking of both his friends, with the very clear implication that if he goes through with this, he will be lonely without them, too - that he's still struggling with the idea of leaving them, no matter how hard he tries to pretend:

Sakura at this point knows that Sasuke isn’t interested in her the way she is in him, but she still wants to give him happiness, however fantastical and immature her ideas sound to us (and, I’m sure, to him).  “I’ll do anything, even help you get your revenge/we'll have fun every day, and...and you'll be happy! I'll make sure of it!” - of course, it’s completely childish.  It’s irrational.  It’s ridiculous to think that any of this would ever be effective, but no more ridiculous than Naruto’s belief that he can simply break every bone in Sasuke’s body and keep him in the Leaf by force.

Both Naruto and Sakura are children who have a deeply oversimplified understanding of Sasuke’s situation.  They both still think they can fix him themselves.  They both think they can save him themselves.  They both think they can convince (or force) him to do what they want, what they think is in his best interests.  Both of them don’t yet understand that he has to want to come back, if it’s ever going to mean anything.  Their attempts to keep him in the village are immature and unrealistic, yes.  What they aren’t, however, is selfish, because neither Sakura nor Naruto are doing any of this with the intention of advancing their own interests.  They’re only thinking about Sasuke - how to keep Sasuke safe, how to make Sasuke happy - even when neither of them are taking an approach that will actually work.

Naruto and Sakura are children.  They’re afraid of losing somebody they care about.  Their attempts to prevent that from happening are desperate and messy and ultimately ineffective, but they are also genuinely felt and rooted in a true desire to rescue Sasuke from his pain, which - and this is the single most important thing that should impact our viewing of Part 1 - is something that Sasuke RECOGNIZES.  He doesn’t spend that agonizingly long moment bowed over Naruto’s defeated body so we can pretend he doesn’t understand that Naruto was just trying to help him.  He doesn’t take the time to murmur, “Sakura…thank you,” before laying her out carefully on a bench, just so we can discount it and pretend that he doesn’t recognize and appreciate her genuine intention to make things better for him, however clumsy that attempt might have been.

2. the greater good

If Stage 1 Sakura is "the girl with the crush," then Stage 2 Sakura is a progression to “the girl who decides to put her feelings for Sasuke aside in order to protect innocent people, including (but certainly not limited to) Naruto.”  She’s driven to this decision by interactions with Shikamaru, who all too recently had to grow up fast himself (“We're not kids anymore...we can't allow a war to break out between the Hidden Leaf and the Hidden Cloud because of Sasuke") and Sai, who risks his new friendship with Sakura and Team 7 in order to speak some hard truths and deliver one of my favorite lines in the whole story: “I don’t know what promise Naruto made to you, but it’s really no different than what was done to me.  It’s like a curse mark.”

(INCREDIBLE.  How can anybody be complaining about a season where Sai gets to say something that goes THIS HARD and Sakura LISTENS and takes DRAMATIC ACTION that actually propels the story forward in a meaningful way - )

[Okay, yeah, brief personal opinion interlude - it is just bonkers wild to me that there are people who complain about Sakura in the Five Kage Summit arc. That entire season is the greatest character arc she ever has.  Literally she has never been more interesting and dynamic than in Season 10; it’s the first time she ever gets to be as deep and fascinating as the boys; what is everybody so worked up about?  Oh, “she lied to Naruto that one time” - Sasuke joined infant-kidnapping baby-murdering human experimentation machine Orochimaru when he was twelve years old in order to (dare I say it????) selfishly pursue his personal goals and yet, somehow, we are still able to root for him.  He abandoned his friends/allies to imprisonment and death (Suigetsu and Jūgo) or outright stabbed them in the chest himself (Karin) in order to (SELFISHLY) get what he wanted, and yet, somehow, we are still able to love him, understand him, and be on his side.  Naruto is canonically not upset with Sakura about her lie after receiving context for the situation and I think we can probably take our cues from him without feeling the need to bring her up on war crimes; please calm down]

[Sorry, I just really love most of Season 10 and think it’s one of the best examples of how good this story can be when every single character gets to do something that matters (as opposed to things being all Naruto, all the time) so I get a little bit worked up over people complaining about some of the best writing Sakura ever gets.  I don’t understand what certain elements of fandom want from her. People complain about her being “useless” and not doing anything that contributes to the story, but then they complain just as much when she does finally get to act decisively and have just as complex/dynamic an inner world as the boys.  She’s “weak” for being unreasonably in love with Sasuke, but when she tries to be “strong” and put her love for him aside and eliminate him in order to protect Naruto and the rest of the world, she’s evil, because she should have been more understanding of his situation (despite the fact that she doesn’t KNOW anything about his situation).  But then when she can’t go through with killing him after all because she cares about him too much despite the things he’s done, she’s not "compassionate" or "kind" or "a good friend," she’s “weak” again. Nothing Sakura does in S10 is more wrongheaded or rash than any of the batshit, buckwild things Naruto and Sasuke have done in the past (and will continue to do in the future), but when Naruto and Sasuke have big feelings or take bold action, it makes them interesting characters, whereas Sakura can’t breathe in anyone’s direction without being minutely scrutinized for moral impurities.]  

Anyway. Back to a more measured response.  

Every single piece of development Sakura has with regard to Sasuke in this season satisfies me so much.  Her initial shock and disbelief at hearing that Sasuke had joined the Akatsuki?  Good, appropriate.  The fact that she starts to acknowledge the reality of what Sasuke’s done sooner than Naruto does?  Also extremely appropriate, very in-character for both of them.  Her taking Sai’s words to heart and deciding that the promise she asked Naruto to make when they were children is causing him to suffer and she has to relieve him of that burden?  Juicy!  AND thematically significant (promises!!!!  the burden that a promise places on a person, especially when it can't be kept - we've seen that before in this story and we'll see it again).  Her anguished pivot from wanting to protect Sasuke to realizing that she has a responsibility to protect the countless innocents who will die because of the war he’s trying to start?  HELLO THIS IS INCREDIBLE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.  Her knocking out the classmates who agreed to help her so they don’t have to share in her burden (and so the only person Naruto will hate when it’s over is her)?  BRUH.  Her being so committed and focused on her goal of saving innocents and protecting Naruto (not just from being harmed by Sasuke/the Akatsuki, but by the possibility that Naruto will someday have to hurt Sasuke himself) that she tries to take everything on by herself and walks into a confrontation that she absolutely cannot win??  INCREDIBLE.  (Literally the first time I watched this, I said, “Finally!!!  It’s Sakura’s turn to go off the rails!”  I laughed with my sister about how Kakashi isn’t even mad, because Naruto and Sasuke have been pulling stunts like this for years and Sakura was way overdue for her own meltdown.)  And then, after Kakashi intervenes in the fight - Sakura barreling back into the battle when she realizes he’s going to take on the burden of killing Sasuke himself in order to spare her and Naruto the horror - “I can’t let Kakashi-sensei bear this burden!”  I love her for that.  

And then, of course, in the end - her not being able to do hurt Sasuke after all.  Despite committing herself to the act, despite forcing herself to put her feelings for him aside, despite resolving to stop him from starting a war and killing innocent people, she can’t harm him.  She cares about him too much.  This, too, is thematically significant - think about Itachi’s “you don’t have enough hatred” - she doesn’t have enough hatred to kill someone she cares about, even if it seems like he deserves it, even if would be the right thing to do to protect others.  She can’t do it, and Sasuke almost kills her for her compassion.  

I love the dynamic this sets up between her and Sasuke, for a few reasons:

1) Personally, I think Sasuke respects Sakura much more for trying to kill him than he would have if she’d just tried to talk him out of his behavior or beg him to come home (a la their original confrontation in Part 1).  This is the first significant interaction he’s had with Sakura in years, and the fact that she does something SO contrary to his memory of her is an important demonstration of the fact that she’s not the same girl she used to be.  Sasuke spends a lot of time after his defection declaring to his old team “I’ve changed; I’m not that person anymore,” but this is one of the moments where he’s forced to acknowledge that his teammates have changed, too.  Time didn’t just stop for them when he left.  While he was turning into someone new, so were they.  They grew up without him, and his old memories of them can’t encompass the whole picture of who they are now.  

(This is a little tangential, but in general, I love the spectrum of reactions that Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi have in this sequence, and the way that all of them are ultimately messages Sasuke needs to hear.  Sasuke - who we know textually regrets what he did here, who apologizes to Sakura for it later - for “everything,” in fact - needs Naruto’s aggressively optimistic open-arms policy, yes, needs that potential, that unconditional possibility of return.  He also needs Sakura’s refusal to let him hurt her friends and start a war that will kill thousands of people, needs her surprisingly ruthless attempt to take him down; needs just as much her failure to do so, because it shows him that she still loves him too much to kill him even as she condemns him.  And he needs Kakashi’s grim line in the sand, needs someone who very possibly won't hesitate like Sakura (despite the horrifying personal cost), someone who will try to reach him but also won't let him escape and become the next generation’s Orochimaru, who won't let him cause untold suffering to untold numbers of people just because a teacher loved him too much to stop him when he had the chance. 

(And then even Kakashi chooses not to deliver a killing blow when he has the opportunity -)

(I know that in fandom people are more likely to be all, “oh, Naruto Good, everybody else Bad,” but I don’t think the narrative frames Sakura or Kakashi as “worse” than Naruto in any way.  The story goes out of its way to make it clear how desperately they don’t want to hurt Sasuke and how much they care about him.  And [this is just my interpretation, so obviously I won’t claim it as fact], I personally think that Sasuke - Sasuke, who, looking back, can see how lost he was then and how tortured he would have been if he’d gone through with many of his plans - would be grateful to Sakura and Kakashi for making an attempt to stop him when he couldn’t stop himself.)

2) On the other side of this, the fact that Sakura wasn’t able to deliver the killing blow means a lot. Sasuke was incapacitated under that bridge; he was completely at her mercy - but she stopped with the kunai an inch from his back.  She couldn’t kill him, even though she knew that he was completely willing to kill her (because he'd attempted to Chidori-assassinate her from behind just a few minutes ago).  That’s huge!  Sasuke is too out of his head right now to process this or understand it, but later, it's going to matter.  She stayed her hand.  She spared his life.  She loved him too much to hurt him, even when he’d given her every reason to take him down.  She hesitated, and he almost killed her for it, but her inability to strike him ultimately gave him yet another chance to come home, another chance to get better, another chance to have a life outside of his pain.  Despite everything, some part of her still hadn’t really given up on him, and that knowledge will matter later, when he’s finally able to acknowledge it.  

The point of all this is to say that I really have no complaints about Sakura and Sasuke’s dynamic in their S10 confrontation.  This season is the point where Sakura fully grows past her “girl with a crush” stage and into her “shinobi must make very harsh decisions” adulthood, but it never means that she doesn’t care about the person she’s trying to take down.  Her ultimate inability to deliver the killing blow remains a dangling lifeline for her relationship with Sasuke, an open door that Sasuke is able to walk through at the end of the story (literally, in fact, when Sakura opens that portal for him and saves him from Kaguya’s desert prison, and figuratively, too, when Sasuke apologizes to her).

3. she only wants to save you

The last stage in their relationship is what Sakura settles into during the war arc.  She started off Part 1 being just a girl with a crush, then tried to harden her heart and put her feelings for Sasuke aside in service of the greater good, but she was unable to actually follow through and kill him, and because of that, what she’s come to accept by the war arc is actually two things: that 1) Sasuke truly is willing to let her die if it furthers his goals, and 2) she wants to save him anyway.  

She has no intention of pursuing Sasuke romantically.  She knows full well that Sasuke isn’t interested in her.  She even knows that Sasuke isn’t really on their side (there’s a great scene where Sai questions Sakura about Sasuke’s return, and she reassures him that everything is fine, and Sai sadly thinks to himself “even I can tell your smile is fake”).  She’s well-aware that Sasuke didn’t try to help her when Madara stabbed her.  She’s well-aware that he left her to die in the lava pit.  She’s also well-aware that none of this is enough to make her stop loving him.  He doesn’t have to care about her - she still cares about him.  She still wants to help him.  She still wants to save him.

This is not hidden, hard-to-parse character development.  It’s explicitly articulated on the page:

Sakura’s not trying or wanting to make you hers!  She only wants to save you.

I’m not sure if people look at this last confrontation and unquestioningly take Sasuke at his word (as if we haven’t just read 71 volumes/watched 700 episodes showing us how how painfully distorted his thinking is), or if they stop reading/watching before the end of the scene, or if they don’t understand that Sasuke saying something doesn’t make that statement an accurate representation of reality.  The entire point of this scene is to show us how deeply mistaken Sasuke is about Sakura (and, by extension, the rest of Team 7).  He’s locked into a false pattern of thinking.  His single-minded focus on revenge and destruction has blinded him to the unconditional love his friends feel for him; he’s become so accustomed to using others and being used that he can’t understand or accept that someone would care about him without needing a reason, without needing him to love them back, without needing to receive something from him in exchange.

Sakura’s not trying or wanting to make you hers!  She only wants to save you.

Sasuke matters to Sakura as more than a love interest.  He always has.  She does love him romantically, yes, but she doesn’t only love him romantically, and her desire to help him is not and has never been contingent on him returning her feelings, romantically or otherwise.  Sasuke isn’t able to acknowledge that in this scene, but that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to just sit back and agree with his warped perspective.  Kakashi is the one who’s explicitly positioned as the voice of the narrative here.  We, as the audience, are supposed to recognize that Kakashi is the one telling us the truth.

[tangential thing 1: You don’t have to love Sakura's last plea to Sasuke here. It’s not my favorite, either - the best part, other than Kakashi’s speech at the end, is the moment after Kakashi collapses when Sakura’s expression changes from pained uncertainty to pure rage, when she grits her teeth together - when I first saw that, I almost leapt out of my seat like “Oh my god.  She’s finally going to let him have it.  It’s finally happening - ”  I wanted that so badly, and I still think it would have been a more effective writing choice for Sakura’s last words to lean more into her anger at the suffering Sasuke is causing all of them (himself included!) and less into yet another of Kishimoto’s “let me have Sakura articulate what a shame it is that she can’t do as much as Naruto despite the fact that I literally just went through a major reveal sequence in the war to show that she’s caught up to the boys; I can’t make up my mind about whether I want her to progress or not” - it’s extremely frustrating (and it's something he does at the very end of the S10 Team 7 reunion, too, which is the ONLY moment of S10 that falls flat for me).  But at the same time, even if there are ways this sequence could be more satisfying, it doesn’t change the fact that her plea to him is not remotely motivated by a desire to be with him romantically and not anything to condemn her for.]

[tangential thing 2: I do like how she remembers that moment when Sasuke says “Thank you.”  That panel precedes her saying “If there’s even a tiny corner of your heart that thinks about me…” (which I’m sure is one of the things that people like to criticize about this scene, aka “oh she’s sooooo self-centered” etc), but that particular line of dialogue is preceded by that particular flashback panel for a reason: Sakura knows that Sasuke DOES think about her.  He thinks about all of them.  Sakura remembers that “thank you,” and it reminds her that despite everything Sasuke has done and said since, despite all evidence to the contrary, she knows in her bones that his expression of gratitude back then was genuine.  He cared about her once.  He cared about all of them.  She’s trying to reach the part of him that still does, if it exists.]

[tangential thing 3: The fact that Kakashi says “she suffers from loving you,” and it triggers Sasuke to remember his own family - thinking about how much he suffered (and still suffers) from loving them - “Perhaps…those are the ties to a failed past” - the idea that it’s not worth it to have bonds if it means you suffer this much…that it’s too difficult, it’s too painful, and if Sakura and the rest of Team 7 were smarter they would just give it up (all Sasuke knows how to do now is sever potential bonds before they can hurt him; so why aren’t Sakura and the rest of his teammates doing that, why can’t they let it go, why are they making this so hard - ) << yeah, he clearly doesn't care about her/them at all.]

4. the shadow of my family

This has all been a really long way to answer the original question, but the short response to “What do you think about the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura?” is “I really care about it,” just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Naruto, just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Kakashi. And I don’t think the story ever asks me to choose between them.

I’m not sure whether it’s the impact of Boruto-era “canon” that gets in the way of other people approaching things this way (I don’t consider sequel material when I evaluate the original story), or if it’s Kishimoto’s frequent disinterest in/disrespect towards female characters, which yes, does sometimes make it harder, or if it's a shipping thing (bane of my existence), or some combination of factors, but for me, taking one member of Team 7 out of the equation hobbles the rest of the story.  I can’t read/watch Naruto while hating one of the protagonists and loving the other three.  It doesn’t work like that for me.  The story wasn’t written that way, and there’s nothing in the text that would cause me to receive it that way.

That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with disliking one of the main foursome (or any character, for that matter) - obviously we're all going to have different preferences, and everyone is free to enjoy or reject whatever parts of a story they want, or to like or dislike whatever characters they want. I know that some people have more fun disregarding canon and doing their own thing, which is fine.  My own personal zone of enjoyment comes from receiving the story as closely to how I think it was intended to be read as I can, and personally, when I look at this particular story, what I see is that all the members of Team 7 clearly demonstrate their love for Sasuke in ways that he himself later recognizes and acknowledges. All of them are driven by their desire to save him and their unwillingness to hurt him. All of them make repeated choices to chase after him when he runs away, to trust him when he hasn't exactly earned it, to give him another chance when he doesn't appear to deserve it. ALL of them, not just Naruto, do these things multiple times throughout the story, and Sasuke owes his life (and thus his eventual recovery) to ALL of them, many times over. Kakashi disobeys Hokage-elect Danzō and breaks the law to negotiate for Sasuke's life with a foreign head of state. Sakura and Kakashi both have opportunities to kill Sasuke in the Land of Iron, and they choose to spare him instead. Kakashi stops Sasuke from killing his only friends at two different points in the story, which would have been a mistake Sasuke couldn't have recovered from. Sasuke would have died in Kaguya's desert dimension if Sakura hadn't saved him (Sakura, who knew that Sasuke wasn't even truly on her side yet, who knew he'd abandoned her for dead multiple times already that day). Kaguya's bone bullet would have killed Sasuke too, if Kakashi, with his intention to die in Sasuke's place, hadn't leapt in front of it (Kakashi, who also knew that Sasuke wasn't fully on their side yet, who also knew that Sasuke had abandoned him for dead earlier that day). Sasuke and Naruto would have BOTH died in the Final Valley if Sakura and a severely injured Kakashi hadn't chased after them to heal their injuries.

Remove any one member of Team 7, and Sasuke never makes it home. Without the combined efforts of all three of his teammates, he doesn't survive.  That’s the way it should be, thematically, for a story whose first and most foundational premise was the importance of teamwork, and since Sakura was just as essential to that framework as everyone else, I’m just as invested in her relationship with Sasuke as I am in his relationship with everyone else.  You can’t remove one leg from a four-legged stool without damaging the integrity of the entire structure, and for me, discounting any single member of Team 7 irreparably damages the integrity of the entire story. 

TL;DR: I love all of the Team 7 relationships, including Sakura and Sasuke's, because despite what some segments of fandom seem to believe, the text of the story never gives me any reason not to.

[ninyard]

nin Kevin and Jean for the give me a character thingy plsplsplspls (love your writing btw, some of your Kevin AU’s are so thought provoking) xx

AH THANK YOU i love writing about that man so im glad you like em <3333 I already did Jean so here's Kevin

How I feel about this character

do you have to ask. another misunderstood diva that i would crawl to the ends of the earth for. im his right hand arm man he's my silly rabbit i could torture him in a thousand different ways and never get tired of it. i HATE that i can't write from his POV because i want to be inside of his brain. i want to live in there.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

i'm kind of a believer in aro Kevin?? so relationship wise outside of his Canon Relationship there's maybe Kandreil, Keremy, and Kevin x Random Guy He Met At The Grocery Store

(otherwise we have Kevjerison, Kevallison, Kevjean, Kandrew, and probably a million more that i can't remember)

My non-romantic OTP for this character

i've already mentioned Kevin and Allison in the Allison ask and Kevjean in the Jean ask so I think I'll say Kevin and Jeremy. I love their friendship and the idea that they hooked up at some point just feels like the perfect Next Step. so much potential for like. who he was when they met for the first time, who Jeremy was to him in understand himself. I'm a keremy enjoyer 1000%

My unpopular opinion about this character

hmmm i think if Neil hadn't forced him to tell Wymack there's a chance that he never would've told him that he was his son. Not in malicious or intentionally hiding it from him way but like,, without Neil there to say you owe it to him, I don't think being around the Foxes and their unique perspectives on family would've convinced him that he had to tell him. Maybe once he graduated, sometime in the future, when he got to know a little more about what family means and why it'd be important to tell David, maybe he'd tell him then. but without Neil to push him i don't know if Kevin would've had the need or want to tell him.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

like. cry. I wish we could've seen the funeral. I wish we could've seen how he reacted when he found out. I hope he gets the space to talk about Riko where he doesn't feel bad about saying how he really feels (but i don't think we'll ever see that in canon)

[department-of-landing-strategies]

Quick thoughts on two person ships that I've seen in the fics I like or read fics for in both HP and RWBY

Percy x Penelope: I like it it's cute. Ginny catching them snogging would probably have a greater impact on canon if Penny was someone the Weasleys had a vocal opinion of.

Percy x Audrey: It's cute in fanfic. In canon though, it suffers from the thing of canon Audrey is just a name.

Percy x Oliver: This fits into so many of my favourite tropes, it's kind of hilarious. I think this was my first Percy ship.

Percy x Marcus: Character I love shipped with a charater that absolutely would go to hell and back for the other is probably the quickest way to get me to ship two characters and Flintley isn't any different. This is my favourite Percy two person ship, hands down

Percy x Anyone in Harry's year or Ginny's year: Not getting into specific ships because this is the most common theme of Percy ships that I end up filtering out. Personally, I only see it happening post second wizarding war after both members have left Hogwarts, and I have to be in a really specific mood to read fics for these types of ships. However, depending on who Percy is shipped with, it can be cute

Penelope x Audrey: I love these two together in fanfic and I love the versatility. If you thought Perciver fit a lot of tropes, then this ship can fit more because again canon Audrey is just a name.

Penelope x Fred: I think my enjoyment of this ship heavily depends on how Fred is characterized. These two in a ship read to me as Bookworm x Prankster, and I'm really not a fan of that trope. It absolutely doesn't help that the twins are tied for my least favourite (I don't hate them but I like the other siblings better) of the book Wesley children.

Oliver x Marcus: I like the ship, and I think it's a good rivals to lovers ship. I'm pretty sure the only reason I've dropped a FlintWood fic is because I didn't vibe with the non-Flintwood ships in the fic

Ruby x Weiss: White Rose I think is partly as popular as it is because of the thing of pair off the spares. However, unlike a lot of couples I've seen with that thing, their canon interactions are pretty cute. On the other hand, their canon status of getting partnered during initiation does help their cause.

Ruby x Blake: I know I've said it for basically most of the other ships on the list but it's cute. I think I got into this ship with either a Team RWBY poly fic or a Beauty and the Beast retelling that used Ladybug

Ruby x Jaune: I like their friendship and I think a romantic relationship would be fine. I don't really ship it myself but I can see the appeal.

Weiss x Blake: I like it. However, I think it would be better in the later seasons rather than when they were in Beacon.

Weiss x Yang: Freezerburn, my beloved. I know with recent events, it's absolutely not going to be canon, but imma just vibe with their dynamic with fanfic

Weiss x Pyrrha: I think this is my favourite Weiss ship. There's a possibility of one-sided rivalry to lovers while in Beacon, and I think that's my favourite trope the ship could fall into

Weiss x Jaune: Personally prefer a friendship between the two but the volume 9 white knight moments were cute

Blake x Yang: It's cute. I'm glad they got made canon, and I want to see more cute canon moments between the two if the show does somehow get another volume. In the meantime, I will be chilling with fanfic.

Blake x Sun: Like Bumblebee, its cute. I also don't want to see discourse between it and Bumblebee.

Blake x Adam: The exception to my Blake ships that I've read are cute. The stuff I've read have sometimes had this as a past relationship for Blake and it should stay a past relationship.

Yang x Neo: Would be an interesting friendship post s3 but I don't feel comfortable shipping them romantically with recent canon events even with the Neo age discourse I've seen.

[imthepunchlord]

I'm actually glad that romance would be a B or C plot. Honestly, romance is the best when it's not center stage, let me brainrot about them in the background, lemme see them being high schoolers first and grappling with the struggle of being full-time students and part-time heroes. Lemme see the shenanigans of that time and gush over how cute they are. LET KIDS BE KIDS DAMN IT.

SAME!

I also want to actually enjoy the FRIENDSHIP. Most of Marinette's friendship and time hanging out with her friends comes down to Adrien in some shape or form.

And Adrien himself just... didn't have a social life. I know there were a few hang outs with Nino in later seasons, but it seemed like post DJWifi Adrien and Nino's friendship just blipped out of existence. Origins sets up he wants to make friends but it just never comes up. I know Party Crasher says he's friends with all the guys and I'm just scratching my head at when cause he never really even talked to anyone outside Chloe, Nino, and occasionally Marinette.

And to add to it, personally, romance and the possibility of it, is just a lot more enjoyable when I'm not getting a lot of focus on it. Romance for me is a meal I like to have in small portions, little samples, little teases. Enough to taste and I can fill the rest and relish it. But when romance gets more focus than it needs, especially when it's taking over or taking away from other stuff in a media, then it becomes a meal that's like too big to consume and I need a break.

It's probably partly why a lot of my preferred ships are non canon or crack as the romance is either non existent and I can enjoy the interactions/potential and fill the gaps myself, or if there's little hints but not the main focus, I can just enjoy what I'm sampling.

Either way, yeah I think romance priority really hurt Miraculous in the long run. It was fun and cute in s1, and then it just dragged on, and there was so much cringe, and so much toxicity, so much that was skipped over or hand waved away, and it was not a good time. And them not valuing friendship just didn't help with their romance. Cause friendship does play a part in strengthening that bond. And they missed out as romance took priority.

[doodlebeeberry]

your my Amelia mutual, so amelia for the ask game :]

yaaaaay fucked-up candle enjoyers make some noise!!!

How I feel about this character: I am Amelia lover #1 four years running for a reason, shes great!! i find her just really fascinating, how in particular the line is between her life on the plane and off it, how she copes with being stuck there, her relationship to her own identity, the ways she steps up when airy vanishes in ep8 and how she reacts when he comes back--to what degree is that reaction built on the fear that now she'll have to return home someone completely new? shes just so interesting to me, i like her alot :]

All the people I ship romantically with this character: not many really! im a bit of an aroace amelia fan, however i wont say no to some good scentdapack. as well i think charmelia is also pretty fun, particularly if it written as something that springs up on almost out of desperation the plane and fizzles out back on earth (sorta inverse to my preffered scentdapack dynamic lol)

My non-romantic OTP for this character: scentdapack and charmelia of course, however i am also a super big fan of sodascent. I think their friendship devoid of liam, given the place he holds in the narrative relative to them, is really fun to explore! not to mention how polar opposite they are in their mentalities in relation to the plane. I eat it up

My unpopular opinion about this character: see now I dont know how 'unpopular' this is as an opinion, but I do think they kinda fumbled the bag on her/garrett's investigations ep. I understand wanting to keep up the mystery around her earth life, the way the narrative forces that upon her is fun in one! however for investigations it just feels a bit...much, idk. like the concept that shes just like 'wreathed in mystique' or whatever normally kind of ruins the fun of her downward spiral in the show a little for me. I think we did need to get something a little more personal for that episode to work, but for the time being i choose to interpret it (baselessly) as her just not being particularly close with her manager specifically (which i think is more understandable)

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: more screentime in general, of course, but in terms of more specific things I wish she couldve met airy face to face. I think seeing that shes just some guy wouldve made her brain explode more-so than it did w liam. it wouldve been fun i think. as well i wish we couldve seen what her waiting room looked like when she shattered in ep 1, particularly if we could get the chance to see it again some time later on as a point of comparison, really driving home how her mentality has changed over time. and cause im curious.

[autumn-foxfire]

Well he did give hints, but maybe he didn't clarify earlier because it's a crack ship and not even hinted in the anime or manga. For example coai a ship that is hinted because of ais feelings is mentioned and he clarified that shinran ist endgame.

Crack and non-canon are different things. Crack is Kaito and Eisuke, two characters who have never interacted. Shinichi and Kaito have had a friendship built up throughout the series many enjoyed and while this shippers knew it would never be canon, we always enjoyed the relationship they shared.

Also I feel like I'm repeating myself, it's not them being cousins that is the issue. It is the piss poor set up of this retcon that he expects us to swallow.

Also I really doubt anything but Shinran will be endgame, Anon, he's made that very clear. And I say that as a CoAi enjoyer.

[tl-trashtalk]

THE tl's favorite person??? honored. flabbergasted. amazed. i wanna thank the academy n everyone who helped me get to this position.

n omg youre a greys enjoyer too?!?!? very based. whos your favorite character, favorite ship, i need to know 🎤🎤

i hope my favorite person is having a lovely day!!! :D

i was having a lovely day thank you for asking!

oh yeah i am a greys og. watched it as it premiered on tv and just did a rewatch with my mom this year.

meredith is my fav character. but alex karev is a close 2nd. maybe even tied for favorite. i also really loved kai (the non-binary character) they were so well done and i really love the actor who plays them too. they are also non-binary and in a band and do all kinds of other cool projects!

anyway fav ship 🤔 hmmm this is a hard one because idk that i have one? for canon i would say prob meredith and derek which i know is predictable but they were og man. miranda and ben are also a close 2nd because theyre so mom and dad coded..

for non-canon ship i would say meredith/alex i understand why they never made their relationship anymore than friendship on the show but man was there potential after derek died.

[mistystarshine]

🫐 🍐🥭?

Ask me about my writing via fruit!

What’s your favorite underrated thing in your fandom? (A ship that only you seem to write for, a character there’s almost no fics about, a trope that criminally hasn’t been written yet, etc.)

C h a g g i e! And Vaggie as a whole. I love her and that ship so much, and it seems like everyone else dislikes her and like... next to no one else writes about them. But that might also be because I am d e e p l y submersed in the Guitarspear fandom and don't like seeing Adam and Lute written as one-note villains in fics where they feature heavily (although I also won't read fics where their actions are outright excused), which makes me hesitant to read non-Guitarspear fics. Plus finding fics in general is. Such a chore.

If anyone has any Guitarspear or Vaggie-centric fic recs, send them to me IMMEDIATELY.

Also, fics that delve into Vaggie, Adam, and Lute's dynamic beyond what we saw in canon! I STRONGLY suspect that there was more there than abusive bosses and their victim and I want to read about it.

(gdi, I really need to write the next chapter of Burning Feathers)

Also. Fics focusing on Adam and Charlie friendship that don't say he was right or outright re-imagine him as a hero from the start. Stuff that starts from canon.

Is there anything in canon that you absolutely hate and love to fix in fics? A wrong choice made, a fuck-up in characterization, a misunderstanding never cleared up, a conversation never shown onscreen, etc…

Already answered this one! But in short, character bashing, Adam was right fics, and stuff that is more bible fic than Hazbin fic.

Rank from most enjoyable/fun to write to least: Fluff, Smut, Angst, Crack.

Crack (crack treated seriously is my specialty and arguably where I do my best writing), angst, fluff, smut!

[lostyesterday]

for the character ask game: tuvok or frodo baggins, maybe? :)

Thank you!! <3

Tuvok:

How I feel about this character: I love him! I’m always happy when he’s a part of a scene in Voyager because his interactions with the other characters are basically always enjoyable.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: I ship Tuvok with both Chakotay and Janeway, either separately or as a poly ship. I also ship Tuvok/Neelix (especially in later seasons of Voyager).

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Kes!!! I love Tuvok and Kes’s relationship so much and how much they mean to each other. I also love his relationship with Seven (I know you haven’t met her yet), and his relationship with Harry – even though they don’t have a lot of scenes together, I think they have a really interesting friendship. And while I do ship Janeway/Tuvok, I probably love their canon platonic relationship even more.

My unpopular opinion about this character: I’m not sure how unpopular of an opinion this is, but he’s actually my favorite Vulcan character in Star Trek. I love a lot of other Vulcan characters too, but I think Tim Russ absolutely nailed his performance, and Tuvok as a character provides such a compassionate perspective on Vulcan logic.

One thing I wish would have happened with this character in canon: I wish that he’d gotten way more focus in later seasons. There are so few episodes that focus on him in seasons 4-7, and he mostly falls into a supporting role for other characters. A lot of Voyager’s characters got this treatment in later seasons (especially the characters of color), but I think Tuvok was the most sidelined in comparison to his role in earlier seasons.

Frodo (based on the movies since I haven’t read the book since I was a kid):

How I feel about this character: He’s probably my favorite Lord of the Rings character! I like him a lot.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: I think I only really ship him with Sam. Sam/Frodo was one of my favorite ships a few years back and I still really love them.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Probably Aragorn – I love every interaction between the two of them. Also Gandalf.

My unpopular opinion about this character: From what I understand, a lot of people don’t like Frodo or think he’s one of the weakest characters in Lord of the Rings, which I don’t agree with at all. Seeing a protagonist deal with an invisible struggle that no one around him can truly comprehend or help him with is meaningful to me as a person with several invisible disabilities. I think that’s probably why I connect to him most of all the Lord of the Rings characters.

One thing I wish would have happened with this character in canon:  I don’t have a lot of critical thoughts about Lord of the Rings to be honest, so I’ve never really thought about how I wish the movies could have been different. When I eventually re-read the book, I’ll probably have more complicated thoughts on what I wish they’d done differently about his character.

[tevantarlos]

One of the Biggest Problems I Have... As A Multishipper...

A lot of the time I genuinely feel like I don't have a place, in certain fandoms. Most times it's either this or that. And hell is rained down on anyone who says they like both.

To use some examples in the One Chicago fandom. I ship Dawsey and Brettsey on Chicago Fire. For anyone who doesn't speak ship names, that means Matt Casey/Gabby Dawson, and Matt Casey/Sylvie Brett.

I also ship Linstead and Upstead on Chicago PD. That means Jay Halstead/Erin Lindsay, and Jay Halstead/Hailey Upton. I feel like I don't really have a place among either of the fanbases, because of the fact that I sail both ships and many or most fans of one ship, hate the other with a fiery passion. It makes trying to find my place in fandom confusing and hurtful. I used to ship Buddie in the 9-1-1 fandom, but hate for Eddie with anyone but Buck, ruined my enjoyment of the non-canon ship, and even the canon Buddie friendship. Another example I've had is where people say, "You're not a true fan!" Because in the General Hospital fandom, I ship Sam with almost anyone. I shipped her with Jason, Sonny, Jax, Patrick, Johnny, Logan, Cooper, Dante, Cruz and more through the years. Some people think that because I'm not completely devoted to one ship forever and ever, that I'm not a true fan. I beg to differ. I feel like you're not the true fan if you're hung up on just that one ship when it's ended and the character has moved on and is in a new relationship and is happy as hell.

You can like what you like. I'm not saying you can't. But don't call me out and claim I'm not a 'true fan' because I don't obsess over one single ship for my favorite character like you do. People change and grow, and meet and fall in love with new people all the time, and I like that. I'd rather that, than have my favorite character stuck in place and in a relationship with a man who doesn't respect his partner, and puts his partner, and all of his kids last, and runs off to do everyone else's bidding. (Looking at the asshole that is Jason Morgan on GH. Always up Sonny and Carly's asses, and their kid's asses, too! But when it comes to his ex-wife and his son's, it's like, who? F him.)

[blues-valentine]

i knew the nikolina agenda was going to be strong after s2 but for us that read the books and kos is like….

They definitely handled the pairing better on the show because they removed the harassment from him and they didn’t include that non-consensual kiss that he forced on her just to make a point about an engagement. The Mal and Nikolai banter was a lot more enjoyable now that they removed his classist tendencies. Which I so called they would remove for him.

Still pissed they removed canon racist behavior from him but made Zoya, a character of color, out to be racist to Alina on Season 1, something that wasn’t canon in the books at all. Anyways.

I understand why people would ship them and I do love their friendship because ultimately he does care about Alina (and Mal). But for those that read the books we know better. Alina is not in love with him, that much was clear. She is fond of him and finds him charming but beyond that is not romantic love. I do feel that with time she might have fallen in love with him but Mal is literally her true love. Nikolai was not in love with Alina either but rather what she represents for Ravka. He also wanted to prove his mother wrong about marrying for love and not for duty. A part of him was trying to convince himself. He does end up loving someone deeply and I hope we get to see them explore Zoyalai and also his friendship with Alina and Mal because that’s ultimately what it is. Nikolai knows that Mal is the love of her life and he helps them archive their happily ever after while he also gets to live his own love story in Zoya.