#just random stuff that comes up in my mind and stuff

[whysperingwoods]

I've had to block the "tarot reading" and "pick a card" and "pendulum reading" tags because otherwise the witchblr tag is completely unusable. I wish there was a way to stop those posts from showing up altogether instead of showing up but saying "this post is hidden". I also wish I could mute users without blocking them. I don't want to see AI generated crap constantly and the same correspondences posted over and over but I also don't necessarily want to ban this person from seeing my content (if there are ways to do this please let me know, I was off tumblr for a long time).

I also ran into the problem when starting to use this blog again of feeling like I needed to explain every single detail anytime I made a post, but even still someone will come onto it with an "um actually" and I feel the need to constantly justify myself with "this is MY practice and how EYE do things after 15+ years", like I can't explain 15 years of practice every single time and how I arrived at doing things a certain way.

I decided this year I'm just not doing educational posts anymore altogether. If someone has questions then I'm happy to help, and when I see questions I feel like I can contribute to I answer them, but I ended up spending so much time agonising over the perfect wording and making sure every single detail is covered so extensively that it ended up making me hate writing.

It's funny going over my posts from four years ago, there were so many actual discussions in the community and the witchblr tag was full of people just sharing their practices and talking about different methods and techniques. There was still fighting of course but it was a different kind I guess?

And there is so much constant virtue signalling it's becoming unbearable. Every few posts is calling out x behaviour or y behaviour but like I'm in the witchblr tag every day, and never see those behaviours being called out actually happening. Half the time I suspect people are making up something to be mad about or they say some ragebait thing on another site and they're posting it like it's a regular occurrence.

I think the leaning further and further into the realm of "you don't have to do anything to be a witch, as long as you feel like one" has done the community some damage. I understand this was meant to be inclusive, but at some point if you've never made a loaf of bread in your life, can you call yourself a baker? There does need to be some element of practice beyond reblogging aesthetic images in the name of a deity (I would argue that makes one more of a devotee than a practitioner?). How one practices is entirely personal, but "practice" implies there is some doing.

Maybe this is what folks are trying to do with the #advwitchblr tag? It's unfortunately still very slow moving, but I'm hoping more and more people catch on to using it. This is also why I made the Witchcraft Discussion community as an alternative to the Witchcraft community so it was focused more on discussion than memes and random stuff unrelated to witchcraft, but so far I'm the only person posting there.

Anyway sorry for rambling on your post but this has also been on my mind for a while lol

excuse my complaining but

i wish the witchcraft tags on here weren't clogged up with tarot asks and selfies and AI generated crap

bring back spells and rituals and masterposts and tarot deck reviews and people learning how to do magic for more than the aesthetic and views

please im begging at this point lmao

[gothicfied]

can you write for thanos x reader where the reader is really stoic and calm, not mean, but just does not express much emotion and it drive thanos crazy trying to impress her and get a reaction? Thanks :)

Hard to get - Thanos / Player 230

Pairing: Thanos / Player 230 x calm!reader

Summary: Thanos will do anything to get a reaction out of you, even if that means he has to put himself in danger.

Warnings: Mentions of death/dying, blood, gunshots, killing (typical squid game stuff), other than that it's just fluff (kinda lol), not proof read (english isn't my first language)

Word count: 971 Words

A/N: hii, I hope this is alright and what you had imagined!

When you woke up in a random bed, in a new environment with random people, you almost started to have a panic attack. Usually, you don't really show your emotions, you just keep them locked inside you and let a war rage in your mind while appearing to be calm about a situation you can't be calm about. After the initial shock wore off, you made your way to the middle of this area filled with beds, where other contestants or players with different numbers started complaining to the guards, that wore pretty ridiculous outfits you thought, about where their belongings went and other stuff.

After getting to know the rules of this.. 'game' you guys were playing for money, as everyone including you was here because of huge debt or money problems, you were led to the first mini game. Everyone went up the stairs while upbeat music was playing in the background, the fun colors of this environment stinging in your eyes. Suddenly, you hear someone whistle behind you: "Señorita!" The voice of a man seemingly called out to you. Without stopping, you turned your head around to face a purple-haired guy with a shit eating grin on his face. "Wow, what is a pretty thing like you doing here?" Without giving him a reaction, you just shrugged and went on, feeling your legs grow tired of climbing these stairs.

"What? You don't know?" Player 230, the numbed on his chest, seemed relentless. "Well, yeah, I obviously know. You do too, we're all in here because of one reason." you answered him, matter-of-factly, not giving him the time to speak to his face. "Have I already told you how pretty you are?" This guy's flirting techniques weren't really that great. He continued to shower you with compliments, to which you mostly didn't reply or at most said "Thank you."

When arriving at the top, every player had to take a picture in front of some screens. Conventionally, Thanos, as you gathered his alias was from others who seemed to know him, was waiting in the queue next to you, now talking with.. his fans? You didn't quite get it, but apparently he was some sort of rapper you had never heard of. A few players wanted to take a group photo with him and when he said yes, he looked at you, still waiting in line for your turn. "Hey, you there. Come on, you can be in the picture, too." Thanos said, signaling you to come over to him. Raising your eyebrows slightly, you just waved it off, with it now being your turn to take a picture.

Entering the open-roof arena of sorts, with the femald voice explaining the rules of Red-Light-Green-Light to the players, you found yourself next to Thanos, again. "So, you don't know who I am?" You just said 'no' and looked at him expectantly, like you wanted him to explain who he was. It seemed to annoy him. The man went on about how he was a rapper, even demonstrating that to you with some cheesy rap he came up on the spot, until he was interrupted by some guy, yelling that everyone who'd move during red light would die. How drastic.

"What is he talking about?" Thanos whispered, but you didn't show a reaction and rather listened to what Player 456 had to say. It started to really get on Thanos' nerves that he couldn't even coax one reaction or emotion out of you. No matter gow charming he was or how many questions he asked, you remained aloof. He kind of liked it.

"Must be on drugs, huh?" Another attempt of him to talk to you, to which you shushed him. The man in up front was talking about how you'd get shot if you moved, that being disqualified just meant they'd execute you. You didn't want to believe him, like, this sounds too crazy to be real, right? Yet still, you were determined to follow his directions. Everyone lined up on the white line, the mechanic girl doll thing staring you down. It was big and scary, also mysterious in some way. How would they shoot eliminated players? Would she shoot lasers out of her eyes like in some kind of film?

You found out pretty quickly that it was just guards who did it, as one girl panicked when a bee landed on her and that set off a chain reaction with others trying to run for their lives, just to get it taken away from them. You were floored. Splatters if blood landed on your face from one woman being shot right in front of you, Thanos not far away experiencing the same. Player 456 was screaming everyone to either run or freeze, depending on if it was red light or green light, guiding the remaining players through the game quickly.

Thanos and you had been locking eyes everytime you were supposed to freeze, him sending you a small wink everytime he saw your disturbed face. Unbeknownst to you, to everyone, he had taken some kind of pill out from his cross necklace, some kind of drug, and was now bouncing all over the place, like this wasn't serious. He reveled in the fact that he was able to get a reaction out of you now: you were mortified everytime he did something even remotely dangerous. Aww, you cared for him!

Going as far as pushing other players over, getting them killed, you concluded that this guy was mental.

The last few seconds of the given time were scary. You had made it over the finish line, saving yourself from a gruesome death, just like Thanos.

"Glad to see you on this side, Señorita. Would've been too bad if I couldn't have seen your pretty face ever again."

[hauntedrain]

Frat boy!Luigi x gothic!reader hc???

Frat! LM x Gothic! Reader

✮▹A/N: I hope this is good. unfortunately Its been a while since I've written anything. Also this feels kind of vague because of all the different subcultures and stuff, but also general reader yk? anyways enjoy! NOT EDITED.

Okay, I'm starting this by saying that personally, I don't see frat Lu as some typical jerk frat boy (I mean, look at the photos; it looks like a bunch of nerds hanging out), but anyway...

He would be immersed in your style and interests. He wouldn't necessarily act like it's abnormal but most certainly would be new to him.

He would sit and listen to music with you, trying to learn about the music culture, and might even make a playlist so he can play that for you when you guys hang out.

Would wait and sit while you do your makeup, especially if you're doing trade goth, and ask you about literally every step of what you're doing and why. (Lowkey asking too many questions, but you can't bring yourself to be annoyed because he's just being curious and cares.)

He would be like those cats in the "I'm a girl with a boy cat doing ---". He's just enjoying the entertainment. I also think that frankly you could convince him to let you do his make up or let him try to do yours for fun (whether it turns out good or not is a completely different story however).

I think in regards to the first time bringing you around his frat brothers, he would be mildly shy about it simply because he knows that in general, the relationship dynamic brings attention. However, he would assure you that he isn't embarrassed or ashamed about anything.

Along with that, after establishing the relationship, I think he would kind of flaunt you around in general but definitely to his frat brothers and friends. He's all about you, and he wants others to know that.

This also goes back to how he and his frat brothers seem like just a bunch of nerds and them asking him how he started dating you and in general being baffled that he was able pull you???? And He's just like "no clue, I'm also confused."

Lowkey concerned if you guys are too different and if you would prefer someone similar to you and your style. If you have friends similar to your style and take the same interests as you, he would be kind of nervous when you're talking about something or someone he knows nothing about and start to form the idea that you would prefer him to like and be different so you guys could also talk about that stuff together.

Genuinely believe that he would ask on a random night while getting ready to go to bed after hanging out with friends if you think you guys are too different and if you would prefer someone more similar to you. This would then in turn lead you to explain that you don't mind being different in style and interests and he has nothing to worry about. But you do offer him the option if he wants, that you can show and teach him certain things, and he can do the same for his selective interests.

When getting ready, you would ask for his opinions on outfits and make him rank them. I think he would enjoy this sooooo much; he likes the different styles, layers, accessories, etc. However, at the same time, I think he would be stumped at what to choose because all are great outfits, and he doesn't seem to see what you say when you dislike or criticize the outfit.

Would like it when your makeup rubs off on him. I see him blushing if he realizes your lipstick or base comes off on him and getting all giddy about it. (He would also pretend he didn't realized it was there and keep it on until someone else mentions it.)

Would take you to frat parties and make you stay close to him to ensure that, 1.) you're safe, but 2.) that no one tries to take you from him. (low-key protective)

Gives you pet names that other people may find weird. I can see him using "my bat" and "my raven," to name a few. I also think along with the pet names he would reference couples in movies and TV for you guys. my personal favorite (obviously by my PFP) but Morticia and Gomez.

⭒❃.✮:▹A/N: sorry its not a lot! I have school and other requests to work on but still please send requests or thoughts, I will make a formal posts for requests if need be but just send them in my inbox for now! much love <3

[kuromitos]

I have more shit to say about batcest shippers!

[ This is the last time I promise ( -д-) ]

This is more directed at brudick shippers but the thing i hate about the most is that they try to get on this metaphorical soapbox, and say how the their ship is better and valid due to the fact that's "queer history." When in reality, they're nothing more than a bunch of liars, and just saying, random stuff to support their weird gross ship.

Stuff like how dick was supposed to be closer in age to bruce, how their relationship was always romantic and stuff like that, which is false.

Since his debut, Dick grayson was always portrayed as a young boy, and his relationship with bruce was always familial, not romantic. Yes, they weren't father and son during that time, but they did have a familial relationship, which was more akin to brothers, so they still had a familiar relationship.

And yes, I will admit I'm not gonna pretend that there weren't certain moments within the comics that did raise some eyebrows in today's standards, but that was also a scenes just happening in comics in general. Did we all just forget about the comic where supergirl fell in love with her with her horse?

What about the storyline, where green lantern falls in love with a fourteen year old alien girl who had the ability to physically age up her body to an adult form but was still mentally a child?

That storyline is still infamous today to the point that people don't like how jordan because of it, even though they reckoned it years ago. It's still creepy, but I digress.

There are so many storylines and moments that happen in comics that are so weird, but we just chalk it up to it being a certain time period. And I feel that's also what's going on, with the batman comics back then.

Another thing these shippers have come to believe that batman and robin are the reason why the comic code authority came into existence. Which is not completely true.

There are many reasons why the comic code came into fruition during that time, but they act like batman and robin is the sole reason why.

One of the main reasons mainly deal with the fact of censorship within comics and of course the corruption of children, which brings in their major evidence as to why they believe this is the book called seduction of the innocent.

If you don't know what the book seduction of the innocent is it's mainly a book by a doctor who believe that comics was turning children into delinquents and how parents should keep it away from their children and one of the passage within the books talks about how batman and robin are turning children gay.

Keep in mind, This was the 1950s where a man can stand next to another man, and people will automatically give them the side eye so....

Also, just a small piece of information is the man who wrote the book. He lied about that. He interviewed some boys asking him about the comic that they had read, and few of them happen to be gay and claim that they like to read superman comics with another indie title But for some reason, he decided to lie and claim that they was reading batman comics , and they wanted to be robin so they can have sex with him. He also lied about Wonder Woman and how she makes young girls want to hate men, so there's also that.

I'm going to post a link to a post that goes into more detail about this it also plays another detail I particularly dislike these types of shippers, which is how they only care about queer history when it benefits them. It comes with evidence about this man lying.

Which brings me to my final point that i'm going to make on here is they like to contradict themselves a lot.

These people are the same people who state that fiction isn't real and These are fictional characters so they can do whatever they want with them, but at the same time they want to get mad at people call them homophobic For not liking this ship due to being queer history and have an impact on queerness in comics. When we know that's not true.

How does that work? 2 things can't be true i At the same time if it doesn't make sense. either fiction affects reality, or it doesn't. You don't actually care if this has any impact within queer comics. You just care that this validates your weird a** ship between family members.

And that's incredibly irritating.

Also I feel I shouldn't have to mention this, but I am not antiship, I generally do not care what ship you're into, unless it's like Pedo or incest.

Even then, I'm not gonna do anything to you. I'm just gonna read about how you are a weirdo and call it a day, probably even block you.

I personally believe no one should be harassed, doxs, or anything horrible happened to them due to them for liking a ship unless you're being an asshole to everyone.

That's why I don't personally like these shippers. Because they want to feel mentally superior to everyone else and act like that, they are better than everyone else here.

They wanna blame the most random stuff on why they're getting hate when, in reality, that has nothing to do with their hatred. Like they wanna blame purity culture on why they're getting hate.

Purity culture??

in this fandom??

the fandom that is known for sexualizing their female characters?? The fandom that has sexualized Dick grayson so much that he's reduced nothing more to his a**??

Purity Culture has nothing to do with why you've been hated.

You are hated because you are making shit up for a ship.

You are hated because you are shipping a father and son and turning every single moment they spend together as romantic and basically sexualizing a wholesome relationship between men.

you are hated because you say out of pocket stuff to defend yourself like "adopted family aren't real families"

You are hated because you try to act better than everyone when you are no better than the average person on the internet

It has nothing to do with purity culture or or homophobia, or whatever random excuse you're trying to come up with. you are hated Cause you are generally a weird person that has weird taste in ships. That is it

I'm officially done talking about these people. Because if I feel if I do I will start to hate the fandom in general, so i'm done and I will, I'll try my best not to talk about them anymore.

BYE(*^▽^)/★*☆♪

[noirsdoll]

Love love your Dad Curly x Daughter Reader stuff! What if one day Curly gets a gf (it could be Anya or some random woman) and the Reader comes up with a plan to break them up (what that actual plan is can be up to you). Can't have another woman take her daddy away after all..

need this... reader running everything behind the scenes and curly is just oblivious to it all!! this is so long i got lost in the sauce LMAO cw for father/daughter incest and dubcon! also smut!

Your dad has a new girlfriend.

He met her at a ski slope, he was impressed by her skills— like skiing is hard. You can ski too, you just choose not to, you're better suited to things other than fucking skiing. She’s just a loser.

As you've gotten older, you've noticed that Curly's choices in who he dates have begun to bear more and more resemblance to you. But their personalities are trash— whiny, inconsiderate, not good fits for your dad who is sweeter than honey.

Whatever. This new girlfriend will just be another phase. They only last a handful of months before Curly breaks them off, quietly admitting to you a week later that it was because they were nothing like Mom. Then he looks at you like he's staring through you, like you're a shopping list he's memorizing before his next trip.

You expected she would be the same as the others. Problem is, this relationship is approaching a year steady, and you're getting annoyed. Why hasn't he gotten bored like he usually does? Are you the only one that can see through all her inane bullshit? You need to do something to stop this. And here it is, the final nail in the coffin:

She keeps trying to make you call her Mom.

You almost threw up the first time you heard it. "Stop calling me that, you know you can just call me Mom, right?" Your blood has never boiled hotter, you wanted to slap her.

But you didn't, because Curly was right there, beaming his brightest fucking smile. "Aw, there's my two girls getting along."

Two girls. Your stomach turned over and you promptly excused yourself. As you stared at your reflection in the mirror, so similar to hers that she could be confused for a skinwalker, the plan formed in your mind.

It wasn't difficult, really. One easily-guessable phone password later and you were in. Changing your saved name in her phone to a man's name with far too many heart emojis, you started a small conversation between her and you.

When the three of you are watching a movie, you send her a sneak text and her phone lights up. You try to hide your grin. "What's that?"

Curly, being the gentleman he always is, reaches to snag the phone for her. "Oh, I can read it for you...," his voice trails off as he stares at the message. "Babe, who is this?"

You watch from the corner of the couch as the fight ensues. She's bawling her eyes out, blackened tears soaking her face as Curly just looks at her like his soul has been leeched from his body. You feel bad for hurting him, but it was a necessary evil. Now he knows better than to go looking for someone else— you're right here.

And then she's gone, nothing but her irritating perfume as her memory. Curly collapses onto the couch with a sigh, running a hand down his face. "Sorry you had to see that, honey."

"It's fine, Dad," you loom closer, a hand on his thigh, "she was a bitch anyway."

He looks at you, confused. "Who told you to talk like that?" Curly's eyes are red with unshed tears. You wipe them away for him.

“I’m just being honest. What, you didn’t notice either?”

He looks at you, then away, pursing his lips. Curly has a habit of that, dismissing his opinion, bending and folding himself into something that mindlessly agrees because that is easiest.

You take that as an invitation to get closer, practically in his lap. "Are you okay?" You smooth his hair out of his face.

Curly sighs again, less laboured. "I just wish your mother was still here. Everything was easier when she was around."

"I look just like her, don't I?" Your old photos of her say just as much.

"Oh, yes," he smiles distantly, "you look more like her every day. I just worry that--"

"Then fuck me."

His eyes blow wide in disbelief. "What's gotten into you?"

The radius between you is so short that you can feel his warm breath against your skin, the only thing that’s separating you two is a thin layer of air and clothes. “You don’t want to?” He must want to, his dating history points towards it, the way he looks at you, everything.

Curly squeezes his eyes shut with a held-back groan. “You can’t just ask me things like that, sweetheart.” He looks at you with weathered eyes. “It’s wrong, it’s—“

But then you’re kissing him and suddenly it isn’t wrong, because he kisses back with just as much fervour. Curly’s hands swallow your waist up and he tugs you against him. You’re taking advantage of him in a vulnerable state and you could not give less of a shit, because he’s grinding you against his cock.

Your hands scramble for his pants, you finally have him, after years and years of scaring away every girl that tried to take your dad away, it’s all paid off because you’re the one getting stretched open around him. He eases himself into you. You’re so full of cock you swear his tip is nudging your brain.

Curly rests his forehead on your shoulder, fucking up into you as your nails drag along his back for purchase. Each experienced cant into your pussy has tears budding in your eyes. You think he says your mother’s name at some point, but you’re too lost in the moment to care.

You slowly move with him, finding a rhythm that relieves that lifelong ache in your gut— an innate pull towards him. The unhurried movement of your hips feels so good, heat fizzling up your spine and erupting in sparks behind your eyes.

You kiss him open-mouthed, one part moaning and the other sobbing as he has you how he wants, tugging you up and down his cock, stuffing you over and over again.

Curly cums with a gasp, his hips pressed firmly to yours as he buries every last spurt deep inside you. Instantly, he realizes his mistake, pulling away, his blue eyes filled with horror.

“I didn’t mean to— fuck, I didn’t—“

And you just shush him and tell him it’ll all be fine, that you’ll take care of it. He won’t ever need to think for himself again if he stays with you.

[sccrim]

CROSSING THE LINE !

warnings : ( angst , heartbreak , tears , breaking up )

you were so in love with jj that you never cared how fast he went to you after kie and him broke up. she was your best friend until a fall out happened between yall. after a month of you and jj together, all you thought about was her.

you and jj were sitting on the beach after a party. you guys just wanted to spend time together. you loved those days where it was just you guys and he would stare into your eyes as he would tell you how beautiful you were. his soft hands on your cheek. his fingers playing in your hair. the way he would soft kiss you and say he loved you.

you were so in love with jj. even before kie and him got together, he was someone you wanted. after so long you and kie got into a fight over how she knew you loved him and she still took him. you hated her. you never wanted to look at her again. but when she ran to you balling her eyes out about how jj and her broke up, you were there. aside from the fight, you felt like you had to be there.

that was your best friend. key word though, was. you couldn’t believe how they really broke up. leaving her home, you spot jj. the blonde boy with a beer in his hand and a joint in the other. you made sure he got home safely when he confessed to you about why he broke up with kie. it was too much for him, the arguments, how they were so different. he just couldn’t take it anymore.

you had made the mistake to comfort the boy. causing him to sleep under you. maybe just maybe you wish this was different. you wished you had told him way before kie confessed her feelings. if you never had to help sarah with wheezie maybe you could have made it in time to confess yours.

a week after, jj confessed his feelings for you. you were actually happy about it but after a while you started to have this feeling that you were his rebound. you wanted to not believe it but after a while it was getting to you. everytime you guys did something kie was in the back of your mind. it was the constant did he do this with her? did he do that with her? you couldn’t take it anymore.

"can i ask you something?" you broke the silence. "sure?" he softly said. "do you think of her?" wrong mistake.

"what do you mean?"

"you know jj. do you think of kie?"

"no?"

"you’re lying. i know when you lie. no need to lie to me. i get it, you barley broke up with her and now you’re with me. doing all the things you used to do with her." you started tearing up. you wanted the truth.

"okay. sometimes i do, but it doesn’t meant anything."

"but it does."

"how?"

"she was someone you loved first. she was your first everything. if i never found you the way i did, or even brought you back to your house, we wouldn’t be here right where we are." this was it. this is what you didn’t want. "y/n…"

"i always thought of these moments, you and me together, happy. doing random stuff couples do. being able to hold your hand and kiss you without the weird stares. i dreamt of this but this—this here isn’t what i dreamt of." you cried. jj staring at you, not knowing what to say.

"me and kie stopped being friends but why does it feel like i crossed the line on this one. i think of her every time we do something. like is this where you would take her when you guys would leave the group? is this where you guys kissed. are the words you say to me the same thing you tell her? as much as i love you and want this, this isn’t how i want it."

this broke your heart. you never wanted to let go but this was something he had to do. "i’m sorry n/n. i’m sorry you feel this way. i’m sorry for my actions. i never meant to hurt you or anything. i understand you feel like you crossed the line. i do love you and i hope in the future we will come together again."

"i love you jj and maybe in another life time we'll start over." and with that you ran home, crying—broken of how it ended.

ps: got inspo from another blog a while back, i forgot the @ but if i find it ill def add it & pls my love if you see this pm me so i can give you inspo credit !!

 sccrim — all rights reserved. please do not modify, repost , translate , or plagiarise my content.

[tacitusauxilium]

headcanon 001/??? || about her Personas || whenever Fuuka is trying to focus on finding people or shadows, one of two things happen: she either closes her eyes and clasps her hands together to focus, or she has her eyes open and staring out pass everyone—it depends on what senses she is trying to use the most. sometimes, she tries to focus on her friends personas to sense them out—just cause she wants to make sure they are okay. after a while, Fuuka is able to sense whenever someone isn’t feeling under the weather even though it takes a month or two to sense someone’s persona.

when Chidori infiltrates Fuuka’s mind with Medea, she could easily sense where she was as well as her feelings for Junpei. hence why she gets so emotionally charged when Junpei is shot--granted, she is friends with him, but that scream she did in the game: that could possibly be a mixture of emotions from both her and Chidori. with Lucia, she can only gauge people’s wellness. with Juno, she can sense where people are, where any and all shadows are (gets stronger from p3 to arena to Ultimax), and can control how strong she wants Oracle to be (as well as trying to hurt the enemy or heal her allies). if Fuuka is unwell, she is unable to do any of those things, no matter if she has Lucia or Juno.

[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.

[lisxdumbr]

The whole "if a person is mad at you it's their responsibility to tell you" thing just made me realize how fucked my situation is. Like just. woah

[quibbs126]

Okay because my mind’s still on the subject, I have a bit of a weird question, but I just want an answer

So like, my favorite type of drama in series is usually familial drama, most often ones between parents and their children. And also usually, those dramas that I love are specifically between father and son

And now I’m wondering, what are parent-child dramas/dynamics that involve a female character usually like? As in, mother-son, father-daughter, or even mother-daughter? And additionally, are they as interesting as father-son dynamics? Because I feel like I don’t see nearly enough of them, or at least, they never give me that same amount of intrigue or they just aren’t as focused on

By which I mean specifically in my context, would they be interesting in an action based series? I have a particular taste, namely that I like my series (mostly this applies to shows, I’m a bit more flexible with games) to be more action focused, or at least have some fantastical elements to it, or else I don’t care. I’m not interested in soap opera kind of drama, I want something that would fit in an action based show

Sorry, again this is probably a weird request (and to be honest I really don’t expect answers, posts of mine like these usually get little to no attention), but it’s on my mind. I feel like I see so many interesting father-son dynamics and conflicts, but I never see one that involves a woman, at least not when it comes to parent-child dynamics, and not ones nearly as interesting

[pa-pa-plasma]

okay i just marathoned the entirety of ATLA live action & i might do an actual review of it explaining my thoughts more in depth, but the TLDR version basically boils down to this:

if you want to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender, just go watch the 2005 cartoon

[drawnecromancy]

Nine People You'd Like To Get To Know Better

Tagged by @pizza-hats-of-the-world-1882 !! (hope you don't mind me using my main instead of irianeth to do this LOL) :D

3 ships : Uh. Mmmh. Uhhh. The only things that come to mind r remnants from my time i the Elder Scrolls fandom - The Hero of Kvatch/Martin Septim, the Last Dragonborn/Miraak, and. Baurus/Captain Steffan they're random fucking Blades from Oblivion don't ask me why I'm shipping them.

First ship : Man I have no idea. Statistically it was probably either Ewilan and Salim back when I read the Ewilan books as a kid, or a ship from the Knights of Emerald although I couldn't tell you who.

Last song : According to Spotify, it was Let the world burn by Chris Grey. According to my phone, it was The City Gates by Jeremy Soule.

Currently reading : Life in a medieval village by Frances & Joseph Gies. I am very slow. It's not bad, it's interesting, I just can't fucking focus on shit.

Last movie : Haven't watched movies since the other time i visited my parents sooo it's still A Better Tomorrow by John Woo lol

Currently craving : Beer, which is a terrible idea. Luckily I am in pyjamas, and i have commitments tomorrow which means I won't give in.

Tagging : uhhh I don't think I know 9 people who are chill with being tagged. Anyway i'm bothering @logarithmicpanda @psychofullmoonwerewolf @lee-thee-bee @strawberry-possum @isabellebissonrouthier @nerdlemons

[apologetic-artist]

Okay, random headcannon and lore tid bit for the people on my space ship:

Tony is afraid of dinosaurs. One of the biggest reasons behind this is that when the "experiments" were happening, he accidentally traveled way too far back in time and witnessed a T-Rex in person, towering over him. It took her a bit to figure out how the whole time travel thing worked and swore she'd never step foot into the Cretaceous, or any time with dinosaurs, again. It's a shame Colin is a dino nerd(in my cannon), huh?

So this means Tony probably has a deathly fear of Barney the Dinosaur(this is for the funnies, but it makes sense, trust)

Also, I'm making a dinosaur oc, so I fear Tony's gotta figure out how to deal with those creatures again.

[bucephaly]

I keep seeing posts of people saying that a term transphobes stole and are using incorrectly to be transphobes is a Horrible Transphobic Term and Anyone who uses it is transphobic and it's Not Real and Entirely Not True when it's literally an actual anthropological term that has studies about it and is actually very useful for Everyone to think about, cis and trans, and be critical of. I hate seeing people respond to dumb hate by entirely writing off everything even remotely connected to the twisted shit bigots use when the shit the bigots are stealing and twisting is still like... a thing?

[astro-b-o-y-d]

I clearly need to talk about it more, because it's one of my favorite game franchises of all time

[kyouka-supremacy]

Tries to buy something from Ama/zon (tears hair) (vomits blood) (breaks all their bones) (faints to the ground) (starts convulsing) (drops dead)