shipping meme, day 16
What is the absolute worst pairing?
Sasuke/Sakura, Naruto
However crabby I may seem on the topic, it's not actually common for me to hate a pairing. I dislike pairings because they have dynamics I dislike, and I don't begrudge fans whose opinions differ on the topic. My world is not a darker place because people ship Hermione/Snape in secluded corners of the internet.
But the main reason I can't bring myself to hate Hermione/Snape is because no one believes it's a healthy, functional relationship that serves as the Platonic ideal of romance. Sasuke/Sakura takes the medal on both counts, which makes it one of very few ships that actually turns my stomach.
Oh, how I wish it didn't. I love Sakura, I love Sasuke, and the theme is so persistently present in the manga that I can't avoid it. But it has everything I dislike in a love story--relationships based on crush fantasies, girls giving up everything for love while boys don't give up shit, stark imbalances of power, girls being innate healers who can save broken douchebags from themselves with the Power of Feminine Nurturing. This relationship was shallow as fuck when it was introduced, and hearing Sakura scream for Sasuke every time they got into a skirmish made it less believable that her love would develop into something mature and deep. The fact that everything I like about Sakura vanishes the second she looks at Sasuke just makes it worse.
I have no problem with the relationship as long as it's presented as a teenage crush. But the fact that she offered to betray her village so that she wouldn't have to say goodbye to the boy she liked is treated as romantic. People think it's sweet and touching that she'd go to such lengths to save him, even though they clearly don't work. Sakura deserves better than someone who can't be in a healthy relationship with anyone, and Sasuke deserves better than someone who squashes down her fighting instinct every time she talks to him.
the other days