He's fascinated with her because she terrifies him in a number of ways. One, her general tendency to upset everything he thought he knew about girls. Two, the fact that she is, for all intents and purposes, Sakura without any sort of long-term emotional baggage that would prevent her from bashing in hsi skull if he ever broke her heart. Three, and most importantly, the fact that he is absolutely, crazily, irrevocably in love with her, and he has no idea why. The whole concept of love is scary to Sasuke because for all his experiences, it seems to him to be this ridiculous, irrational and dangerous thing, kind of like nitroglycerin, where it could help with your heart condition but could also explode in your face more often than naught. And he sees people throwing around love and the word 'love' like Superballs, and he's like, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING THAT IS DANGEROUS STUFF YOUNG MAN."
But Winry also isn't Sakura. She's a bit more tomboyish, more forceful. Sakura still has that slight tendency to let her feelings get hurt too easily, which Sasuke learned to exploit a lot back in his bastard days. Winry, by contrast, is the girl across the street raised in a house full of brothers: "What, you just hit me in the metaphorical gut? *SMACKS A BITCH IN THE FACE WITH A WRENCH*" Her emotional constitution's a little stronger, or she's at least better at hiding the fact that she's hurt. I kind of see her like the girl trying to rescue the wounded dog: if she gets bit, she grimaces, wraps her hand in a bandage, and persists until she can get that mutt some medical freaking attention.
And that's what Sasuke needed. Sakura was a little too soft on him; she tried the Tough Love thing, but Sasuke knew her for a long time and probably didn't respect her on that level enough for it to work (that's not to be read as "he doesn't respect her," by the way, because he does, just in a different way), and she felt bad for him after learning a lot about that factors that made him what he is. But he didn't need coddling--the period of his life where that would have helped in any way was already over, and new tactics were necessary. Winry figured out that what he needed was to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into redemption.
Thoughts on Sakura:
Most of them were stated above. There may have been a brief window of opportunity where they could have gotten together and made it work, but either Sakura was too busy trying to prove she was over her silly infatuation (as opposed to a healthy mutual understanding), or Sasuke was too busy pushing people away and hating himself/basically everyine else, and they missed it. Now, it's just kind of like, Sasuke recognizes that without Sakura, he would have crashed and burned long ago. And of course, he feels guilty about how he treated her, and he has to be careful that he doesn't default to his Guilt Reaction, which is to convince himself that because he is so awful, he doesn't deserve friends, and for these friends' Own Good, he pushes them away, making him feel More Guilty, causing him to behave Even More Coldly and Horribly, leading him to ENDLESS ITERATION OF FAIL UNTIL SYSTEM CRASHES.
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winterfish
tl;dr liek whoa
Date: 2009-03-03 03:14 am (UTC)Thoughts on Winry:
He's fascinated with her because she terrifies him in a number of ways. One, her general tendency to upset everything he thought he knew about girls. Two, the fact that she is, for all intents and purposes, Sakura without any sort of long-term emotional baggage that would prevent her from bashing in hsi skull if he ever broke her heart. Three, and most importantly, the fact that he is absolutely, crazily, irrevocably in love with her, and he has no idea why. The whole concept of love is scary to Sasuke because for all his experiences, it seems to him to be this ridiculous, irrational and dangerous thing, kind of like nitroglycerin, where it could help with your heart condition but could also explode in your face more often than naught. And he sees people throwing around love and the word 'love' like Superballs, and he's like, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING THAT IS DANGEROUS STUFF YOUNG MAN."
But Winry also isn't Sakura. She's a bit more tomboyish, more forceful. Sakura still has that slight tendency to let her feelings get hurt too easily, which Sasuke learned to exploit a lot back in his bastard days. Winry, by contrast, is the girl across the street raised in a house full of brothers: "What, you just hit me in the metaphorical gut? *SMACKS A BITCH IN THE FACE WITH A WRENCH*" Her emotional constitution's a little stronger, or she's at least better at hiding the fact that she's hurt. I kind of see her like the girl trying to rescue the wounded dog: if she gets bit, she grimaces, wraps her hand in a bandage, and persists until she can get that mutt some medical freaking attention.
And that's what Sasuke needed. Sakura was a little too soft on him; she tried the Tough Love thing, but Sasuke knew her for a long time and probably didn't respect her on that level enough for it to work (that's not to be read as "he doesn't respect her," by the way, because he does, just in a different way), and she felt bad for him after learning a lot about that factors that made him what he is. But he didn't need coddling--the period of his life where that would have helped in any way was already over, and new tactics were necessary. Winry figured out that what he needed was to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into redemption.
Thoughts on Sakura:
Most of them were stated above. There may have been a brief window of opportunity where they could have gotten together and made it work, but either Sakura was too busy trying to prove she was over her silly infatuation (as opposed to a healthy mutual understanding), or Sasuke was too busy pushing people away and hating himself/basically everyine else, and they missed it. Now, it's just kind of like, Sasuke recognizes that without Sakura, he would have crashed and burned long ago. And of course, he feels guilty about how he treated her, and he has to be careful that he doesn't default to his Guilt Reaction, which is to convince himself that because he is so awful, he doesn't deserve friends, and for these friends' Own Good, he pushes them away, making him feel More Guilty, causing him to behave Even More Coldly and Horribly, leading him to ENDLESS ITERATION OF FAIL UNTIL SYSTEM CRASHES.
WHOA HANG ON I BROKE THE COMMENT LIMIT HOLY CRAP