I suppose what I enjoy about this story (apart from being a non-romance, Sakura centric story - I seem to have a thing for female protagonists, who are often unexplored in a lot of fandoms) is Sakura's development.

Yes, she is a traitor through cowardice (a real ninja loyal to Konoha would have allowed herself to die for her village). She's pretty pathetic at the start. But trial by fire and all of that. Through her story of survival, while being constantly put in situations that see her life threatened, she changes, becoming stronger, more confident and more disillusioned. Her interactions with her team (especially Kakashi) and other various people (like Orochimaru), are done really well in my opinion. Most of the characters in general are written very interestingly, and slightly different to how you usually see them portrayed (or at least, put into different situations so you see different aspects of them).

Generally, I've found the whole story quite refreshing. It's quite unique in the fandom (at least, from what I've read) on several fronts.

 

I guess what I'd like to know before I read any further is how the traitor angle is handled. Does she stay as one, does she eventually stop, does she get found out, if yes how do people around her react, etc etc. If that's handled badly and I've already wasted hours of my life on it, I'd be pretty fucking mad.

PM if answer is too spoilery.

 

Spoiler

We just got to the point where she got found out and the story is handling it great; Ochi is using it to try and manipulate everyone, the Third is dealing with our in an entirely in character manner, and metaphorical mics are being dropped. Kakashi's characterization is also spot on for how his loyalty to Sakura and feeling that he failed her is warring with her activities

 

For whatever that's worth, I wanted to second that recommendation.

Loyalty is one of my favorite currently updating Naruto fics too.
If you're uninterested in anything that doesn't center around Naruto, you probably won't like this.
I really enjoy Sakura stories though, because they allow so much character building and also a certain freedom in terms of the direction of her development. With Naruto and many other characters, it feels much more constrained, they are fenced in by their signature techniques in a way that early Sakura just isn't.
I guess I just generally like it if someone takes one of the more pathetic characters with potential and makes something of them.

 

By making them even more pathetic than their canon selves?

 

Sakura in canon basically did nothing to deserve where she got to.

- She was a Sasuke fangirl initially with no particularly interesting backstory.
- She basically did nothing against the Demon Brothers
- She did nothing against Haku
- She did nothing during the Forest of Death (apart from briefly protect Naruto and Sasuke when they were unconscious - not even for long either)
- She only had to fight against her friend, Ino, and lost.
- She didn't go with Naruto to find Tsunade, and wasn't involved in the confrontation with Itachi

Then somehow, after the timeskip she gets to be trained by a Sannin and becomes an S-rank nin capable of taking on Akatsuki. Her development in canon was always crap. I find it really annoying when a useless character who suddenly somehow gets portrayed as someone useful just to keep them relevant in the plot.

Loyalty gives her the situations and hardships that actually make for interesting development for her to become an interesting, badass character

 

I agree with all of those. Still, at least canon Sakura was never a traitor. That instantly places her above Loyalty's Sakura.

 

What a great point you raise there Republic, I wouldn't read it if I were you.

You might read something that's actually good in the Naruto fanfiction world and that's not as important as defending an ideology.

 

Sakura gets a lot of flak for being a fangirl and I am like why? Naruto after all was no different than her. She is just a kid and by all means should be forgiven her juvenile interests, like boys. It makes her normal. Its the world she lives in that's fucked up, not her.
Her post-shippuden character arc is something I blame Kishimoto for fucking up. After all the character development she showed in Shippuden, she still somehow ended up as the 12 year old girl she started off as.

 

Cute. Only you're an idiot.

I read the first three chapters. The writing is nowhere near good enough to make me read on despite the pathetic main character, and what the fuck even makes you think that not reading a fanfic with a main character you dislike is somehow wrong?

Go back to lurking.

 

Classy.

I'd agree with you except that most everything written in the Naruto fandom is utter crap, especially the shit thats been linked in the last few pages of this very thread, that you yourself have read and rated, so no it's not about writing quality at all.

Nothings wrong with it I just don't see the point in dragging out a conversation with people over a fanfic your going out of you way to dislike.

Oh well, guess I'm not smart enough to refuse to read a piece of fanfiction because of the main character.

 

1. How does that change his point

2. Then why are you still dragging this shit on

3. it's perfectly acceptable to refuse to read a piece of literature b/c of the main. Character

Edit

I also like how you ignored the whole "read the first three chapters thing"

 

I'd agree with you but I don't like the things you like so I say this isn't about writing quality. Strong argument.

 

I'd say that the difference between Naruto and Sakura is that Naruto makes himself useful and carried his own weight while Sakura generally didn't. It's kind of like a character being a douche is seen as bad but if they're hilarious and a douche then people will overlook it.

 

Naruto is a freak of nature, Sakura isn't. She's normal for the most part and always a little out of her depth.
As for Naruto carrying his own weight... Didn't Sasuke save him from the demon brothers in the first skirmish and actually had to sacrifice himself during the fight against Haku to save him... again?
In the forest of death she was outclassed and outnumbered, yet she fought (kinda pathetically I'll admit) to save her team.

 

It was Naruto's first time out on the job, and Sakura did exactly nothing aside from stand in front of Tazuna and be terrified. In the following fight with Zabuza, Naruto orchestrated the plan to free Kakashi while Sakura did exactly nothing aside from stand in front of Tazuna and be terrified. Then, during the fight with Haku, Naruto did about as much good as Sasuke did until his "death", at which point he pulled out the Kyuubi and beat Haku's ass. Meanwhile, Sakura did exactly nothing. Aside from, you guessed it, stand in front of Tazuna and be terrified.

You can argue a lot of things about Sakura's character in part one, but her ability to pull her own weight in Team 7 is not one of them. She just wasn't a good kunoichi. It was a thing.

 

I like to think I've gotten better over the years.

Anyway, yeah, if you don't like Sakura in general you probably won't like Loyalty a whole lot. There's nothing wrong with it. She was pretty underwhelming in the manga, so I like writing for her in fan fiction because you get a lot of room to make your own story.

 

Overall I think that Loyalty had a very rough start but managed to find its feet in the past seven or so chapters; I tried picking it up a while back and couldn't get into it, but once she struck out solo it got far more interesting. Sakura as a main character makes for a different story than most Naruto fics and I quite enjoy exploring the world from that perspective. If you don't, you don't; no harm or foul.

 

Radical Dreamer! I really really like Loyalty, been reading it for a long time, didnt know you were on here.

I also feel that Sakura is a character with a lot of room to grow in fics, a tabula rasa upon which to scribe. There are actually a lot of these characters in Naruto, many of the Rookie Nine are just 'normal' people with non-overpowered skillsets, and I'd like to see more fics based around them and their lives rather than another 'Naruto trains really hard then blows up the bad guys' fic.

 

I don't see Naruto or Sasuke being freaks as relevant to how useful Sakura was. Naruto's one instance of being useless doesn't equal Sakura's habit of doing so and Sakura's two instances of being useful don't counter her general uselessness. While I wouldn't say that Naruto actually did anything to help Sasuke against Haku(before he was knocked out) he did save Tazuna's family and clean things up after Sasuke went down. Sakura would often sit in the background not even making an effort to help.