the girls go see a horror movie

when people talk about naruto's repression they kind of miss a crucial element which is that it actually makes complete sense.

firstly from the power perspective, simply put, by its very nature he requires repression to function on a most basic level. this is opposite to the sharingan, which thrives on huge displays of emotion. im going to assume that the reason this is missed is because it runs counter to the personality traits each character is known for: the "emotionless, calm and cool" one actually is constantly accessing and expressing the most powerful of emotions, and the "expressive, empathetic and emotionally honest" one is actually warring with letting true emotions come to the surface. comparatively, when you look at starfire and raven from teen titans, you see that their personalities reflect their power. starfire is bright and expressive because thats how she best accesses her powers, and raven is subdued, controlled and calculated in order to control her powers. this means that contrary to popular belief, naruto isnt starfire-- naruto is raven. there are actually a few moments where you are subtly shown just how calculated naruto's displays of emotion are, and how they are reinforced in such a way (context is naruto being saddened that his request for parental affection was rebuffed):

which brings me to my second point: socialization. this part is straightforward. from itachi actively causing and incentivizing hatred and anger, to various mentors/people of influence (eg. kakashi) remaining silent at clear expressions of violent anger-- these negative emotions are not punished or discouraged when it come to the context theyre in. why? they are beneficial to the agenda of various characters. the revenge plot only starts being punished when its disadvantageous to the state. remember that there is a monetary value attached to the murder of itachi uchiha, and this is actually a common way to earn money. when you look at naruto, there is never a single instance when naruto is encouraged or even tolerated for having these emotions. the only exception who does this leaves him due to their own parallel struggle (side note: this is why naruto distinctly says the reason for his obsession is that this person accepted him more than anyone else, given this person is the only one who saw naruto's pain and anger and actually blamed his aggressors for it). naruto, raised implicitly to know that everyone seeks to be a tool of the state, and that in his case this is not just a choice but a requirement for his humanity. iruka's acknowledgment of naruto comes with an indication of possession, implying conditionality. people like kakashi, hiruzen, and others in positions of influence witness the abuse he faces, and ignore it or groom him into accepting the idea that he should appeal to his abusers for eventual acceptance. naruto meets gaara, someone with the same condition as him, but with radically different circumstances. whereas naruto's condition symbolically papers over his pain over time, gaara's is self-protective and defensive against his pain. gaara also occupies a position of power as the member of a royal family, and has siblings who are afraid of him but do hold some level of affection towards him. gaara's feelings of loneliness, while rational, come from a different place than naruto's. for gaara, he is surrounded by community that he doesnt know how to access. naruto has no community, he needs to find a way to forge one, but even when he does it is superficial. this dynamic is repeated in his introduction to killer bee, who from an early age is granted family and institutional protection. this isnt to say that the treatment of jinchuriki is ethical or healthy, but that naruto's situation is actually uniquely oppressive. kushina is the closest naruto gets to someone who validates this pain, but she cannot truly relate to him because she is never cripplingly alone (again, not to say her life was not difficult or oppressive or traumatic) and the object of her affections returns those feelings consistently and early on. naruto's trauma is thus compounded over and over by the conflict his need for his specific love interest causes: naruto is only tolerated as a weapon of the state, and in order to be an effective one he needs to love and be loved, but his love interest who allows him these negative emotions is an enemy of the state, leading to further isolation/tension from the state and pushing him towards the love interest.

as such, i actually think naruto does remarkably well at balancing this conflict and tension in a way that keeps him functional. though, obviously and eventually the compounding of his trauma and the repression of his pain is something that needs to be addressed. the only person who is capable of doing this in a way that puts naruto's wellbeing first ("when i saw you in pain...i also felt pain" and the subsequent frequent moments of protection and defence) only reunites with him at the end of the manga, so you never get to see that actually happen.

im assuming the reason why a lot of this is missed is partially because through framing this repression as positive through the majority of the manga (aside from naruto's own personal thoughts), the reader is never really forced to decide how they feel about the concept unlike the inherent conflict of the radical revenge plot. the other part is the grander, underlying allegory in the naruto story which is the varied manifestations AND expressions of trauma. through readers' responses and attention to certain individuals in the naruto story, you can learn how they relate to and look at trauma. to me, naruto himself is actually the example of a trauma victim who shows a brave face and thus isnt recognized. naruto is the woman who puts on makeup to cover the bruises to go to work a day after she is assaulted. who tells herself that she must have some part in it, so it isnt abuse. maybe she grew up in a family where no one answered when she cried, so she learned to keep it moving and stop crying.

lastly, on a greater scale, people also forget a crucial aspect of "yin/yang" is that things with a large properties of one, by nature will also come with a small amount of the opposite. thats what the smaller inner dots represent.

a more surface level example of this is that naruto's face is brash, large, and masculine-- these are yang traits and they are predominant in his appearance. however, looking closely at his rounded cheeks and eyes and the soft nature of his eye colour, there are subtle yin elements. naruto's "positivity" or "optimism" is fueled by a certain level of negative repression.

Only with naruto can he:

reflect on his own backstory to connect with his opponents and see where they're coming from

be called similar by the very villains he's facing first

respond to accusations that he doesn't know what it's like to be lonely, hated, burdened with a mark by thinking of or sharing his story to say yes, I do

use his similarities with others to inspire them to change their pessimistic mindset and let them know there's still hope for them to stop hurting people

and be called a gaslighting manipulative selfish narcissist with the biggest victim complex (even when he acknowledges others have suffered more than him), who doesn't care about anyone other than himself. Reading comprehension has never been lower, or rather, purposefully bad to push an agenda. The mental gymnastics people do to villainize this boy needs to be studied.

so awkward to see sns fans clearly not understand naruto. its tiring. or just reblog shit like that. have fun but i know sasuke would find yall annoying 😓

this close to losing it.

“Naruto is ugly so why would sasuke like him blah blah blah” first WRONG. Yall are so shallow Sasuke would hate you

🙏🏾

Reminder if you hate any of the NH Family and start to bash them then you are not allowed on my posts 🙂 🤚

Let this be a warning cause you'll be Blocked 🚫 ⚠️ 🛑

Same ship,different font(insult)

Did you see the new Naruto Halloween pop up art? Hinata as red riding hood and Naruto as a wolf real cute.

No, but now I have if you meant this one.

DAILY REMINDER

SNS shippers are always getting fed well

Also, I think it's interesting that filler gave Naruto more friends than what he legitimately had as a child, so people insist that Naruto was privileged as if it was some gacha. First of all, that was non canon. Second of all, cool a few kids talked to him; that totally erases the fact that said kid's parents told them not to talk to him, wouldn't let him in their homes, and talked about him to other adults as if he were a wild anime. Because that still totally erases the fact that Naruto lived in a house by himself with no supervision and pretty shitty funds allocated to him, because we see Konoha gave him the bear minimum because even the Kage blamed him for his wife. Yeah, totally erases all of that.

thank you @heavensculled for reminding me to make this post through your post.

okay so.

theres a reason that naruto specifically phrases his double-suicide the way he does: hes answering the question posed to him by itachi.

theres a misconception that naruto is stubborn and stupid. naruto is steadfast in his conviction, but like anyone who truly believes in something, he is always thinking deeper about what his convictions mean and how to get there. he also doesnt discount information or ideology just because of the source-- he is rather literate, likely due to his skills with empathy. we know this because of his conversation with nagato.

so if itachi, someone he knows to be extremely important to what he cares about and knows that person intimately, why would he discount itachi's perspective on it? and by the time he actually makes his proposal, he is now aware of itachi's truth and his true feelings.

recall that actually in the little gay heart-to-heart glitter space (GGS for short), naruto says hes "not gonna lose", not that he doesnt plan on dying. so obviously he has a different goal in mind than "live or die". we also know that before the GGS, this is how "blows are exchanged".

no kill shot from either side. although this was just said...

what can we gather from this? that a certain someone is full of shit, and naruto now has re-confirmed this (just like with "i spared your life on a whim"). but whats the reason naruto cant actually die?

so now naruto knows this. he also knows this after sakura is almost killed:

naruto also knows that an implicit part of the plan involves neverending pain that will only end with death, because its intended to bait all battle from every shinobi in one direction. this is the start of it:

as i previously joked about, naruto's confession/proposal is calling a bluff but also a way of stating his intentions. we know this because in the actual battle he says:

in summary, naruto's lovers' double suicide plan isnt about bending someone to his will. its the opposite. it's his final guess at putting together all the things he has understood until now, and presenting it as his position. this is the stand he is taking. it's a promise, because he never breaks his promises. part of the final battle is a test whether to see whether or not he can keep the promise alive:

why would you be mad at someone youre trying to kill for almost dying? hmm...i wonder.

in any case, naruto's final guess is the right one.

and he proves himself after all, and it's a happy moment...but not just for him.

Might be a hot take but talk no jutsu only pisses off certain people because they probably hate being told that their shit stinks.

Naruto never invalidated anyone's trauma he just held them accountable for their terrible actions regardless. Some of you can't stand the fact that a sad backstory was revealed and you feel righteous anger on the character's behalf but the story doesn't use that to excuse the very wrong things they did.

Neji, Nagato, Obito, Sasuke everybody

Neji had all the right to be mad at his situation but he did NOT have the right to take out his problems on other people who weren't responsible for it, and this can be said for the remaining character as well. Trauma doesn't mean you can't do anything wrong and a lot of you have trouble understanding that.

Talk no jutsu was meant to give hope and second chances to the other characters. If the root of their problems weren't fixed that's solely because of that cash grab sequel and not because naruto is suddenly a professional gaslighting manipulative freak

its always disappointing to find amazing naruto blogs thay clearly understand the story to such an degree thats its amazing! then… theyre anti naruto, sasuke, or sns. it’s genuinely baffling to me, you dont gotta like them but what happened to that media literacy.

its almost embarrassing, i genuinely wonder if they want to be a character’s shield so badly they have to mischaracterise the character’s other half. “naruto wasnt saving sasuke from darkness!!” sasuke was going to kill himself. pretty dark but idk

I will forever be disgusted at how the villagers of Konoha treat Naruto until he becomes a hero.

They're so two-faced

yes, I agree.

they only treated him nicely because he saved their lives, but when he was a kid, they abused him.

I understand that they must've been afraid because Kurama had destroyed their home and took so many lives, but still. that's no reason to treat a child like that.

they never treated Mito that way. and if they were smart, they'd love Naruto because as we've heard from Kushina herself, Kurama needs LOVE, something the villagers didn't give him.

so it's their own fault if Kurama takes over and kills them all.

How it feels loving naruto uzumaki without some loser in your ear trying to convince you he's a bad character or the actual villain