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.

"Yagami Light as a youtuber would probably plagiarise" WRONG Yagami Light is insanely intelligent and looks down on literally every single other human person, he would rather stab himself in the eye than using the works of someone else - someone who can't be anything but beneath him. Pre-Death Note youtuber!Light would make long-ass videos about Everything Wrong With Society with completely unhinged takes about how xyz small innocuous thing is responsible for gang violence with numbers* to back it up.

"Light would plagiarise" get the fuck out of here.

*numbers which he completely twists to his own bias - without even knowing it because he thinks way too highly of himself

take my rpf quiz boy

i really appreciate that the opla gave us something new because this dynamic is so funny to me im gonna cry. zoro is giving lego batman tbh and him and nami are serving CUNT

and are you really okay? are you really okay?

cool kids (and theo)

horror movie twins/gansey's magicians/etc

i think it'd be fun if while the master was on gallifrey and messing around in the matrix he found about abt the confession dial. not the sanitised story that twelve might've told missy during the vault but the actual real 4.5 billion years of the time lords using twelve's own will and testament as a torture chamber story. and he loses it. and he burns gallifrey. except he can't ADMIT that's why he did that he'd look SENTIMENTAL he'd look like an IDIOT so instead he makes up a story about how he found something in the matrix something so horrifying and awful and unbelievable that he HAD to destroy the time lords. and then thirteen ends up on gallifrey and digs a little deeper than he had and manages to reconstruct some of the missing files and when she runs back into him she's like i finally found out why you burned gallifrey and i can't believe they did this to me i can't believe they wiped my whole life and experimented on me and built the time lords from my stolen dna and the master's like yeah while mentally he's like hm i'm sorry they fucking what

Morning after an absolutely innocent sleepover at Harrington's... Billy will totally stay for breakfast.. or will he?

(closeups under the cut)

so we all know astarion was named after the minotaur of greek myth, who, despite widely known as the minotaur (“bull of minos”), was named astarion/asterion (“starry one”) by his mother at birth. asterion the minotaur was trapped in a labyrinth and cursed to devour virginal men and women thrown in there as sacrifices.

”The House of Asterion” is a 1947 short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges that retells the story of the minotaur from the minotaur’s point of view. it’s one of his best early short stories and it’s very short, only 3 pages long. you can read it here.

borges is in my top 3 favorite writers of all time, and “The House of Asterion” obviously deserves to be considered on its own merits, so i feel slightly irreverent connecting this text to a recent video game. but i reread this short story today and there was much to think about, there were many more seeds planted in my mind in terms of interpretations of the minotaur myth and how asterion the minotaur relates to the story of astarion the vampire. i think it will for you, too.

anyway. if you don’t click through and read it, please at least read how it ends, remembering, of course, that the speaker is asterion the minotaur:

:)

some things you can't rewrite.

800 year old martial god causes problems on purpose by kidnapping the heir of a great sect . or something

Some silly class doodles (with the MOUSE GAHHGAH EXPLODES weeps agony)

Hes OKAY guys TRUST ME

Sonia and Komaeda getting along well enough to room together is so good honestly. Even if its mostly bc she takes no shit, Komaeda was still like the only person to stand up for her when Teruteru was trying to get frisky about her naiveté in the prologue/ch1.

I kind of suspect she was acting more unknowing than she really was then, to suit her role as a princess, but he had no way of knowing that then. Plus, if she was aware then, it might be easier for her to recognize the side of him that isn't all hope n murder? Since outside of the killing game he's pretty polite (if self effacing) and generally not down for creepy behavior.

If you've got any more thoughts on these two's interactions postgame, I'd love to hear.

I dont think it's perfect by any means (nothing on the ship is!) but its proooobably the best quick-solution scenario?

[This is what happens when you trap Maverick on a carrier at sea for several months, in shared bunks with Merlin, Slider, and Iceman. He finds new ways to entertain himself. Namely, antagonising Slider.]

Maverick: You know what I've always wondered? How do tall people sleep at night when the blanket can't go over them right to their toes?

Slider: Maverick, it is three o'clock in the goddamn morning.

Maverick: So you can't sleep, huh? Is it because of the blanket?

Slider: Maverick, I swear to god if you don't shut up I'm gonna-

Maverick: Sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear you through the blanket covering me completely.

Slider: I hope you die.

Maverick: Yeah? Well, I hope you step on legos.

Slider: Take it back. TAKE IT BACK RIGHT NOW.

Maverick: Barefoot.