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I just want to be happy. (My complicated history with narusaku)


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#1 figure8ight

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Posted 20 January 2017 - 04:24 PM

This is the first time I will ever post here. I don’t care who reads this, I don’t care if it becomes a meme or a copypasta. I’m past the point where the pretenses of dignity have any relevance to me, because putting that much weight onto the opinions of others is a major reason why I have suffered mentally and emotionally up to this point.

 

I don’t know when I first started liking narusaku, but my guess would be the moment when Naruto complimented Sakura’s forehead when he was disguised as Sasuke all the way back in chapter 3. From that moment on I completely fell for the bait of that pairing, which I am still kicking myself for to this day. From the start this couple was destined to always be just out of reach of each other due to misunderstandings and bad communication, and I knew this, yet I persisted in shipping them. I stubbornly clung to it even though shipping it caused me emotional pain. Naruto would never be cruel enough to tell her that it was him who deceived her, and so even now she remembers that “charming forehead” scene as a bonding moment between her and Sasuke. It was that fake happiness that triggered her initial romantic feelings for Sasuke beyond just a shallow crush, because she thought that Sasuke had finally showed her the affection she craved. And yet, it wasn’t Sasuke, it was Naruto. That moment made me so upset and sympathetic for Sakura that my heart couldn’t rest until Sakura learned the truth, even though deep down I knew she never would, which tore me up even more.

 

Enter Hinata. I didn’t initially dislike her. She’s a great character all throughout part 1. I found her just as likable and interesting as any other character. She never got up there with my part 1 favorites (Gaara, Jiraiya, Tsunade, to name a few), but I found her relatable and something about her was distinctly unique compared to the other characters. Her design, her body language, her kindness and timidity made her stand out in contrast to her obnoxious egotistical peers. She was also the only female in the village not obsessed with Sasuke. I won’t go as far as saying she’s the first person who cared about Naruto or to appreciate him for who he is, because narratively at the time I first read Naruto back in my junior year of high school (I never watched the anime either) that simply was not true. Sasuke and Sakura had acknowledged Naruto as their companion long before Hinata came into the picture, as well as Iruka, Kakashi, and Hiruzen. Regardless of that tangent, I liked Hinata in part 1, because I saw a lot of myself in her. In her I saw my own weakness, I related to her, I rooted for her, I cried with her defeat, and celebrated her (emotional) victories. I was touched by her Proud Failure speech, and I found it cute when Naruto said he liked people like her.

 

All that said, I wasn’t a part 1 naruhina shipper, but if I had quit reading the manga at part 1 and then later found out that Naruto and Hinata eventually got married and had two kids, I would have been fine with it. The same goes for Sasuke and Sakura . The scene in the hospital where Naruto quietly gives up hope that Sakura will ever love him was also my moment of acceptance as well, and it was fine since I liked sasusaku too. By the end of part 1 I had basically moved on from narusaku since it was obvious Sakura had grown to deeply love Sasuke, and I was rooting for Sakura to have her feelings reciprocated after her confession.

 

Unfortunately, I didn’t stop reading at part 1, which is where my emotions started getting messed with over and over again. When part 2 began, ships were the farthest thing from my mind. At that point I was only really interested in the story and character development. But then the panel with Hinata hiding from Naruto happened, and I knew then and there that I didn’t like her anymore. And the reason for that was pretty embarrassing to be honest. Before part 1, I was able to see the characters and their relationships for what they truly are, and appreciate them for what they were. But the moment I saw Hinata in part 2 for the first time, that all changed. Around the time I started reading part 2, my self-esteem was at an all-time low in my life. I felt undesirable and ugly because I had a negative self image, my family was struggling financially which added even more stress, and I just felt really out of place in the world. Since I felt ugly, I wanted to root for the “unpretty” girl. In part 1 Hinata and Sakura were about equal in terms of homeliness, so I didn't think much about which girl was prettier than the other. Then I saw Hinata in part 2, who grew up to be this beautiful maiden with long pretty hair and big boobs and yet still had low self-confidence. I knew right away that she was the new sex symbol character of the manga, and Sakura’s days were numbered. So I started heavily projecting myself onto Sakura because I saw her as the homely girl. This made her less threatening to me, for some reason. If Sasuke had still been in the village during part 2 then I probably would have shipped sasusaku more, but narusaku had so much panel time that I felt it was necessary to ship her with the guy whom she had more development and a deeper bond with. I also wanted Sakura to achieve the status of learning to love the “right guy” who was right in front of her the whole time.

 

But there was another, more subconscious reason why I grew to detest Hinata. I didn’t even realize initially, but the reason became clear after a bit of reflecting. Part 2 Hinata bears a striking resemblance to a girl I used to know in middle/high school. I was extremely jealous and threatened by this girl, because she was in love with the same guy I was in love with, chasing him around, making her crush on him extremely obvious, and I was too afraid to do that because I didn’t want to scare him off. Ironically, I was the “Hinata” of that situation and she was the “Sakura”, yet the guy in question was my close friend at the time, which made me too nervous to tell him I liked him, whereas the other girl whom was much more aggressive with telling him her feelings barely knew him as a person. Despite this, I still hated Hinata because she reminded me too much of that girl. If it makes more sense to explain, when she first transferred to our school in 7th grade, she was very shy and reserved like Hinata was, never really talking to anyone, but in 8th grade she cut her hair short and decided to “come out of her shell” or whatever. Despite the fact that my guy friend whom I liked never showed any interest in her as a person, and actually seemed to be repulsed by her, my jealousy persisted, because she at least had the courage to tell him how she felt, whereas I was too much of a coward. So I ended up subconsciously projecting all of these pent up insecurities and frustrations onto Hinata.

 

And then, in the manga, when Hinata finally told Naruto how she felt in front of everyone, it confirmed what I already knew which was that she was going to end up with Naruto in the end. Before that point in the manga, Naruto and Sakura became really close and I even started to believe that they might end up together, even though there was still the issue of miscommunication (such as when Yamato said “the truth is, you…”), but when Hinata’s confession happened, it snapped me back into reality. When she “died” I prayed that she might actually stay dead, but unfortunately she was revived, which meant that she still had a chance. Sakura hugging Naruto felt good to see after the village was saved, but the fact that there was a panel focused on Hinata’s reaction to it made it obvious that the issue regarding her feelings was still unresolved. Then after that, when Sakura’s confession to Naruto happened, I became so upset that I went into denial, telling myself that "Sakura actually meant her confession, but Naruto just didn’t want to let himself believe it". Looking back I feel pretty stupid for having let myself think this, but I only saw what I wanted to see.

 

Even though I knew narusaku was doomed from the start, when the ship finally sunk for real at the Kage Summit I just couldn’t accept it. Especially now that I was projecting all of my self-hatred and insecurities onto Hinata. These insecurities were exasperated by the fact that shortly after Hinata’s confession scene, I started reading Naruto related forums on a manga hosting site I used to go to (the site in question is now defunct) and I discovered for the first time that Sakura is a hated character by a majority of fans, and Hinata fans often bash Sakura in order to raise Hinata. That made me go from being merely threatened and put off by Hinata to genuinely disliking her (I never hated her, though), and I came to truly despise her fanbase. Every insult toward Sakura and narusaku was another blow to my self-esteem, and it made me lose all objectivity. People would say things like “Sakura doesn’t deserve Naruto” and I internalized it to where I felt like I wasn’t worthy of love. I was still in a bad place mentally and still struggled with negative self image, and somehow I got into my mind that if narusaku didn’t get together, that meant I would be alone and no one would ever love me. My interest in and motives for reading Naruto began to warp into something very negative and unhealthy, and eventually I stopped reading chapters and generally forgot about the series because it became too stressful and toxic to handle. And for a while, for a few blissful years, I was free of Naruto. I became interested in other series, much better series, and exposed myself to actually good writing and stopped projecting my past insecurities onto fictional relationships. My life wasn’t perfect. I still had ups and downs, but at the very least the fictional worlds I welcomed into my space were genuine escapism and didn’t make me emotionally hurt every time I thought about them. Even Naruto didn’t cause me pain anymore, because I stopped caring about the series. I stopped caring about anything relating to it, including narusaku.

 

But then one day out of curiosity I decided to search “narusaku” on tumblr, and it was downhill from there. I only wanted to look at fanart, and maybe check up on the status of the ship and then would have moved on with the rest of my day. Instead what I ended up doing was becoming addicted to reading fan theories and witnessing the drama between naruhina fans and narusaku fans. I allowed myself to feel attached to narusaku again even though I wasn’t actually reading the manga anymore. I lapped up all of the theories of these narusaku fanatics who believed with certainty that the pairing would win, especially because of the CPR scene and Naruto joking with Minato that Sakura was his girlfriend, which made Minato give her his blessing. Despite the fact that Sakura confessed to Sasuke again, I overlooked that because at this point I only wanted to believe in narusaku. I didn’t even consider searching “naruhina” and seeing their side of things. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to know. Even though I saw that Hinata and Naruto held hands, even though I saw Naruto and Hinata had a cover dedicated to them, I still didn’t want to accept it. I was past the point of reason, and thought purely with my emotions on this matter. Every positive development Hinata had as a character and with Naruto was shot down by the narusaku side, and I drank it up like water in a desert. Eventually I got a bit tired of lurking these discussions and stopped going on tumblr altogether (not just because of Naruto pairing wars, but because of tumblr in general) and continued my peaceful existence away from Naruto.

 

Unfortunately that peace didn’t last long because I ended up joining a really terrible fandom, which caused my mental stability to deteriorate once again. For the first time, I was actively participating in a ship war, and to make matters worse, it was for an even worse written series than Naruto. To be honest though, that fandom was a walk in the park compared to Naruto, and despite getting really heated in debates over ships for that series, none of it felt “real” to me. The unfortunate thing wasn’t so much that I was in that fandom, but that a lot of people in that fandom were Naruto fans as well. Their interest in Naruto wasn’t relevant until the final chapter of Naruto came out, and suddenly all anyone talked about was Naruto for the next six months. Finding out that naruhina became canon in this sort of environment was the absolute worst thing that could have happened for my mental well-being, because none of these friends liked narusaku. I had no one to relate to during that time, no one who cared about my feelings. I was alone and had to endure all of the painful things everyone, everywhere had to say about narusaku. And in this sense I felt like I had lost. It brought back all of those past feelings, but worse than ever. Seeing naruhina reminds me of my own feelings of worthlessness. Despite the fact that I like sasusaku and was happy when they got together, they aren't enough to erase the torment I feel from naruhina.

 

I know none of this makes any sense. I know I come off as insane. I know that my issues are deeper than Naruto or even a middle school crush. I know all of this already. But none of this has stopped it from hurting. I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried to force myself to like part 2 Hinata. I’ve tried to force myself to ship part 2 naruhina. I tried to hate Sakura. I tried to stop caring about narusaku. I tried shipping borusara instead, and although I like that pairing, it’s like putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound- not very effective. Nothing works. I can’t escape it. All I wish is that I could entirely erase Naruto from my memory. I don’t care anymore. I am so miserable at this point that I wish the series Naruto had never even been written. I just want to forget. I want to move on. I’ve tried moving on so many times. I feel stuck in this and see no way out. I don’t want to be weighed down by this for the rest of my life. I hate that it’s Naruto of all things that makes me feel this way. It's like a bad joke. I just want to be happy again. I wish I had never discovered Naruto, or fandoms, or tumblr or 4chan or this forum site.

 

All I want is to be happy. I want to feel worthy of being loved. I don’t know how to do it, I don’t know how to find it, but I know that giving any more thought or focus to Naruto will only continue my masochistic addiction to punishing myself. I’ll have to make a bigger effort to move on from this series once and for all, but before I do that, I had to finally share my honest feelings in some way. There’s still much more to my issues than I managed to articulate in this mini novel of a post, but there isn’t enough time in the day to write it all. I’ve spend enough time as it is dwelling on my past instead of living in the present. I feel like I’ll never be able to truly move on if I keep these feelings locked inside me forever, which is why I felt that I had to post this here. Please don’t think I’m a troll. I’m actually completely genuine in writing this, which is the saddest thing of all. I’m just a very lonely and mentally unwell individual who craves love and yet continues to sabotage my relationships with others.

 

I hope that someday in the future, I won’t be tormented by these feelings anymore. I hope that I won’t need fictional ships to validate my sense of self worth. I hope I won’t project my insecurities onto fictional characters. I hope I’ll have achieved the happiness and inner peace that I’ve wanted all my life. I hope I’ll have healthy relationships with people who actually appreciate me for who I am. I hope I’ll make peace with that girl I used to hate in middle school, since the only reason I hated her was because I hated myself.

 

I also hope that anyone reading this who might have these kinds of issues gets the help they need. Even if someone reading this right now is of those obsessive anti narusaku people who see the defeat of narusaku as a validation to themselves and has to lurk this site in search of that dopamine release and a brief feeling of superiority, I hope you guys get the help you need too. Because on some level I understand how you feel. This isn’t healthy. This isn’t a way to live. None of us with these kinds of issues are happy living this way. And I just hope that one day when we’re all older and more mature we’ll have gotten ourselves out of this cycle. It’s degrading. It’s humiliating. It’s beneath us. All of us. Instead of looking to a fictional pairing to validate us or invalidate someone else, we need to look inside ourselves and ask why we need this validation so badly, and why we are seeking it from… Naruto.

 

Now I’m getting all preachy even though I just revealed some of my biggest character flaws to all of you. You’re under no obligation to follow my advice. But I still hope you at least consider it. Anyway, that’s all I have to say. I wish all of you a good life.



#2 Gurmeet

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Posted 14 September 2017 - 02:52 PM

I truly hope you read this.I made the account just for u.Hope you get your wishes.Don't let the insecurities burden u. I hope one day u will be happy. Enjoy life.




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