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aspoonofsugar · 8 months

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A Quick Nora Thought...

Nora's first appearance in the series sets up her arc in two ways:

Nora: I can't believe we've been at Beacon for a full twenty-four hours! Not that I thought we'd get kicked out or anything, I mean, you're the perfect student and I'm… well, I'm me! But it's just crazy, you know? We've been friends for soooooooo long! What are the odds we'd still be together? Well, not "together-together…" Not that I'm not saying that you're not handsome; you are handsome, but that'd just be weird, right?

Let's focus on 2 lines:

Not "together-togheter"...

I'm... well, I'm me!

Not together-together

Nora is initially co-dependent from Ren. She is saved by him and spends the majority of her life by his side. As a result, she struggles to find a new balance, when her feelings become romantic. They are together platonically, but not romantically. At the same time, Nora's idea of getting together-together as things are is unhealthy.

I'm... well, I'm me!

Let's consider these 2 scenes:

We've got a world-renowned fighter on our team, what's basically a ninja, I can bench five of me… Jaune… We've trained all year, our weapons are awesome, Glynda barely yells at us anymore and… Uhh… Jaune!

Nora: Yeah, they’ll be fine. Jaune’s a great leader, Oscar’s grown a ton, and Yang is more than capable of protecting them all in a fight. Oh, and of course Ren is- um…

Whenever Nora can't properly say who someone is, she would define them by their name. In volume 3, Jaune is still unsure of his identity, so he is no-one, but Jaune. In volume 8, Ren is going through a similar identity crisis, so Ren is someone Nora doesn't know anymore. This speech pattern highlights that the character mentioned has a frail sense of self. Well, what does it say about Nora, then? The very first thing she says is that she is unsure of who she is. Ren is someone, for example a handsome perfect student. But Nora? Who is she?

Ren + Nora = Renora

Nora's arc is built around 2 ideas, which seem opposites. On the one hand her story focuses on her relationship with Ren, as he is her objective since early on. On the other hand she must figure out who she is as an individual. So, how can she be together-together with Ren and be just Nora at the same time?

Nora: I don’t know what he is. Every time I think the two of us are making progress, he… (sighs) We’ve been together our whole lives but I feel like I understand him less now than ever. And I don’t know if that’s his fault or mine. Blake: When you’ve been at someone’s side for so long, after a while they become a part of you. But that’s just it, they’re only a part of you. Don’t forget about the rest. Nora: I don’t actually know who I am… without Ren. Pretty sad, huh? Weiss: Well, maybe take this opportunity to find out? Do something only Nora can do.

The two thematic threads come together in volume 8. Nora doesn't know who Ren is and since she has built her self-image around him, she is suddenly unsure of herself as well. It turns out that to go from Ren + Nora to Renora, our girl needs to figure herself out:

Nora: When my mom ran from the Grimm and left me behind, you found me. We became Ren and Nora. But I realized on this mission apart, I don’t know who “Just Nora” is. And if I’m ever going to find out, then I have to do it alone. Because I’ve always loved you, Lie Ren, and that pretty head on your shoulders seems like it’s doing a lot better. But I still got to get mine sorted out before I can be the partner you need. Is that…okay?

Only in this way, she can be by Ren's side (together), but not in aa codependent way (together-together).

As for who Nora is... the episode Risk makes it pretty clear.

The most beautiful flower of all

What beautiful blossoms we have this year, but look... This one's late...But I'll bet that when it blooms it will be the most beautiful of all. (Mulan, 1998)

The Renora's confession scene ends with Nora being not ready for a relationship with Ren. And yet, the moment looks at Nora he sees the air full of petals ready to bloom. Considering Ren's Mulan's allusion and the importance flowers have in Renora's arcs, I think the reference is pretty clear.

Nora (a pink flower) has yet to bloom. She is late in a sense. However, the flower which blooms late is the most beautiful of all. That is Nora. Our girl will definately bloom into herself, no matter the adversity she meets:

The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all (Mulan, 1998)

#rwby #nora valkyrie #renora #lie ren #rwby meta #my meta

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 7 months

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AITA for not wanting to bother my best friend after getting stranded in his state?

I (19NB) recently took a birthday vacation with my mom to visit my online best friend and platonic partner (20NB) IRL for the first time. I had a lot of fun and made a lot of fun memories, and he was really accommodating of all of my physical disabilities. We'd been best friends for around two years before this, and neither of us had any real IRL friends so doing stuff together in-person was really fun.

I was going to stay a few nights at my friend's place, go to my mom's hotel room the night before our flight back home, and take an Uber to the airport. That was our plan.

The day before I was to depart, my flight back home had been cancelled. No problem, I would just reschedule to come back home a couple days later and my mom agreed to it.

Now, I didn't agree with my friend to spend any more time with him than we had already planned. He has two working parents and he has college to attend as well. I was going to spend the rest of my time on vacation with my mom unless he wanted to spend extra time with me when he was free to.

While on vacation, the airline cancelled my flight home again and there were no more flights back. This came out of nowhere, and I had to update my mom and my friend that I was staying longer in his state than expected. We scheduled another flight from a different airline, but now our vacation has been extended by, like, two-three days extra. So I spent the extra days with my mom at her hotel room.

My mom argued that my friend and his parents were being unfair to me by not letting me stay at their house during the extra days we were stuck here since they only lived twelve minutes away.

I argued that it would be rude of me to interrupt someone's schedule just to keep me entertained, especially since we didn't agree to spend this extra time together. He and his family were busy and it wasn't their responsibility to spend time with me even if it was my birthday vacation.

My mom got upset and demanded that I call my friend and ask to stay at his house since it was 'the least they could do for us while we were stuck here'. He was busy that day, and I felt very embarrassed for asking, even if it was just to make my mom calm down.

The next day, my mom once again got angry that, according to her, 'we were wasting our vacation' by not spending time with him, and essentially forced me to ask again. This time, he agreed. It was still fun, obviously, but I apologized the whole time and it felt a bit awkward since I didn't really plan on spending extra time with him.

My mom still thinks that I should've asked to hang out more than I did, but this is someone I already spend several hours a week calling on Discord with. It felt very unfair to me to spend time with someone out of obligation rather than genuinely wanting to. Luckily we did end up enjoying that extra time together, but both of us were initially reluctant about it.

I understand where my mom's frustrations came from, given that the point of the vacation was to spend time with him. My mom paid for the vacation as a birthday present for me, which is why I'm unsure if I'm the asshole or not.

So, was I the asshole for not fighting to spend extra time with my platonic partner/best friend?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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musette22 · 3 years

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If you had to choose between:

Steve and Bucky get together in canon but their love story ends tragically with one or both of them dying or being separated by some higher forces

and

Steve and Bucky stay friends and nothing more but both get a happy ending (possibly with other partners)

What would you choose?

The rotten thing is that *technically* Steve and Bucky *are* still friends in canon, and they *did* more or less get "happy endings" (one of them with another partner), they just don't live in the same timeline anymore, and it sucks balls (and not in the fun way) 🙃

However, if Marvel had ended both their storylines in EG, and they hadn't made Stucky canon but had just said "and they were great platonic friends and continued to live their great platonic friend life, The End." without involving other partners, I'd have been thrilled with that. That's all I wanted, basically. We can do the rest. But they were too scared of our shipping ways, plus they needed a way for Steve's story to end and Bucky's story to continue, and so they did the worst thing they could've possibly done.

Yeah, I'll be honest, I'd prefer option one to what we actually got. With option one, we'd finally get proper LGBTQ representation in Marvel, we'd get consistent storytelling (because the only logical outcome of the three Cap movies + IW should have been Steve and Bucky finally confessing their love and getting together, lbr) and yeah, we'd get pain and suffering and heartbreak, but seeing as their story has been tragic from the start, we're all kind of used to that anyway and we'd just continue to give them their fix-its and happy endings ourselves, you know?

But basically, anything is preferable to That Ending lol

#stucky #minnie answers

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skys813 · 4 years

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Discovery

Chapter 2

Romance: *writes*

How do you feel about Sexuality being ace? I know you enjoyed reading sexual things, but we might never have actual sex. Are you okay with that?

Libido: Yeah, I told you guys already that I liked what I was doing but I don't really care if we never do more than that. That was always up to Sexuality, I don't really care. Research might be a little annoyed that we'll never know what this really common experience is like, but they'll get over it. How are you holding up though? I know you're obsessed with finding a soulmate for us to build a family with. Doesn't this bother you?

Romance: *writes*

Used to be. I used to be obsessed with finding us a soulmate. I just didn't want us to live out our life alone. But haven't you noticed I'm not like that anymore? There's a reason for that.

Libido: *gasps* F***ing hell, girl, you found him and you didn't tell the rest of us? What the actual-

Romance: *slaps hands over Libido's mouth* *squeezes once and raises an eyebrow*

Libido: *rolls eyes and nods reluctantly*

Romance: *writes*

No need to call everyone over here, it's not what you think. I gave up on finding that soulmate.

Libido: What-

Romance: *puts hands on hips and looks stern*

Libido: *coughs* Go ahead.

Romance: *writes*

As I was saying, I gave up on what we'd been looking for. Not because he doesn't exist, I'm sure there's plenty of lovely young men out there we can collectively lose our minds over. But didn't you hear what Research found on that AVEN website? It was a vocab word, it summed up everything we've been feeling. We are satisfied. I haven't played daydreams of a generic Prince Charming to soothe us in ages. Because we've already found everything we need. Let's recap her favorite relationship tropes:

Found families

Enemies to lovers

Friends to lovers

Soulmates

Don't let Anxiety see this list or he'll freak out about it not being a perfect 5. Anyways, do you see the pattern?

Libido: Umm..... They're all roma-no, the found family isn't romantic. Okay, I'm stumped, what's your point?

Romance: *sighs and writes*

My point is that they're all long-term, lifelong, forever kind of relationships. The only reason we always thought the soulmate would have to be romantic is because in every single story, no matter how strong the platonic bond was, everyone was lonely until they got romantic partners. But the truth is, we haven't felt that desperate loneliness in a long time. We're satisfied with this friendship and we're secure in the knowledge that this one will last forever, that we'll make it work because she's worth it.

Libido: I get that, but... don't you want a romantic partner? I mean, you said it yourself, most of the relationships we admire are romantic. I've heard stories, you used to wake up instantly if you thought we'd spotted someone we could potentially start a relationship with. Isn't that what you want?

Romance: *writes*

That was a long time ago, back before even you and Sexuality were born. I wanted what was best for us as a whole, even if no one could reach my expectations. I wanted us to have a good life partner if it was decided by all of you that that's what we needed to be happy. In that scenario, regardless of my own lack of desire for such a relationship, I was going to find someone to satisfy all of you. That was before I realized that Sexuality was...well, she wasn't what I'd expected. She was like me. But I couldn't find a way to communicate that to the rest of you. Especially not when they thought you being loudly supportive of exploring males sexually meant me and Sexuality were on board. They assumed that being capable of being turned on meant we could have sex with and fall in love romantically with men and that that proves we're "normal". It just took them a while to realize that we're three separate entities.

Libido: I'm sorry, I didn't even notice it had been such a problem for you two. I...well I thought the two of you were like me but quieter, I thought that maybe Sexuality didn't like me but you did. That we're on the same side, so to speak. But I was just forcing this on you. I'm so sorry.

Romance: *smiles sweetly and hugs Libido* *writes*

Don't worry about it, darling. You understand now, that's what matters. But yes, in the future, I don't plan to look for a romantic partner now that we're all agreed we don't want or need one. I think we'll be alright.

Libido: *sniffs and smiles through watery eyes* Yeah, I think so too.

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