#go watch Nimona RIGHT NOW

[jajanvm-imbi]

They are the most Gender™️ characters to ever gender and I love them for it

[clambatch]

EVERYONE STOP WHAT UR DOING AND GO WATCH NIMONA ON NETFLIX NOW!!!

[keepin-it-on-the-d-l]

If I had a nickel for every time I loved a character who’s arm got chopped off by someone he deeply cared about because of a misunderstanding, I’d have two nickels! Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.

[maskedhusband]

Nimona AU silly idea because I was a sucker for these guys and I also loved the movie

[babykittenteach]

2023 in review! I made an effort to try more things and it worked mostly (at least for TV and movies). New things, new-to-me things, and new installments of old things all had characters to love even if I didn't necessarily feel fannish about them, and I'm hoping 2024 does, too.

[bloodpen-to-paper]

Nimona's Subtle Racial Placement in a World of Wealth Gaps

The racial placement of Nimona was not lost on me, and its something I'm seeing more of in media, so lets talk about how Nimona did it and why:

The Queen was black, and as a black woman she was the one who chose Ballister, a commoner, a brown kid, to be the next Knight of the Realm. She chose him above all the elitist kids because she saw his merit, and chose not to let the status of the others affect her decisions. And she was killed for it by a white insurrectionist.

For years Ballister was bullied by Todd, a white man, while the other elitist knights did nothing. Except for Ambrosius, an Asian man (presumably since he's modeled after Eugene Lee Yang), who not only stood up for him, but ended up becoming so close to him that they became lovers.

There's a lot of diversity in this movie, both within the wealth classes (the highest position of power being held by a black woman while Nimona, who's whole story is about being oppressed and ostracized, is white), and among the general populace of multi-racial and ethnic side characters. Yet there's still mostly white knights among the Queen's guard, not to mention the original story of Gloreth revolves around a white girl brought into legacy. You could even argue colorism with how Ambrosius has a lighter complexion (especially considering he was originally white in the comics) and is brought up as the trusted descendent of Gloreth over the commoner Ballister.

Despite being a movie about classism that's set in a diverse world, Nimona still has a subtle racial aspect within its character dynamics. It does this for a very important reason: to bridge the gap between art and reality. In real life, we have white supremacy. In real life, we have capitalism. And Nimona uses its racial aspects to further make its point about the class divide and bigotry within a caste system.

Racial supremacy and the dismantling of it is a complex matter. Diversifying the world is easiest to achieve among the working class; you can show people of different skin tones in movies and TV, hire a more diverse racial pool within work environments, etc. But what gets difficult is changing the diversity within the elite spaces, because their place in the wealth gap has made them near impossible to touch from a working class position. Diversifying the space in a local diner? Easy, as long as the manager is willing. Diversifying the spaces within the Electoral College? Harvard alumni? HBO Executives? Good luck, you'd give an arm and a leg just to change maybe one person's position in those spaces. Because the power is so hoarded and privatized that changing anything, like racial diversity, would include upending the entire system that allowed for them to exist as they do. A local diner involves being able to convince one person in a small position to either change their model, or changing out that person with someone with a different model. The systems of supremacy don't have roots as deep within that scenario, but the elitists? They are the system. And to change them is to change the system entirely. You cannot eliminate the racism from elite spaces without dissolving the wealth gap.

Nimona shows this subtly, in that among the common people its super diverse (black news anchors, people of different skin tones occupying the same spaces, etc), but within the elite institutions, the Knight of the Realm was always someone who was from the elite, and had nepotism to get them through. Ambrosius was expected to be the Knight because of his heritage, and most of the knights in the guard along him and Ballister were white and had Old Money. The movie didn't need to include racism in their message against classism, but the creators wanted to bridge that gap between "movie metaphor for real world issues" and actual real world issues. They created "commoner" and made sure the audience knew that represented not just the "working class", but the racial working class. They made sure the implications of racial bias were there and readable for the people who could relate to the struggle of being a person of color in a supremacist society. They even made queer people feel seen, not just with Ambrosius and Ballister's relationship, but with Nimona's entire allegory for gender-queerness. Its a movie that aims to have its art reflect reality for the sake of making people get invested in their own real world issues within our real world society. Many "progressive" works now utilize talking points from progressive movements without actually giving representation to those affected, causing a case of appropriation painted as representation. Nimona aimed to create genuine representation that would be seen by the people who needed it most, not just with the obvious messages from the story-telling, but from the subtle bridges that connect this piece of fiction to the very real world it took inspiration from. And I think its safe to say Nimona achieved just that.

[sortanonymous]

I've watched and adored Encanto, Wolfwalkers, Across the Spider-Verse, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. All absolutely incredible animated films that I'm sure will be held up as classics even 20 years from now.

With that said, Nimona is frankly a good step above all of them and my choice for animated film of the decade so far (at least for what I've heard of). An absolutely stellar film on every level. Do yourself a favor and watch it all on YouTube these next few days!

Does it stand a chance at the Oscars? Absolutely not, especially since even the Annies were dominated by Spider-Man. But it would absolutely deserve to. (And again, I adore Spider-Verse and still think it's 100% worthy of the Oscar on its own. It's basically the reverse of the Puss in Boots vs. Pinocchio situation last year. They're both masterpieces, only this time the slightly better masterpiece is almost certainly gonna get left in the cold.)

[askdannysroleswapau]

How would Gumball react to this image? :)

(assuming that you mean this in a /lh way)

i think Voidball would be flattered, considering most of their characterization is inspired by Megamind (and Nimona, to some extent) who would consider something like this a compliment

in fact, this sorta reminds me of that scene in Roxanne's apartment with all the hanging scraps of paper where she finally solves the big mystery... god i love Megamind its so good you should go watch it. why has this blog just become me telling you guys to go watch movies recently. what is wrong with me (its The Mucus)

[lumashoes]

HOLY SHIT.

so.

I just watched a movie. On Netflix. It’s called Nimona.

AND IT IS HANDS DOWN ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES IVE EVER SEEN (Along with Across the Spiderverse).

IM NOT GONNA SPOIL ANYTHING HERE BUT IF YOU HAVE NETFLIX GO WATCH IT (if you dont mind sobbing)

IT IS SO. FUCKING. WELL-WRITTEN.

YES I WILL BE POSTING ART OF THE CHARACTERS ONCE I HAVE MOTIVATION. (the autism hit the jackpot on this one)

[imrllytootiredforthis]

has anyone else watched the movie nimona...

cause i just watched and my JAW is DROPPED. i read the book a few years ago and it's actually one of my all time favourite graphic novels but the movie.

so much was changed from the book but i honestly think that everything that was changed, was changed for the better. it was so good-like everything, the characters, the relationships, the story. it was so funny too.

i saw several raters say that it was like a 9/10 which i strongly disagree with, it's a 10/10 and you cannot convince me otherwise.

nimona was just so relatable too-i've only cried to two movies in my entire life and nimona in this one almost made me start crying which is saying something.

[bloodraven55]

[hypnosis voice] go watch nimona right now i promise it’s just a fun light-hearted movie with absolutely no themes of religious trauma and queer allegory that will rip your heart out and stamp on it

[redbuddi]

Moana was the last truly exceptional movie to come out of Disney/Pixar. Not that they haven't made any good movies since, because they absolutely have, but they are no longer the trailblazing powerhouses they used to be. Instead, they've mastered the art of "good enough." Existing through sheer momentum of what they've done in the past, sacrificing identity for the sake of brand cohesiveness. They would rather you watch a Disney film and know that it is a Disney film than watch a Disney film and see animation at it's finest. You will only see animation at it's fine.

Pixar is at least a little willing to play around with style, but you can almost feel them fighting against constraints in every artistic liberty they take. Disney films, on the other hand? They're kind of nothing. Not worthless, but noticeably half-baked and lacking in depth. Easily overshadowed by their peers. Not every film has to be the best film ever, but when movies from much smaller studios with far less history are running circles around them in terms of film quality, something is wrong.

New Pixar movies used to be an event. Did any of you even know that Elemental is out now? Do any of you care? I don't. A film from a studio Disney destroyed is far more engaging to me right now, and to everyone else.

Nimona is everything Disney wants to bury. And they're the ones in the dirt now. I doubt it'll stay that way forever (though I would LOVE to be proven wrong,) but if things continue the way they have been then Disney/Pixar films are going to become a joke in the very industry they built everything off of.

[sirfrogsworth]

These folks watched a whole ass movie not realizing the main character was transgender and it was a 2 second kiss between men that made them lose their ever-loving minds.

It's amazing to me that if it weren't for those 2 seconds, many of these folks would have given this movie a 4 or 5 star review. But two seconds of the most vanilla, non-sexy, yet genuine and loving kiss somehow ruined every moment of enjoyment the previous 90 minutes brought them.

Imagine if they realized the trans allegory. I wish I had a way to tell them. I wish I had a way to make them realize they related to a trans character. That they rooted for them. That they accidentally empathized with a trans story.

This was a beautiful movie. In every sense. I really hope between this and Spider-Verse, we can have a moratorium on every 3D animated movie using this style of character design.

It's time to let go of the rubber toy look.

I love Toy Story, but its success kind of doomed 3D animation to never take any risks. I thought maybe it was just a limitation of the medium, and perhaps it was for a time... but after seeing Love Death + Robots and Arcane...

I realized they can make 3D animation look however the hell they want now.

The rubber people were just risk avoidance.

"That's what people are used to and so we're sticking with it."

But the real beauty of Nimona was the story. I won't spoil it but the plot is pretty much, "If you get to know a trans person, you probably won't hate them anymore."

Not knowing any trans people is one of the biggest factors in anti-trans bigotry. And so this movie uses allegory to let an audience get to know a trans person. And you get to experience someone slowly start to understand what it is to be trans from an outside perspective.

It's sad that will probably be lost on those folks above because all they will remember is the kiss. Seriously, it was such a harmless, mundane, blink-and-you-miss-it kiss. But I'm hoping that others will take the lesson of this movie to heart. That you should get to know people before you judge them.

Part of me does wish we could tell trans stories without allegory. That we could just have overt trans characters. But I think this is the best representation possible right now.

It's crazy that Supergirl was one of the bravest shows as far as modern trans representation. It wasn't an edgy HBO drama trying to push boundaries. It was a family-friendly superhero show and they were just like, "Here is a transgender woman with superpowers and it's fine." And I loved that it was part of the character but it wasn't all the character was. Though I think they just missed the manufactured "moral panic" window where that choice would have been extremely controversial causing boycotts of Warner Bros. and whatnot.

My only complaint about Nimona was a small penis joke. It went by very quickly and many may even miss it. But I was surprised to see it in this movie in particular. Especially since those jokes can have collateral damage toward trans folks. With all of the positive messages, wasting a joke on body shaming was a tad disappointing. I mean, it was a fairly lighthearted "Is it cold in here?" joke. I don't want to make it sound worse than it was. But it still registered on my Richter scale of things that bother me.

Anyway, I wholeheartedly give Nimona a 5 out of 5. It helped me understand my friends on a deeper level and it was warm and funny and entertaining. There was a scene at the end that was so beautiful and heart-wrenching and I was crying my eyes out. The animation and the symbolism and the acting were just so perfect.

It's a shame Disney tried to kill this movie. But I am so glad it was allowed to exist despite that.

[cosmicbucket]

hey hi. about nimona. yes it's 100% about being trans. but as a nonbinary autistic person? this movie was really touching in ways I didn't even realise were possible.

the entire train scene actually killed me.

"Can you please just be normal for a second? I just think it’d be ... easier if you look human."

"Easier for who?"

"For you. A lot of people aren’t as accepting as me."

then, when Ballister asks what shapeshifting feels like - if it hurts - the way Nimona responds hits very close to home on my experience with stimming.

"Honestly? I feel worse when I don’t do it. Like my insides are itchy. You know that second right before you sneeze? That’s close to it. Then I shapeshift, and I’m free."

And then. "What if you held it in?"

"... I just... sure wouldn’t be living."

not to mention in the original comic, Nimona's parents believe that she's something synonymous to a changeling - that she's something that replaced their "real child". this myth was likely born as an "explanation" for neurodivergent or developmentally disabled children. the townsfolk talk about her getting "better" in the comic. as if there's a cure for the way she is. which is something autistic people deal with all the fucking time.

to end on a more lighthearted note, "I'm not a girl. I'm a shark." was so real of Nimona. I'm so happy they kept that in from the comic, because it was real when I was younger and it's even more real to me now.

this story is a trans allegory loud and proud. I do not want to discredit that with this post. but this story also makes me, an autistic person, feel seen. and that's so fucking important in today's world.

I love this movie to pieces. Please go watch it, and remember to be kind. You will change someone's life for the better.

[themostnormaltextdoctor]

How did I not notice the trans flag on my first watch? Also this is your reminder that the entirety of Nimona is availible to watch on Youtube right now. Go watch it.

[atinytrashcan]

ok so i'm watching Nimona again (surprise surprise) and i wanna talk about something.

the scene at the tower where Bal suggests going over the wall in order to protect Nimona, and Nimona fires back with "we shouldn't have to run."

as any trans person in America right now will know, this country despises trans people (and the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole, but mostly trans folks). being a trans person, especially a trans kid, or the parent of a trans kid, is really difficult.

as a parent, you want to do everything you can to keep your kid safe. you would move countries if you had to. But a lot of the time, you can't. Most people in America right now couldn't afford to move out, no matter how much we may want to. so many people tell us "just move" but they don't comprehend the cost of that.

we shouldn't have to run. we should be able to live as we are, without fear of people hurting us or wanting us dead.

We Shouldn't Have To Run.