#valerin

[fandom-march-madness]

Submission Comments

Queen Valerin: "She is Ballister's adoptive mom. Fight me."

[penguuthegentoo]

Pure indulgence for romance

[walrus150915]

Do you ever think about how Ballister didn't get to grieve the Queen properly

Do you ever think about how the Queen was probably the first person who's shown him kindness ever since he became a street kid

Do you ever think about how much she meant to him and he didn't even go to her funeral

Do you ever think about how she spent the last seconds of her life thinking he killed her

Do you *explodes*

[vinylattes]

NIMONA (2023) | dir. Nick Bruno & Troy Quane

[sir-ballister-boldheart]

Ballister being a badass fighter in this early animation scene that did not make it to the movie...is doing things to me 😳

Although they did seem to have reused some parts of this fight scene in the introduction of the movie

[dunnowhatimdoin]

Sometimes she comes checking on the cadets...

Happy mother's day, folks!

[sunshine-zenith]

This is kinda a part two to this post here, about Ballister’s scar. Specifically I wanted to speculate a bit on Ballister’s relationship with Queen Valerin when you consider the fact that he was a mistreated and vulnerable child when he met her

Like. Look at this moment here

She’s reassuring him. She genuinely believes in him, and it’s clear from the knighting ceremony, when she specifically lowers her voice to tell him how much she’s been looking forward to this moment that her intentions around him a pure. She wants to change things, she wants to give this kid a chance, and she’s killing two birds with one stone by making him a knight

But like Nimona herself says, question everything

Look a little bit closer at this image — the queen is well dressed and already had a statement prepared. Ballister is dressed in rags and looks like he hasn’t even been given the chance to wash his hair. He looks surprised and a little scared when the media erupts with questions. And I don’t think this was the Queen’s doing, necessarily — odds are the Director was the one who was supposed to prepare Ballister, and chose not to, because she probably knew that while the Queen wouldn’t judge him for looking like the homeless kid he was, the media would. Still, it shows that while the Queen has overall say on Ballister’s future, she doesn’t have a lot to do about his present

Ballister says he loves the Queen, but it’s hard to tell if he meant he loves her like you’d love a family member, or if he “loves” her like someone who has been raised to not question authority “loves” said authority. He took a deep breath and looked to Ambrosius during the knighting ceremony, not to her. She realistically probably wasn’t super involved, even if she wanted to be — she had an entire kingdom to run, other knights to knight, and likely spent her days making progressive decisions that were controversial with the conservatives in her kingdom. Plus, if she had been super involved, it could’ve increased bias against him, like she was favoring him above everyone else — Ambrosius seemed overall not sure popular among the knights, and while they respected his authority when he was put it charge, there was definitely a vibe that they resented him for being the “Golden Boy” descendant of Gloreth.

Let’s compare Bal and Queen Valerin to Comic!Ballister Blackheart and one of the Queen’s inspirations, Dr. Blitzmeyer (the other was the king, who was a basically prop that was referenced heavily in relation to Ballister as someone he should kill before dying off screen).

Blackheart and Blitzmeyer end the comic opening a lab together, working as co-scientists. Blackheart clearly thinks of her as a friend, but she thinks of him as a fond colleague for most of the comic — she’s happy to offer help in the form of exposition, and she helps him save the day by giving him a McGuffin That You Just Gotta Read The Comic To Understand, but part of her is worried he’s a rival scientist that wants to steal her ideas. She still welcomes him in her home and offers him team. When he’s at the end of his rope and needs a comfort hug, she awkwardly indulges him

She’s surprised when he puts her down as his emergency contact

Dr. Blitzmeyer is a quirky scientist that hangs out on conspiracy forums and probably practices witchcraft for the sake of scientific study. Queen Valerin is a warm and progressive monarch who makes controversial decisions. And they make big decisions regarding helping Ballister

Remember the reluctant McGuffin handover?

She’s weighing the odds of him lying to her and stealing/tampering with/destroying it, hesitating before trusting him. If she had said no, a lot more people would’ve died in the comic, but she had no way of knowing that. She was barely interested in looking out her window and just worried the thing she spent years on would be wrecked

Now, the Queen — we don’t see her weigh the pros and cons of letting Bal become a knight, but she had to. And consider what she was presented with: a homeless kid with either no family or an abusive one judging from his scars and bruises. He had no adults in his life to protect him. No one to tell her no, making him essentially a child soldier might not be in his best interest. And he jumped a fence into the middle of a knight training session declaring he wanted to be a knight, basically coming to her — essentially the perfect candidate for her semi-social experiment

I can totally see her in another world letting this kid into her home and giving him tea and comfort, but I don’t think she could here. While she meant good, she took in a kid with nothing to lose and gave him everything to lose (a home, education, likely his first friend, safety), while also putting him under unavoidable social pressure. And she did it while the only adult figure other than her in his life, the one who would actually be involved in his upbringing — the Director — openly and defiantly failed him from the get go, and protested letting him join the knights to her face

Y’all I adore Queen Valerin, even if we only got her for like five minutes. Even if it’s in a speculative sense I like that she’s a good person while morally gray actions. She very much improved Ballister’s circumstances by giving him a home and the opportunity to pursue his interests. She clearly cared about him. She’s also a politician who, even if unavoidably, lowkey set him up to be a scapegoat without a backup plan and no outside support

Like. Y’all.

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

Thinking about the Squire from Nimona rn

Imagine being in possession of the sole proof that the Director of the FBI assassinated the President and framed your celebrity crush for it

And proceeding to do absolutely fuckall about it

Like Pedro Pascal is being hunted down by the authorities and you (and you alone) know he's innocent and have video proof of a MASSIVE conspiracy and your attitude is just "I don't get paid enough to care"

?????

[transbookoftheday]

Books To Read For Genderfluid Visibility Week

Happy Genderfluid Visibility Week! Here are some books with genderfluid main characters you should read and/or preorder:

Book titles:

The Honeys by Ryan La Sala

Dragonfall by L.R. Lam

Something Spectacular by Alexis Hall

Salt the Water by Candice Iloh

Lakelore by Anna-Marie McLemore

Valerin the Fair by Rien Gray

Nine of Swords, Reversed by Xan West

Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller

The Manor House Governess by C.A. Castle (comes out November 7, 2023)

A River of Golden Bones by A.K. Mulford (comes out December 5, 2023)

[puddlestheduck1]

i am going to be violently sick all over the floor he looked so happy and proud

[riririkinzi]

Here's it's first art everyone UwU

[astralalmighty]

Delighted by the thought of Todd taunting Prince Ballister in @mvjerbs au, saying smth like, “No prince could ever beat a knight in a sword fight, especially not a false prince such as yourself, you commoner.” And Ballister, who has been extensively trained in sword fighting and combat for his own safety, is like, “Bet?”

Cut to Ballister absolutely besting Todd within minutes

[walrus150915]

Having kinda mixed feelings about Queen Valerin bc she's such a clear example of neoliberalism but like😭😭 SHE'S SO😭😭😭 IDK LOOK AT HER I'M😭😭😭😭

There must be a reason why I wrote 3 fic centering around her right🖐

If you want me to write a deliberate analysis of her character (at least the parts we know- since my girl DIES in like first 10 minutes of the film) AND the way she ruled over the kingdom, let me know. Because I will

[shinekocreator]

Angsty post canon Nimona (2023) fanfic idea:

Going off of the headcanon that Queen Valerin was going to adopt Ballister after the knighting (because she can only adopt nobles).

One day the current monarch of the kingdom is asking Ballister to meet him for a private conversation. Apparently, amongst Queen Valerin's belongings, were found adoption papers, signed by her. She was going to adopt Bal, and if he agrees to sign them, he'll be the heir to the throne.

Ballister is absolutely baffled by what to do about it.

[sir-ballister-boldheart]

I edited out all the dialogues from the opening scene of Nimona, so that we can only hear the awesome background score as the opening scene plays out. Yes, I am insane.

Also, this is my first time editing a video so please be nice :3

[afdg10]

Nimona au

Where the queen doesn’t die but goes into a coma for most of the events of the movie and when she wakes up boom: the knight she basically adopted has been public enemy number one as well as missing an arm, Gloreth’s great(x?) grandchild is having a breakdown her number two tried to destroy the kingdom there is this strange pink child that can shapeshift and is working with Ballister and is potentially gloreth’s monster and tried to off themselves with a giant statue and everything has gone to shit and Todd is still here for some reason and she has to deal with the aftermath of that whole mess.