#ND Stevenson thank you so much for these masterpieces we love you

[jytan2018]

Hi hello!! Hope you have been well :]

Gently requesting more of your thoughts on Nimona (movie and comic), bc I love what you’ve been saying thus far, like you’ve been spittin’ facts left and right and I’m absolutely here for ittt!!! 🔥

Hope you have an amazing day!! ✨✨

Thanks, anon! I rewatched Nimona with my cousin just last week AND reread the comic, so you're in luck because I have a bunch of new thoughts and headcanons.

(WEEWOO WEEWOO, SPOILERS for the comic and the movie below, proceed at your own risk.)

- At the beginning of the movie, it's implied that Nimona was there for every step of the kingdom's development, or at least keeping tabs on it since she knew about Gloreth's knights. Did she disguise herself as a rando civilian, like she did in the comic when checking on Ballister? If so, how long did it take her to assume her default human form again? Until Gloreth passed on? Until there was no one alive who remembers her human form?

(I say "default human form" in like a humansona sense and not the default sense, though. She seems used to retaining a specific appearance for each form she takes, unless she's shifting for disguise purposes.)

- Baby Ballister literally ripping the head off the horse he was attacking is kinda cute, but also very sobering when you remember that if the Institution had accepted him wholeheartedly, he would have become their greatest asset but also Nimona's second greatest enemy besides the Director. It's a great way to establish that he was ready to fight and die for the Institute even before it begrudgingly accepted him, not because ND randomly decided to make him a sad little meow meow who struggled to find a purpose beyond serving the Institute.

- Meredith Blitzmeyer, my beloved, it was truly a tragedy that your character got cut from the movie but it needed to be done. A device that stops Nimona from shifting, in a movie where shifting is a metaphor for queerness and possibly neurodivergence? Nah, that would have ruined the whole plot.

- (I would have loved it if the movie revealed she was the one who developed the laser sword and the Director's laser staff, though. Give me a chaotic neutral scientist with no concept of the consequences that come with making things for evil people, any day.)

- When I first read the comic, I struggled to interpret Nimona's final words to Ballister: "I was just playing with you". After rereading it, I'm pretty sure she wasn't. Movie Nimona and Comic Nimona's arcs seem similar on the surface, but Comic Nimona canonically looks her age because she didn't become a shapeshifter until some time after Ambrosius blasted Ballister's arm off. Ballister may be the movie's freshly traumatised character, but it's Nimona who plays that role in the comics.

- What this means is she probably DID see herself as a monster even though it was an unhealthy way to define herself, and she was looking for someone who'd tell her, "You're right, this is you, and I accept it." instead of trying to comfort her by denying this part of her identity. Hence, why she was so hurt when Ballister tried that exact wrong answer with her, and she reacted by denying their bond was real in the first place.

- That being said, I highkey suspect Comic Nimona only survived because Ballister DID get through to her. When she tells Ballister that she will disintegrate after splitting herself, Ballister insists that SHE'S the strong part that will survive, not the monster and more importantly, he apologised to the monster after beating it AND calls it by Nimona's name. She saw with her own eyes that Ballister not only acknowledged both parts of her identity in the end, but also saw the humanity in her even when she herself believed what the world told her: that she was a monster.

- This definitely influenced the "Movie Nimona is passively suicidal" plot point because both near-deaths feature Nimona succumbing to the world's hatred against her, and it's Ballister who has to pull her out of that self-destructive spiral. The only difference is the movie wanted to show how disproportionate and irrational queerphobic oppression is, while the comic zeroed in on the hypocrisy of fearing Nimona's destructive tendencies while the Institute was the one who could have poisoned the entire kingdom by accident.

- (Grabs you by the face) Do you understand how feral this realisation made me? Do you understand the danger of queer people accepting their "deviance" without stripping away the label's negative connotations before it can mess with their self-perception? DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW BADLY ND STEVENSON DRAGGED QUEERPHOBES IN BOTH VERSIONS OF THE STORY?

Anyway, yes, consider this Part 3 of my thoughts on Nimona. Hope y'all like them.