#and nimona is just an agent of chaos

[a-dumb-sarcastic-bisexual]

These Nimona headcanons have been sitting in my notes for like two weeks

I just know Bal and Ambrosius were those kids who had to be put on opposite sides of the room in class

And a lot of teachers assumed that they would just give up and pay attention but no

They’re some stubborn little shits who can't leave each other alone for more than five minutes 

And while they were on their breaks they went through the options of “long-distance” communication (because yes these dramatic dorks consider ten feet long distance)

Notes? No that could be tracked back to them

Sign language? No that's too noticeable 

They finally landed on morse code (because these losers would rather learn a dead language than wait to talk to each other)

Now you might be thinking “Roo wouldn't Bal be too focused on the lesson to talk to Ambrosius?” 

No this little nerd records all of their lessons so he won’t miss a single piece of information  

After they became fluent the only thing you could hear in class was the teacher talking some tapping here and there and Ambrosius and Bal holding back laughter with every fiber in their being 

I also know these dorks would choose each other for every single activity 

It got to a point where teachers would beg them to choose other people 

They would listen for like one day and then go back to working with each other 

These losers have known each other for so long that they can read each other's minds 

All they have to do is look at each other and they’re angry or laughing or blushing 

When people point it out Ambrosius will say he doesn’t even notice it anymore 

Bal will say it’s as natural as breathing 

And Nimona calls it creepy as fuck

They could also fill a book with the most random inside jokes most of which they don’t even really remember the context of 

The main trio are fiercely protective of each other 

Bal only got into a handful of fights back in the institute and it was all because someone got a little too comfortable and started talking shit about Ambrosius  

People lost count of how many fights that Ambrosius got into 

After a while Bal stopped wasting his breath by begging Ambrosius just to ignore them and bought a cool quality medkit 

The number of fights Bal got into skyrocketed after the wall fell 

While the majority of society saw the trio as heroes there were still some who called Nimona a monster and Ambrosius a disgrace

And most of those people couldn’t say anything afterward because their jaws were broken 

There was an incident in the market which was could be summed up as Ambrosius holding a man at knife point while threatening to cut his tongue out if he ever heard him call Bal a murderer again 

After Nimona came back the fights increased tenfold 

The first time Nimona and Ambrosius went to the market alone they came back bloody and bruised 

It wasn’t until Bal checked the news that he found out those dorks started a fucking riot 

There were also rumors that a man was missing a tongue but Bal hoped those were just rumors 

One time the three of them went out to dinner and some dumbass tried to jump them 

They claimed that it’s what Gloreth would have wanted 

Bal had to drag Ambrosius off of him while Nimona was egging him on

The first time that Nimona and Bal kidnapped Ambrosius from his office was undeniably the worst 

He hadn’t eaten or slept in days and he looked like he was ready to keel over 

And a couple of people dared to try and stop them 

Claiming Ambrosius “still had work to do” 

Nimona looked them dead in the eyes and said “If you don’t let us walk out of here I’ll make sure you never walk again” 

No one argued with them after that 

Bal told Nimona he was proud of them for keeping their cool

And Nimona replied “Thanks but I definitely broke someone’s foot on the way out”

He couldn’t even get mad at her because he broke someone’s hand

Bal says they’re the reason he’s getting grays in his early 20s 

To which Ambrosius responds “Moonbeam you came home yesterday with a broken nose and busted knuckles don’t talk to me about gray hair”

[canmom]

Animation Night 162: Nimona

I'm back~

Hey everyone. Last week Animation Night had its second week off in just over three years. A shameful lapse; the perpetrators have been... dealt with, and you can trust it won't happen again.

So tonight! I figured we'd watch Nimona, since it just came out and all. This is actually sorta related to Annecy ('Annecy related stuff' will be a theme for a good few weeks), insofar as it premiered there. But I didn't see that premiere, so instead I gotta talk about some other stuff...

(please forgive the big ugly stickers, this is the only high-res version of the cover I could find)

So. We're in the era where the people who were big in webcomics back in the 2010s are now making animated films. A few months ago we talked Lackadaisy; now it's Nimona's turn.

If you're old by Tumblr standards, you might well remember that time ten years ago when Nate Stevenson was one of us poor sods drawing pictures on Tumblr as gingerhaze (he just came back in fact!), and Nimona was a popular webcomic. But not one you can find online anymore; Nimona came out on paper, and this in turn launched Stevenson's gradual rise through comics and into animation. Perhaps you are more likely to know of his work from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. More on that shortly...

Nimona follows a shapeshifting girl in a fantasy world and her friendship with one Ballister Blackheart, a 'villain' in the roles of this setting but very much one with a heart of gold, at odds with the 'Institute' and his counterpart/rival/secret boyfriend Ambrosious Goldenloin. In contrast with the uptight Blackheart, Nimona is a kind of prickly traumagirl chaos agent, an archetype that we would meet again in She-Ra's Catra; the story involves many sciencefictional turns but her tumultous relationship with Blackheart is at its heart - along with the question of what sort of person Nimona is when you get down to it, which even she struggles to decide...

It's tricky to know how to characterise Nimona, 10 years on. At the time I was certainly into it; looking back I feel like it's definitely a first longform work sort of thing, where sometimes the plotting feels a bit haphazard - but regardless, it's absolutely a solid read. And for a Tumblr craving that #representation it was exactly what the doctor ordered. The great success of this comic led to more comics, primarily the Lumberjanes series about a group of girl scouts having various wacky supernatural escapades; all this comic work in turn got Stevenson an in at Disney, working on Craig McCracken's series Wander over Yonder as a writer, before finally getting a chance to run his own show...

That show was the 2018 Netflix reboot of the 80s cartoon She-Ra: Princess of Power, animated at Dreamworks. (At about the same time, Stevenson married Molly Ostertag, author of Strong Female Protagonist and writer for The Owl House). This one was very popular with the lesbians on here, odds are pretty good that you've seen it, I actually ended up watching it as it came out with housemates... but let's talk a little about it, why not.

So. Princesses is the original She-Ra by way of Avatar: The Last Airbender, taking a lot of AtlA's general approach to pacing, humour and drama alike - the first season finds it hard to step out of Avatar's shadow, but gradually it figured out a bit more of its own identity.

She-Ra is ostensibly the story of Adora, who has defected from the evil empire and gained the power to transform into magical girl supersoldier 'She-Ra', along with her two friends Glimmer and Bo from the good two shoes kingdom. These protagonists have their conflicts - Adora trying to fill the big shoes of She-Ra, Glimmer's tense relationship with her royal mother - but it is absolutely far more interested in antagonist Catra, who is the Nimona/Zuko figure of this story, as well as Adora's long-term will they or won't they love interest. Catra consistently steals the show, and most of its big drama comes from the question of whether Catra will follow Adora in defecting from the 'Horde' - or rather, why she does not, and continues to make all the worst choices possible. The intermediate season finales with their time travel and fantasy worlds are honestly pretty solid sci-fi melodrama - the final season, which really rushes to tie everything up neatly, sadly drops that ball.

Besides AtlA, it's a show that will wear its anime influences on its sleeve (with some really overt Utena nods). The animation is in an odd place where it is clearly leaning on anime drawing styles but with an American Toonboom-era inflection, where everything is pushed into simple shapes just a little too much; it has its moments (the 'Fright Zone' backgrounds are rather good, and there are some charming moments of character interaction) but struggles with space and perspective in a way that's not great for an action-driven show.

But whatever I might have to say about its flaws, She-Ra was a hit, successful enough for Netflix to fund it for four seasons - making a much larger splash than Powerhouse's concurrent He-Man series which took a much more traditional approach. And I suppose that led them to look at what other ND Stevenson related properties they might be able to sell...

As all this was happening, the Nimona film was brewing. It had a rather troubled production; in 2015 Fox bought the rights, planning to make it at Blue Sky (best known for Ice Age). The project got cancelled when Disney digested Fox, with Disney feeling a little nervy about all the gay/trans shit in this movie. (Not that that stopped them having a float at London Pride yesterday lmao. Cunts.)

But that wasn't the end of the story, and Netflix and Annapurna swooped in, pulling in directors Nick Bruno and Troy Quane who had been at Blue Sky before its demise and worked on the previous version of the film. The animation ended up being finished at the visual effects company DNEG and premiered at Annecy a couple of weeks ago - I could have met Stevenson and got a signed copy of the comic lol. Now at last it's here for streaming.

So after that messy story what sort of film is it? The story takes a similar premise to the comic, and keeps the core character relationships pretty much as they were: Blackheart is a good man unjustly framed as a villain, Nimona is a shapeshifter who pushes him to escalate, Goldenloin as the official pursuing Blackheart, and his boyfriend before the shit went down. But the plot looks like it will end up diverging quite a bit. Visually, it's CG with a 2D celshading inflection - most likely unrelated to Spiderverse given the timeline, but it's definitely belonging within that new flavour of CG film. It's a style that really pushes and exaggerates the expressions, and I can't really say how well it will work - but let's find out! The critics seem pretty excited.

I think I said that Animation Night would start at a reasonable time today. Well, my best laid plans ganged aglee, but there is time I think to check out Nimona - so if you'd like to join me, I'll be live shortly at twitch.tv/canmom and I hope to see you there ^^

[marscomicscorner]

Adventures of Lawful Good villian and his Chaotic Evil sidekick

it is NIMONA by SD Stevenson

featuring tragic backstories.

Hands down this is my favourite graphic novel of all time.

The shape language is strong in this one and the story plays off of tropes: being ‘the villian’ and ‘the hero’ is a job, and Nimona hired herself as sidekick. She waltzes in says ‘im a shapeshifter!’ ‘you’re hired!’. This system is just a way of the real villians, the Institution (of course), to control the kingdom.

Ballister is all-busness science-nerd lawful villian while Nimona is an agent of utter chaos and magic. Therefore they are perfect for each other.

ROLL THE TAPE:

the world is a medieval fantasy where there is actual in-universe science of magic studied by the characters: Ballister, the Institution , and freelance scient Raine Whispers (not the actual name but damn character design is similar!)

them 

[subukunojess]

Poker Night 3 Brainstorming Headcanons

As I slowly try to reach some sense of normalcy, I wanted to share ideas on the spot for my Poker Night fanfics I'm planning and eventually writing. It's just me putting my thoughts out there so that I can remember them.

Thoughts under the Cut:

The series itself has 3 phases (Past, Present, and Future). Past refers to anything before the main fic. It usually consists of stories set in the canon Poker Nights, the days prior to the fic, and the MC's backstories. The Present is basically Monster Game Night, the main fic. The Future is everything that happens after that night.

The "canon" Player for Poker Night is a mute genderfluid person named Ziomara. I do want to figure them out more character-wise and write more of them. Their stories are either cozy-everyday multifandom chaos or a top-secret undercover agent when Poker Night 3 happens.

The MC for Monster Game Night and most of my fics is a trans nonbinary person nicknamed The Rookie. While their interactions with characters blend with Z's, there's more of a purpose/plot to them.

Thanks to Orca, Rookie finally found their new name: Rhythm! I do want to write a small scene with that in mind.

Rookie is psychic which comes into play more in the later half of the series. More specifically, they can see the past as opposed to the future. For the most part, they cannot control it. It just happens on its own or luck. It ranges from simply seeing a scene play out like a daydream to actually enacting the past. Depending on the POV of the person, Rookie would briefly act like the person. They can also see ghosts as a result.

The majority of Rookie's stories are a vibe of Ghost Whisperer, Sally Face, and Nimona. Underneath the silliness and fluff are mysteries and putting up fronts with twists in the mix.

Out of the many mysteries surrounding the plot, there are two major ones that Rookie must solve. The first one is finding out what happened to their roommate. Rookie trusts Z no matter what but they find that the latter has been acting strange lately and in the next chapter, Z would reveal what they look like now and Rookie has several questions. What happened to Z and who did it?

The second mystery happens after the main fic. Somewhat spoiler, but when the Rookie wins the tournament, they'll black out and come back in their bed. At first, it plays out as a "was it all a dream? No, it's not a dream" trope. But Rookie would feel that the resolution was vague and that it felt like a week has passed before they woke up. The plot after the main fic focuses on the recovery from the monster takeover with new supernatural entities showing up as well as a new mysterious entity who uses a new phone app for assassination-like jobs. Through Past Vision, Rhythm would find out what really happened during their blackout.

The series is a major crossover that is broken up into one-shots and a couple multi-chapters. Oh and has monster blorbos. Yes, I am not normal.

More to come in a Reblog soon!

[sirgawainofgalifrey]

@fanfic-fucker Don't worry I'm definitely not disagreeing with you about the themes of any of these.

I was just looking at the larger conflicts the movies set up and the specific role each character plays in the story.

In Princess Mononoke I was mainly looking at it as the conflict between Society or Progress v.s. Nature, with The Spirit of the Forest and The Emperor being those two things personified. While Lady Eboshi and San are the main actors in the conflict, while also being well rounded characters.

I wasn't trying to insinuate that Lady Eboshi and The Emperor are the same. They are on the same side of the conflict of Society v.s Nature, but the Emperor represents the excesses of Society as a whole, acting out of Fear and Selfishness while Lady Eboshi represents the regular individuals, being practical and compassionate for others.

Same with San and the Spirit of the Forest, with San being agressive and territorial (with good reason) but the Spirit being more balanced and largely indifferent towards humans, until they cut of its head (throwing it out of balance.)

In Nimona, the much broader conflict is Order v.s. Chaos, which I thought was pretty similar to Mononoke because Society and Nature can be seen as aspects of these.

But in Nimona, instead of having an embodiment and an actor, in it the embodiments are kind of the actors. Nimona is a weird ancient forest spirit shapeshifter thing and also the main agent of Chaos in the story. And the Director is the embodiment of Order, the head of their whole society, and the main actors on it's behalf. Both The Emperor and the Director (and Lady Eboshi to and extent) are acting out of fear, fear of Nature, Monsters, Death, Disorder, Unsafety, etc. And Nimona and San being reactionary and lashing out with violence.

And Ballister takes on Ashitaka's role of mediator, trying to strike the necessary balance between Society and Nature, Order and Chaos (and he is balanced between the two of them, he has his whole "truth and honor aren't stupid" line).

Both movies are more sympathetic to the Nature/Chaos aspect of it, because the conflicts of both are caused by the excess of the other, the human hostility to Nature in Mononoke and the extremeness of Order in Nimona, which is Tyranny.

And in both of them, the cause of this Imbalance, the personification of Society and Order, the Emperor and the Director, are told to get fucked at the end, literally and physically.

So TL;DR: I was noticing the similarities between the function of each of the characters between the movies. Nimona takes on the role of both the Spirit of the Forest and San, representing and being the main actor on behalf of Nature/Chaos; and The Director taking on Lady Eboshi and the Emperor's roles, being the main actor and the representation of Order/Society. And Ballister having to reconcile the two, while also telling main agitator of the conflict, the Emperor and the Director to get fucked.

Sorry I'm just really into Dichotomies and that's usually where my mind goes first.

So Nimona is like The Princess Mononoke if San was the Spirit of the Forest and the Emperor was the Lady of Iron Town Lady and if Ashitaka was San's father figure instead of her love interest and if he was in love with Lady Iron Town's body guard dude.

Is that about right?

[glorioustidalwavedefendor]

Well, that whole thing with the backstory can't easily be translated into comic, it would really have to be changed.

I mean they could if they wanted to do Waldrons Homework

She basically should be the Nimona to Lokis Balister ...

She grew up in apocalypses MEANING she again and again stood in the wreckage of systems ...

She saw where certain attitudes led, again and again and again ...

Sooner or later you will recognize a pattern

Because not every apocalypse is inevedible ...

I mean just take that tiny apocalypse with the Roxcart Supermarked

It isn't that the whole world goes down ... just this mining town.

And you can bet your arse that not everyone died ... the rich got evacuated ...

The "everyone" who died where the people that where to poor to leave ... and they where considered to expendable to make anyone give a fuck about them

Just some workers ... there are more where these came from

-> Which honestly should mean she should have a "foaming at the mouth" rage moment at the mere mention of McDonalds ...

Or Lamentis

They could have invested in getting everyne of that world, and sure not everyone would have made it ... but some ...

Instead there is one rocket for the 1% and that never toock off ... ergo 100% fatality ...

So her job should be to meet Loki where he is currently (systems are good, but this one needs some fine tuning -- like Balisters: the Institute is good just the director is bad ... )

Let him make his mistakes (trying to explain things, trying to not rock the boat, trying to work with the rules)

And evntually be there wen he realizes that not just Thanos gave his brain a good scrubbing ...

because she has been there ... got the t-shit ... and had time to think about it ...

so yeah

Her job should be to make sure that MCULoki becomes a better agent of chaos ...

Her backstory is perfect for that ... but it isn't really utilized in a usefull way ...

I think and it's the fact. That Sylvie is not have best description of herself. I meant like Tony Stark = genius, playboy, philanthropist

Steve Roger= soldier from past, righteous man.

Loki= mischief, hero, villain and anti hero.

And what is for Sylvie? her description is superior loki and she is a woman with lack of proofing of superior things and uninteresting Mary sue

Seriously all loki variant in comics even in series except Sylvie they have they own description . Sylvie just called women and superior loki

So personally I don't like the term Mary Sue because I feel it has a lot of misogynistic connotations attached to it as well as just being a term that is overused and misapplied. The term I prefer and I think is a accurate description of my problem with the character is "Creator's Pet"

All that being said yeah you're right Sylvie doesn't have much of a character that isn't linked to being better than Loki or having vague descriptor of having such a hard time growing up. Who she is as a person and character is just kind of angry. Like, Loki is the god of mischief, god of lies and god of outcast those titles are reflections on who he is as a character and his backstory make sense why he became that way.

Sylvie who grew up in all up in all the Apocalypses, her scars are so much deeper and she can't trust anyone yet somehow still has enough social skills and development to become employee of the month at McDonald. Do those things really match up.

Amora the Enchantress is the vamp archetype. She is very proud of her skills and beauty and she is deceitful and clever. That is the starting that writers for have been able to flesh out over years. Sylvie Lushton was just some random human girl Loki gave powers to because he felt like it.

I think Sylvie lack of characterization is a reason why Marvel comics are so uninterested in her as a character. Her entire "intrigued" really resolve around her backstory how much harder she had it than Loki and also the fact that she is a girl. Well, that whole thing with the backstory can't easily be translated into comic, it would really have to be changed. Also more and more recent comics have had Loki causally present as femme more often. That along with so many others interesting female characters in the Thor comics Sylvie would have a hard time standing out as anything noteworthy.

[zyrafowe-sny]

But it's not even alphabetical! (At least not on the front end.) Why is Goose (Untitled Goose Game) & Nimona before the three-person Ballister & Ambrosius & Nimona tag? Why is just Bal & Nimona not appearing at all in the first 10 or so options? How are some of these common enough to already be approved AO3 relationship tags? (And to be clear - I am thrilled that all these tags exist. I am intimately familiar with the pain of typing out three-person tags on multiple fics, and I am otterly delighted our otter knights have their own tag. I also fully intend on finding that Goose & Nimona fic or fic series since they are both such great agents of chaos.)

This is just so wildly different than when I posted my last Nimona fic about two weeks ago.

I am baffled, confused, and amused.

Excellent job, everyone - all these appear before Nimona & Bal