#nimona worldbuilding

[shhhhimwatchingthis]

one thing that's fascinating about the world building of Nimona I've been thinking about is...what did the knights do in this society for 1000 years?

we're told they are meant to fight and kill monsters, to protect the city. but the twist in the film is that Nimona was the 'monster' from a 1000 years ago. additionally her journey is all about her finding a place to belong because there is no one like her.

so the implication is there are and have not been any other monsters/attacks.

so you have a group of elite knights, trained from childhood with a mission passed down to their children. the elitism is important here because Ballister's entry into the ranks is seen as such a threat. but none of these knights have ever actually fought a monster. they're just a small group of elite families holding onto to their wealth and power by making people believe their swords are needed (remember we know they aren't and never were)

so what do the knights actually do? they are treated in story like celebrity athletes. they do endorsements and commercials. there is also a lot of allegory to them being cops (mostly in the critique of their over zealous training/use of force, Ambrosius not just disarming Bal but ...well literally dis-arming him, the Director being able to destroy evidence of her corruption by claiming Bal has a gun and Todd shoots before he verifies this)

its fascinating world building because the social role of the knights in this society literally impacts the plot. the reason Ballister being a commoner and being allowed to hold a sword is a threat is because suddenly their special culb where they get all the wealth, adoration and importantly get to hold the swords without ever having to actually fight a monster is threatened. suddenly their club where they get all the power with no actual work isnt so special anymore. suddenly the director realizes the queen , who should on paper be the person she is most loyal to has to go. cause the queen isn't treating them as special anymore.

[bones-sprouts]

okay just watched nimona and reread the novel this is the consensus:

if you want a feel good movie, more explicit gay and trans rep, and a more well realized high tech midieval world watch the nimona movie

if you want a darker tone and more morally gray characters, a really compelling twist/mystery, and a gay ass scientist side character read the nimona comic

[zyrafowe-sny]

okay I have to ask: any world building thoughts on Nimona?

love your blog by the way 😊

Aw, thanks! I enjoy yours too!

Yes, I have worldbuilding thoughts about Nimona, mostly because of questioning possible potholes. I think there are multiple potential answers, so I like seeing what other people come up with too.

Why are only the descendants of Gloreth's chosen knights allowed to be knights?

I think it started as a way to make sure Nimona (or a similar shapeshifter) wasn't infiltrating their ranks since knighthood was limited to a close circle of people who knew each other well. Family would be more likely to figure out if a knight had been replaced by an imposter (like the freestyle jazz giveaway).

Of course, once your family has special privileges, you might not want to share and reform the system.

How do they have enough food/natural resources without going outside the walls?

I think there were a few city expansions over the millennium, but it seems that at some point they wanted more permanent walls and that came at the risk of running out of land/key resources. At that point there may have been more trade with other settlements, but once they had the tech to be self-sufficient (like high yield crops, renewable energy, recycling, etc), they cut off ties.

How do they know about non-native animals like whales and rhinoceroses?

Old trade routes and immigrants from before becoming more strictly isolationist. Knights might learn to recognize more animals than the average citizen as part of monster identification training.

Why does Ballister have a different accent than the knights?

I headcanon that he's from a District formed from the last wave of refugees/immigrants the Kingdom allowed in, and that the District is sufficiently segregated from the rest of the city that it maintained a distinct accent. Fear of monster infiltration was likely the original justification for the segregation.

How do they guard the wall without looking over the walls?

Once the tech was available - automated surveillance cameras that check for anything unusual. People who guard the wall and never see any monsters might start thinking that there aren't any, and we all know that's crazy.

Why was there no mention of a royal successor for the queen?

I think they have elected sovereigns that come from the noble families, but the election was delayed because of the assassination.

Anyways, I've been rotating questions like this and potential answers in my head since I first saw the movie. I'm crossing fingers that I'll incorporate some worldbuilding headcanons in WIPs, but we'll see how that goes.

[winepresswrath]

I saw Nimona! It was delightful, especially Nimona herself- I loved the animation for her shapeshifting, and she was a total joy to watch. A menace and a woobie. A 10/10 meowmeow who can actually turn into a cat and meow. Tragic backstory has me clutching at my heart, no notes. They did a great job with Ambrosius and Ballister, though they're very different from their original counterpoints (especially Ambrosius, who is wrong but also basically a sweetheart. Ballister is also a sweetheart, but that rings pretty true to the original to me). I think the biggest emotional/relationship change is that the crux of the respectability politics metaphors has shifted from Ballister and Ambrosius to Ballister and Nimona, and I think that really works, especially in the context of the other changes they made. Nimona gets her own xagnetoesque quasi-romance, and on a shallow note I thought that was extremely tragicute and it really worked for me. My only critique is that bits of the movie felt a little rushed. I would have liked it if they had let a little more time pass in-universe and given a few of the big emotional scenes a little more breathing room, but it all came together and it gave me that good movie feeling where you sink into it and stop thinking about the story as a story because you're too busy experiencing it.

[salty-an-disco]

I keep going back-and-forth between the world outside when Quiet and the Princess leave as mortals being more modern or medieval, then I remembered what Nimona’s world did– mixing a futuristic setting with western medieval aesthetics– with flying cars and holographic phones in the same place that has knights riding in horses and brandishing swords (which may have lasers bulti into them, but still).

[athina-blaine]

while watching nimona, my friends and I got into a huge argument about how they could have scottie terriers with no scotland and jazz with no harlem renaissance so now I too just like to drop explicit references to real world things in my fic that have 0% justification being there in the first place and i feel like the funniest mfer alive

[optionalcausality]

Quick tangent here, but.

The Princess Bride is one of my favorite swashbuckling movies, and it has a sword fight that is such a cool example of what a sword fight can be, that a whole generation of kids got inspired to learn the history and the fighting techniques. It reinvigorated the sport.

It's not trying to be an accurate sword fight. It aimed to be dramatic -- to be the vector of character development and musical turns and dramatic reversals and backstory reveal -- and it absolutely understood the assignment.

Nimona might be doing something like that. I still have a way to go before the end. But what it's really conveying isn't as much about specific lines of dialogue.

It's saying, "Hey, viewer? You aren't alone, even if it feels like no one else understands what you've been through. And sometimes people like you will tell stories when they grow up, stories that help others like you to know that they aren't alone."

[postingjustwhatever]

The city in the Nimona movie, how big is it and how did they build it if it’s confined inside a certain area that nobody goes outside of? Like, how did they source their materials? And where do they get their food from? Is there farmland inside the walls? How would there be enough to feed everyone? Where did they get the materials to build all their technology, irl isn’t most of the material for building those things sourced from other countries? Also there are skyscrapers in the city, can the people at the tops of those not see past the walls and tell there’s no monsters out there?

[krytus]

there's no implications in the movie that theres hospitals. i know theres people off screen getting leeched.

[radiantmists]

i want to write about nimona but the canon has huge lore gaps in the exact places i want to work.

what is outside the walls? im guessing not monsters, but are there other human civilizations and no one has ever made contact despite the world being at flying cars level of tech?

are there other supernatural creatures, shapeshifters like nimona or more traditional 'monsters' like dragons? if not, why is the kingdom so convinced of their existence? if there are, why isnt nimona out being friends with them?

for that matter, has nimona spent the last 1000 years in the kingdom? if yes, what was she doing? did she actually spend time blending in so consistently that she disappeared from public consciousness? if no, why was she back in time to have adventures with ballister?

and like. lore gaps can be fun to write in! i have ideas for possible answers to a lot of these questions! in some cases they could potentially answer each other! but in a lot of cases id just be making up whatever i want and the fic writer in me who likes finding interesting things to work with in the canon itself is grumpy.

[akasen-littera]

An Introduction to Akasen-ism

Hey there! Welcome to my blog! I only just recently started using Tumblr and perhaps it would be a good idea to properly present myself to you guys!

About me

Akasen (he/him).

Gay.

19 y.o.

Brazillian, might post in portuguese

University student, majoring in Computer Science.

Uses a lot of tonetags.

Interests and fandoms

Current Fandoms:

A Ordem Paranormal TTRPG

Nimona (I still haven't read the novel, sadly)

Encanto

Baldur's Gate 3

Interests

Fantasy, writing, magic systems in general, action and lore.

Mythology and folklore.

Diverse and creative application of magic.

Tabletop RPGs my beloved!! While I'm always open to learn new systems, I'm mostly into DnD, Ordem Paranormal and City of Mist.

I also make homebrews for AOP and plan to make some fics involving Ordem Paranormal in the future so I can spread the word of AOP /hj.

Endlessly yapping about magic systems and magic in literature and magic in general.

I also enjoy gaming, mostly RPGs but I consider myself ecletic in taste.

My fics

♦ Dark Seeks Light

Ostracized, neglected and considered a curse and a stain of the otherwise perfect image of the Familia Madrigal, Mirabel realizes on the bottom of the pit that she is a shadow in a family of shining stars, that not only she isn't part of them, she is opposite to them. In a last plead for a candle that pretty much ruined her life, she asks for a place to belong and people that can understand her.

In the following day, in the middle of Isabela's bertrothal dinner, she suddenly started glowing in a golden light, before disappearing before their very eyes.

She woke up in a strange room, amidst six strangers of different languages and nations, before they magically started understanding each other and founding out that they share more than they expected: the fact that they were all giftless. Upon learning this, Mirabel ignites the hope that with them, she can find a place to be herself.

Encanto Fic.

Current incomplete.

Has a lot of focus on the OCs, in some cases more than the Madrigals themselves.

High Fantasy with magic being a constant, ever-present aspect of the Arcane Nations.

Will be pretty long.

Lots and lots and lots of worldbuilding

Queer people everywhere (it's my setting of magical people I make the rules).

Contains OC x Canon.

A lot of exploration of the magic system.

♦ The Narrative Around Us

People are simply not aware of the sheer power stories hold.

The citizens of the kingdom go about their days without having knowledge of people with powers born from stories: Rifts, whose powers are concealed by the ever present, yet invisible, mist. Those people are vessels for the respective legends they represent, those powers shaping them.

However, one common knowledge for every rift is that the narrative around their mythos will inevitably make them gravitate and change their own stories to fit their own. They must fight their own stories internally, lest they are devoured by them. So when Ballister becomes the Rift of Gloreth, knowing that there is scarcely any bigger honor, he vows himself to give himself wholly to her story, to be a vessel, however, as he learns about the world of Rifts and the Mist, he is blocked from fufilling his destiny.

Nimona AU - Inspired by City of Mist TTRPG

Currently incomplete.

Features some OCs but the protagonists are Ballister and Ambrosius.

Quite a lot of depictions of religious trauma-- But things get better (eventually).

Urban Fantasy with action and investigation.

Bal is kinda of a vigilante in this AU.

[jojotier]

diversity win! this sad pathetic middle-aged man is angsting over the husband he lost

[mysticdragon3md3]

Visual Storytelling: The Production Design of “Nimona” by  Gnomon

[zyrafowe-sny]

"Look at you, acting like common children" hits a little different during a rewatch.

[jkl-fff]

Watching Nimoma (part 5)

I really hope they kill Todd of the Punchable Face.

The worldbuilding of futuristic medieval is so richly done. And I feel like there's some social commentary there about how, with all our tech, we're still laboring under medieval mindsets.

"Was it a sea otter or a river otter?" "Does it matter? It BIT me!" "Well, there's significant anatomical differences between the two." HA! That Knight is now my favorite.

[waterfall-ambience]

"nooo auri dont start a new project" and i wont. but what if queer wizards, intellectualism, isolation, and the pain being connected/disconnected to a culture and society that simultaneously loves and hates you.