Watch Nimona

[ysabetwordsmith]

Temporarily available on YouTube for the award season: the full movie Nimona.  Do not watch with mouth full.  Also, may do permanent damage to narrow minds.  3q3q3q!!! :D

Comments

[galadhir]

Ah, very cool! I enjoyed it a lot when it was on Netflix. It'll be fun to see it again. Thanks!

[siliconshaman]

Ok, that was metal!

and some very entertaining world building too.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I admit that the blend of science and magic reminded me a lot of Star Wars.

[kengr]

It's wonderful.

I loved the gay relationship. and the way nobody batted an eye. It was just *there*. a completely normal, unremarkable relatioship. No special emphasis or anything.

I can quite easily see some people's haeds exploding at that.

I also love the way they expose the "history is written by the winners" problem.

The way Nimona was betrayed by here first friend and *why* is horrible. But also a very good lesson.

The way that carried on thru time is also horrible, but another necessary lesson.

[see_also_friend]

The mental health aspect was well-done too.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I agree. They touched on the challenges of knowing someone in a relationship. They did a good job with depression and suicidal ideation. And they didn't make a big fuss about those things and "you need therapy" -- they basically treated all the mental problems by connecting with other people. Which actually has a high rate of success.

Re: Yes ...

[see_also_friend]

>>And they didn't make a big fuss about those things and "you need therapy" -- they basically treated all the mental problems by connecting with other people. Which actually has a high rate of success.<<

Healthy relationships and social or emotional skills are basically mental health first aid. It works to prevent or solve minor scrapes, and helps to begin healing slightly bigger ones.

And even if someone has the psychological equivalent of sucking chest wounds, a bonded person (or occasionally, a passing social-emotional genius) has a good chance of calming the person down at least enough to work on a more healthy & long term solution than 'Loudly emote distress at the environment.'

That said, therapy or a reasonable facsimile may be necessary for:

a) complicated issues that surpass the problem-solving skills of most laypeople

b) issues where the usual problem-solver in enmeshed in the problem, or cannot perceive the problem

c) getting other people (usually more privileged ones) to shut up and listen

Also, Re: the movie seeing how the characters untangle the social dynamics after the end of the movie would be interesting. Namely, they have one person with positive bonds to two other people...and the two other people have serious issues with each other.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>I loved the gay relationship. and the way nobody batted an eye. It was just *there*. a completely normal, unremarkable relatioship. No special emphasis or anything.<<

That's background parity.

>> I also love the way they expose the "history is written by the winners" problem. <<

Painfully true. Bal spent a lot of time looking like he'd bitten into an apple and found half a worm.

Re: Thoughts

[kengr]

Well, all I can say is that background parity is a rarity.

So *many* things that folks just have to go "look how cool I am, I'm representing!"

It has a much greater effect if it's "just there". Check out Heinlein's comments (in Grumbles From the Grave) about the editor for his juveniles. Especially apt are the objections to bits in The Star Beast.

She objected to "kids divorcing parents" to which Heinlein replied along the lines of "we have that *now*, we just call it something else".

I think she also objected to "coercion in the choice of careers" being grounds for it. :-)

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Well, all I can say is that background parity is a rarity.<<

Sadly so.

If you like it, though, you can always prompt for it. Also if you look at character sheets in my work, you will frequently find less-common ethnicities, sexualities, etc. It doesn't always come up in the writing but is there so that, for instance, I don't forget and pair up an ace character later as if they were sexual.

>> So *many* things that folks just have to go "look how cool I am, I'm representing!" <<

That's a serious drawback of all the "awareness" training and people wanting to seem "woke" without doing the actual work to represent it well. This then contributes to people who wish it would go away because it is distracting.

>> It has a much greater effect if it's "just there". Check out Heinlein's comments (in Grumbles From the Grave) about the editor for his juveniles. Especially apt are the objections to bits in The Star Beast.<<

That's one valid opinion. I think it can be true, but isn't necessarily true all the time.

>> She objected to "kids divorcing parents" to which Heinlein replied along the lines of "we have that *now*, we just call it something else". <<

Variously emancipation (telling word), runaway kids, and driftaway kids. The latter two can be brought back in chains if parent want them retrieved by police, since parents basically own children until 18.

Re: Thoughts

[see_also_friend]

>>Variously ...<<

There's also the trick of someone who is physically present, but inside their heads have 'gone away somewhere else.' By their own choice, I mean, not like a mental breakdown.

This one is probably far more common among unhappy divorced kids than people would suspect, since adults won't think to ask about it, kids might not think to mention it until years later, and it won't get put into official records or come to the attention of medical personnel unless something goes significantly wrong.

So, unless someone asks about it, it comes up in an assessment for something else, or it becomes severe enough to count as a mental heath issue (i.e. disassociation) it likely goes unrecorded.

And yeah, not everybody is in a situation where running away would solve the problem.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>There's also the trick of someone who is physically present, but inside their heads have 'gone away somewhere else.' By their own choice, I mean, not like a mental breakdown.<<

Dissociation is a vitally important defense mechanism. It's only a problem if it happens when it's not needed or wanted (a common result of needing it for a long time, alas). Many forms of meditation and torture resistance techniques are founded on this.

>>And yeah, not everybody is in a situation where running away would solve the problem.<<

Often because once you're broken, your problems travel with you. But local-America lacks the handful of options that Terramagne-America offers to disadvantaged youth. Here if they run, they can be dragged back in chains, because adults basically own them until 18. It really shows that police started out as slavecatchers.

Re: Thoughts

[see_also_friend]

>>Often because once you're broken, your problems travel with you.<<

Well, someone younger than, say, ten is going to have a much harder time making it on their own than an adult-sized fifteen or sixteen year old. Running may also be unfeasible or undesirable for other reasons - needing specialized medical care, risk of being permanently separated from other relatives/community, feeling obligated to stay for a variety of reasons.

Also, not every problem that is unpleasant or even damaging is necessarily worse than the problems you'd have if you ran.

And most people still would have to think of running and consider it a viable option before actually doing it, unless the situation is "jump out of a burning building" level bad.

[see_also_friend]

That was a good (and funny!) movie.