meanderingmoles
Sanctuary for my sundry interests
63 posts
Latest Posts by meanderingmoles
Nezha 2 spoilers - on the character of Sheng Gongbao.
More on Sheng Gongbao, because I think what the movie did in introducing this classic antagonist's parent and kid brother may feel really random at first, but totally recontextualsies him to be (1) an even closer foil to Ao Bing and (2) a new foil to Nezha.
Ao Bing
In Nezha 1, Shen Gongbao explains his nature to Ao Bing so he could share the similarities of their situations: that he is a leopard demon, and demons suffer the same disrepute and disadvantage of dragons in the world of cultivation. That's why he did all this scheming from Ao Bing's birth to set him on a path that can diverge from his own - so he can prepare his disciple to advance where he can't - so Ao Bing can climb higher on the cultivation ladder. Shen Gongbao would benefit from Ao Bing's advancement as the master who trained, raised, and sponsored him to advance on the celestial stage. Ao Bing's father and people would also benefit from Ao Bing's ascension.
The foil Shen Gongbao plays for Ao Bing is being a demon - underpriviledged, undesired, having to struggle and claw his way in everything, being twice as good and yet not good enough, all because of what they are and how they were born. But he's known to Ao Bing only as his master and senior, someone who understands how the world works and whom taught Ao Bing his martial arts and magic.
In Nezha 2, the characters Sheng Zhengdao, the father, and Sheng Xiaobao, the kid brother, are introduced. This immediately changes the reading of Shen Gongbao. Not only is he a master, senior and an 'adult' in the complicated and cruel cultivation world - but he is also a son. Not only is he a son, there is an intricate backstory about what kind of son he is - he's the son who left his home and backwater town to go to celestial university, he's the first in the family to be accepted into the Chan Sect, the son who achieved human form, the over-achieving son, the son with a career, the son who made it, the absolute pride of the family. The eldest son who's family think he is living it up.
He is..........decidedly not. This is where the 'demon' storyline comes back: he has hit wall after wall. He's done dirty quid pro quo. He's been decieved, used, and even cowed by the system. One can't be treated fairly as a demon. Since he cannot make it any further by himself, he's resorted to relying on Ao Bing.
However, Sheng Gongbao's new role as a 'son' now paints him in an interesting light to both Ao Bing and Nezha. We instantly see that his motivation isn't just about feeling oppressed as a demon and wanting to be recognised for his merits. There is also clearly some insane filial piety driving him - because his position and ascention is supposed to benefit his kid brother and aging father back home! He is not just doing it for himself. He did all that dirty quid pro quo, being used as a tool, cowed by the system....because he needed to be the good son for his family. Because the truth is he has not made it at all. But if only he trains the perfect disciple, more perfect than himself...if only he gets him accepted into the celestial word...if only Ao Bing becomes a god of the Fengshen Bang...if Sheng Gongbao is reocognised as one of the 12 Golden Gods.........
On and on. His foil to Ao Bing as a son adds an extra dimension to Nezha 1. Ao Bing trained his whole life (being given the advantage of being the 'Yang pill') to advance his father's and people's position. To the point of being convinced, even if for a moment, that levelling Chentang Guan and killing all the people to keep the shameful secret of his dragon nature, was the only way forward...This now sounds very similar to his master. This is the solution his trusted, experienced master sold him. In Nezha 2, we learn Shen Gongbao has done terrible things for the celestial Wuliang (his senior cultivation brother)...it follows he would unload that same treacherous cycle onto Ao Bing.
2. Nezha
In a broad sense, Sheng Gongbao as the son becomes 'young,' a former protagonist himself, the hero of his own story, with his own parents and brother to appease. What I found endlessly interesting, is that with this new role, Shen Gongbao explicitly becomes a foil to Nezha as well. But the specific foil to Nezha in this case is 'being a son who will go on a total rampage out of love for his parents/family.'
With the knowledge of his parent's 'deaths,' Nezha goes on a total rampage out of love for his parents and the pain of losing them, that ends in beating up dragons and locking them in a huge magic furnace, completely playing into the hands of the evil celestial Wuliang. When our hero Nezha mitakenly fights the Eastern Dragon King Ao Guang, with the threat of his unfinished flesh body being disintegrated (he's not ready to fight in that condition yet!) - what does he say? He says "I don't care if I'll die, so long as I kill you!" The urge to avenge his parents is stronger than his self-preservation. But it's a twist. His parents are alive!
In the furnace scene, Nezha is offered a chance to save his parents who are getting cooked into cultivation pills by Wuliang. To accept a pill that makes him lose his memory and fall under the control of Wuliang. But Nezha's mother bats that thing out of Wuliang's hands, that's stupid and her son will never be a puppet for nefarious gods! Nezha, in the end, comes from a loving and supportive family who knows and understand him. They accept him for who he is. They would never stand for it. And so Nezha is protected from being manipulated.
Upon the Chentang Guan plot twist, it's revealed Shen Gongbao actually has the same reaction Nezha has when he thinks his family has died. Except for the point that his kid brother really does die - right in front of him! After whisking away Nezha's parents, Sheng Gongbao steps out again to the war-torn Chentang Guan, to fight off a thousand demons and the three traitor dragons. All by himself. There's dialogue, Nezha's parents ask Master Shen Gongbao what is he doing - where is going - why doesn't he take shelter with them?! And Shen Gongbao answers with bitter acceptance, "What's the point? My family's gone." And he goes out to fight. To take a last stand. To die.
Going back to Nezha, doesn't that reveal Sheng Gongbao's deepest motivations as the same as our hero's? He wasn't really doing it - all of it - entirely for himself. Now that his father and kid brother are dead, there is no reason to strive further. Shen Gongbao can let go of being one of the 12 Golden Gods or whatever. He's going to go out into danger, satisfy the urge to avenge his father and brother, and die.
Which takes me to the very delicious, delicious, diabolical end credits scene. The villainous Wuliang goes to a terrible prison where Shen Gongbao and his barely-ok father are alive. In a scene that totally parallels Nezha's choice in the furnace, he presents the same offer to Shen Gongbao. Accept a curse on his mind and body that will enslave him to Wuliang in exchange for his father's life.
But Shen Gongbao doesn't have the same honesty, understanding, protection from his father...because all this time he has been away from home...not returning because he hasn't made it...his father under the impression he is living it up as a celestial...his father not even conscious...
His kid brother died.
He has just this one family member left.
A person he was supposed to be doing all this for, to make proud.
A person he was ready to get revenge and die for.
After all he has already done - what is a little curse on Sheng Gongbao for the benefit of his father?
A girl in my animation class asked me what my favorite cartoon is and i told her Moral Orel and her favourite was Toopy and Binoo. We were both embarrassingly honest but in two different directions.
making up a guy to get mad at can actually be really lovely and rewarding like for example i was feeling understimulated so i crafted an alternate world where moby dick was super popular on tumblr and the most popular ship from moby dick was ahab x humanized whaleboy merguy moby dick who was always drawn as like a skinny little white guy with white hair and sharp teeth and sort of unusual eyes like maybe with black scleras or something. and it was literally inescapable and people made like hannigram aus where will was ahab and hannibal was moby dick and people also made human!boatless!modern! aus of ahab x moby dick where they were just like normal guys as well. and the moby dick fandom all thought they were so cool and countercultural because melville's unfinished novella billy budd was also really popular and the billy budd fans were at odds with the moby dick fans because billy budd fans described it as like a heartfelt queer story in comparison to moby dick being toxic and soulless (because ahab was trying to kill moby dick in canon) and moby dick fans described billy budd as basically steven universe but none of this ended up mattering because in four years the meteors came and all life on earth was lost
if you are reading this please donate to $trextalents on cashapp; he is a disabled fx artist active in my city’s horror scene who is in a bad situation and needs financial aid. if you cannot donate, please reblog this post with more information. the world of this post is not real, but logan is.
Needle felting, traditional and stumpwork embroidery, about 1/3 of Van Gogh's "Irises." The needle felted Monet I did didn't make it into the show, but this one did. "They Were Violet."
My favorite hoodie got a hole at the pocket, so I embroidered it over.
Hi all, just wanted to show my newest piece. Oc belongs to @wampyrclown (on instagram), I loved the design, so I drew it. Meat is so fun to draw tbh, I really like how this turned out :]
“I look at you… and I’m home.”
Twenty years ago, eight-year old me saw Finding Nemo and the first shark characters shown in a positive light in cinema.
Bruce inspired me towards a lifelong love of sharks and nature. This year, I’m receiving a Masters in Biology. I owe a lot to my comfort character and to the people who brought him to life.
So, thank you. You’ve saved my life in more ways than one.
what a strange-looking crab
I have some free time… Let’s go over aemilia ars vs punto in aria vs reticella/reticello.
Important disclaimer: I am not a formally trained fashion historian and people REALLY don’t like to discuss this nomenclature, because it’s weird. I did what I could.
Okay, so, reticella was the direct precursor to needle lace (well… so was nalbinding, knotted lace, and netting, but different research topic for different day) and is a form of cutwork (carefully removing threads in fabric and then replacing them with decorative stitching instead) that got more and more ornamental and eventually evolved into punto in aria (first unknotted needle lace) which is entirely made by hand. However… sometimes, ‘punto in aria’ is used to refer specifically to non-geometric punto in aria designs (otherwise clumped together as ‘later’ punto in aria) that generally have more support, but still no true ground. When people are making that distinction, true needle lace that is solely geometric is also referred to as ‘reticella’. ‘Reticello’ is just a spelling variation on ‘reticella’ but I have seen it both ways.
While it’s possible to find some form of geometric needle lace/reticella/‘early’ punto in aria being made at most periods after the 17th century, the method was lost several times and had to be relearned (rich people are cheap, the upper middle class isn’t much better). (Needle lace regularly went in and out of fashion and the styles changed regularly based on region.) The only time geometrical needle lace really made a resurgence in fashionable circles was late into the 19th century, when the method was learned and distributed once again.
Because it was often worked in cotton, whereas the original was worked in linen (yes it was because of sharecropping and enslavement) and no one could be *absolutely sure* it was worked the same way as the original (and to sell to people as both ‘new’ and ‘traditional’) it was (re)named aemilia ars. Aemilia Ars was name of the Italian society that repopularized this style. The patterns they used are often later punto in aria designs (the ones that are less geometrical). So that’s why this needle lace can go by several names, based on my research and understanding.
I have no idea if working it in linen (which I do) or silk changes the nomenclature. (I don’t think so, but this is already confusing.) I’ve seen it several different ways and I don’t think there is a set definition anymore, but feel free to correct me if you know more!
And that’s how a wide swath of needle lace and cutwork embroidery is considered the same (unless it isn’t).
(It’s one of the few subsets of needle lace that isn’t named after where the tradition and stitches originated.)
The Students of Illip Arts High, by Backbone
Meanwhile in a parallel universe...
George and Wally (c) PBS Arthur
《Creative ways to use up a new ink pen》
Many of the motifs in this starry sky are hijacked from the illustrations of Harry Clarke:
thank you Harry Clarke
there’s this one illustration in charlie and the great glass elevator of a vermicious knid and I’ll literally never create something with the power that that image held over me as a child. im talking spiritual.
MAD SCIENTIST OTD IS...
griffin from the invisible man (1933)
griffin is an optics scientist who turns himself invisible!
More classic literature YouTubers because it's so funny to me
Bonus content:
Sam talks to the Snallygaster (sketch to final)
Let me know what you think!
Her enthusiasm for metallurgy is a hit with the kids
Linghu Chong: shit fam, you mean you've never heard the ancient chinese proverb, "avoid arsenic, snakes, and nuns?"
Little bit new to this blogging thing, so uhhh… here’s something I made, thanks.
It’s called a biscornu and is embroidered with Scottish thistles. Usually these were pincushions a few centuries ago, but I decided to make it mini and a pendant for a friend.
Mutants of Cherry Creek (pt 2)
Some MORE mutated critters from my YA lovecraftian horror comic set in 90s New England.
Mutagenic ooze is seeping into the town of Cherry Creek and mutating normal New England wildlife into terrifying monsters. The Cherry Creek Middle School Paranormal Investigation Club sets out to discover, catalogue, and tame all of the mutated cryptids and hopefully find the source of the toxic ooze before it permanently infects everything (and everyone) in town.
Northern Short Tailed Shrew — one of only a few venomous mammals
Brown and Black Bears - walk on two legs, climb trees, intelligent
Eastern Crayfish - present in the fossil record for at least 300 million years Eastern
Moose - huge but stealthy
Eastern Newt (Red Eft) — can secrete a strong smelling chemical from glands in its skin
At first, the animals just seem weird, strange, a little “off”. Over time, exposure to the ooze causes these creatures to get bigger, meaner, and much more dangerous. (all the beginning stage creatures shown here are newly mutated, their final stages are after only a few weeks of exposure)
I also love folklore and cryptids and I really love the idea of this club of dorky middle school cryptid hunters assigning names like “bigfoot”, “mothman”, and “hodag” to these monsters so can try and contextualize something they don’t really understand. Soon the club realizes these aren’t fun isolated critters but symptoms much larger impending ecological disaster!
I picture it like pokemon evolution, going from a cute water turtle to a kaiju which is a lot for a ten year old to handle.
Which is your favorite? What cryptid would you wanna see? What animal should I “Cryptify” next? lmk what you think!
The Making of the 18th Century Linen Shirt.
Made from 100% linen suiting, I also used two brass metal buttons for the cuffs. The cravat is made from 100% dupioni silk. This finishes the upper part of my 18th century gentleman’s dress, along with the previously posted waistcoat and frock coat.
MUTANTS OF CHERRY CREEK
Mutagenic ooze is seeping into the town of Cherry Creek and mutating normal New England wildlife into terrifying monsters. The Cherry Creek Middle School Paranormal Investigation Club sets out to discover, catalogue, and tame all of the mutated cryptids and hopefully find the source of the toxic ooze before it permanently infects everything (and everyone) in town.
I want to base all the “cryptids” the Club discovers on real animals in New England’s different ecosystems. At first, the animals just seem weird, strange, a little “off”. Over time, exposure to the ooze causes these creatures to get bigger, meaner, and much more dangerous. (all the beginning stage creatures shown here are newly mutated, their final stages are after only a few weeks of exposure)
I also love folklore and cryptids and I really love the idea of this club of dorky middle school cryptid hunters assigning names like “bigfoot”, “mothman”, and “hodag” to these monsters so can try and contextualize something they don’t really understand. Soon the club realizes these aren’t fun isolated critters but symptoms much larger impending ecological disaster!
I picture it like pokemon evolution, going from a cute water turtle to a kaiju which is a lot for a ten year old to handle.
Which is your favorite? What cryptid would you wanna see? lmk what you think!
very fun awesome anime (i’ve been doodling nothing else for days)