+A Very Necessary Addition

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.)

HTTYD books iceberg:

Feel free to correct me and suggest changes and additions!

Atp I don't want revenge for Psyche or Medea or whoever, I just want them to all DIE and rot. If Eros gets to do whatever he wants and live happily ever after so be it. If Psyche is destined to be miserable for the rest of her life just because shes "God's beloved" so be it! This story has me so fed up I'm praying on its terminal downfall somebody take it down.

Cover & Illustrations for The Invisible Man (Человек-невидимка), 1983

Drawn by Anatoly Zinovievich Itkin (Анатолий Зиновьевич Иткин)

Source

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?

Linghu Chong: shit fam, you mean you've never heard the ancient chinese proverb, "avoid arsenic, snakes, and nuns?"

Once upon a time (last week), I watched (consumed with eyeballs) an anime (brain-pulverising symbolism spectacle) called Revolutionary Girl Utena…

They have a normal bed now but old habits die hard

Her enthusiasm for metallurgy is a hit with the kids

Sam talks to the Snallygaster (sketch to final)

Let me know what you think!