And if he's only fantasy Then what to do with me?

When Ao Bing asks Ne Zha how he knew he'd come back, Ne Zha says something that I think might be the perfect ending line.

因为我们都太年轻，不知天高地厚

Yin wei wo men dou tai nian qing, bu zhi tian gao di hou

I think the theatre I watched translated this as "Because we're both too young. Too young to fear."

Honestly, this translation is pretty good! It's touching and impactful.

Bu zhi tian gao di hou, 不知天高地厚, is a saying that is used to refer to someone that is arrogant or foolish and doesn't understand the power or cruelty of the world.

It means: To know not how high the heavens stretch, nor how deep the earth goes.

Usually it is used to admonish someone, usually an elder scolding someone younger that they're overly confident or idealistic, and don't know anything about the realities of what's out there.

Ne Zha and Ao Bing have both technically lived thousands of years. They were originally the Chaos Pearl, so they've witnessed a lot. They do, in fact, know how unfair the world is, and have seen the heavens and the earth.

However, since their bodies and minds are still young, it's especially impactful for Ne Zha to say this to refer to himself and Ao Bing. Essentially, he is saying that despite them both understanding the cruelty and unfairness of the world, they still choose to be young and foolish.

It's not that they're arrogant and overconfident. It's that they understand they have little chance, but they must fight anyway. They are choosing to be young and wild, choosing their three year old naïveté over their thousands of years as the Chaos Pearl.

But somewhere along the line they just… Disappeared. My mom says they’re not being paid and they’re not in collections. It’s almost as if someone out there did…exactly what Parker did.

THE CAGE, WITH HUMAN SOUL AND PARTS

THE GIRL, WITH HOPE CROSSED ON HER HEART

so, ways to get around this:

turn off AI results. they're literally nonsense to us

don't use pinterest because the sources/provenance is often hard to trace

a standard internet search can be okay, but museum collections are the top tier (list of collections below this list)

instead of broad terms like victorian, regency, tudor, renaissance etc. try using the decade you're looking for. if you're not sure of what decade it is but have a vague image in your head, look on the fashion history timeline and just jump around until you find it. but even changing to e.g. 19th century will give better results than victorian

including terms like womenswear/menswear, daywear, formal wear, evening wear, court dress should increase the value of your search too

including "fashion plates" in your search can give you a nice impression of the intended silhouettes of the era. some of these might be a little stylised but will show you what was considered in vogue

for pre-fashion plate eras or things like makeup and styling, you'll have to look at portraiture or manuscripts. these are harder to actually find what you're looking for, but searching museum collections and limiting results to specific date ranges will be your friend

when looking at art, do bear in mind sometimes artists would paint fabric extra flow-y to show off their skills. it might not have been exactly like that in terms of fabric weight or drape. so, a pinch of salt required!

if you find something on image search where the provenance is dubious, reverse image search and you might find a source! i've been able to trace random pinterest images to real sources, but this does take a lot of time and effort and is often not worth the headache

some online resources and museum collections:

fashion history timeline is an invaluable resource if you're trying to get a feel for everything and should be your first port of call. it'll also link to good examples

the met has a vast number of extant examples of clothing, as well as fashion plates

costume institute fashion plates is a subcollection of the met for fashion plates (1800s-1922)

v&a also has many extant garments, fashion plates, and incredible articles on clothing and aesthetics. read the details of the objects because they'll often reveal a lot about the piece

lacma is good for C19th-20th pieces

nypl digital collection for photographs

national portrait gallery or similar for portraiture, or literally any museum in your country that has historical art

national museums scotland can be useful situationally but might be oddly specific

stout style history is a great collection for finding image references for fat people wearing historical clothes. survival bias of a lot of museum pieces tends towards smaller clothing that couldn't be repurposed, but this aims to counter that. it's not sortable, but is still a really nice resource

wikimedia commons is surprisingly handy! and the images, if you should need to link/repost them, are public domain

auction websites sound like a funny one to recommend. some won't have mannequins and some will. just look up historical garment auctions and you'll find some!

here is a master list of great art tools that can make your workflow easier! 👇 (consistently updating)