#luly rambles

this guy's been raving about this mystery girl he says saved him and left him on the beach but nobody believes him, then he found a different girl in the same beach, proceeded to date her for a couple of days in front of the whole town, but then turns up with a different one (allegedly the first one) and decides he's marrying her on the spot

and you're like, sure, I need to see this mess

so you go to the wedding and it's WILD: there's some sort of animal riot, every creature is attacking the bride (including the prince's dog), town date redhead is being carried into the wedding ship in a barrel by a small fish, you're like 'I need to see how this turns out' and then mystery redhead, who was supposedly unable to talk, starts singing???? and talking??? and they're about to kiss???? but then the bride turns into sexy cthulhu???? and the redhead grows a fish tail???? and sexy cthulhu bride drags redhead into the water??????

you are taken ashore while the groom goes to fetch one of the brides, unsure which but all signs point to the redhead that was carried in the barrel, and then there's a storm, and sexy cthulhu becomes gigantic and is wearing a crown and you're like 'work, bitch' while eating snacks and then it's all over and sexy cthulhu disappears

but then there's another wedding announced and you're like 'I'm sure it can't top the first one' but you attend and TRITON shows up too????? myth and legend lord of the sea king triton from the stories????? with a white beard and an 8 pack and the same crown sexy cthulhu was wearing??? turns out he's the FATHER OF THE BRIDE??????? and there are mermaids everywhere, all around the ship, kind of unnerving tbh really really scary situation, but it's fine because triton is making rainbows in the sky and hugging the bride and manipulating water and you're also pretty sure the chef just got decimated by a crab?????

not only because it was made with a free and open source software anyone can use, not only because it beat competitors from major studios with an average of 3% of the budget they had, not only because it represented a country that had never won an oscar before, not only because it didn't have any star power involved, not only because it didn't come from a filmmaker with past history, not only because it was made by a small team...

but also because it's an animated movie

animators often get the short end of the stick in the entertainment industry and, for the past years, it was starting to look as if the only way to make an animated project happen was to sell your soul to a major studio and see your work transformed into what they need and how they want it marketed

especially for movies from outside the US, from non-English speaking countries, where insanely talented animators tend to be used as freelance cheap labor for major US studios or have to adapt as much as possible to fit into their market in order to find work

passion projects for animation seemed to only be reserved to the shorts category, or needed to be as high brow as humanly possible to be perceived as "high art" to be valued and, even in the spaces of the industry dedicated to the genre, the way in which awards are distributed are a poor reflection of the vast work animators do

it's major for this film to win awards, let alone the oscar, an award which is notably judged badly for animation and often prefers the marketable easy way out of voting rather than genuine interest

this movie used a resource that is open to anyone and, with good storytelling, made an oscar winning film

yes, caine was unhinged and the way in which the adventures were done made things feel cyclical and difficult to perceive progression when nothing feels like it amounts to something

but the true power holding them back was that they saw themselves as trapped, rather than capable of changing or moving forward, even when in the circus, because they were too preoccupied with the idea that they were not where they were supposed to be

whether or not they had lost faith in ever "returning", they still perceived themselves as unable to move on because they couldn't "escape"

it's like they were seeing themselves in a synchronic perspective (a snapshot of a moment in a time of their lives) rather than a diachronic one (a progression of events with the capacity to move forward)

when they were scanned, all of them were at point in their lives in which they were struggling with something deep and painful, and those fears and issues were carried into their feelings inside the circus

however, the idea that they were trapped made them believe that they were unable to move from any of that as long as they didn't "return" to the real world, because true change could only happen "out there"

when the truth was revealed, they could either accept their existence and let themselves finally move forward while inside the circus or, like what happened to jax, see themselves as perpetually tied to the memories they had from who they thought they were before the scan, unable to accept that growth was always possible and with the helpless belief that it would always be that way

which is something we sometimes perceive in real life too

when pomni says "abby is out there living her best life, and here, I'm just pomni" it's a way to establish that, from the moment she appeared as pomni, her life and abby's life had been divided, and it was up to her to live as pomni from then on, untethered from whatever abby's life would become, as her own person, in her own terms

accepting their identities and existence as they are, rather than seeing themselves as a sub-par trapped version of someone else "out there", was what they needed to move forward

garak, tinkering away in the barely lit room: so, damar, how long have you been thirsting for dukat?

miku is trying to reach a bunch of people who are so burnt out, apathetic and exhausted about trying and not making it, that they give up on what they truly want to do

but she can't reach them with her voice because she can't sing a full song about that experience or connect with them alone

so she goes and finds the project sekai kids, because they're creative, active artists who can connect with people through different forms of outputs and, ultimately, when miku can't reach people, they can

they use miku as a starting point to create different songs that apply to the creative signature and the spirit of each group, and that variation in perspective (that only human experience can provide) is what ultimately does reach people

for leo/need, it's a song that goes like 'hey, you're sad, I'm also sad sometimes, if it's too difficult not to be sad right now, let me throw you a hand and let's take step by step together'

for more more jump! it's like 'don't worry, I know things can get bad, but you can totally do it, a failure doesn't mean it's all over'

for wonderlands x showtime it's a chorus of voices showing fear and uncertainty and one relentless (emu) voice going like 'breathe with me and carry on because I believe in you and you should to'

for vivid bad squad is the direct approach of 'punch that self doubt right in the face, prove it you can do it, no matter what, you're still yourself'

for nightcord at 25:00 it's like 'I go to that place a lot myself too, the bad stuff doesn't just go away, but we can use it to create something that lets us reach those who feel the same'

so, it's the idea that technology can't by itself make something that can reach the human core of the need to be creative, but that people can use it as a tool to make something themselves

something that reflects the human experience, something which would let others know they're not alone

human creativity flowing means there will be different ways to say the same things, but that variation in perspective will be crucial in helping the message reach people who's experiences connects the most to one of those ways

it's never a waste to create from the heart

which is what people in real life have done through vocaloid all this time, starting out careers for immensely creative artists, who go on to fill the world with their own art and still go back to miku and vocaloid sometimes, like yonezu kenshi, for example

it's both the idea that technology alone can't connect to humanity without the human creative input to give the message the soul it needs, and also that no matter how many times a message is shared through art, your unique perspective of it is needed to reach someone out there who needs to hear it right now the way that you say it