#faux anime screenshot

[rainbow-taishi]

Random Story Concept for spooky month

Demon hunters chasing down escaped 'painting' subjects who're actually demons sealed inside canvases

[evacharatarts]

Been playing around with the retro filters I got from the Clip Studio Asset Studio (which I'll link to my main @chibigissy blog once I reblog it there.)

Not gonna lie, I am liking how these turned out in effects wise. :D

[hopemariposa]

reasons why you should watch Ducktales (2017):

from a totally not mentally ill (/j) girl who has never ever obsessed over this show and has never ever seen it ten times over and has never ever had a bias towards this show :))) ily

the animation is lowkey a slay. I live for the faux comic book style. it scratches an itch in my brain.

I love Louie. I love Louie so much. he is precious, a cinnamon roll, and if anything were to happen to him, I would unalive everyone in this room and then myself.

the “found family” trope has been and always will be the best trope (imo). and this show has sooooo much of it and I literally cry over it (yes, I do cry over everything. back off)

launchpad mcquack.

precious precious man.

the storyline is kind of……… wonderful???? like there’s a lot of mirroring of the past, wholesome moments, and just… fun??? (Disney please bring it back or do a spin off I beg you 🙏)

this is one of those Disney shows that’s weirdly… funny? watch s3:e2 “Quack Pack” if you don’t believe bc that episode is a bona fide RIOT

also, the “filler” episodes don’t necessarily feel like filler episodes. most have some relevance to the ongoing plot, and if they don’t the adventure is too fun for you to care anyways

for instance? my fav episode “Quack Pack” (as listed above) is a filler episode. but it is semi-plot-relevant, and comedic perfection. it also gave us this screenshot:

need I say more?

yes. I won’t shut up about this show.

honestly, in a world full of tv shows that don’t give a crap about their integrity, Ducktales is a masterpiece. and I’m not just saying this because I wish more people would join the fandom. that’s a perk

once again I leave you with this:

me n the boys jamming out to the Ducktales theme song:

[mauesartetc]

Faux-compositing Hazbin Hotel for more visual clarity

A while back I recolored a screenshot from the Hazbin Hotel pilot to make the overall palette look more cohesive. Here’s the original:

And here’s the result.

And I figure, hey, that was fun, and folks (myself included) seemed to learn from it. Why not make some more? If you subscribe to the “every frame a painting” philosophy, this is the post for you.

I’ve always had two criticisms regarding Hazbin’s colors:

1. There’s entirely too much red in the environment. I know it’s Hell, but this is really overbearing. There are ways to make the setting feel oppressive other than bombarding viewers’ eyes, y’know?

2. The background characters have so many disparate palettes that they don’t feel like they belong in the setting. This could’ve been avoided by giving the fans who designed the characters a master palette to use as a guideline. Here’s the one I used for my hellhound designs:

It contains colors derived from canon Helluva Boss characters, which makes the new ones feel like they fit in the same world rather than hailing from completely different shows. For the faux-composite above, I sampled colors from Charlie and the background, and used them to rework the surrounding characters. For other shots, though, I may use the hellhound palette as needed since Helluva Boss is set in the same universe.

Let’s get to it!

To start with, there’s a lot going on in this scene. We have a detailed foreground character, a detailed background, and a middle ground character caught between them. In the left side of the frame, it’s hard to read the wolfman’s silhouette against the background elements since their values are so similar. Meanwhile, the cowboy stands out fine for the most part, though his hat brim gets a bit lost in the trim of the building behind him. So basically I needed a way to make all three layers look distinct from one another.

I settled on cloaking most of the background in shadow and doing the same for the cowboy, except for rim lighting and a glow from his cigarette to highlight his face. The wolfman and cart full of bodies have minimal shading; enough to give them some dimension but not so much that they blend in with everything behind them.

We then have more background characters to deal with at the news station:

In these cases, I simply painted over the crowd with purple on a couple Multiply layers (same as my initial recolor of these folks), erasing bits here and there to suggest rim lighting and glowing eyes. Charlie’s silhouette stands out much more clearly now that the heightened value contrast has cemented her as the focus.

I tried a similar approach with the demons outside the TV store:

While there was never any doubt that Alastor was the focal point here, I felt the ancillary characters’ color schemes could be more unified, and that their shading could reflect the light sources surrounding them (mainly the TVs in front of them, and the fire surrounding the horned skull demon). I also felt the wall on the right was blending in too much with the background, so I threw on some shading to make it pop.

Now we get to Charlie’s phone call:

I found it odd that the stained glass in the doors was illuminated from the inside when the previous scenes showed us that the hotel was dark. We did see a check-in desk with functional lights, but it was located waaaay down the hall from these doors. Thus, the glass is now in shadow, with some added texture on the edges to suggest its thickness.

Charlie is now also covered in shadow to fit the gloomy mood of the scene, though the rim lighting and her unshaded eyes keep her separate from the background.

Finally, the skyscraper windows in the second screenshot were way too bright, which gave them a contrast that drew attention away from Charlie. It’s never a good sign when animation backgrounds upstage the characters. So I slapped some color on them and shaded that front row of buildings to boost the overall gloom factor.

Then, Alastor arrives:

Given the darkness of the previous scene in the same location, I figured it’d make sense to kill the lights in the awning for this one. And now that most of the hotel is in shadow, Charlie and Alastor stand out a lot more (especially Alastor’s hand, which was practically invisible against the red wall). It really helps that the saturated yellow of the awning is toned down so it won’t be such an eye trap any longer.

Alastor makes himself at home:

...And the hyper-detailed background threatens to swallow him up.

Look, guys- I get that you’re proud of your rendering skills and all, and it’s admirable that you put so much love and care into these layouts. But, y’know, we don’t have to see the whole thing, especially not at the cost of the final frame. The portraits and wallpaper are especially distracting, battling Alastor for visual dominance. A little shading ensures Alastor is the focus without obscuring the portraits completely. Let ‘em be fun Easter eggs fans can study when they pause the video, not the stars of the show.

Alastor then regards the two grumps on the couch:

There was a noticeable lack of shading in this scene (except the default shadows on what I’m guessing were 3D models), making everything look flat. With the help of my good friend the Multiply layer, I gave the background some dimension and brought the characters forward.

Vaggie warns Charlie that Alastor is bad news, and Charlie takes it into consideration:

Again, we have the issue of background portraits attempting to steal the characters’ thunder. In the second screenshot, look at how much those bright greens and cyans stick out like a sore thumb against the dusky pink of everything else. Was it really necessary to keep all the colors of that illustration exactly how they were for the final product?

To remedy this, I desaturated the portrait’s colors and skewed them towards red so the image would better fit the context of the scene. And parts of the picture frame next to it were blending into the wall, so I added some shading there to make it stand out more.

Sometimes, changes made to a confined area can make a world of difference:

I muted the bright greens of the balloon and the flag so their saturation wouldn’t dominate everything else in the scene (again, eye traps), and shaded the stuff behind Alastor so his side of the frame wouldn’t look so busy.

I used similar tactics for when Niffty enters the picture:

For the first screenshot, I plunged the left side of the background into darkness, shaded the center with mainly lighter colors, and left the right side alone since that’s where the light emanated from. This resulted in a sort of gradient effect in the shading, which let Alastor and Niffty pop out a lot more.

In the second screenshot, the vase on the right was a bit distracting in how detailed it was compared to its surroundings, and it was the only pink thing in the frame besides Niffty. I shaded it so it wouldn’t steal the spotlight without disappearing completely. There was also the matter of adding shadows to the rest of the environment, particularly the stretch of hearth the firelight doesn’t touch, and the skeletons on either side of the furnace’s opening. Just some little touches to help the world feel more solid.

Then we meet Husk, and things get tricky.

Husk’s bar was a challenge due to its plethora of light sources. The green rim lights on Husk and Alastor suggest the light’s coming from the green blackjack table, but then we also have light coming through the window, lights in the sockets of the skulls above the bar, a yellow glow from the top of the bar itself, and a faint green glow from the top edges of the wooden wall. And in the third screenshot, the window grabs a lot of attention since it’s almost smack in the center of the frame and it sports some pretty saturated colors.

I did my best to shade things in a believable manner without using too much of a single color. I’m happy with how the purple worked to tone down the window, though I might change the brightness of the blackjack table. It’s still pretty saturated and a bit distracting from Husk and Alastor, though at least they stand out from the wall a bit better.

Now for the part where things get PINK:

Like wow, SO much pink. Holy hell.

I layered some yellow over Charlie and Alastor’s faces, bodies, and limbs so they’d be more discernible from the background, with extra emphasis on their faces to show just how enraptured they are during this musical number. I even left some glow in the negative space between them, representing how connected they are in this moment. Two auras become one. Or something. (Look, I am by NO means a Charlastor shipper; I just think a little more creativity in the visuals of a dance scene could convey more energy and chemistry between the partners. Especially when everything on screen is this monochromatic, like damn.)

Anyway, Sir Pent is here.

That blue in the tunnel of his airship was WAY saturated, and while the reds and yellows barely managed to pop out against it, I thought I’d give them more of a fighting chance. The body of the ship is also more consistently shaded to make it feel 3D, and I added some rim lights to the tips of Pent’s hood so they’d stand out against the dark tunnel.

But Alastor’s eldritch horrors dispose of Pent in pretty short order:

The extremely light glow on the left side of this screenshot caused the hotel to compete with the tentacles for dominance. And once again, there was the matter of the skyscraper windows being so bright they drew too much attention to themselves. I colored these windows with the same orange as the sky behind them, cloaked the hotel in shadow, kept a yellowish glow around the characters, and darkened the evil spirits to make them pop out.

Finally, we get the characters’ reactions to what just occurred:

Figured I’d handle both the normal lighting and the “horror” lighting for this scene. The normal version’s pretty simple: Color in more skyscraper windows, eliminate that weird ray of light that seems to come from nowhere, darken the top of the sky for more contrast with the characters, add some rim lights to Alastor to make his form more clearly defined, and remove the pentagram planet-thingy that looked like it was awkwardly resting on Husk’s hat.

The horror lighting involved some of the same steps, but with more addition than subtraction. The glow from the tentacle demons now hits our characters, lending them a greater sense of volume. Light purple shadows on the gang in the back offset the yellow glow, and Alastor now sports reflections in his shaded areas. There’s no character animation in the transition between the terror and the levity, so if a person wanted to paint this stuff in After Effects, then fade out its opacity to reach the regular lighting, they easily could. Hell, you know what?

Do with this information what you will.

So what’s the takeaway here? I guess, in a nutshell: Don’t let your animation backgrounds upstage the characters. Don’t make them so intricate or busy or saturated that they hog the spotlight. They don’t need to wow the audience with how impressive they are; they just need to serve the story.

Will the Hazbin series learn from past mistakes (including those made in Helluva Boss)? Fingers crossed. As always, I hope y’all found this post insightful or enlightening in some way. See you in the next one!

[nihonium-art]

Cringetober Day 17 : Fake Anime Screenshot

Of course I had to do Trigun. It was a golden opportunity.

Feat. My good friend's oc, @cliban 's Faux Ersatz!

[seventhdoctor]

Third Eyes, Dragon Surgery, and Other Past Life Worldbuilding

Need is kind of a mix of my GX past-life headcanons and theories with a few what-ifs thrown in, and unfortunately Yubel's singular focus communicates less about the setting and its details than I'd like. The Dragoning in Chapter 3 (which I'm about to post right now) is...intentionally very vaguely described, given that Yubel is not able to or focused on observing their own transformation, but I thought I'd add more details about it (and compile some other worldbuilding bits) here in case anyone was curious.

Topics include: Yubel's family, the microaggression Yubel totally failed to notice in Chapter 2 of Need, the significance of Yubel's gem, and of course what's involved in Becoming Dragon.

Obvious disclaimer: This should go without saying, but this post is a mix of personal headcanon and lore conceived specifically for this one fic. I'm not saying any of this is actual canon to 2004-2008 anime Yugioh GX. Please don't mischaracterize this post as saying things about canon.

Yubel's family

Yubel is the youngest of five children, born to the Ruby Kingdom's royal librarian (Yubel's father) and a religious scholar from the Cobalt Lands (Yubel's mother). From oldest to youngest, their siblings are: Liese, Aenor and Ansoald (twins), Erneis, and of course Yubel themself.

Nearly everyone in the family is an academic of some kind. Yubel and Liese are the family jocks, although they still make an effort for their studies thanks to their upraising.

Cobalt And Ruby

The Cobalt Lands aren't that close to the Ruby Kingdom, so it's not that often that in the Ruby Kingdom's capital see a lot of people from there. And while Yubel and their siblings were born in the Ruby Kingdom, they still adopted customs and culture their mother passed on to them.

And sometimes, it's obvious when someone comes from a foreign culture.

(This is Liese! In my head she ends up looking a lot like Lyn/Lyndis Fireemblem as she gets older so I made a screenshot edit - thanks to Silver from the No One in Yugioh is Straight server, who helped with the colors.)

In this fic, wearing a gemstone on your forehead is a tradition from a religion most strongly associated with the Cobalt Lands. That Yubel's family goes around wearing them is a bit like wearing bindi or a hijab IRL - it indicates influences of a foreign culture, and a thing that certain people do for religious reasons (and you're kind of an asshole if you give people shit for it).

Yubel, Liese, and the rest of their family being immigrants and first-gen immigrants aside from their father is something that Yubel doesn't pay that much mind but it is something that others are aware of. On the whole nobody's outright hostile about it, but it lead to occasional misconceptions! Chapter 2 of Need includes the equivalent of Odila telling a kid born in Illinois "Hey, let me explain Christmas, do you have that in Taiwan?" Yubel totally fails to recognize the faux pas while accidentally calling it out, but Liese is aware and tries to rescue the situation.

Liese herself is often misinterpreted as wearing a ruby as a show of Ruby Kingdom patriotism, because hey she's a knight of the kingdom and the king certainly wears rubies. Rubies have a different meaning in Cobalt culture, but obviously most people in the Ruby Kingdom miss the nuance.

(The king and Judai wear gemstones prominently, but they're always placed on a crown, or on wristbands, always part of larger accessories - unlike how Yubel and Liese wear theirs.)

Third Eyes

Yubel explains a little bit about the significance of gemstone third eyes in Chapter 1. Different gemstones have different meanings (that don't correlate with modern-day Western gemstone symbolism, so don't go expecting that). Choosing your own gemstone is a personal milestone and a way to represent something meaningful to you - goals, memories, ideals, things like that.

Liese chooses ruby (virtue) for herself because she wants to be an honorable knight and leader. Yubel chooses spinel (vigilance) because they want to watch over the people they love to keep them safe. But of course, they won't be wearing that spinel forever...

But there's a little more to the tradition than that.

The king describes the history of the gentle darkness and the Light of Destruction to Yubel briefly but informatively, and the way I interpret that for this fic is that they're old tales that the king is confirming as truth.

The Ruby Kingdom here has the most concrete records for those old tales, and some way or another anticipated that the gentle darkness would find its holder - which turned out to be Judai. Outside of the highest administration, though, the gentle darkness is mostly forgotten or considered obscure.

The Cobalt Lands don't have the historical records that the Ruby Kingdom, but their religion and culture have a lot of old concepts and symbolism that originate from the gentle darkness and other old forces. And this includes - you guessed it - the tradition of third eyes!

The Dragoning

In even older times, third eyes were a very literal thing and involved implanting a philosopher's stone inside yourself as a process of enlightenment. Yeah, we're back to alchemy, this is Yugioh GX the cardgames and alchemy symbolism anime.

Fic lore aside, it's actual alchemical symbolism that the rebis - half male and half female, a concept that informs Yubel's design - is the end result of the magnum opus, the process to create a philosopher's stone. The philosopher's stone is sometimes characterized as red in color (famously so in Fullmetal Alchemist), and - isn't it interesting how the main element of red in Yubel's design is the eye that persists through each of their forms?

The Cobalt Lands preserved the cultural meaning of the third eye through the wearing of gemstones, a much safer and more accessible practice than a long, involved, and generally life-threatening process that was extremely time- and resource-intensive. This also allowed them to develop symbolism for different gemstones, evolving into the traditions Yubel and Liese observe.

The Ruby Kingdom preserved the actual (and very dangerous!) procedure for developing a philosopher's stone and implanting it, and eventually would use this knowledge to create the perfect defender from a young knight.

...With an experimental dose of dragon essence, of course.

In this fic, Yubel's transformation is achieved through embedding a philosopher's stone within their body - which becomes their new, more literal third eye and the focus of their powers. But there's also a new element thrown in, to further transcend them beyond human into something eternal - an immortal guardian spirit, able to call upon otherworldly power to protect the gentle darkness' chosen bearer from the forces of light.

(Also dragons have their own alchemic symbolism based on some research, but I'm not confident in saying too much because I've been having trouble finding sources that look wholly reliable. On the off-chance someone more knowledgeable is reading, hit me up please.)

Did anyone tell Yubel this part was experimental? No. Would they have cared? Probably not.

In the king's defense, he and his alchemists wouldn't have done the procedure if they weren't pretty sure it was going to work out. Someone as dedicated to Judai as Yubel, human or not, isn't a resource to risk carelessly.

That said, was it all above board to pull out ancient rituals and convince a kid to become a dragon for the sake of protecting the chosen one, without telling the chosen one until too late? Probably not, but we can only guess that he thought the end justified the means.

[canonkiller]

I finally mentally connected what your art+ cryptic words reminds me of, those faux anime screenshots with yellow closed captions and a crunchy vhs filter. They both allude to being a part of a bigger work but they're stand alone pieces without a deeper narrative.

awww, this is charming, I always love fake screenshot art pieces! only ever done a few of them though, I should really indulge a bit and do them more often. I'm honored

[freaky-flawless]

I find it interesting that people don't like that gen 3 Clawdeen has glasses, but not with Clawdia. Maybe it's cause Clawdia's glasses were cute but idk

I think there are a few factors. Whether or not they're valid is kinda up to you.

For one, Clawdia was a pretty irrelevant character so it was kinda easy to ignore, and people for sure made jokes about the logistics of her wearing glasses back in the day. She only got two dolls, only showed up in a single movie, and I think only one webisode, so it wasn't something really worth dwelling on. MH Gen 1 also had a lot of quirky humor that didn't make total sense, but was still funny nonetheless.

But Clawdeen is the "main character" this time around, and not only that but she actually transforms from a human form to a wolf form and vice versa, where the position of her actual ears changes (hence my comic poking fun at it) so it adds a lot more confusion to the logic behind it. The live action didn't help because they couldn't just rely on "cartoon logic" ya know?

And Mattel themselves have been pretty inconsistent with it. Especially compared to Ghoulia, the other glasses wearing character. Her glasses have actual lenses, and her doll comes wearing them, where all of Clawdeen's dolls have them off to the side as though they're accessories, and they're just the frames. Hell, some of her dolls don't come with glasses at all, which brings into question whether she actually needs them. Which wasn't helped by this:

[Image Description: A screenshot of Garrett Sander's Instagram post of him holding a character trading card from Monster High: The Movie. It reads "Clawdeen Wolf Monster Type: Half Were-wolf/Half Human Abilities: Hyper hearing, vision, and agility; Claws, fangs, and an attitude to slay Signature Style: Fierce Animal Print, Faux Fur; Crescent Moons.]

Like this outright states she has amazing vision, which naturally would make one think she does wear them as nothing more than an accessory. (Granted I think most agree the first movie was a mess, not to mention a separate canon. And I'm sure in hindsight this would be retconned)

Lastly I think it was just a result of change. I would say Clawdeen has had the biggest change out of any of the characters (well...aside from Lagoona maybe) and people often have a hard time with change, especially when it comes to a character they love (myself included) Her glasses are probably the least egregious of her changes, but maybe the easiest to kinda poke fun at.

[standardquip]

4 years of running BentoVid & RICE (an extremely long & meandering retrospective about survey data) This is an entry that's part history about the fanvid server I run that hosts a [now] feedback event [then contest] called RICE, and part data analysis from 4 years of pre-RICE survey data and one post-RICE survey from a particularly "problematic" year of the event. Read the entry as it was intended on dreamwidth by clicking the link above, or expand the cut tag and hope the html I pasted into tumblr displays correctly. [edit: it doesn't, but it's readable if you don't care about line breaks.]

Preface

Or, the time I accidentally influenced an entire industry through a survey question (click to read more) In 2015, I created a website called fursuitreview.com (FSR). Fursuits (one of a kind whole body animal costumes) are expensive and it was hard to keep track of makers that didn't have huge followings. I didn't want to run a review page, but only two existed prior to mine. One had died completely several years before, and the other one updated so infrequently it was almost useless (it, too, eventually died after FSR took off). The other two pages were a victim of putting too much work on themselves. The first had several questions reviewers had to answer and assign points. The moderators would average all the points for each review and give the overall review a score out of ten. This ensured consistency in the scores across all reviews. It was an amazing system but it would simply take too long to do myself (plus I'm terrible at math). Both sites were not actually sites - they were user accounts on furaffinity.net (and sometimes tumblr or livejournal) - which required write-ins to copy a big block of text and hope they got the format right (they rarely did, which meant moderators would have to correct it). FSR started out on furaffinity, but very quickly moved to a wordpress website. I thought very carefully on how I would keep manhours and costs down. I decided to not have any user accounts at all, nor would I bother with a numbered rating system (I instead went with a "positive / neutral / negative" system because that's really what everything boils down to anyway). I devised the least amount of questions I could in order to pry the information I wanted out of fursuit buyers when they wrote in. This resulted in two sections: wear satisfaction, and visual satisfaction. Each section had several sample questions to help guide the writer. "Wear satisfaction" was like, do you like how it fits you? how is the ventilation? how is the vision? Visual satisfaction was questions about looks.

Example screenshot of the FSR "wear Satisfaction" questions from 2020+

When people submitted a review, I would read over them all and make sure everything was copacetic before publishing it. Back then (before 2020), I was a one-man operation so I read literally every single review coming in. I noticed that some writers would mention lining in some of the fursuit parts. Most parts are unlined - it's just faux fur and the backing of that will be up against a wearer's skin. Lining is unnecessary and can ultimately make the costume much hotter - but it does make everything look really nice and marginally more comfortable to wear. After a few of these, I added "Does the item have lining?" to the list of sample questions.

Does the item have lining?

Surely nothing bad could happen from such an innocuous question!! (upside down smiley face goes here)

I must take a break here to mention that I had no experience doing literally anything that FSR required to run. I had bought 3-4 fursuits and thought it would be nice to keep track of my opinions of them. Everything else, from coding a website to writing survey questions, I had taught myself. I had some very very basic wordpress experience from a personal roleplaying character wiki wordpress site for myself, but that was it. FSR was a learn by doing experience. And boy, was it an experience. Writing, reading, reviewing, editing, customer service... FSR had me dealing with it all, and I'm surprised it gained as much traction as it did throughout that process.

So, needless to say, I had no idea what "survey bias" was.

Weeks, possibly months, later, I was browsing twitter keeping up with FSR social stuff, when I came across a tweet from a rather well-known maker (I believe it was either beetlecat or beastcub) asking other fursuit makers why customers were suddenly asking for their fursuits to be lined. I wish I had a link to this tweet, but I no longer have a twitter account. (If you happen to find it, do link it in the comments!) It didn't hit me at first. I watched the thread and the responses roll in. As other makers replied, the sense of dread was very slowly overtaking me. Could FSR really have that much influence? Could just a single little sentence really cause so much strife? Yes, it did, and yes... It did. Once I connected the dots, I edited the sample questions. No longer is it simply "Does the item have lining?" Now it is: "If it is lined, what material was used? Does it absorb sweat appropriately? Does it make cleaning easier?" But I went through a few iterations before I got to that wording. I believe my first edit was something like "(Note: most fursuits aren't lined)", but that didn't properly imply that you shouldn't be asking your maker for lining. After this lining snafu, I had to go through all of my questions and determine what I was accidentally influencing, how that could change what customers ask of their makers, and if I really needed that information in the review to begin with. I also, finally, learned about survey bias, and took some time to read up a little more on how to craft survey questions. And, of course, I had to come to grips with the fact that, yes, FSR was big. And it had influence. My little side project was a staple of the community and people counted on it to make very expensive purchases. Maker reputations and business operations began to live or die by the reviews we pulled in. FSR got to be too big and too much stress for me, so I ended up giving full ownership of the site to someone else in 2022 or 2023 (it was a long transition and I'm not sure when the public announcement was made). However, as of today (31 March 2024), fursuitreview.com is still fundamentally unchanged from how I was running it - including the review form. Nowadays, I have nothing to do with the site. I couldn't deal with the stress and responsibility once it grew to be a community cornerstone. Unfortunately, history may be repeating itself with the project I replaced FSR with...

A brief history of BentoVid (and RICE)

I have been editing anime music videos (AMVs) since 2001. I took a hiatus from the community from 2009ish to 2018. Despite that, I still managed to make at least one video every year. In 2018, I tried to get back into the community and realized it had almost completely changed. Discord was a thing now, and it seemed most of the activity was on there. I joined a few servers, but long story short they all weren't great. In a fit of frustration and annoyance, I did the classic move of going "Screw this, I'll do it myself!"

Bender (from Futurama): Fine! I'll start my own chatroom with blackjack and hookers! I glossed over it, but this is exactly how FursuitReview.com also started.

BentoVid (called AMV Sashimi back then) was created in September 2020. Back then, I did have high hopes. I did "plan" (finger quotes) on becoming a large community, but it was like how anyone plans on winning the lottery, you know? You don't actually expect it to happen. I thought that realistically I'd get maybe 30 members and it'd be just a chill hangout spot. But in 2021, we reached the fabled 100 members. Then 200. We broke 400 this year. And outside the very first year, I didn't actively promote. BentoVid has grown purely from word of mouth since 2021. On the other side of Discord was an annual AMV contest related to a particular anime convention. I first joined it in 2019. It was... okay... But not great. 2020 went even worse. The contest was going through a transition period and had a coordinator that, to put it mildly, was not well-liked. The concept behind the contest (which had been running for several years - I think 2005? Possibly even earlier) was great though. It was a contest focused on peer review. All the editors that submitted to the contest were the judges and voted on the winner. It was a blind contest, so nobody knew who made what, but only people who submitted to the contest could view and vote on the videos. The feedback was cruel. People did not hold back. Still, it was helpful, and I excelled my skills a lot by participating. The contest's discord server, however, went unmoderated and the coordinator made some very bizarre decisions. Another "Screw it, I'll do it myself" event occurred. RICE - Rewards imagined by a community of editors - was born by taking that other contest and implementing all the feedback participants had been complaining about for years. February 2021 was the first RICE. I had never run a contest before. Just like FSR (from the preface story), this was a trial by fire. I made at least one huge mistake every year the contest ran. But ultimately people liked RICE, and word of mouth about it (and the server) grew ever faster because of it. I had taken efforts to specifically NOT advertise RICE outside the BentoVid discord server, but that didn't stop it from growing.

4 years of RICE survey data

Partly due to my inexperience and partly due to my history with FSR, I put out RICE feedback surveys at every opportunity. I am actually not that into data. I don't analyze this stuff and I have no particular interest in collecting data at every turn for random things. I just find feedback surveys somewhat convenient and useful for my purposes. Sorry to people who are into that! XD

Pre-RICE survey data from 2021 - 2024

I have a small survey when people submit videos to RICE. It has (mostly) the same questions every year. Vivafringe helped me go through the data, and here are the results. (links to a google sheet) 2021 - 2023, the optional survey was on the same page as video submission questions. In 2024, I finally realized google form sections existed and I put it on a totally different page. I went from a 100% response rate to 58%. What a huge difference! But still inspiring to see so many people went out of their way to answer regardless. Here's my personal takeaways: US vs Non-US I personally thought there were more international editors participating, but it seems to hover around 20%. Do people keep their videos a secret? It looks like most of the survey respondents actually do attempt to keep their videos secret from everyone. However, almost as many people admit at least one person they know who will also be in RICE knows what their video is. I honestly thought it'd be the other way around, with more people sharing betas before RICE, so this is actually pretty cool to see. Thoughts on blind judging This question was multiple choice with only one answer allowed, so they had to choose which meant most to them. Most people seem to appreciate blind judging, but don't go out of their way to keep themselves blind during the event. (~70% combined) A large minority of people admit that guessing who made what during the event is part of the fun for them. (~25%) One possible answer was that blind judging is never truly blind - interesting to note only one person ever selected this and it was in 2023. Main reason for entering RICE? Another multiple choice answer where they had to select the "main" reason. Most people join RICE because they like the BentoVid community. However, almost as many people join because they like peer review. I'm flattered! lol But, in all seriousness, I really expected those results would be flipped, with peer review outranking BentoVid. Categories A multiple checkbox question for which categories your submitted vid belongs to, according to the editor. I mostly only care about theme, coordinator's choice, and live-action. Theme has submissions starting at 18% in 2021 and gradually going up to 29% in 2024. 2023 is an outlier with 39%. Coordinator's choice is very low. 1 - 3 videos. This is mixed news for me. On one hand, I think it's great people don't feel the need to pander to me (or maybe they don't know how). On the other hand... Please pander to me! XD Live-action is something I would like to see more of... The discord server started out as an AMV server and its audience is still mostly AMV editors. But I really want BentoVid (and RICE, by extension) to be about all fanvids and vidding (Hence the name change from AMV Sashimi to BentoVid). Long story short, live-action vids are obviously a very small minority that get submitted (5 - 9 videos each year), but they fluctuate between years. If you like live-action fanvids and want to join an active discord server... Please join us! lol How did you learn about RICE? This question was a small text field people could write whatever they wanted in. No surprise people learned about it from inside BentoVid. Next highest was word of mouth-related answers like "discord," "another discord server" or "friends". A little interesting was when AWA or POE were specifically mentioned (two popular AMV contests), but this was only twice for each.

Post-RICE survey data

2021 and 2022 had a feedback survey, but it was just one text block that asked for comments. Very few people ever filled this out and it was not very actionable feedback. 2023 was the first post-RICE feedback survey with actual guided questions, and it's because 2023 was... quite the year.

Understatement.

What happened during 2023 RICE?

Remember the contest I mentioned that RICE was based on? While RICE was thriving, that contest was floundering. The other contest, which for the rest of this blog I will call "HOST," happens in September - October, while RICE happens in February - March. 2022 HOST was another transition year for them. The old coordinator ("Elder") took over the contest after so many complaints about the coordinator that succeeded them ("Junior"). As far as I know, everyone was happy with Junior's leaving, but unfortunately it wasn't pretty. We weren't kind to Junior. Bridges were burned. Elder had some great ideas on how to bring HOST back up to its former glory days. But, procrastination got the better of them, so the contest started out very poorly. Then, during the contest, they had an extremely public and embarrassing meltdown. A number of people withdrew from the contest because of it. A totally different person ("Kidd") had to take over mid-event. The discord server went through an emergency restructure so Elder didn't have any special permissions anymore. Kidd was an absolute gem and managed to run the rest of the contest on their own very smoothly (Kidd continued through 2024 and deserves accolades). But the already negative reputation of HOST definitely turned into a dumpster fire after that. It was no surprise that RICE got touted as a good alternative. I was expecting more RICE entries than the previous year but. Boy. I was just not prepared. 2023 RICE saw 56 editors and 76 videos. The prior year was only 32 editors and 45 videos. RICE does not scale well. Moreover, I was experiencing horrible health issues at the time and really should have delayed or cancelled RICE due to them. Consequently, some people did not have a good experience with RICE. I thought the entire year was ruined. I made a pretty involved post-RICE survey due to it. This survey was mostly questions with text boxes where people wrote exactly what they were feeling. This made the answers a lot more personal and detailed. I will not be sharing the raw 2023 survey data. The complaints were about:

Too many videos for too short a time period

Some people were rude in the discord when discussing categories

Some people attacked one of the people giving critique in a voice call

I tried to enforce [very badly worded] content restrictions very late into the submission window. This had editors unnecessarily scrambling to re-edit things and ultimately ended up with multiple versions of videos in the contest [which should not have happened and that is entirely on me]

To me, the responses of the 2023 survey looked pretty dire. I immediately made changes to RICE following them. While RICE had started out as an improved version of HOST, I also had wanted the goal to be rewards for BentoVid server regulars. That's why I really didn't want to advertise it outside the server. I also never pinged \@Everyone or made a special role to get updates about it. The intent was if you were around the server, you'd know it was coming, and that was that. I wanted the good peer review and critique so we could all improve. I also wanted to see amazing videos. But what I DIDN'T want - and was (surprisingly!) NEVER concerned with - was lots of randos who didn't care about BentoVid. I explicitly never posted about RICE on a-m-v.org (despite people asking me to), and I never mentioned RICE outside my own server until after 2022 HOST. And even then it was really only in DM or if someone else had brought it up first. I still try to not advertise RICE, but I'm not as tight-lipped as I used to be. Still, it's primarily in DM. But anyway, I'm rambling now - the point is that RICE grew outside of the BentoVid bubble. People were joining RICE who did not care about BentoVid as a whole and I had to figure out how to handle that. My previous RICE messaging of "feedback event but also contest!" was fine for BentoVid regulars. We mostly knew what we liked and understood eachother because we hung out all the time. But for people new to RICE and/or the server, they had no idea and came in with false expectations. My two main takeaways from the 2023 Post-RICE survey were: 1. Because of my health issues and the mass increase of participants, the Discord server went (essentially) completely unmoderated during RICE. Because RICE (and BentoVid) is usually closely moderated, many conversations/debates went on a lot longer than they should have (because no moderators stepped in), which caused a lot of stress for participants. 2. The messaging of RICE was conflicting and led people to false expectations. People were essentially expecting HOST but "run better." "HOST but run better" is an over-generalization of how RICE works. It's actually quite different from HOST, but without the context of being a BentoVid regular, one wouldn't have that information. The first would be solved simply by me being present. Myself and most my staff could not be present during 2023 (honestly I'm surprised RICE ran as well as it did without us. Speaks a lot to our community!). To deal with the second point, I decided to focus on clearing up and changing RICE's messaging. Clearing the messaging had a few purposes:

More clearly differentiate RICE from HOST

Discourage non-regulars from joining without being super exclusionary about it

Discourage overtly competitive people from joining RICE

Encourage feedback-orientated participants

Focus more on accessibility (as RICE already applied VPR to all entries, it made sense to extend accessibility in other ways)

I took the survey responses very seriously, and as such, rushed to make announcements of what the changes would be. I ended up announcing them the same month RICE ended - March. Proof here (that is a discord link). You can read the initial announcement there in the BentoVid server, but I ended up changing things even more, so here's the summary of what the changes ended up being:

Very strict content restrictions (slightly relaxed later)

Focus on feedback event FIRST (took out all mentions of "contest" and "best" on the website, replacing them with "event" and "most-liked" )

No cash prizes at all (previously it was a $175 pool)

More emphasis on what exactly the server culture is like and what you can expect (basically: RICE is stressful, it's full of server regulars, prepare yourself if you're new)

Permanent categories got permanent names (previously everything was able to be voted on and changed)

All winners only get one award (previously there were multiple designs and names made for each award)

We added CWs as well as VPRs into the RICE expectations

Everything possible was outlined on the website. I literally wrote out the schedule and everything that you could expect to happen, how it all worked, etc.

The fallout from 2023 RICE continued throughout the entire year. It seemed negative feelings regarding it rolled out into other issues BentoVid was having (behind the scenes, especially in the staff channels) and overall I was really not feeling great about RICE. I was seriously considering 2024 RICE being the last one I ever ran.

2023 Post-RICE survey analysis

During 2024 RICE prep (which started in October 2023), I went through the 2023 feedback again. I asked some vague questions to random people about how they felt about 2023 RICE, and their answers (most of which were not negative at all) really had me questioning my perception of the entire thing. I gave the 2023 post-RICE survey data to a friend of mine who used to analyze that kind of thing for a living (Vivafringe). I went through the answers and redacted personal information, summarizing answers if necessary, before giving it to him. As part of the analysis, I asked him a bunch of questions and he looked over all the data to answer those questions. Again, I will not share the actual data here (even anonymized), but I will share the analysis he provided. Full disclosure: Viva did participate in 2023 RICE.

Analysis of Negative Experiences

Did more people have a negative or positive time in 2023?

to answer this I didn't do any fancy analysis. I read the responses and just did a vibe check of "negative" (pretty clearly had a bad time), "neutral" (had some things they didn't like, but gave other positive feedback or just in general didn't seem like they gave a shit one way or the other), "positive" ("vars you're the best" type comments) I think "neutral" people, if you actually asked them, would say they had a positive time, but it's hard to say for sure anyway I rated 7/25 negative, 7/25 neutral, 11/25 positive notably a lot of people didn't respond to this survey and the non respondants were likely positive/neutral. So I don't think you should read those numbers and assume 28% of people had a negative experience the overwhelming complaint from basically everyone was too many videos for the time they had - 5/6 people with "negative" feedback were returnees - 2/6 of the people who wanted "competitive" contest had negative opinions. No real signal there I think

I said the complaints about the VCs were really bad though?

I count 4 people that complained about the vcs my takeaway from reading this is basically: - moderate the vcs from now on, advertise them as critique/nice/whatever (you already are doing this but just saying I agree) - if you get 76 vids again, give more time to watch stuff I don't know how you solve chat getting tense, that was another common complaint

Category drama? Context: some people were very vocal about RICE needing fixed categories like typical AMV contests

I read the category stuff and broadly classified them as wanting "fixed" cats, "unfixed" cats, or "neutral" as you might expect most people didn't give a strong opinion on it, 10/25 were neutral 5 people wanted fixed, 6 people explicitly wanted to keep things as it was now (unfixed) if you read "neutral" as support for the status quo, which I do, I think the way you're doing it is fine. especially because a lot of the fixed cat people (3/6) had negative experiences and won't be here this year

I expected a smaller turnout for 2024 RICE. All I was really hoping for were more editors than in 2022 (which only had 32). Editors in 2023: 56 Editors in 2024: 43 (+3 more if we count DQs) A 17 - 23% loss, depending on how you count this. My thoughts: 1. That's not that bad, to be honest 2. If we treat 2023 as an outlier, 2024 is an acceptable and expected amount of growth from 2022. 3. One of the main complaints in 2023 was that there were too many videos, so 2024 numbers are more desirable in this context.

Other data collected from 2023 RICE

While I was mostly concerned about the negative experiences, I thankfully had the foresight to ask some other questions about RICE that gave us some valuable data.

Kollab vs frame.io = kollab wins by landslide

Direction for rice: contest vs feedback = 15/22 say feedback

Will you make an account on a website to do rice stuff? 12/25 say no

basically everyone answered the "what does rice do differently" question with "the feedback is a lot better". So a way to make rice better is to streamline process for providing feedback.

How long people spend on RICE vids:

10/21 (of the people that responded) started working on their rice vid 1 month or longer in advance

the competitive people ("A contest where the best of the best wins") seem kind of in the middle, time wise. 3/6 spent less than 1 month, 2/6 spent 2 months exactly, 1 didn't respond.

there were 8 newcomers, but basically same conclusion. 4/8 started more than a month in advance. 3/8 took a few weeks

Google docs & PSVs RICE offers a google doc with video information instead of trying to put it all in a filename. We also offered detailed VPRs and CWs, and, in some cases, alternate versions of videos that are more friendly for photosensitive users (called PSVs).

3/25 people said they used the VPRs.

18/25 people used the infosheet

4/25 used the CWs

3/25 used PSVs

What about 2024 Post-RICE survey data?

I collected that. This blog entry is already the size of a novel so I'll put it in another entry, I guess. Stay tuned! (Don't hold your breath though) I will exit this entry with the following results from that survey: If you participated in 2023 RICE, what would you say your overall experience was? 15/18 answered overall positive 2/18 said they did not participate in 2023 1/18 said neutral 0/18 said overall negative If you participated last year (2023), would you say your experience THIS year (2024) was: 9/17 answered overall better than last year 7/17 said about the same as last year 1/17 said did not participate last year 0/17 said overall worse than last year Your overall 2024 RICE experience was: 17/18 answered positive 1/18 said neutral 0/18 said negative 0/18 said boring 2024 RICE had 43 editors and 62 videos.

[beepbeepinthecorner]

faux anime screenshot I don't think I'll finish (I don't have the energy for that) It does look sick as a sketch though!

[nanjokei]

on what is considered "official art" and conduct between fandom across the globe

i think there is a fascinating cultural difference between what is considered free to use by fans in the """west""" in general and specifically japan. in recent years, the playing field has become somewhat leveled: most people who are in the know know that fanart should not be reposted or used without permission whether it be for copyright reasons or just out of respect for the human being who made it, but it's ok to use what is agreed upon to be "official art"—

er, what IS official art? if you ask the answer is different between regions. tying back to strict copyright, a lot of japanese fans will consider even anime screenshots a big no-no, because they are not yours, unless they were posted to be used (for example when an official twitter account gives out heavily embellished promotional graphics to use as icons and sometimes headers). so really, there isn't any such thing as "official art is ok" unless the express worded intention of the rights owner is "you can use this". of course, not everyone observes it, but it IS upheld and kinda faux pas to violate. and i said japan specifically because other nearby countries like s korea and china, their fandoms aren't so strict (i assume bc the rights holder can't do shit outside of japan), but they still uphold rules if a creator says it out loud. i'll come back to this later

for us, official art is anything coming from the horse's mouth really, be it magazine scans, promotional art, standing images, art from the original artist/mangaka, game files— these are free reign to this side of the globe culturally. it's not a social faux pas and in fact considered more ethical to do this (but not to be trumped by just making your own rendition, still). now for stuff like magazine scans, that stuff is definitely very NG because it's sold, you have to buy the magazine to see it. but due to inaccessibility in early animanga fandom days (and honestly, for a lot of magazines, you still need savvy to get your hands on them), a culture of sharing with others was born. the topic of how and why cds and magazines are still alive in japan is a conversation on its own so i won't go into it. it's a whole can of worms we can open another day.

for anime and commercial games, it's honestly whatever right? like who cares. what i wanna circle back to is individual creators tackling the culture gap here. your indie game, web manga/novel, music etc creators of the world/internet. though i'll mostly use indie game devs as an example as those cases i am most familiar with. in japan AND other eastern countries, there's a level of respect leveraged to the individual creator's wishes— they're usually simple requests like DON'T USE OR EDIT MY ART. my beef here is, why do people on this side have so much trouble respecting guidelines? some creators will allow people to use even in-game files, so long as it isn't edited. but they ask, for example, their personal art not be used.

a segway but, this is also a difference that exists in japan (i'm not sure about other places), but an artist that works on an official work... not all their art is "official art"! for example, an artist who makes art for an otome game. they may doodle a character they like. i think by our definition, this is considered official art, but in reality it is FANART. a lot of them will cover their asses just to be safe and explicitly state it's fanart so it's not misconstrued as official art— often either so as not to influence the work with their own personal expressions OR not to get in trouble with the rights holder. this is really important to know in this topic

and yes, even if the characters belong to an individual creator, sometimes their art can be personal art that they don't want people to use. it's really not hard to grasp and yet there are cases of artists being peeved by the actions of overseas fans (i try to avoid using "western" as much as possible bc its such a weird term that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, eastern too but lol). one case where a creator halted a translation project due to them being sick of overseas fans using and editing their art after trying to get them to stop several times but to no avail. i'm surprised this isn't happening more often because honestly i'll be frank for a second and say that while they tend to skew young, fans of free games have no excuse. i understand it's either immaturity or "it's online so i can take it" culture OR most likely, i think it is the cultural misunderstanding of "it's official art". but also in that specific case, a certain western indie game dev commented that that creator "should be grateful that people are playing their games at all". are you for fucking real?

you literally only see """western""" fandom commit such faux pas though. is it individualism? is it because i am raised in a collectivist culture that i don't fully get it? the subject fascinates me until it gets to thinking about the disrespect of indie creators. then i just get kinda smad

[rainbow-taishi]

Me during summer

[ubekawateryam]

oh i would LOVE if you did a faux anime screenshot of rauru

I've got good news for you then! I did just that and posted it to the blog today. :> Hope you'll like it

[roobylavender]

Violence ask for Naruto 1,3,22

1. the character everyone gets wrong

sakura lmao.. i will simply never understand people's complete refusal and inability to engage with her part one character arc like it is the root of all problems when it comes to her character analysis and the faux concerns that she deserves better, whatever that means. part one is an exercise in a maybe initially shallow twelve year old girl being exposed to unspeakable horrors and subsequently developing the most steadfast loyalty to and empathy for her teammates rather than running away from it all like someone who is supposedly self-centered and possessive of shallow interests. people will lambast kishi for writing someone who cares so deeply about those she loves simply bc she's a girl meanwhile naruto is the second coming of jesus for acting exactly the same way and arguably even more delusionally than she does half the time. it's nothing but misogyny

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you’ve seen on tumblr

there are too many to count i have beef with every sector of naruto fandom imaginable 😭

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

after neji died hinata gave a three page monologue to snap naruto out of his stupor and because the anime only kept one line (ONE LINE) out of the entire thing and hinata took comfort in holding naruto's hand afterward people use her bare minimum anime statement to lambast her for being selfish and naruto-obsessed. and that's only one example but people tend to ignore hinata's confidence and steadfastness in general bc they're too fixated on the anime exaggerating how she behaves in front of naruto as a result of her crush. like you know how when naruto comes back to konoha after the three year time skip we're shown in the anime that he greets hinata and she faints on the spot? never happens in the manga lmao. hinata is a self-conscious person and initially a bit shy around naruto in part one but she's generally very well-spoken and takes charge where it counts and considering her extensive history of abuse it's one of the things i most love about her

🔥 choose violence ask game 🔥

[mysticsparklewings]

11 Years ago, I posted my 1st Winx Club Art & OC ever on DeviantArt. 🎨

Since this September’s Monthly Theme on the Ko-fi Discord was the classic “post an old piece of art next to a new one to show your growth,” it seemed like the right time to put Ivy in the spotlight again. ✨

…I also wanted to test a new technique I thought may enhance the look of faux Winx Screenshots. Plus, Ivy herself has changed a lot (behind the scenes) since I last drew her. 🦋

So I ended up animating the final piece, too.

Unfortunately, animated image files are a PAIN to post across multiple platforms, so the only place I can guarantee you’ll see it play properly & with accurate colors is at the end of the (slightly spiffier than usual) Time Lapse video: https://youtu.be/vJa5f24hF2o

That said, if you watch the Time Lapse & the bits of insight there aren’t enough for you (or you’re just curious), as usual I have a description on DeviantArt that goes into way more detail about both Ivy & how this Art came to be: https://www.deviantart.com/mysticsparklewings/art/Fairy-Familiar-Face-Animated-Time-Lapse-931309712

[mushroomjar]

🌼

[Image Description: The first 4 photos that popped up on my Pinterest home page.

1: A photo of Liz Vicious, a white girl with shoulder-length dyed-red hair. She wears a black crop top with vertical silver stripes, a black miniskirt, a studded belt, black stockings, a black faux fur coat with animal print details on the inside, an animal print bandana wrapped around her neck, black eyeliner, and red lipstick. She holds a cigarette in her right hand.

2: A photo of a light-skinned person laying on their bed, tummy-side down. They have long side-swept black hair, black eyeliner, and a septum piercing. They wear a black crop top, black shorts, one black sock with Jack Skellington's skull plastered on it, one pink sock with some cute white and pink drawing plastered all over it, and a silver pearl necklace. Plushies and posters can be seen in the background.

3: The four-panel Gru's plan meme. Gru is presenting before an easel labeled "Find an identity I'm comfortable with". He gestures confidently with a finger pointing up in the air and continues to look confident for two more panels. In the second panel, the easel says: "Change new name and pronouns". In the third, it says: "Come out". In the last panel, the presentation is still labeled "Come out", but Gru looks back at the board, seeming taken aback and upset, with his hands falling limp.

4: A cropped screenshot of a TikTok that shows a green 3D character and text overlaid on top that reads: how tf do poly relationships work like when yall break up do u vote them out like among us? pls I need to know

End Image Description]

Ask game (text is a link)