#comparison thing

[hiding-in-the-vault]

Old c!Dream and recent c!Dream :D

Went back a bit further to find one that showed a face lmaooo

This feels unfair cuz my art really started popping off when i got into dsmp and i didnt start drawing dream right away.. ssoooo here's the earliest art i can find on my laptop, from 2017 ;v;

my edgy demon oc...

[localsealcryptid]

I have this habit of drawing comparisons to nature and characters sometimes, so with the events of dsmp lore today I've thought of something.

Badgers and Coyotes, two very different hunters who usually don't need help and are threats by themselves but have been known to co-op hunt. The coyote has better speed and the ability to chase and leap, clever and crafty though it faces trouble getting to prey thats gone underground... So it employs the help of a badger, who can dig and easily kill prey though they aren't fit for an open plains chase. Something about prey more worried and concerned with the coyote outside, not noticing the danger among them in their own den.

The prey eventually thinks the coyote to be gone, safe or so they thought. Upon noticing the threat of the badger they rightfully flee to safety at a glimpse of the black and white pelt... Only to be met with the waiting jaws of the coyote who was still lurking.

Something something comparison with c!drunz and their team work as well as strategy. Punz is quick and efficient, in every other instance of him being hired to kill he wastes no time. Dream on the other hand isn't above the chase or fight, the thrill of the hunt as he tends to talk and torment.

Something something tommy and tubbo trusting Punz and being more focused on Dream's death, not realizing anything amis till it was too late, something something focusing more on one threat and not the other. The prey assuming they can out run the badger so they merely get a distance away, only to be snatched by the canine. Or they're too focused on the coyote and don't notice the badge till it's claws have done their work and blood stains the dirt...

---

Idk if anyone else is getting it, its nearly 3am and I was listening to animal documentary stuff then something clicked in my head.

[brokenkitty95]

Hope vs. Despair Theme: Madoka Magica vs. Dangan Ronpa

Now, I would like to start this off with a bit of background – about what my personal reasoning for doing this is – and other various things that describe exactly what you’re about to read, including a brief description for anyone who doesn’t know what the preceding titles are.

  Myself: I am a casual gamer, which I tend to personally take as meaning that I love video games and really enjoy playing them – more so than I would say for watching anime, which I would claim I’m just a whatever-seems-really-cool type of person. I’m also going to be going into my second year of college, majoring in psychology, so Dangan Ronpa is right up my alley of Ooh! Because of these combined things – mostly the former – this isn’t actually a review. It’s more like a minor critique/comparison of what I feel.

  Puella Magi Madoka Magica: The anime (I’ll just address it as Madoka Magica because, personally, it’s what I call it) is about a young girl named Madoka who stumbles upon the world of magical girls after she accidentally winds up saving a cat-thing and the cat-thing tells her that she is destined to become a powerful one. Actually, it starts with a dream Madoka has, but the dream is so cryptic that it doesn’t make sense at the time. Regardless of the semantics, Madoka is pushed into a world where hope and despair are so important to understand, and might be the very thing between life and death. Not going to spoil anything right now for you.

  Dangan Ronpa: The video game is about a group of 16 students who are all invited to a special school for people with really special talents. However, when they get there, they all pass out and wake up, only to meet each other and some murderous teddy bear named Monokuma. Monokuma basically tells them that they’re stuck in some social experiment gone horribly wrong, where they have to kill to get out. The catch is, if the murderer kills and doesn’t get caught, not only does only the murderer get to leave, but the others are killed for being wrong. Oh yeah, and there’s executions. The entire thing seems completely despairing, but in life and death situations, you need to keep hope.

  So, if you didn’t guess, the connection between Madoka Magica and Dangan Ronpa is hope and despair. The themes are the same. This entire thing is going to be about comparing Madoka Magica and Dangan Ronpa, and how they handle their theme. Which one does it justice, and which one doesn’t do so great at making the theme still immersive enough that it’s not despairingly awful to hear about.

  One more thing: The reason I brought up my psychology schooling is because of Dangan Ronpa. Notice how I described it as a “social experiment” versus, say, a thriller or a horror or an action game. I’m not trying to take away from the fact that the plot of the game is absolutely phenomenal and extremely interesting, but I want to make it very clear that, in my perspective, it wasn’t about “this looks cool” when I decided to first research the game/buy it, it was about “ooh! Psychological plot elements. I like this!”

  Onto the comparison!

The major thing here, to reiterate again, is hope versus despair. Now, that’s not an uncommon theme. Actually, it’s even more common than some might think – because it can be broken down into “good versus bad” or “good guy versus bad guy”. Hope is good; despair is bad. Psychologically speaking, a person who is hopeful and optimistic tends to be considered more ‘mentally sound’ than someone who’s always depressed about something. Now, the psychological elements of hope and despair aren’t really important to this case, but that was the psychology student in me talking.

  The theme is basically the same as pretty much any television show, book, movie, video game, or even life. So it’s not that odd to find in a game or an anime – actually, as I said, it’s common and probably natural. What is strange is how it differs from thing to thing. Let’s take a look at Madoka Magica first.

  In Madoka Magica, the witches – the despair – are bad and the magical girls – the hope – are good. We’re immediately introduced to Madoka, Sayaka, Mami, and Homura. These girls, based on them being magical girls or potential magical girls, are therefore good. They’re the heroines of the story. We’re supposed to think that they can do anything because they have hope. When we meet a witch for the first time, the witch is clearly doing bad, bad things to the world. It makes monsters and could trap someone in a realm to kill them. Those are things that we, as a viewer, probably all identify as bad. The witches are actually a magical girl’s despair, though. Which means that if a magical girl gets too upset or despairs too much, they became bad, not good.

  The point is: Madoka Magica makes it very clear very quickly what the theme is. Not only that, but it also makes it very clear that hope isn’t infinite and that despair and hope will always exist together. They will always be head to head.

  In Dangan Ronpa, it’s also made immediately clear by the end of the prologue that the main characters of the story are most likely good, while the thing keeping them inside of the school is bad. However, we quickly learn that no one is really good, and actually, some people are really bad. Most of the characters are very hopeful for escape and decide to try not to commit murder because they don’t want their friends to die, especially after witnessing the first execution. Their hope, to put it simply, is almost immediately also tested by despair. Especially after witnessing the first dead body and the first execution to follow it.

  Similarly to Madoka Magica, Dangan Ronpa proves that despair and hope exist together, but it seems to try to show that one is more powerful than the other.

  So what’s the difference?

  Well, I’d argue that Madoka Magica does a so much better job at telling the viewer the theme and not distracting or annoying them. My biggest problem with Dangan Ronpa – as someone who went into the game literally knowing every important plot point and just wanting to play it because “psychological game, yay!” – is the fact that I didn’t feel nearly as immersed while playing it. And that’s something I can’t stand, especially since I didn’t think I would actually like Madoka Magica when I started watching it, but I was so eager to play Dangan Ronpa.

  Dangan Ronpa has this horrible habit of literally shoving despair down your throat. Oh, and I don’t mean because the game actually encourages you to feel despair. Don’t get me wrong: Chihiro and Sakura’s death still make me tear up because they’re horrible and sad – but that doesn’t really make me feel immersed for long when five minutes later, the main character is going off about how he’s falling into despair and finding it hard to hope. I think the word ‘despair’ was probably mentioned at least six times between the prologue and chapter one, and ‘hope’ might have been mentioned three or four times between those same two chapters.

  Madoka Magica makes it super clear what the theme is, but it’s not a constant thing. You know what it is; you know it exists; you know despair is bad and hope is good. But they don’t feel the need to remind you. You can see the characters as they fall into despair or rise up hopefully. The atmosphere of the show screams the theme at you without having to actually have characters talk about it constantly.

  I know someone’s probably going “But Madoka Magica is an animation, so it can show that; Dangan Ronpa is a 2D video game with less animation! How do you expect it to show anything?”

  Notice how I mentioned the atmosphere of Madoka Magica. Like I said, the atmosphere says everything without the show needing to do anything. Believe it or not, Dangan Ronpa had the same effect, except it was more despairing when it felt the need to tell me that Makoto was despairing!

  Dangan Ronpa had the potential to allow the atmosphere of it to speak by itself. The characters, while you would talk to them during investigations or trials or after execution, would show their emotions perfectly. Some were angry; some were hurt; some were confused; some were defeated. If the game had left the theme in the hands of that, it would’ve been perfect. It was so immersive because it was hard not to feel for some of the characters, or to not really want to condemn them to their deaths because they really did seem sorry. When characters would act like that, they seemed human and right there.

  But when a character is constantly reminding you that they’re falling into despair, it’s distracting. It takes away from the story because, yes, I know that. You’ve shown me that; why are you telling me it, too?

  Madoka Magica handles the theme of hope versus despair so much better because it shows and doesn’t need to tell because it knows that it’s shown you enough. Dangan Ronpa could easily do the same, but chooses not to.

  I’m not saying either of these are superior to the other, really. They’re completely different in spite of their themes being the same. Madoka Magica is a powerful anime about a darker look on magical girls; Dangan Ronpa is a fantastic psychological game. I’d highly recommend both to anyone. They’re both amazing and deserve a lot of credit for being creative and enjoyable.

  That’s all I have to say.

[katiekatstudios]

Potato Dishes or Carrot Dishes?

potatoes because carrots? ew, that’s dumb, carrots are dumb