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soyouareandrewdobson · 3 years

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Dobbear! SYAC: The Master Review 6

I am so going to ruin someone’s childhood with that now, but...

guys, it had to be done!

Dashing and daring…

Courageous and caring!

Faithful and friendly…

With stories to share!

Doesn’t at all apply to this one artist…

Lesbian obsessed and each nerddom’s nightmare!

Dobby BEAR!

Whinning here and there and everywhere!

Making claims that are beyond compare…

This is our Dobby-Bear!

Yeah, if you can’t guess, around now is the time I am going to put down the kids gloves and will really dig into why SYAC is garbage. And a huge factor into this, is in part Dobson’s self insert past 2012.

The existence of the blue bear as Dobson officially calls it (or Dobbear as most people call it) is in my opinion rather baffling already in terms of design choices.

I get e.g. that Dobson wanted to distance himself of his past humanoid self inserts as much as possible. But why of all things a bear?

The fact I am focused on that may sound weird, but hear me out for a bit. For starters, I know that Dobson likes western animation. And seeing how western animation has for the longest time been dominated by anthropomorphic animals, I can understand why he would redesign himself as a funny cartoon animal.

But there are at least three things that feel weird about it. First, Dobson had made it clear in the past that he hates furries. So him actually redesigning himself as an anthropomorphic animal is kinda weird

In fact, Dobson himself acknowledges that realization in one of his strips shortly after his fursona took over.

Second, of all the animals to choose from, why a bear? This question is in so far valid, as that bears are not necessarily one of the first to go animals, furries or western animators tend to go for when designing an anthro. And before any furries or anthro enthusiasts are calling me a hater, let me make one thing clear: I like anthropomorphic cartoon and comic characters too, and am okay with most furries. As long as you don’t have a diaper fetish, are a pedophile or hurt actual animals, you can do and enjoy whatever you like.

But I am also aware enough of furry culture to know, that bear based anthros are most of the time hyper sexualized and muscular, connecting them to how the term “bear” is used in real life gay culture. Which is okay, I think it is just a funny coincidence that Dobson choose an animal, that most furries associate with a life style that Dobson is deeply afraid of, even if he claims to be an LGBT ally.

And as stated earlier, bears are not necessarily the go to animals for animators.

Don’t get me wrong, we all know some cartoon bears like Winnie the Pooh, Yogi Bear, Poh and the main cast of TaleSpin (btw, Kit Cloudkicker fan for life). But lets be honest here; ducks, mice, rabbits, canines, felines, equines and any other “easily to domesticate” animal in the real world tends to make better for easily recognizable cartoon characters than something that can reach a size of 3 meters tops and weigh over 500 pounds.

Truth be told, the pool of cartoon bears is so small, these are the first two things that came to my mind when thinking what may have inspired the Dobbear

And wouldn’t you know? According to Dobson, the Carebears were supposedly the main inspiration for his design.

Unfortunately, this is also more or less the most I could find of Dobson addressing what went into the creation of the character.

Which kinda brings me also to the third issue as why I think the bear redesign is weird; It is too sudden.

One day Dobson draws himself as a shaved 20 something, the next day he is a fedora wearing Carebear clone, likely created and then rejected by Care Bear villain No Heart, as part of a plot to create a mole when conquering Care-A-Lot.

… and now I need to reevaluate my choices in life, that I was able to make such an elaborate Carebear joke.

It is just a change of design that in my opinion should have been addressed either outside of the comic or in context of it. Which it kinda is, but isn’t.

See, this is the first strip with the blue bear

And then only 13 strips or so later in something called “Continuity” is Dobson more or less willing to address the change…

And he does so in a passive aggressive manner, with Persistent Pam as a stand in for those asking him what is going on, while Dobson just dismissively continues working.

On one hand, you can argue that this is just the joke. The change happened, don’t bother with it, just enjoy what is still to come. And you know, I don’t want to make a rope out of everything Dobson ever posted, including that comic.

But then you have also to account for the fact, that Dobson would eventually associate himself with the blue bear so much, he made him his avatar and icon for his comics and online accounts. In fact, that one comic I posted WAY BACK in the first Master post of Dobson reminiscing how he started SYAC?

For reasons that are a bit confusing to me, he redrew himself (badly I have to add) as the blue bear in one of his earliest strips ever. The one where he belittles the manga fangirl for drawing manga. So I have to ask, what is going on here? Has Dobson increasingly decided to reset his past? Does he want to destroy any traces of his “human” self in his work to create the illusion to any new readers, that he never was as controversial of a person as he was and that there never was a need for him to reimagine and reinvent himself? Is this 1984? And how many of you realize that this paragraph is just me going conspiracy nuts for the sake of entertainment?

But still, it is kinda weird that he went to the bother of redrawing his human self in that one background sketch as a bear. Plus, I honestly think Dobson never even attempting to “explain” the change in the pages of his comics is a wasted opportunity for some decent jokes. Like every time Dobson tries to explain why he is a bear now, something interrupts him or we only get fragments of a story that if we put them together would be as ridiculous as the entirety of “Trapped in the Closet”.

I mean, the dumbest joke idea I have in mind is that Dobson went to build a bear to get a present for a family member. Instead he was build into a bear and later on successfully sued the company, which explains why he can afford to live despite not really working on comics anymore but lecture people badly about the evils of nerd culture.

So yeah, three major things about the design choice that more or less confuse me.

But here is the thing: Confusion is nothing compared to feeling genuine disdain for the design at hand. And compared to Dobson’s earlier human designs, Dobbear is just utterly unlikable.

A lot of that boils down to the following three facts:

1. From a certain point in time on (which I will cover in more detail later on) Dobson uses his bearsona primarily as a soapboxing mouth piece to talk about “politics” in nerd culture. Or at least what Dobson perceives as politics, coming off like a condescending jackass who believes among other things that white people are inherently incapable to identify with black people…

… or that comic book shops have radicalized nerd culture, essentially calling them terror cells.

Which btw are so inherently offensive to me, I promise I will cover these two separately. One even sooner than the other.

2. If Dobbear is not talking about politics, he will tend to be a smug asshole to other people (most of the time strawmen) or their interests in one way or another. Being e.g. used by Dobson to express his disdain for criticism…

or to mock legit criticism he had gotten by exaggerating things.

All while also tending to make his critics look like inherent assholes.

These two facts, combined with Dobson’s average erratic behavior online on platforms such as dA, twitter and tumblr over the years, pretty much assured such a close association between the two, that a separation between artist and creation was not possible anymore, condemning them.

And for the record; Dobson was always a bit of a whinner who liked to act as if he was a better nerd than the average comic book fan. Otherwise, we would have not e.g. gotten Danny and Spot out of it.

But as the years went by in the last decade, Dobson turned from someone in his mid 20s, desperate to be seen as a “quirky” and likable internet persona (like certain internet reviewers), into a virtue signaling, lesbian obsessed asshole who likely regrets his life choices.

… Like certain internet reviewers.

But seriously, Dobson turned into someone who would flip the lid at something as ridiculous as Cheeto flavored chicken fries…

While also being just the worst type of condescending nerd….

All while losing his mind about politics. Especially after Donald Trump became president

And just as Dobson became a radicalized left winged jackass who saw politics in everything he consumed, so did by default Dobbear, because Dobbear was not a character with his own personality, but a mouth piece.

Something I am about to get into detail in the near future. But till then, I want to cover in the next post the following third and final fact about Dobbear that really makes him unlikable to me: The fact he can’t be happy.

#syac #Andrew Dobson #dobbear #tom preston #so...you are a cartoonist #review #master review #webcomic #comics

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goldngguk · 5 years

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red // 05

part one of trilogy series

warnings // fluffy cuteness, jealous kookie

word count // 2.3k

trilogy masterlist

Don't do it. It won't end well, you know that. You can't let this happen. But then again, maybe there's no point in trying. Maybe this is all inevitable. Maybe you don't have a choice. Do we ever?

She was startled awake to the sound of loud vibrations against her bedside table. The wood trembled from the sensations of her phone as it received a new message. She groaned, rolling over and stretching for the device.

She laid her head against her pillow trying to recall what her dream had been about. It didn't really even feel like a dream. It was more like the voice in her head speaking to her through the darkness. But what was it talking about? Too exhausted to think or get up, she set her phone down only to watch it vibrate again when a new message popped up.

《???:》 Y/n?

She blinked at the unknown number for a few seconds before remembering who it was. She had given him her number at the café the day before during their conversation. She immediately added the number to a new contact.

Jungkook sat on a couch in his dorm room pleading with himself not to sound so cringeworthy. Forcing a conversation with her was something he did not want to do, especially if it was about something as unimportant as her obviously messed up sleep schedule.

He chuckled at the message causing Yoongi to look up from the burrito of blankets he had wrapped himself with. "What's so funny?"

Jungkook glanced up at his older roommate before shaking his head. "It's nothing, hyung. Go back to your nap."

"It's okay. I should be getting up now anyway. They'll call us down soon." Yoongi rolled out of bed and Jungkook's eyes went back to his phone.

After showering and finishing her hair and makeup, Y/n headed for the filming room.

"Hey, Y/n!"

Jimin jogged up beside her. "How are you today?"

"I'm good, thanks. I'm ready to get to work."

Jimin giggled. "Me too. I don't like to sit for too long." Y/n smiled and the two walked together to meet the group.

"Oh, look who's late," Jungkook said when Jimin entered the room.

"I am not late!"

"Everyone else is already here though," he smirked. Hobi laughed and punched him in the arm.

"You haven't even started yet! Besides, Y/n came with me!"

Jungkook's eyes flickered towards hers as she followed Jimin into the room. He felt his stomach drop. Why is she with him? Were they together? What were they doing? He watched the questions consume his mind. I don't like it.

Y/n took a seat next to him, immediately making his negative thoughts disappear. "Hi," she smiled.

"Hello." He tried to choke back the next sentence, but it seemed he couldn't help himself; it just slipped out. "You look pretty."

"Oh, thanks," she replied before turning her attention towards the staff who would be directing the episode.

Jungkook nodded and looked down to play with his thumbs. I can't believe I just said that. It seemed like all of his confidence from the night before flew right out the window when he saw her come in with Jimin. Of course, he wouldn't be a problem for Jungkook; the golden maknae who could do anything. At least he hoped not. He really hoped not.

The staff finished putting the set together and began to record. The first episode of the second season (ep. 21) of Run would be a relaxed episode, saving the more intense games and plots for later. Today would be a board game competition. “You will split up into two teams of six and play two out of three games. The third game will be all vs. all. If the winner of the third game is from the losing team of the first two games, the team can avoid the punishment picked by the staff.” The members nodded and began to decide their teams. The first group included Jimin, Yoongi, Taehyung, Hayden, Hobi, and Maya. The opposing team was made up of Jin, Mason, Namjoon, Y/n, Jungkook, and Cyrus. “Now that the teams are made, we will discuss the first game. It's water beads. There is a piece of filter paper placed on a hollow stand. Each of you will drop a bead or a drop of water onto the paper. The person to make the beads break and fall through the paper is the loser.”

Each team took turns adding beads until the overconfident Kim Seokjin decided to push his luck and dump a straw full of water onto the paper. Needless to say, the paper broke and Jin's team lost the first game. “Well that didn't go as planned,” he shook his head as Jungkook slapped his shoulder.

The second game was a test for the BTS members to see how many English words they could memorize on a card in ten seconds without the help of Culture. Jin recited five of his six words, while Namjoon got all of his. “Dog, dinosaur, duck, jello, jam, jerk, cracker, crocodile…”

Jimin snickered before attempting to mock him. “Crocodoll,” he said with a roll of his tongue. Hobi joined his fun, giggling, “Crocodiiiile.”

Jungkook went last. He looked up in thought before remembering his words. “Stream, strong, streamer, rabbit, ring, rocket. Was that it? I think that's all I have.” Everyone praised him for his memory and dialect.

“That was really good, Jungkook!” Y/n said, patting him on the back. His cheeks turned rosey and he smiled back at her. After watching the other team crash and burn, it was decided that Jungkook's team was the winner of the second game.

The third game which would be played individually was Uno. Within a few times around the circle, Y/n was the first to go out. She jumped from her spot and took a seat on the couch behind them. Taehyung seemed to not fully understand the concept of the game. “Tae,” Joon said, slapping him on the knee. “You didn't say uno. You have to draw four cards.” This went on for a while until the members made a game out of it.

“Okay guys, he gets it. You have to let him say it when he lays his card down.” Without even realizing how it happened, Taehyung went out and got second place. Hobi was right behind him.

After a few more rounds, Y/n laid her hand on Jungkook's shoulder and discreetly held up a 1 until he realized. “UNO!” He gasped. “Uno, uno, uno, uno!” He flung his final card across the room causing everyone to bust out in a fit of laughter. Only a minute later did he play the card and get fourth place.

“You would have lost if I hadn't told you,” she giggled as Jungkook held up his hand for a high five.

“They didn't even notice!” They both laughed as they watched the game continue until it was just Jimin and Yoongi left. In order to save time, the boys decided they would draw cards. Whoever held the highest card would be the last winner. Jimin drew a green eight while Yoongi played a red reverse.

“What is that worth? Did we even establish this card?”

Jimin waved his hand at him. “It's okay, hyung. I'll allow it. You can redraw.”

“Awww,” Y/n cooed. “Jimin, that's so sweet.”

Jungkook's gaze shot between Jimin and Y/n. Sweet? What is that supposed to mean? Does she like him? He could feel his face heat up for the hundredth time that week and his fists clenched into balls-- not that Jimin was any threat to him. He couldn't possibly be.

Yoongi drew a draw 4 card, making Jimin the loser despite his good sportsmanship. “That's okay, Chim. You're still the best sport here.” At this point, Jungkook's blood was boiling. Jimin was stealing all of her attention. He needed to do something, anything that would bring her back to him. He noticed the way she leaned on the couch, exposing her hand on the cushion next to him. He slowly crept his hand closer until his fingers feathered over hers. She immediately looked up at him, but she didn't withdraw due to the considerable amount of butterflies fluttering in her stomach. What is he doing?

He mentally celebrated his success before pulling his hand away. Jimin who?

The twelvesome wrapped the shoot and the staff declared dinner would be ready soon. The punishment for Jimin's team was to clean up afterward.

“Hey, Y/n. C'mere for a sec.”

Hayden and Maya were still standing in the middle of the room. She turned in her heels dramatically and made her way to them.

“Yeah?”

“So, Maya's been filling me in on a few things-”

“Oh good god, Maya what did you tell him?” She asked her sternly.

“Just what he needs to know. I'll be going now.” She winked at Y/n and left the room with a swing in her step.

“I swear that girl gets on my nerves sometimes.”

“Don't change the subject. As your very best friend, I demand to know what's going on between you and Jungkook.”

“Hayden, nothing is going on between us! We literally met three days ago, and you know Maya! She's always trying to hook me up with random people. This is no different.”

Hayden nodded his head, staring at her suspiciously. “So you would tell me if something was going on?”

“Of course! What about me do you not know?”

“Okay, Y/n. I believe you. I just think Jungkook might have an eye for you.”

“Good grief.”

“That's all I'm saying. He's showing signs and I think we've all noticed.”

“Kay Sherlock, I'll be sure to keep you posted. Can we go eat now? I'm starving.”

“Yeah yeah, let's eat. But seriously-”

“Hayden!”

After an uneventful dinner, everyone turned in for the night. When arriving at their dorm, Y/n shoved Maya inside and kicked the door shut behind her. “Why would you talk to Hayden? We talked about this. It's nothing and I don't understand why you keep insisting that it is.”

“I'm sorry, Y/nickname. I didn't think you'd be that pressed about it.” Y/n followed her into the bathroom to get ready for bed.

“I'm not pressed, Maya. I'm tired. You always do this. Every time I interact with a male that isn't in our band, you blow it out of proportion. I don't want a boyfriend. If I did, I would have one. But I don't. I thought that after everything I went through with Luke that you would understand that.”

“I know. You're right. I just get so excited when you loosen up. You work so hard all the time and I care about your feelings. I want you to be happy.” Exiting the bathroom, the two sat on their mattresses to face each other. Maya looked into Y/n's eyes, reading her like an open book. “I know you're lonely,” she spoke softly.

“I'm not lonely, My. I have the greatest friends in the world to share my life with. And I know you care.”

“That's not what I meant,” she said tilting her head endearingly.

“I know what you meant. But I don't have time for that kind of thing. In our career, you have to decide what you want; love or success. You can't have both. Between the touring, the practice and recording, red carpets and events, press following around every corner; it can be too much for some people to understand.”

“I think there's someone who understands that perfectly.”

“Which only means double the time apart.”

“So celebrities and normal people alike are both no-nos.”

“Now you're getting it.”

“Okay! Okay, I'll leave you alone. Just- at least think about it. I really think having a little fun could be good for you right now.”

“If it will make you feel better, then fine. I will. Now go to sleep.” The girls each climbed into their beds-Maya almost immediately drifting off. Before Y/n could shut her eyes, she heard her phone vibrating.

a.n. // DO NOT PAY ATTENTION TO THE TIMES IN THE TEXTS. THEY ARE NOT CORRESPONDENT TO THE STORY. Oooh, who's Luke? And what does he have to do with you?

taglist // @darkdragonskies @kalisica

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