Dexter's Character, Comments Section, and Welcomed Criticism · 3:12am Aug 6th, 2014
To start, I want to thank all of you for taking the time to read my story, as well as putting up with the typos and other mistakes. When I started this story I was doing it for fun, and expected it to be short. I thought it would just take a place among the moderately comedic treasures hidden on this site, I was kind of surprised when it got featured. Thanks for that!
Now, several people are posting comments that raise questions about Dexter’s character and how I’ve chosen to handle him. I will admit, I understand where these concerns are coming from.
However, there are a few things that need to be discussed before I can address these concerns. I know, I said that I was going to be taking a few liberties with Dexter’s character (in an author’s note a few chapters back), and I asked you to warn me when I’ve gone too far. You all did warn me, so thanks for that.
However, there are a few things that I need to discuss before people raise any more concerns over Dexter’s character.
The primary thing I wish to avoid is turning Dexter into a Gary Stu. Remember, this is the kid who (in episode Critical Gas) brought about world peace and ended world hunger – all in thirty minutes! The Gary-Stu potential is strong with this one. And for all the potential Dexter has – he needs flaws in order to balance out his sheer genius. One of these flaws is his social ineptitude, leading toward his more ‘abrasive’ personality traits and uncooperative attitude.
This leads me to my next point.
The Dexter you remember might be different from the Dexter that was. In fact, the Dexter you remember was probably ten times less of a jerk than the Dexter that was. A few weeks back, when I posted the chapter ‘disbelief,’ I agreed with most people who said that I had made Dexter a bit too abrasive. However, since then I bought a copy of the Dexter’s Lab season 1 DVD, and watched seasons 3 and 4 on Netflix (some episodes multiple times.)
And I came to the conclusion that the Dexter I remember is not the same as the Dexter that was. Especially after re-watching some of the Dexter’s lab episodes and comparing what I watch to what I the character I remembered.
This leads me to my third point.
Dexter’s character is all over the place. In some episodes he is not only awesome, but kind and altruistic (Critical Gas) other episodes, he is a down right sociopath. (Dee Dee Demensional or toward the end of Ego Trip where he programs robots to kill his sister.) I recommend that, for those who can, go back and re-watch some episodes of Dexter’s lab. You’re already watching a girly show meant for children, try out Dexter’s Lab.
So, with all that said. I understand that Dexter came off as a bit of a jerk in the chapter disbelief – but that was actually pretty mild for how abrasive Dexter can really be.
As for the cursing bit toward the end of the chapter – I get it. I used something that a lot of people considered non-cannon for Dexter, and people thought it was bad.
But I felt a lot more people would have known about the episode Rude Removal (the episode where Dexter curses.) I also felt that I could get away with it because Dexter has the habit of using ‘replacement’ curse words. For example: ‘what the HECK are you doing in my Laboratory (hell); or, ‘Get out of my FREAKING laboratory’ (F**king).
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Okay, moving onto the other issues.
1) I’ve taken notice of the discussion in the comments debating if Dexter has Asperger’s. While it is a GOOD theory, it’s not the case in my story nor is it the case in cannon (arguably). So feel free to continue discussing the matter in the comments section, as it is interesting, I just wanted to point out my position on the matter.
2) If you have comments or criticisms that are especially long, please post them in the blog comments or PM me. As I’ve said in the author’s note, said long posts that require an equally lengthy response (in order to explain some of the choices I’ve made) may require spoilers OR that I point out subtle details that I’ve hidden in the story. Either way, I’d probably be spoiling something for somebody. So please, PM them to be or put them in the blog post comments. I’ll be reading them either way.
3) Please don’t down vote stories based on their genre, that doesn’t help other users find stories they’ll like. For example, if I HATE romances stories – I might down vote Star Wars because of the Anakin/Padme romance. But, someone who is looking for a story in the ‘Sci-Fi adventure’ genre will see that Star Wars was down voted and may pass it up, despite the fact that Star Wars is an excellent ‘Sci-Fi’ adventure story.
Same thing with HiE’s, if you hate the genre then don’t read stories labelled ‘human.’ Down voting them only underrates stories that HiE lovers might like. (I’m not saying this for my personal stories – right now my stories have 207/8 and 62/4 up to down. Thanks for the positive response btw, you all are awesome!)
4) A user has accused me of copying another user’s story. Specifically, ‘Kind of Brony’ accused me of copying Minalkra’s ‘Oh to be Old Again.’
Which is actually insulting. In fact, I feel it is the only truly insulting thing that was said to me on this website.
Not to say that Minalkra’s story is bad, it’s actually rather funny and I would recommend you read it IF you can tolerate that kind of humor. BUT to say my work plagiarize his in ANY way, is an insult. You can call my story a big steaming pile of crap, but it’s MY big steaming pile of crap. Not Minalkra’s.
Now, there are countless reasons why my story is NOT a copy of ‘Oh to be Old again.’ Admittedly there are similarities, (Would you look at that, they are both HiE stories!) but they clearly have many, many, differences (Characters, plot direction, themes - to name a few).
I was all prepared to give a long response, completely ripping ‘Kind of Brony’ a new one. But He hasn’t answered my response, which makes me conclude he is probably a troll. I’ll be relocating and deleting his comment. If he would like to respond, he can post a comment to the blog posts or PM me. But don’t be surprised if you see a bunch of “Comment by Kind of Brony Deleted on xx.” He can complain and criticize all he wants in the blog or PMs, but to answer some of his criticisms will require spoilers – something I do NOT want in the comments section as it will ruin the story for others.
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Well, that’s all I have for this blog post. Sorry to dump it all on you at once, and again sorry for the wait. I’ll try to post the next faster, but I can’t make any guarantees. Enjoy.
I plan on having Dexter start building his new lab in the next chapter or two, then the real shenanigans can begin. But I will also try and keep an interesting plot going, as I don’t want this to be just another comedic fic that has characters running around doing pointless (albeit funny) things.
>:) If you TL;DR, then why are you on a website for reading stories the in the first place? >:)
All I can say, Is that I am glad you are writing a story, and well enough to be interesting, following the "clearly not a Human" in Equestria setup.
That is, that, for one reason or another, the human in equestria is not recognized as such, and, more importantly, is either unable or unwilling to risk revealing their nature. (Or does so and is not believed) and as a general rule ends up with many restrictions on them, possibly as a result.
Having them appear as a Foal is critical for the second part.
Please, continue, and disregard any of that negative feedback. Sure, it could be considered loosely based on or related to OTBOA. However, that is a rather silly complaint, for many reasons, and I at least would disregard it. It is an uncommon story type, and the main character is borderline a literal scientist. (as opposed to those hollywood scientists who pretend to be such but clearly arn't)
I think you are doing a good job.
Considering Dexter's personality could be all over the place in the show, I think you caught the mean of it pretty well. I always did imagine Dexter would be a lot like how you described him, but a little worse actually. Worse meaning he would a bit more ego driven, more abrasive, and more paranoid.
A copy of "Oh to be Old Again"? Other than Dexter turning into a colt (which he technically would since is that age to begin with), I see no real comparison can be made between the two, and I follow both yours and his stories.
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When I saw Discord do that dance for the first time, I thought I had recognized it from somewhere... Now the old Dee Dee song is stuck in my head again too... 
Gah!
While it is true Dexter does despise his sister, and tried to erase her existence more than once, it's also been shown he genuinely does care about her in a better light. While Dexter would indeed say that friends are unneeded he has been shown to have some friends in a few episodes, the one that come immediately to mind is the episode with the bully who hated kids with funny accents (Dexter is shown to be in a friendly relationship with 2 other kids his same age, one whom appears to be a baking prodigy). As much of jerk Dexter is, only about an eighth of what he says is genuine, because most of what he says is his denying things as way of trying to show his sense of misguided superiority. He really does love his sister, although he wouldn't ever admit if he didn't think his life was in danger.
I gave a long expository speech about Dexter and Dee Dee's relationship in the comments section, or was it 2 in different comments. Regardless go and read those to see what my thoughts about the relationship between Dexter and Dee Dee.
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Yah I read it, I read all the comments. Though I respond to the harsher ones more often. Should probably stop doing that. Thanks for the feedback D.