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Flora-Tea — Mini-Rant || To be Fed to the Dogs
#bear #beast #blood #canid #canines #creature #deadeyes #eyes #gdw #ginga #gng #hate #majestic #misunderstood #rant #wolf #wolves #savethebears
Published: 2017-01-16 08:03:36 +0000 UTC; Views: 3034; Favourites: 93; Downloads: 0
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This is an extremely quick sketch I did before heading off to bed that I admit was sloppily done. I usually don't like to publicly rant but I wanted to get this frustration off my chest:
What the heckle is with all of the bear hate on DA?
Not everywhere on DA, but in the canine-fanbase portion. There is not a week that goes by where I don't see one or two dogs(mostly Ginga ones), wolves, or Takotas (whatever those giant wolf thingies are called) chomping down on a drooly savage bear's neck which is apparently made of paper since according to many DeviantArt canine artists, it just takes a bitey to the neck by one or two canines to take down a huge bear. Thick fur and skin and muscle? Ha! Dogs and wolves are way too strong for that to be a problem. They r da most powerfool animul in all da fowest!
I know bears are a prey item in the Takotas group. I just thought I'd mention them
Honestly, I get it. It's fantasy or fiction and you wanna make your canine character(s) look cool. However, I just can't get over how bears are treated by a lot of canines artists.
There is rarely a time where I see a bear as humanized and happy and personality-filled as a wolf or dog or even a deer is. Most of the time, the bears are just savage beasts that must be taken out by the mighty knight in shining fur known as da wolf/doggo! It's mostly the Ginga fanbase where I see this the most since everyone wants their dog to be like the Gins and stuff. It never bothered me that much but what does bother me is how it's always bears. Rarely humans that are after "misunderstood" aggressive canines in the wilderness, never enemy wolves (cus wolfs are always allies and best friends and the bravest and strongest of alls!), It's always savage demon bears that exist just to have a neck thin enough for the doggies to sink their teeth into and kill (cus you know, the necks of bears are just so thin and weak that a dog or wolf can just chomp down and insta victory and bears always seek out doggos to eliminate. It's not like they have anything more important to do!)
Sure, it's fiction/fantasy and you can do whatever the heckle y'all want. Doesn't mean I'm not gonna find this trend repetitive and sad, though. Bears need and deserve much more love and appreciation than they get by these non-human artists. They are beautiful, powerful and majestic creatures that can be really fun to draw and work with once you get the hang of it.
I wouldn't mind this canines-hunting-bears thing so much if it wasn't just...so repetitive and bears were given characterization more often and not just there for the sole purpose of being killed off. I also love how there is never any consideration for the possible cubs the bears being killed might have that are now orphaned and going to starve to death or be killed by something else.
Sorry for the ramble XD I just needed to vent a bit.
So please, my fellow deviants, have a heart and consider drawing a #happybear
/isshot
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Comments: 95
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Personally, I'm gonna make a power trio involving a bear, a wolf, and a big cat, and the bear will be the leader, the wolf will be the tracker, and the big cat the female lancer. That will give bears some justice as all three are good.
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I'm more of a big cat fan, but even I don't think that the bear hatred is anywhere near as deserved as it seems, if at all. Bears are really strong, smart animals. i admit that I have written about big cats and bears fighting, but these are rare and the bears actually win a good number of them. Heck, sometimes, the two even have alliances if you have a good story idea. Why are bears portrayed as these mindless savages when they're anything but? Look at Brother Bear, or if you want real life films, check out The Bear or even Disneynature's Bears. At least the animated cartoon Silverwing gave bears justice by making them the good guys and allies of the bats, while the wolves were shown as antagonistic.
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Oh good grief...bears are my fav group of animals next to birds, and though I am not in the canine artist circles, learning about this bothers me immensely.
I don't know why bears are one of the animals that are so often seen as monsters. They're incredible animals, and each of the existing species has something unique and interesting about them! They're fascinating animals. Though I must admit that after doing a lot of reading up, the American black bear is my favorite. I did not know that they come in a range of colours until I read about it. They're so neat.
Also, I have a general disdain for overpowered canines...but I'd probably be lynched if I stated my opinion on Tokotas.
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Ohhh my gosh ikr? There are so many wonderful things about bears. They are the true lords of the forest hehe
" I'd probably be lynched if I stated my opinion on Tokotas." LOL You and me both. I'm eternally salty about those things XD
And they're so genetic that I see people making wolf OCs for RP groups that look identical to Tokotas, since they're basically supersized OP wolves with extra fuzz added.
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They're amazing and I don't understand how anyone could hate them.
Lol yeah. They're incredibly generic and don't stand out at all form the 904723893920439254 dog-like species floating around on DA. They're boring doggy sues.
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Another annoying thing about the uberwoofs: No matter what I happen to be searching on DA, I WILL stumble upon ONE of those friggin' things in my search results. It irks me.
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IKR? They're everywhere and they all look about the same to me isahisfiasif
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Like, I'd be searching something completely unrelated (say, art for a species from the HTTYD franchise) and then suddenly, a wild overpowered mutt appears.
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LOL IKR?
And they're not even mutts! Mutts would actually be interesting but everyone just likes to use purebreds and sameness and bleh
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Mutts are awesome. The mutts I find around where I live tend to be various shades of beautiful sandy to reddish browns, and I am a huuuuge sucker for those kinds of browns.
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Akakabuto, the villain in the first of the Ginga/Silver Fang series, suffered severe brain damage from getting shot in the eye by a hunter. What far too many Ginga fans don't seem to understand is that he didn't kill because he was a bear, but because he literally went insane from the injury.
Kids are very impressionable (god knows I used to be); I'm sure they'll know better one day. I hope so, at least, because bears deserve so much love.
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Wait, wasnt it shown in Riki's series that Akakabuto was already causing problems before his injury? o3o
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Indeed he was! He killed free-range cattle up in the mountains, like any predator will do to unguarded livestock; later on he launches his first attack on people, which causes Gohei to start hunting him. It's never explained in the manga why Akakabuto suddenly started targeting humans, but a realistic explanation would be that he was defending himself from hunters––who were going after him for going after cattle. xD What a mess. Gohei's bullet, however, is what caused Akakabuto to go completely nuts.
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I always assumed that he started attacking for "reasons" 
He was hunted, but he dissapeared for a couple of years during the attempt, even villagers thought he was dead and there weren't mentions of him until he attacked and killed a group of Rangers, not cattle or even old fashionated Matagi people XD
However, like you said, there isnt an explanation for him attacking people after gone inactive for years. I personally think that he was already prone to violence, the bullet just made it worse. Maybe it also affected the part of the brain that controls anger (hence his temper) OR the lack of hibernation affected his behaviour as well owo.
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I know, right? I believe that Yoshi's unsatisfactory writing is in part due to pressure from his editors and publishers (they're notorious for dictating how a story should go in order to "please" the readers, rather than told the way the author originally intended), but he's also known for bad planning and even forgetfulness––look what happened to poor ol' Chutora ;o;
As mentioned, Yoshi never stated why Akakabuto decided to attack those rangers (or anyone else, for that matter), so I'm only making guesses here; but I personally choose to believe that Akakabuto, in the beginning, only harmed humans out of necessity/fright due to being hunted. Mostly because I really detest the whole "born evil" trope. There's always a reason––or, at least, there should be. Unfortunately, it seems like Yoshi won't elaborate much on the topic. We'll just have to make our own theories here.
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Editors are either life savers or make things harder for the mangaka. I still remember how my favorite Author announced his newest manga and everyone was expecting so much from him D8
The manga didnt flopped, per say, but the quality in comparation to the first one was lamentable. You could compa and see that he didnt planned at all the last chapters (no foreshadowing, they didnt helped the narrative, UNNECESARY FANSERVICE). Things that the first one didnt had. We were confused and found that during the time the author was writing his first manga he complained about how his editor put too much pressure on him. (Its a long story, but now we believe that said editor helped give a lot of quality to the first story)
ANYWAYS, SORRY FOR MAKING THIS TOO LONG.
Chutora, Great, Smith casually forgetting to search for Sakura. Maybe even the raw manga has more information than we dont know and inconsistencey. I wont blame him as much because it is hard to keep in mind everything that happens in your own universe, but how can you leave so many plotholes @_@
Thats fair enough! I do wish that Yoshi could have taken another route with Akakabuto's surviving sons. He showed more development than expected with Kamakiri's sons, why not the same for Monsoon and the others? D:
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Yeah, editors can make things incredibly hard for authors :c Part of me hopes that's why Yoshi's writing for the most part ends up being okay instead of great; on the other hand, his stories would have taken very different turns without the input of his crew. Their opinions can be what saves a manga from flopping completely, and yet we're left with so many unanswered questions and plotholes...there never seems to be any middle ground here.
I think the lack of character development for Monsoon and his brothers is mostly due to the fact that they're bears, and in the Ginga universe, bears are the epitome of evil. Yoshi unfortunately seems to favor the "they're villains because I say so" kind of reasoning rather than give them true depth, which is why I can't really take any of them seriously. Akakabuto's reasons for causing trouble made some sense due to his injury, while Monsoon is apparently waging war on Ohu to avenge a father he never got to actually know. It falls really flat, in my opinion. And don't even get me started on Gin's grandchildren...oof. I really hope they get some serious character development soon, because I'm very disappointed by their lack of it so far. They're supposed to be the protagonists, after all.
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What do you think of the Wolf Arc? Because that was pretty much the product of the his editors, its one of the instances I can agree on the opinion that it wasnt neccesary. Interesting concept, but not fior Ginga LOL
GNG may not be realistic by any means, but it had a more archaic feeling. You get ninjas, hunting with dogs, dog fighting, samurai-like morals. I wouldn't call it an historic manga. But dropping magical wolves did felt off.
Now that I think about it, every time a "unexplainable" element is introducen it tends to never be mentioned again. It happened once in GDWO and a dog whose name I cannot remember orz
There was one time back in GDW when the Ohu army adopted a baby bear (who got killed by hybrid bear some time later, yay) so even I get confused on Yoshi's instance on bears. I don't doubt that Aka's bloodline at this point is just meant to be evil. But more interesting conflict could be obtained from it rather than it coming from only one side (Sirius' point of view crashing against Orion's).
It could be both ways, bears wanting to live in peace and others who do not. Against the newer generation of soldiers who are willing to give it a try but the veterans dont, over how much they had to sacrifice. (This was not my idea D: but it is just one example of how things could have gone)
Moonson avenging his father makes no sense, Aka just mated as much as possible and then leave the sow. What does makes regarding his hate against the Ohu army was his childhood experience of losing his mother in such brutal way. ><
Did Sirius died or
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Yes! Thank you! That is indeed a fact Ginga fans tend to forget.
Oh yes, I agree!
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bear hate is overrated. : (
and i don't know why, but this made me want to learn more about bears.
also i remember making a bear oc, but he looks so..ehh..probably gonna fix him up eventually. i feel like an idiot for making a bear oc without learning more about bears.
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It really is DX
Haha! Is that so? I'm honored this comic had that effect and I would definitely encourage more research on bears. I have a research party on whatever animal I am about to make an OC of or even draw XD
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bears are amazing creatures, hell i even had a dream about one. it's sad that they're treated like this.
yeah, i'm glad i found this! you have amazing art too!
lol, i do that sometimes
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whispers the reason for seeing Tokotas taking down bears is bc you can hunt them in this ARPG :0 nontheless you are right...thinking of Balto and the giant bear that is pissed off....why exactly? :'D apparently for movie dramatics
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whispers backthe reason sounds like a story excuse to follow the trend but for pointssss
And lol XD
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lol i wanted to originally go "um not exactly" BUT then I thought more about it and - you can hunt other carnivores in Tokotas, including bears and a LOT of other animals fitting the place the game takes in; but no wolves. Like coyotes, foxes...but no wolves.
And it is truly a bit wierd hunting bears when the species itself is said to be a bear-dog
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Haha! XD That really is weird. HMMMMMM I wonder whyyy they'd have them kill something big and difficult to take down like a bear but they wouldn't have them hunt easier-to-kill carnivores like wolves? Hunting dogs can attack wolves, why can't Takotas attack wolves? Wolves would be easier to kill than a bear plus more meat than coyotes and foxes.
Just goes to show you how much bias there is
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yeah its kinda obvious now thinking about it :'0
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Your comment in my parody picture gave me some interest to check more of your opinions.
I personally think it's the "enemy theme" that's inspiring people. Bears are considered to be huge, strong and scary and when it comes to animation, they're pretty common as the enemies ( Especially if you make them like 10m huge like Takahashi, wtf xD
). When it comes to animations with bears, as much as I enjoy the warrior and war theme between dogs and bears in GNG and The Last Wars, I also love the animations that actually make you think like Brother Bear and Brave. I'm also really happy that in Last Wars there's now actually characters like Sirius and Shion wondering if killing is right and not doing battougas and shooting bear heads off.
I have two bear characters I don't know how to draw because I draw so much canines, lol.
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woah I had no idea? Bears are such cool animals (they kinda scare me- still not a reason to go around and doing stuff like some people do with the whole killing bear thing)
Good job with this piece btw <)
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O.o this is nice flora lol.
This reminds me of the
(Twisted Disney Princesses)
You should check them out when u have the time.
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What about Pooh bear? Will people hurt him too?!
On a side note, great drawing, and yea, I guess they think bears would make a good antagonist. I'm sure a cougar or even a human could be a better one as well. Maybe even something else...
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D:
And yeah, I agree! Humans and cougars are both more aggressive than bears XD Unlike bears, cougars and humans actually search to kill!
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Blues is pleased
That's why my graphic novel focuses on bears, it's to show a different side to the animal and bring light to how beautiful, intelligent, and powerful these creatures are.
I noticed you mentioned Tokotas and that's why I always got annoyed with them I always see them attacking bears and stuff and these artists have no idea how bear anatomy works.
#happybear
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I really do appreciate you passing my tutorial around to artists who struggle with bears. I also had no idea about all this bear hate that goes on around here. (I'm not very active here on DA. Too many edgy teens)
To me it seems these canine artists don't take the time to study bears at all. I mean, I've been studying bears for years and I know many facts about them. When I see inexperienced people drawing them, I'm like... "oh geez, they must have never seen a bear before!" They are extremely intelligent and powerful animals, they can run faster than a race horse, they have the strongest sense of smell of any land mammal, they can see in color, they have night vision, and they are quite docile! A bear's life is simple. All they want to do is get fat over the year for hibernation season. They aren't savage beasts that just want to kill everything that moves.
I can go on and on about what we consider the largest land predator in the world, but I just wanted to lay out some key facts.
I'll definitely continue to draw more bears, I know there's a lot of folks who do appreciate them. I mean, bears are pretty iconic animals, we use them a lot for mascots to represent power and strength, we use them to show affection and comfort (teddy bears), there's a ton of cartoons with bears that we love. We even consider Smokey the Bear an iconic American hero of forest fires. Bears are loved world wide. I wouldn't let a small group of kids on DA get you down. But, I'm glad I'm not very active here to witness these dog>bear arts. I'm old enough to not really care honestly. I'm just a furry who happens to have a bear fursona and does a lot of research on these beautiful animals.
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This comment made my day, I couldn't have said it better! :'D
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OH WOW. I was just thinking about it yesterday and today because I'm currently embroiled in a bear-attacks-canine thing with two of my characters and have to draw about it soon. Was actually in the works of making a comic poking fun at that.
It's kind of interesting; I don't see it as a "I hate bears" thing, but it's something that's frequent in media from GNG to Fox and the Hound to Balto 1& 2. I understand why; hunting dogs that you see in Fox and the Hound and GNG have been bred to hunt and kill bears. Wolves frequently compete with bears to get food. That's the whole gist of GNG; historically Akita Inus were bred to hunt big game like bears. Hunting big game such as bears, wolves, and big cats has always been around since prehistoric times, at first for necessity, but then mostly because they're a challenge, like hunting a lion. And although there's many methods of hunting bears, using dogs is a notable one. Here's these depictions of bear hunting . And an Akita standing near a dead bear . And a wolf standing against a bear .
Ignoring that I think it's more that people want to spice up the moment or resolve something so they throw in a disposable, antagonistic force, so they go with bears. I mean, what was the point of the bear attacking in Balto 1 & 2 besides the fact that we needed action to keep people's attention in? What was the point of the bear to attack in Fox and the Hound, if not to resolve the conflict between Copper, Slade, and Todd? What was the point of that pug fighting a black bear in Milo and Otis/Adventures of Chatran if not to keep our attention (also, yikes, animal cruelty)?
In honesty, I think the dog + human hunting a bear/wolf/whatever thing is kind of exciting...sometimes. That's what makes me like Fox and the Hound, Old Yeller, and GNG, because it shows the unity and bond between man and animal.
Of course that doesn't mean that I think bears should always be portrayed as antagonistic, and there are some books with wolves and bears that do not portray them as such(Wolves of Beyond is where a grieving mother bear raises a wolf pup, making him torn between his loyalty and love between wolves and bears when a war is threatening to spill over due to a wolf pack kidnapping a bear cub. The wolves are actually kind of scummy throughout the series) (And then Seekers has the bears encounter wolves in an interesting flip of roles--they get chased by wolves).
That and in real life there are poor bears getting savaged for entertainment. :C
Tl;dr: I don't think people hate bears, but it's because it's a result of culture and human history of hunting bears with dogs in the first place. That and it's easier to identify and root for the literal underdog.
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The thing is, I know why bears are treated this way in media/art/entertainment, I know the history of Akitas and bear hunting, I know about the movie trope of bears put in for action movies, I just hope that in the future, more people use bears for more than that and see them as more than an antagonist tool. I'd like to see more actually characterized bears like the mama bear in Wolves of the Beyond and Brother Bear and a couple artists here on DA. I'd like to see bears being bears (and not simply "I MUST KIIILLLL" stereotype.) Bears are so intelligent and have their own personalities and though they're certainly dangerous wild animals, like wolves (which get a billion times more respect), but they definitely have character potential that I hope to see explored more, someday.
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Yeah, I agree, and I feel that same way, which is why I liked the GNG/GDW art piece you made with the puppy and her adoptive bear guardian, considering GNG's portrayal of bears. Brother Bear 1 & 2 I watch purely because I like how the bears move and express themselves, and the movie was examining the "bears are vicious monsters" theme quite nicely.
Like, even with all of that in mind with the bear tropes, I'd like to see more nicer portrayals of them. I've even been thinking of contributing to bear art myself, but I still have to learn the anatomy before trying.
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Awww, thank you so much! And yeah, same here! Those are big reasons on why I love those movies in addition to the fact I find the movies just beautiful all around XD
One thing I really liked about the first movie was how unlike most movies, they later acknowledged that the attacking bear that was seen as this soulless monster had actually attacked for a reason: it was threatened and also had a cub to protect, which is realistic to why a bear would ever get aggressive (I mean, what wild animal doesn't get aggressive when they feel they, themselves, or their children are threatened?).
The only issue I had with the sequel was how Koda hadn't aged a single bit even though by the time the sequel takes place in, he should've been an adolescent at least XD
And oooh same here. I've drawn bears a few times but I do still need practice! I think these are the best tutorials for bear anatomy, also XD I love how they even point out common mistakes.
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I'll admit i was once like that when i first got into the ginga fandom 
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That's understandable! When something is a big part of something we like, it's hard not to pick up a trend that's related to it. But that sounds like a super exciting goal. Go for it!
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It was and now since its kinda quited down on the fandom (idk to be honest its been a while since i been in the ginga fandom) i can freely draw other stuff~ Thanks! You gave me inspiration~ x3
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