Brooke 'Dodger' Leigh Lawson Thorne (AKA Presshearttocontinue, AKA Dodger, AKA Dexterity Bonus) is a formerly The Game Station-affiliated and Polaris affiliated Youtuber and streamer known for her happy-go-lucky vlogging style, as well as her love of foxes, cats, and coffee. When she isn't vlogging, she is the main personality on Polaris' news show Daily Byte, as well as producing her own DIY content with "Swords and Stitches" and subculture introduction videos called "Welcome to the Fandom." She also does the occasional Let's Play on her Twitch stream of more traditional games, with her main channel gaming content consisting of dating sims or other "stupid anime games."
Has two channels: "Press Heart to Continue" for variety content on geek culture and "Dexterity Bonus" for her old "Coffeh Time" video blogs and VODs of her Twitch streams. She also has two cats, named Sherlock and Watson but typically referred to as Sherlockcat and Watsonkitty, who make guest appearances on her channel and streams.
Tropes
- Animal Motifs: On the Co-Optional Podcast animated series She strongly associated with cats due to her love of cats and owning pet cats. Her avatar has cats with her in her appearances. She has a secondary animal which is foxes due to her avatar design, in some scenes she is shown with a fox tail and in the animated podcast "No Pants" she is shown with fox legs as well as a tail.
- Awesome McCoolname: Now that she's married to Strippin, she has the honor of bearing the name "Brooke Thorne," something she admitted on a Twitch stream that she really likes the idea of.
- Babies Ever After: Dodger and Strippin have a daughter, Clarke, who was shown off in Dodger's first May 2018 stream.
- The Baby of the Bunch: Dodger's the youngest of the hosts of The Co-Optional Podcast.
- Big Eater: Is frequently shown eating something in her videos.
- She's been jokingly called unprofessional by TotalBiscuit and Jesse Cox on their podcast since she has a habit of conspicuously eating some sort of leftovers during the show.
Jesse Cox: You cashew-eating...motherfucker. - Et Tu, Brute? / Brutan Betrayer: Betrayed OMFGcata on her 12 hour live stream (June 18th 2012 noon-midnight). He thereafter challenged her and companions (The Cynical Brit, Wowcrendor and Myndflame) to a 4v4 duel of Left 4 Dead 2. This battle between the teams named Ceasar (OMFGcata's) and Brutus (Dodger's) was ended in a score of 1303 vs. 1436 in favor of the Bruti, after which OMFGcata ragequitted. This was, of course, only meant as a joke.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Tons. Her hair has been every color of the rainbow at least once.
- Fanservice: Sort of. She agreed to do a shoot for the Playboy website so long as it could heavily feature plaid and pizza.
- Fiery Redhead: Well, when she has red hair. As stated elsewhere, she changes her hair colour a lot.
- First-Name Basis: She's one of the few people to refer to Strippin by his real name, which makes sense.
- Funny Background Event: A few of these have happened in her Coffee Time videos ever since she got Watsonkitty courtesy of the two felines playing. Occasionally one or both cats will start clambering about on her chair, normally with Sherlock taking pride of place on-top of its headrest. They also tended to happen before she got Watson, normally due to Sherlock mucking around behind her or repeatedly making a circuit of the room's furniture, including Dodger's chair. Though Sherlock's 'solo FBEs' weren't Funny so much as adorably distracting.
- During her podcasts at Bullseye University, what appears to have been a prank was pulled involving a candy bar next door. Somebody suddenly started screaming furiously, "WHYYY!!? WHY DID YOU PUT SNICKERS... IN HERE!?!? WHYYYY!?!"
- Gamer Chick: As a member of The Game Station no less.
- Gasshole: She burps and farts shamelessly in her videos and streams. She also claims to have "infamous" farts because of how bad they smell.
- Genki Girl: And how. She refers to herself in various online profiles as a Youtuber with a caffeine problem.
- Giving Up on Logic: Her reaction to seeing Mettaton EX was this, complete with double Face Palm.
- Happily Married: To Strippin, as of June 22, 2017.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: With her husband Strippin as the Huge Guy. He absolutely towers over her (she's 5-foot-1). Given how tall his family seem to be in general, it's not much of a surprise. And ironically, he once made her play a game of Jumbo Jenga (to be fair, he gave her access to a ladder).
- Identical Stranger: Deliberately played up with Crendor. They do have similar facial structures, but they both act as if Crendor becomes a perfect double of Dodger when he puts on a brightly-colored wig.
- Informed Ability: Dodger used to take martial arts, but doesn't anymore, though she'd love to again. Mostly because she realized she's tiny.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: Both she and Sam love their cats.
- Late Coming Out: During 2021's Pride Month, she came out as pansexual. At the time she was already married and had a young child while being in her early thirties.
- Let's Play: On occasion, although much rarer than everything else. Has played various games, most notably two of the Sherlock Holmes games. She didn't finish her Dead Space playthrough, which Jesse reminds her every time it comes up.
- Joined forces with her roommates HuskyStarcraft, Rosanna Pansino and Ahnaris for a fourplay of Diablo III, with Jesse Cox subbing in when Ahnaris was unavailable.
- Has since restructured her main channel to have a daily Let's Play of some sort whenever she's not busy otherwise. Projects include Dead Space 3 Co-Op with Jesse (completed), Always Remember Me (completed), The Wolf Among Us, Long Live the Queen, and Hatoful Boyfriend (completed).
- Master of Disguise: When hosting the Polaris Mobile Countdown vlogs.
- Must Have Caffeine: Her vlog is called Coffee Time, and she owns more coffee mugs than there is space in her house. Naturally, she started selling her own brand of coffee beans.
- Never Gets Drunk: See The 14th TheGameStation podcast. Not only is Dodger the only one to open her champagne without spilling it, but she also drinks the second most of all of them, and acts the least intoxicated of the three.
- Podcast: A regular on The Co-Optional Podcast alongside TotalBiscuit and Jesse Cox.
- Prefers Going Barefoot: In her own words, Dodger walks everywhere barefoot. She's admitted frequently on camera she loves being barefoot all the time, even when told she needs shoes onset or wandering over hot concrete. She'll even opt for bare feet in the snow. And rather adorably, her husband is just as much of a barefooter as she is.Dodger: Pretty much every opportunity I get, I walk around barefoot. ... I just love being barefoot. Jeannie hates being barefoot- hates it. She doesn't care if other people are barefoot, but she personally hates being barefoot and I cannot fathom that because I, like... I feel like I'm in my natural element when I'm barefoot. Um, it just feels like the most natural for me by far, but I'm a Hobbit, so it kinda makes sense.
- Rage Quit: Dodger completely stalled out on the unexpectedly brutal first boss of Wings of Vi for over an hour before giving up.
- Special Guest: Appeared as one to sing "the Eevee Song" on the Random Encounters channel.
- Suddenly Shouting: She usually maintains a pleasant volume while playing games, but can reach ear-splitting levels when something surprises her.
- That Came Out Wrong: Welcoming the audience to her man-cave, but for a woman, she declares "Welcome to my lady cave!" and realises that really doesn't work.
- There Are No Girls on the Internet: She just took a giant crap all over this rule. Either that, or some G.I.R.L. is very talented at weaving very intricate webs of LIES!
- Trademark Favorite Food: There's a reason her daily vlog is called "Coffeh Time." She even did a video about coffee with the Yogscast during their first trip to America.
- Unusual Euphemism: Always refers to sex as "touching butts."