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tippenfunkaport · 1 year

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Bow's Character Arc

There was a discussion on Twitter from people who were confused about Bow’s character arc and whether he had one (he very much does, and it’s actually one of the clearest / most spelled out in the entire show!). To help anyone experiencing that confusion and because it’s never a bad idea to understand how character arcs work if you want to be a writer/storyteller, I might as well break Bow’s character arc down for anyone who might find it helpful.

Buckle in, it's nerd time!

At the most basic, a character arc is a change (usually growth) a character goes through over the course of a story. Usually good (positive change arc) but sometimes bad (negative change arc). It’s very often a reversal aka the character is often in the exact opposite state by the end of the story than how they start it out. It can be trickier to follow in an ensemble story like SPOP because there are a lot of characters with parallel story lines going on and multiple arcs colliding in different ways, but She-Ra does a really good job of giving each of the four leads arcs (with Catradora as the main leads, Glimbow as the secondary) near equal time.

Yes, including Bow.

What I think throws people about Bow’s arc is it’s based on hypocrisy.

Meaning…

He encourages his friends to talk it out and share their feelings… while hiding his own feelings from his dads and repressing his frustrations with having to be the middle man between Adora and Glimmer (Season 4)

He declares that average people (such as the kitchen staff at Dryl) don’t need the princesses and are just as capable of fighting the Horde themselves… while he believes himself and his abilities inferior to Princess Entrapta’s

He reminds the others (esp Adora) about the need to accept help… while refusing any help for himself (think about “Don't worry about me. I'm the one who worries about you. Can we go back to that? Please?” in Pulse through to that moment when he agrees to let Glimmer take him to check on his dads in Return to the Fright Zone and literally leans on her)

I think a funny way to sum up his character issue is: Not me, though.

This arc progresses across all five season as he gradually changes. He starts the series out repressing his feelings from both his family and friends while doubting his abilities and refusing to ask for help (he IS Adora’s mirror, after all!). Over the course of the series he learns to express his feelings instead of bottling them up (The Beacon > Reunion > really all of Season 4 but it comes to head starting with Boys Night Out through Beast Island > Stranded), gains more confidence in his tech skills (The Frozen Forest > Signals > Flutterina > Mer-Mysteries > Corridors), and starts to learn to ask for help (The Beacon > Pulse > Return to the Fright Zone).

Which of course all culminates in The Heart Parts 1 and 2 where he finally wraps up all threads at once by

a) asking Scorpia to trust him (putting faith in someone else to help)

b) completing Entrapta’s program to unchip everyone (proving he IS as good a scientist as she is)

c) giving the speech to everyone on Etheria rousing the common people to fight Prime (average people can make a difference… which he now fully believes that includes him).

And while you can make the argument that confessing to Glimmer is part of his arc to share his feelings, the fact is that he completes a full character arc without ever behind reduced to just someone’s love interest because none of his character growth is tied to his romantic relationship at all (which was what the original tweet claimed). It's all his inner journey to have faith in himself and his abilities and how they relate to his friends and loved ones.

And thus the guy who starts the series as “only one around here who’s not a princess” with doubt in his tech abilities ends the series as confident Tech Master and future King of the regular people he sought to inspire, which is about as textbook a reversal as you can get.

Does it come out of nowhere?

His character arc progresses and takes significant focus in the following episodes….

S1:E6 System Failure

S1:E10 The Beacon

S2:E1 The Frozen Forest

S2:E3 Signals

S2:E7 Reunion

S4:E3 Flutterina

S4:E4 Pulse

S4:E7 Mer-Mysteries

S4:E8 Boys Night Out

S4:E10 Fractures

S4:E11 Beast Island

S5:E3 Corridors

S5:E4 Stranded

S5:E9 An Ill Wind

S5:E10 Return to the Fright Zone

S5:E12 Heart Part 1

S5:E13 Heart Part 2

That’s 17 episodes out of 52 which means his character development gets approximately 32% of the focus of the entire show… which for an ensemble cast like this where he’s one of four leads is just about dead on as it's over a quarter of the episodes.

That's a significant chunk of screentime with multiple episodes devoted specifically to his character journey.

Is his journey as flashy and action sequence-y as what Adora, Catra and Glimmer get? No, but it's a) a show marketed to girls so it makes sense they get the more cinematic scenes and b) his arc is more emotional and thus didn't need to hinge on big action like theirs did. Though considering the culmination of his arc is him as a 100 foot tall hologram speaking to the entire planet, I personally feel like that was pretty hard to miss.

If you look at all of this and still want to say that Bow did nothing or had no character arc, I think the thing to ask yourself is: why is it so important to you to discount the accomplishments and character growth of this character specifically?

In conclusion, this is the face Bow makes when he spent five season growing, changing and kicking butt as Tech Master and Voice of Reason and you say he did "literally nothing"...

#spop #shera #she ra #bow #meta #literary analysis #if I had more free time I would do a whole series analyzing the writing in this show #because it's so well done #spop bow #glimmer #adora #entrapta #tippen's posts #you all forget I'm a writing nerd until I bust out the craft talk don't cha?#i would like the record to show that I put the picture sets side by side #to show the start and end of each part of his arc #but tumblr ignored that layout

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myowndesertplaces · 3 months

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I'm a bit bummed there will only be 3 seasons of Midst Podcast, because it's so good. But I do like that we will get a completed story, and the narrators get to end it how they wish.

#midst podcast #i hope they continue to make stuff if they want to #because it's so well done

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floccinaucinihilipilificationa · 6 months

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#sherlock #it might be the cough medicine but I'm really feeling the bbc sherlock wedding episode today #a good feeling ₍՞◌′ᵕ‵ू◌₎♡#like finding an old block of cheese in the back of the fridge you forgot about and its gotten super hard and chewy #i currently have half a block of gouda curating in the vegetable cupboard #waiting #how are you doing friends!! C:#I'm good! I still have the cough but I also got a new scarf #I'm still thinking about buying window colors as well but I am waiting if that is also just because of the cough medicine #I can't believe it's already been a year since I have moved! last year I was doing everything here for the first time #and now everything is happening for a second time! that year was both very long and also happened very fast #our floor in the “office” my father wanted to install still is not completly done but he threw up last time he tried #he did not threw up because of the floor but because every time he does a home renovation project he drinks 3 liters of Cherry Coca Cola #we are trying to not make him drink 3 liters of Cherry Coca Cola but he doesn't want anyone else to finish the floor I think so we just do #not mention the hole in the floor #have a nice autumn day friends!! I hope you're doing well! ( ´͈ ◡ `͈ )#♥

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lazylittledragon · 3 months

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isn't it weird how if you get up at 7 or 8, do your work all day, then have free time and go to bed at 11 that's absolutely fine

but if i said i get up at 10, do fun stuff in the morning then work in the evening and go to bed late, i could be called lazy, nevermind that i'm getting just as much or MORE work done as i would in a traditional work day

#ramble #idk if this is a me problem or not #i've tried to do the early rise early bed thing again and again and it just does not work for me doing freelance right now #maybe it's bc i used to work at a bar so i'm more comfortable being active in the evening #i love working at night because there's less going on to distract me #what used to happen is i would get up early then fight executive dysfunction all day saying i couldn't do fun stuff until i did my work #then my will to work would hit at 10pm and i'd be up till 2am anyway #right now my routine is waking up later and playing a game or knitting for an hour or so and then working in the afternoon and evening #something something capitalism and 9-5 and adhd don't go together #this sounds like i'm just making excuses but it works and i'm actually getting shit done and sleeping enough so i don't see the problem #i just figured i'm probably going to sit and do nothing for a few hours in the morning anyway so i might as well give myself permission to

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lilybug-02 · 5 months

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Bribed with Chocolate. The way it should be.

Part 22 || First || Previous || Next

--Full Series--

More to come as this is a two-parter. But you know how I am with schedules.

Bonus:

I think this was an equally possible reaction from Chara.

#Chara and Azzy have another talk #Finally Chara shows their mischievous side.#and Azzy knows Chara's language well #my art #deltarune chara timeline #art #bread #deltarune #ngl im so happy with how that chocolate shake came out. I want to eat it so bad #yay 6 pages of taking :') i hope you guys like that lmao #Glad I got this one done in basically a month and a week! Hah. I'm trying me best :') Halloween.. Exams and a ton of other things came up #surprisingly these backgrounds weren't terrible to do... I mean took more than two hours but you know what I mean #i struggled with how to frame the background though. I actually liked drawing it. But because both the background and my characters--#--are super colorful I have to make sure I don't muddle the whole page.#Ive been thinking of doing the overworld in black and white recently... may help me actually finish the comic lol. idk i may make a poll #gonna try and get the new part out in maybe a month again? sorry. Thanksgiving and Christmas get me exhausted.

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cadere-art · 8 months

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A collection of diving birds.

A kingfisher, a pelican, an osprey, and a booby.

#birds #art by me #tritone #kingfisher #booby #osprey #pelican #i'm back bitches!#well. not really because i'm actually in the very last stretch of my thesis. but the move is done enough that i have some bandwitdh to draw #next month though... watch out #in a very birdy sort of mood lately. so. more birds coming is likely

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maddyscrsideblog · 2 months

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Something something the way Orym keeps talking around his feelings for Dorian by saying he misses him rather than he loves him "I really miss Dorian and sometimes I think that's okay and sometimes I think it isn't" and "If I don't get the chance again... I've really missed you" and the way that the absence of a person he loves is such an intrinsic part of the way Orym has lived his life for the past 6 or 7 years, saying he misses Dorian feels so close to a declaration of love because he misses Will so fucking bad all the time and he loved Will so deeply that missing someone and loving someone blurs together into the same feeling

#i'm failing to get any work done because i am absolutely plagued with dorym thoughts #'i miss you' as a stand in for 'i love you' fits so painfully well for a character who's been a widower since he was maybe 29 #orym #dorym #cr spoilers #critical role

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killjoy-prince · 2 months

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House M.D. but it's when Wilson says House's name

#house md #james wilson #prince's talk tag #finally!!! it's done! this and the house version took almost two weeks to do #first off thank you to the clinic-duty team on livejournal for making the transcripts for these episodes #because this video would be near impossible to make without their clear transcripts. I hope y'all are doing well #ive been reading a lot of fics with these two and i see how the authors have the characters refer to each other in their fics #and that got me wondering how much do they say each other's name in the show and how do they refer to each other #since this is the wilson video ill put his stats here #s1 was 11 times s2 was 18 s3 was 45 s4 was 32 s5 was 41 s6 was 60 s7 was 47 and s8 was 48 #in total he says his name 302 times. Mostly refers to him just by House #the only time I've heard him say his first name its when he's being professional or when he's really angry (and that one time he proposed)#and even then it's always the full name not just the first name #the only instance I've seen him use just his first name was on that note he put on House's xmas gift that we see in season 5 #and as much as I wanted to put that moment in here he never actually says the contents of the note out loud so i had to leave it out #but what surprised me was he says House's name more than House says his name #especially when the earlier seasons didn't have him say his name as much

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bluespiritshonour · 2 months

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"Not everything's changed" -Mai, Going Home Again

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katabay · 5 months

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my knight-monk agenda strikes again, but this was less of a 'I read something that made me experience several emotions and a strike of inspiration at once,' and more of a 'wouldn't it be fucked up if the bejeweled skeleton saints came to life and and started. eating people. or something. in revenge. medieval catholic horror, or an older horror of not being buried right. zombies, even. a complete bastardization of holy visuals. zombies.'

it's a far away idea, but I still wanted to play around with font layouts. like, if I DID make it into a full comic: these would be visual vibes, perhaps.

it's also a little bit about the kind of intimacy that these kinds of spaces provide, or in the case of this monk: the heavy trauma of war and the death of your brother, the escape to a secluded monastery, spiritual brotherhood to make up for your dead brother, but your role as a physician keeps pulling you back to this violence you want to escape. physician, heal thyself, only you have a holy calling to serve those in need, so instead: physician, open up your wounds again. saint jude, patron saint of lost causes, give us a fucking hand here, man. amen.

Homosexuality in the Renaissance: Behavior, Identity, and Artistic Expression, James M. Saslow

and this one is about earlier history than the medieval period that this comic is set in, but the monk character is sort of an exploration of earlier themes. a little bit. I like overlapping eras with each other, I've done it before and I'll do it again. this character is an exploration of some other stuff too, but mostly this book was interesting to read

From Monastery to Hospital: Christian Monasticism and the Transformation of Health Care in Late Antiquity, Andrew T Crislip

bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost

#i almost made him a benedictine monk but then we would've been reaching territory i do not feel like suffering through #generic medieval tag #i had more tags but i started talking politics and honestly if im going to talk politics i think its better to just make a post about it #i dont actually talk politics on tumblr even tho a lot of my work is extremely political in its subtext/text #because i think that tumblr is very annoying for that. its so anglo-american-western centric in its political theory #and i am WELL beyond that. i use twitter for politics because i love suffering lmao but also its like. still better for getting stuff done #komiks tag

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11thsense · 11 months

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Going through my files of my more illustrative work and this is a bunch of studies, abandoned pieces, and Wips. Some of which I posted then deleted.

#long post #my art #wip #concept art #sorrryyy i just thought i might as well dump all this here....alos because some of u ask for progress shots and my process #though my process for these is very different from like my just regular character drawing process....#these look so nice together maybe i should actually finish some of them......#the “umi” painting in the water is an irl painting btw and its done i havent shown anyone the finished product tho sorry u guys lol #its 40 by 60 inches tho its pretty damn big....

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bixels · 4 months

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While I do think anon was rude, I do think it's pretty shitty to set up all this stuff you were going to add the au and then just drop it. It's disappointing. Definitely unfollowing.

Bye.

#ask me #anon #once AGAIN.#I am not dropping anything #the au is not getting cancelled. more than likely i'm gonna take a break from it until i find motivation again #But I've been drawing the AU for half a fucking year #In that time I've only drawn 5 things that aren't mlp related #I'm getting tired and my last few posts didn't do as well as I'd hoped #And I'm not about to burn myself out on mlp au art even if I really do love making it #I'm still gonna make comics. I have a bunch of ideas.#Tulli and I still wanna do the limited run merch shop #Discord is still coming. Sunset is still coming. Sombra is still coming. I have so many ideas #But I need to do something else for my own sake. Did you know I was supposed to get the background 6 designs done by now #But I didn't because I'm TIRED #I've been keeping myself on a schedule to keep content pumping despite travel and school and family and I'm tired #what i'm getting isn't matching what i'm giving and that's nobody's fault. i'm not frustrated at anyone. a slump was bound to happen #drawing the au was fun until it become my Thing. Because when your Thing––your identity––starts to faulter #it can really make you freak out #And that's not healthy for the project or for myself. I need to find the fun again and I'm sure I will #I'm really appreciative of everyone's support in my inbox and replies it really does mean a lot especially given that about 2/3 of my #followers followed for mlp. But if you're gonna react to me saying “i'm gonna cool down on mlp art and draw my own stuff” with “i'm #disappointed in you." then Leave! I think it's good you're unfollowing #you are not obligated to stick by my side! But don't act like I'm doing you a disservice by turning my attention elsewhere #I didn't promise anyone anything and I definitely didn't say I'm breaking any promises.

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shimmershy · 11 months

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Just two siblings back from the dead, hanging out, totally not using this opportunity to torment one another for the rest of time! <3

Chara Week Day 4: Flowers

[Image Description: A digital drawing of Chara and Flowey from Undertale. They're on the Surface, with grass and trees and mountains stretching out behind them. Chara has golden flowers clustered around their left eye and speckled in their hair and on their hands. They're kneeling on the ground and smiling wide, holding Flowey's flower pot in one arm. Their other hand is outstretched in front of them and holding a camera. Flowey has a red bow wrapped around his stem and stickers in the shape of hearts, stars, and smiley faces decorating his pot. He looks annoyed as Chara leans their face in close to his to take a photo. /End ID]

#chara week #chara week 2023 #safeutdr #undertale #chara dreemurr #my art #flowey #undertale flowey #undertale chara #chara undertale #flowey undertale #chara #there were a lot of things I could have done with the flowers prompt but I wanted to do something more wholesome than my last post #plus this was the first thing that came to mind. flowey is a flower. and I usually draw Chara with flowers all over them post-pacifist so #it's like the golden flowers became a part of both of them after they got resurrected. ✨symbolism ✨ idk.#the stickers on Flowey's pot are courtesy of Frisk. they like decorating everything with stickers #also. sorry for giving every character I draw black nail polish. it will happen again. </3 #i'm not super satisfied with the background of this one because I was pretty lazy with it and it doesn't mesh well with the foreground #buuuuut I'm fine with it because I don't want to spend more time fixing it. and it's like. fine. just not as good as it COULD be #also I'm new to writing image descriptions so if there's anything I could adjust/describe better let me know #I just thought I should try adding one when I can #🌼

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saphushia · 1 year

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|| part 1 || part 2 || part 3 || part 4 coming soon... ||

man sabo really thought he'd get away from ace that easy, huh? well tough shit buddy you just got the attention of one of the most stubborn men on the seas. i do wonder how this'll play out now that sabo's cornered... hehe >;3

textless versions below the cut for those who want to look at. pictures <3