Promise was a great episode as a whole, but this scene struck me as particularly excellent, and I haven’t seen anyone else go through it. So here we go.
To my eye, this entire spider-sentinel sequence acts as a sort of summary of the central flaw in Catra and Adora’s relationship: Adora’s complete ignorance of their inequity and Catra’s muddied sense of self-worth.
Catra is attacked. She calls Adora for help. Adora tries to save her but ultimately fails. This sequence acts as a metaphor for Catra’s reality, both before but chiefly after Adora leaves the Horde: call as she might, there is no one to help her stand against Shadow Weaver, against the disdain of the other cadets, against all of the aspects of the Horde that hurt her. She realizes this, despairs, and accepts it, finally understanding that she is alone and must rely on herself if she is going to live. In the Fright Zone, she focuses her abilities in order to succeed as Force Captain. Here, she fights the spider essentially to the death, winning, saving herself under her own power… only to have Adora interrupt with the killing blow.
Adora, for her part, did all she could to save Catra from the spider (Shadow Weaver, the Horde, etc.), but couldn’t. This isn’t her fault, persay; she tried her best, and her intentions were rooted only in the desire to protect her friend. What is her fault, however, is how she comes to terms with this failure: she doesn’t.
She doesn’t acknowledge that Catra had to fight for her own life. She doesn’t acknowledge that she failed to save her. Most importantly, she doesn’t acknowledge that Catra could and did save herself.
It’s upon Adora brushing off this achievement, indirectly implying that Catra couldn’t manage on her own, that Catra sours and rejects Adora’s concern.
Adora wants to protect Catra. Catra probably would appreciate the security granted by reliable protection. The reality, however, is that Adora not only fails to protect Catra, she doesn’t recognize this failure. She doesn’t recognize that Catra still suffers abominably under Shadow Weaver. She doesn’t recognize what happens to Catra once she defects. She doesn’t recognize how hard Catra has to fight to survive, or how strong she is to actually manage it. She doesn’t recognize any of these things, just like she doesn’t see Catra hold her own against the spider.
It’s this ignorance of the real situation, both in the spider scene and, by extension, in their Horde life, that causes Adora to drive Catra to so much rage.
In the end, Adora charges in, wanting to be a hero for her friend without realizing that she’s missing most of the fight, and Catra is left hollow and doubting herself when her hardships and efforts are ignored by the person she loves most.
tl;dr: The spider sentinel scene is basically a metaphor for how Adora tragically failed to protect Catra from Shadow Weaver without knowing it, failed to acknowledge Catra’s self-worth and strength, and accidentally pushed her away by trying to protect her. It’s a great scene 10/10 would cry over this cartoon again.
I just spent 2 hours debating and testing and arguing in circles and bitching about library catalogs with two colleagues and I just want to say
AO3’s website is really, really, really impressive, functional and ergonomic and cohesive. the tag system is INCREDIBLE and AMAZINGLY maintained. this is my professional librarian appraisal.
I’ve found 1 library catalog that meets my standards. even the national library of France’s catalog is shitty in comparison to ao3.
praise.
It’s awesome! As a total ignorant, can I ask what AO3 does and library catalogs don’t?
i might actually type out a longer answer but what it really boils down to is: YOU ACTUALLY FIND WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR
ok so here’s the long unreadable (and probs uninteresting to anyone else than me) version:
- the site design and overall look. it’s easy to read, easy to navigate, and easy to notice what you can click on. Makes good use of fonts and text sizes and styles to make important things stand out and be easily found at a glance, and is just overall very readable. The icons with hovertext! The tags! the amount of info that’s readable at a single glance and actually fits on the same page!
this is BASIC STUFF and it is not a given on a LOT of professional library websites i run into regularly and that drives me INSANE. (Mostly bc one of the very popular, cheap, and easy French-language library catalog softwares has a default online catalog design that sucks and which librarians generally don’t tinker with much.)
- again this seems obvious, but the filters when you’re inside a fandom/tag are SO VISIBLE and SO EXPLICIT. The filters menu makes it instantly clear what it’s for, is easy to navigate and understand and use, intelligently suggests the most popular tags first (which also immediately gives you a lot of information).
My library’s online catalog (which uses the default website set-up I mentioned above) has exactly the same thing, but stupidly executed, unreadable and incomprehensible, and somehow completely unnoticeable despite being exactly in the same place on the page. The site design makes very bad use of the space on the page and basically you just don’t even look over there because it’s so far away from where the rest of the information is and it simply never catches your eye, and even when it does, the vocabulary used is so obtuse you don’t realize what it’s for.
IT’S SO… STUPID AND EASILY FIXABLE… but apparently no public library in the french language can afford a website designer, or they’re all horrifyingly bad
- and finally: THE TAGS. One of the biggest issues we have in catalogs is that people use different words for the same thing. In order for you to find books relevant to your search, we have to apply topic keywords to them (basically: tags), but of course there are Norms so that all libraries, or at least all employees in the same library, use the same keywords. Except despite the norm that still doesn’t happen. I don’t know how it goes in the English-language world but for French language it’s all horribly complicated and surprisingly non-functional, despite how easy it seems in theory, and leads me to complain about the Bibliothèque Nationale de France about once a week at least.
Easy example that I’ve complained about today (for the 6th time this year): ADHD. The term used by the BNF, that we are supposed to use, is “Trouble de l’hyperactivité avec déficit de l’attention” (“hyperactivity disorder with attention deficit”). That’s… not only outdated but flat-out inaccurate (according to French’s current stance on it) — the term people actually use nowadays is the opposite way around, “trouble de l’attention avec ou sans hyperactivité” ( “ADD with or without hyperactivity”), commonly abbreviated to “TDA/H”. The BNF’s system does accommodate for various synonyms, but it appears unaware of this one, so if you search “TDA/H” in the keywords, you won’t find anything. You’d have to look in the title, and if none of our books have it in their title, you’ll find nothing at all, and won’t even be redirected anywhere if we strictly follow the BNF system. (WHAT IS THE POINT OF KEYWORDS THEN, one might ask.)
Tl;dr: you look for the word you and most people actually informed about a topic use, and find nothing at all because some rando has decided that’s not the word you should be using. (Unsurprisingly, this problem pops up a looot for keywords related to minorities, mental illnesses and LGBT+ topics.)
It’s like if you tried to search a site for “fluff” and didn’t find anything because the site has decided to continue using “WAFF” instead. Also, the site has decided that hurt-comfort and guro fic are the same thing, makes no distinction between levels of romance and eroticism so there’s no way to tell cute handholding from smut, and believes that the word “furry” means they get a dog.
=> The system of letting people use their words and linking them — making them synonyms — with what other people have used for the same meaning completely blows my mind. I am in awe of the fact that it works, and that it’s still happening, even though iirc tag-wranglers are unpaid volunteers. I couldn’t imagine doing something like that in just our catalog, and AO3 is massive.
The result is: not only do you find what you’re looking for, but if your search accidentally picks up other things too, you know what it’s actually about because you get it in the author’s words.
AO3′s tag system is an incredibly clever and simple solution to a very real and thorny problem that I run into almost every day.
tl;dr AO3 is just generally a perfectly functional and user-friendly site, instantly easy to use in order to tailor your search to exactly what you want (and even more so with the addition of the exclusion operator to the filters sidebar), and on a technical library-science viewpoint, it’s fascinating.
This is taking me back to when AO3 was first born, and I was having a conversation with someone (@icarusancalion, I think?) about how I didn’t think the tagging system was ever really gonna be useful.
I knew the kind of top-down tagging system that libraries use was often useless for the same reasons you’re describing here: academics like the idea of a priori systems and exclusive classification schemata, but AO3 tagging is useful precisely because tags can be messy and overlapping rather than strict hierarchies. You’ll never get all fandoms everywhere to agree on a common tag family, I said c. 2008. It’ll be outdated before it’s even implemented. But relying entirely on user-generated tags will be a logistical nightmare, past!Maud also argued, because there would be no way to manage synonyms and near-synonyms and typos that would rapidly bloat the system to uselessness.
Well, 2008!me was right about top-down schemata but wrong about user-submitted tags, thanks almost entirely to the work of the tag wranglers: human curators who take the time to link and nest related tags as they come up, without relying on a pristine (and utterly dysfunctional) a priori system to do so.
Would real-world academic libraries benefit from tag wranglers? Absofuckinglutely, but I really don’t think most of them would ever implement them for the same reason past!me was skeptical of them. Maybe if they were shown how well it works on AO3 (where the wranglers are all volunteers!) they might be persuaded to hire some workstudies or under-employed PhDs to wrangle for them. And then the world would be a better place.
So a lot of you on here are teens and might be getting ready to be out on your own. Here are some things I learned the hard way or that are just good to know.
Never smoke or quit if you are currently. The cost of addictive smoking is more than half your groceries a month AND the bodily cost will surprise you.
Drink water. Yeah okay I know this one sucks but water is much much cheaper than soda, trust me. Your skin will thank you.
Send thank you cards. Don’t have any? Get the cheap ones and send those. It doesn’t matter how nice they are, the fact that you sent a thank you card matters. Send it for gifts, people calling you to check on you, those adults who helped you move, and even people who interview you.
Withhold 1. Okay so speaking of jobs, on your forms (US) where you are trying to figure out your tax withholding, put one. Yourself. It’s an easy way to make sure you don’t owe $2,000 in April and you still get a pretty decent check.
No pets. If you don’t have a pet now, don’t get one. It’s super hard to get an apartment that will let you have a pet when you are first starting out. Wait until you are a bit older and can afford to rent more than a one bedroom apartment.
Insurance. You’re young, so why do you need life insurance? Because that’s the best time to get it. Yeah, it’s a dumb expense to pay right now, but if you get it early, you can afford it. The longer you wait, the more expensive it is. Car insurance is going to be high for a few years, but it will drop around 22 and 25 years old. Health insurance usually comes through your job and please don’t ignore it. Renter’s insurance is usually pretty cheap and it covers you if there is a fire or natural disaster and you have to go back home to mom.
Off brand. This goes for food, clothing, makeup, and cleaning supplies and just about anything else you can think of. For food, Aldi’s is your best friend. I can go fill up a cart of just food and it will cost maybe $70. the same amount of food at Walmart is easily over $150. You can of course be picky, but try to get the majority of your food off brand. Hygiene products too. Goodwill is great for clothes, but plan a trip. Save like 60 bucks and drive near a big city where the rich people live. Go to the goodwill there. You can basically get an all new wardrobe for pennies on the dollar. Makeup is tricky. It can be really really expensive but you don’t really have to buy all of it name brand. Pick whats most important to you. I prefer eye shadows and lipsticks name brand and I deal with everything else from the drugstore. With he right techniques, you can make it look expensive. As for cleaning, I always use dollar tree stuff minus my laundry detergent because of allergies. Bleach, stain spray, and vinegar are gonna be your best friends,.
Car. Okay so yeah, that brand new car is nice and sure, maybe you can afford it. For now. Disaster will strike. Something will come up and bam, you’re stuck choosing if you want to walk everywhere or eat. Try getting a slightly used car, such as one of the ones they let people test drive a lot or a car that has previously been leased. Just as nice and much MUCH cheaper. And I have gotten THREE cars with no down payment so don’t let them tell you you can’t. But it is nice to put it down,even $100.
Negotiate. Don’t be afraid to haggle with people. Yeah it’s intimidating but it’s 10 minutes of your life versus hundreds of dollars a year. What can you negotiate? Almost anything. Car payment. Rent. Insurance. Hospital bills. Even due dates for the bills you can’t negotiate on. Also, if something comes up where you have to skip a payment on something, call them. Give them like $25 and explain your situation. Ask if your payment date can be moved with the $25 as a goodwill promise to pay the rest later. It works. They would rather move your date than send you to collections.
Collectors. Okay so this one is tricky. If you have fallen behind and owe a collector, don’t fret. I do too, even as I write this. Owing a collector means that the original service has been paid (health bills, credit card ect) and you are now paying the people who paid your bill. (I know it’s confusing) however, they will usually want the entirety of what they paid for you in 6 months. Meaning if they just paid a bill for you that was $3,000, they are gonna ask for $500 a month. That’s rent. That’s crazy. Tell them outright what you can afford and don’t lie about it either. If you can afford $100, tell them that. If you can afford $50, tell them that. If you can’t afford to pay them anything when they call you, let them know when you can. If you can’t afford it when you told them you could, don’t answer your phone to a number you don’t know. I know that sounds horrible but if you are renting an apartment, renting a car, and literally own nothing, they can’t do much to you. Just pay when you can and try to maybe pick up some extra shifts at work to make a payment. I have been dodging collectors for about three years. I owe I think three right now. I pay ONE of them a month, but it’s a large payment to keep them quiet for a while. I do not suggest this for you, I am just letting you know what I do.
Credit Cards. Okay, the big one. Many adults will tell you to never ever get a credit card and that’s just not feasible in this world. However, it can be addicting to be able to go to Walmart when you are negative in your bank account and get that $10 movie. I mean, it’s just 10 bucks right? WRONG. It will build up fast and soon the one credit card you have will be maxed. So you have to get another for emergencies. And another. And so on. So here’s my advice; Get a credit card through the same bank as your checking and tell them to put a limit on it and not let it raise. Then lock that sucker away and forget you have it until a real emergency comes up like a flat tire, short on money for groceries, or that collector that hasn’t been paid in 4 months. You can make it on one credit card if you are strict with your money, which I am sure you don’t have a lot of.
Budget. Speaking of money, write out a budget for yourself. Don’t know how? Here’s the easiest way. Most people get paid bi-weekly so here’s how to do it. Make two columns, Check 1 and Check 2. If you have a full time job you know about how much your checks are going to be so put the amount at the top of each column. Now that hard part - figure out what is due when. Is something due June 1st? Take it out of check 2 (end of May). Is something due May 14? Take it out of check 1 (beginning of May). That main thought process behind your budget is that you want to have the money for a bill set aside before it’s due. Paying a bill a few days early is a great way to make a good financial reputation for yourself and for some things even build credit. Now if you get paid bi-weekly, you will sometimes have a month where you get 3 checks. DON’T BLOW IT. Put it right back into your budget as Check 1 and keep the flow going. If you prepay bills, like your car or your rent or your credit card, and stay a month a head of those big ones, you may need that wiggle room later. If your car, for instance, is paid ahead 1 month, you can use the car money you would normally pay that month for maybe some extra groceries or some small emergency without using your credit card and you won’t even fall behind! You’ll just be back to owing every month instead of being ahead. It’s like a savings account without the temptation to blow the money.
Simplicity. Enjoy simple things. A gym is expensive, go for a walk instead. Cable is expensive, pay for internet. Phones are expensive, get on a family plan (there is no shame in staying on your parent’s plan, just pay your share). Food is expensive, enjoy leftovers. Movies are expensive, go early and resist any snacks. Shopping is expensive, go to the mall and spend all day trying on cute clothes and taking selfes in the dressing room (makes you feel like a million bucks sometimes!). Time is expensive because you don’t have a lot of it so If you want to stay in bed all day on your day off, do it. If you want to binge on your day off, do it. If you want to just play board games with friends on a Saturday night with a few beers, do it. Simple fun is way better for your pocket and your anxiety.
Mental Health - speaking of anxiety, make sure you take care of your brain. Go outside, even if it means sitting on your steps. Wake up early, even for just an hour. Don’t burn yourself out at work or school because you will suffer the consequences. Make a schedule. If you have trouble with timekeeping, ask for help. If you feel you do have a real mental disorder, see if your employer has what’s called and EAP program (employee assistance program). They usually help you find a mental health provider and give you a few visits for free. This will help you narrow down what exactly you have and after you’re free visits are up you can see who is in your health insurance network that can provide you the mental care you need. if you are prescribed drugs, always get generic. If there is no generic, ask for an alternative. I will not lie to you, mental health is the hardest thing to treat. It took me 8 years and a lot of money to figure out the right medication cocktail for me and my bipolar/
schizophrenia
(yes I have both). Turns out I only need two pills, and if I were to refill both of them right now, I wouldn’t even pay $10 thanks to my health insurance (which sucks but at least it’s there) and because I got generics. Also, talk therapy can be pricey but sometimes only a few sessions can change your life. I have literally only been to talk therapy 11 times in my life and that was to deal with PTSD, bipolar, schizophrenia, and suicidal tendencies. 11 sessions. That’s 11 hours. And yeah, I paid over $400 out of pocket for those collectively. But if I hadn’t I would probably be dead right now so it was worth it.
Connections. Calling your friends is awesome because sometimes, it’s free therapy. And okay, maybe you’re 19 and you still have a horrible relationship with your parents. It’s okay. I am 25 and I still have problems with my parents. My whole family actually. Social media is a kind of safety net for me because that’s where I can be myself. Find where you can be yourself, it will help you stay sane.
Clean. Sometimes when I feel crappy, I take a shower. I clean the living room. I do the dishes. I vacuum. I mop. I open the windows. I get the trash out of the house. Change into some clean clothes. Organize my desk. Clean out your closet and put all your unwanted clothes in bags to donate. Just a small amount of cleaning can make you feel like you accomplished something.
Hobbies. This one is a little hard too. It depends on your personality, your budget, and how much free time you have. Drawing , singing, and writing are free. Exercising can be free if you run or walk in the park. But most hobbies do actually cost money. Video games, playing an instrument, painting, sewing, cooking/baking, making things - those all cost money. Some of them lots of money. But you have to have a hobby outside of social network, sleeping, and working. It’s another thing to keep you sane and it’s just a good idea.
Toxic people. Do not be afraid to cut people out of your life that do nothing but make you feel bad about yourself or insult your life. This could mean breaking up with your partner, unfriending a person from your social circle, cutting out a whole circle of people, or even not talking to a relative(s). It’s not easy for some people but if they do not build you up, they will only tear you down.
Drink at home. Okay so this one might sound like a no brainer, but I’ll explain it anyway. Packs of beer and hard liquor bottles are cheaper than a pint and a shots at the bar. Bottles of wine are cheaper than a glass at a restaurant. It’s never okay to drive drunk or even after one bottle of beer. NEVER. Staying at home is cheaper all around and you can drink in your pajamas while watching Finding Nemo on loop. Or invite some friends over and create a drinking game out of a show, a game you already have, or just talk and drink.
Sleep. This one is so important. You need a good bed and a quiet, dark place to sleep. If you are scared of the dark, get a night light. Can’t sleep in silence? Get a fan. I have both of these and they help. You’re brain will feel tired if you ‘slept’ for 12 hours but only got 1 hour of REM. REM can really only happen every night if you are in a calm and dim environment. Quality of sleep will effect your eating habits, your emotional state, your mental stability, and your ability to make rational decisions among other things.
So these are obviously just a few things, but I feel they are important to share. Please feel free to add any and reblog it for those about to enter adulthood.
Thank you OP, expecially for the mental health part.
I would like to add a good advice:
Growing plants is a good for your mental
health and it can help to maintain a nice routine. And a good alternative, if you can’t have animals. In a small apartment some plants can do wonder with the mood of your living space. It is really calming to water your leafy friends, and you will feel really satisfied every time it grows or blooms a little.
Don’t have to start with a complicated thing like a bonsai, just buy a cactus or an aloe vera, or just a succulent. They are really hard to kill and you don’t really need to water it. You don’t have a window? There are a lots of plants
that survive a zero sunlight enviroment, for example the Spider plant or the Snake Plat (sansevieria).
