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cruelfeline · 5 years ago

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The Hordak Bleatings Masterpost

The new and improved Masterpost! All of my ridiculous bleating in one place! Now with categories to allow you, dear friends and neighbors, to better marvel at the utter nonsense I get up to in my spare time. It shall be updated every so often/when I remember.

some of these categories may overlap or perhaps not be perfect; I tried; there was... a lot

Enjoy!

Biological/Medical Musings

A Fairly Comprehensive List of Hordak’s Clinical Signs

I Wrote Too Much About Hordak’s Arms

And Then Someone Asked About His Elbows So Voila

Someone Else Asked About His Eyes

Yes; I Did Measure Hordak’s Ears via Fuzzy Math; You’re Welcome

A Brief Word About Dentition

Some Sad Thoughts About Clone Lifespan

I Like to Headcanon that Clones Have Naturally Different Eye Colors

Counting Hordak’s Ports

Thinking About Terrible Ways Prime Could Institute Biological Control

Doing Very Fuzzy Math And Wondering Just How Young Hordak Could Be

Spending Way Too Much Time Figuring Out Whether Hordak is Left or Right Handed

Why Tiny Food is Probably Ideal for Hordak (a joke ask I essentially took Seriously)

Discussing Hordak’s Temper

Considering Whether Hordak Needs Oxygen

Discussing Whether Prime and his Clones are Genetically Identical

Hordak in Relation to Other Characters

Entrapdak

Hordak Can Get Close to Entrapta Because He Needn’t Fear Her

Discussing Entrapdak Age Discourse

Bit More Regarding Hordak’s Maturity vs. Entrapta’s

Hordak Didn’t Manipulate Entrapta… But Catra Did

Assessing that Unfortunate Moment When Hordak Snapped at Entrapta

Further Assessing Hordak Snapping at Entrapta by Noting When He Doesn’t

On Hordak’s Wardrobe Change

Entrapta Shushing Hordak is One of My Favorite Interactions

The Entrapdak Scene Was Also One of Self-Love

I Really Like How Entrapta Talks to Hordak About Failure

Hordak Tells an Actual Lie and Succeeds

Entrapta’s and Hordak’s Social Differences Help Them Connect to One Another

I Would Have Appreciated A Scene Where Entrapta Learns About What Happened To Hordak

Hordak Takes Strength From Realizing That Entrapta Came For Him

Hordak and Entrapta Just Like One Another, and I Enjoy That

There is a Huge Difference in How The Alliance and Hordak React to Entrapta Being on Beast Island, and it’s Jarring

This is Mostly About Catradora But Kind of in the Sense of Why Entrapdak is Better, so Here it Goes

Entrapta Didn’t Teach Hordak How to Love; She Taught Him How to Be Loved

The Soup Scene is a Condensed View of Why Entrapdak Works in Light of the Rest of Hordak’s Arc

Hordak and Entrapta Search for One Another Alone, and it Makes Me Sad

I Love How Hordak Scooches Over for Entrapta to Join Him on his Throne

Catra

The How-Catra-Manipulated-Hordak Masterpost

Watching Catra and Hordak Switch Roles in Season Three is Fascinating

Hordak and Catra’s Low Points Indicate Their Core Problems

Did Hordak Abuse Catra? Did She Abuse Him? The World May Never Know

Comparing Hordak and Catra in Terms of Consequences and Agency

Hordak and Catra’s Apparent Ages Likely Affect How People Judge Them

Why Doesn’t Hordak Subdue Catra?

Losing and Regaining the Will to Fight is Another Hordak/Catra Parallel

Sometimes I Wish The Show Would Focus Less on Catra and More on Hordak

Why Catra Besting Hordak Isn’t As Satisfying As Catra Besting Shadow Weaver

Hordak Exhibits Some Level of Trust in Catra Even in Season 2... and She Betrays It

The Difference in How Hordak and Catra Handle Relationships followed by Why They Are Like This

Some Brief Words on the Differences Between How Hordak and Catra End Up Driven to Destruction in Season Four

Musing About What I Actually Would Accept as “Hordak Abusing Catra”

I Think It’s Kind of Funny that Some Expect Catra to be Suspicious of Hordak Post-Canon

Two Scenes That Look Distressing Side-by-Side

Discussing How Catra and Hordak Start Off as Parallels but Later Deviate Due to Character Differences

Adora

How Adora and Hordak End Season Four Differently

Hordak and Adora Parallels

I Wonder if Adora Recognizes Some of Herself in Hordak

Other

This is Actually About Shadow Weaver, but Compared to Hordak, So…

Hordak Doesn’t Seem to have a “Rule the World!” Moment (compared to Shadow Weaver)

On Hordak’s Weird Interactions with DT

Watching DT Circle Hordak is Interesting

Let’s Compare the Circling Scenes, Shall We?

What Wrong Hordak’s Arc Teaches Us About Clones and Hordak

Wondering if Hordak Actually has Control Over the Etherian Horde (could he have stopped the war?)

Prime

There Is A Huge Difference In The Standards Prime And Hordak Hold Others Two Versus Themselves

Hordak and Horde Prime Handle Their Own Vulnerabilities Quite Differently

The Difference Between How Prime and Hordak Use Anger

The Moment Prime Touched Hordak’s Face is the Moment I Truly Knew That Something About Hordak’s Backstory was Very Wrong

Clone/Origin/Prime-Related Sadness

The Clone Thing

More Distressed Bleating about The Clone Thing

Hordak’s DMV Photo Disturbs Me

Hordak Isn’t Actually an Idiot About Disease Transmission

On Hordak’s Bodily Autonomy, or Lack Thereof

How Much of Hordak is “Hordak?”

I’m 99% Certain That Hordak Sucks at Lying Because he Literally Couldn’t

You’d Think Hordak would Think Things Through, But…

Hordak isn’t Really Proud of “Hordak” (with a bonus Adora mention)

Hordak Provides Excellent Fridge Horror

Hordak’s Behavioral Pathology Isn’t Actually Pathology

So! That Purification Ritual was Really Something

Despite Erasure, Hordak Remains Himself

The Clones Are Essentially Trapped By Prime And It Upsets Me

I Get Annoyed That The Clones Aren’t Discussed More By Our Heroes

Again, I Wish The Show Acknowledged The Clones A Bit More, Wrongie Edition

Wouldn’t It Be Swell If Prime Really Did Manage The Clones Like Livestock?

It’s More Emotionally Poignant That The Clones Are Individuals Rather Than Drones

Prime’s Doctrine Ensures Hordak Blames Himself, and it’s an Awful Control Measure

Hordak Probably Isn’t Dumb for Using Uninsulated Cables; Rather, Clone Sadness is in Play

Why I Can’t See Hordak and the Other Clones As Colonizers (unlike Prime) (also a whole convo thread)

Thinking About Clones and Self-Care

Each Clone Will Have to Realize That They Were Victimized

Wondering if Horde Clones Might Feel Anxious Sleeping Alone

Why Prime Might Encourage Some Autonomy in His Clones (spoilers: for cruelty)

Completely Arbitrary Classification of Clones Post-Prime!

Prime is an Actual God to the Clones and it is Terrifying

Canon Plausibility of Blanket Burritoing Horde Clones!

I Appreciate That, Despite Their Devotion, the Clones are Portrayed as Legitimately Suffering due to Prime

Catra and Adora have Happy Memories; do the Clones?; does Hordak?

Morality/Punishment/Redemption Related

Morality is (sadly) not a Universal Thing

Don’t Talk to me About the Reset as “Proper Punishment”

Why Hordak Doesn’t Just Become a Good Citizen

I Think About Hordak’s Choices a Lot

Hordak as an Abuse Mimic Rather Than Pure Evil

Looking at the Horde Child Soldier Thing From a Certain POV

Emotional Support is a Necessary Part of Healing

Hordak Was Forgiven Without Redemption, And I’m OK With That

Hordak’s Arc Speaks Directly to People who were “Raised Wrong”

I Wonder if Hordak Would See anti-Princess Propaganda as Propaganda

Semi-Intelligent Plot/Story Observations

Hordak’s Portrayal is a Function of Character Lens

Hordak Gets Very Legit Development in Season Four

She-Ra Isn’t a War Drama and Here’s Why

Hordak Suffers From a Distressing Lack of Agency

Hordak is a Weirdly Unenthusiastic Lord

The Season 4 Finale Reframes Hordak’s Vulnerability

Untangling Hordak’s Backstory in Light of What We Now Know

Why Hordak Getting Possessed is Narratively Good

Hordak’s Rebellion and Subsequent Possession Essentially Summarize His Story

There Are Big Differences Between Hordak and Prime’s Etherian Wars

It Is Pretty Unlikely That Hordak Would Have Pulled The Portal Lever

It Occurred To Me That Hordak May Initially Ignore FO’s Tech Because It’s Just Really Old

An Assessment Of The Villain Intro Cards, Focusing On Hordak

I Think It’s Silly To Blame Hordak For Everything - Especially When Considering Prime

Literally Just a Thread Explaining Why Hordak is Sympathetic

Some Words On Exactly How Terrible DT’s Reveal Was For Hordak

The Escalation of Hordak’s Situation is Really Something

An Anon Asks a Normal Question and I go on a Tangent About Hordak Compensating for his Inability to Innovate via Entrapta and Catra

There are Monumental Differences Between the Galactic and Etherian Hordes in Terms of Brainwashing and Agency

Thinking About Why Chipped Etherians May Not be That Sympathetic To Clones After All

Random Bit of Logicking About Why Hordak Calls the Princesses a Rebellion

Figuring Out Why I Find Hordak So Much More Sympathetic Than The Princesses

Brief Musing on How Hordak Might Face Antagonism From Both Sides Post-Canon

Hordak’s Story Touches on the Concept of the Imperfection of Authority

Someone Asked Me if I Found Hordak’s S5 Arc Satisfying

Discussing Whether Or Not Hordak Planned on Leading Anything After Conquering Etheria

Taking Apart an Abysmal Twitter Take Because It’s Fun

Talking About Prime’s Clone Troops v. Robot Troops

Talking About Hordak’s Emotional Age

Hordak’s S3 Backtory Being Part-Delusion Helps Emphasize the Inequality in Attachment Between the Clones and Prime

A Few Not-So-Nice Acts Hordak Commits That I Find Justifiable

Random Headcanons of All Sorts

Stupidly Cute, Pointless Headcanon #3825 (ears covered)

Stupid Pointlessly Cute Headcanon #4853 (yawning, with appropriate artwork)

Stupid Pointlessly Cute Headcanon #2938 (snoring)

Stupid Pointlessly Cute Headcanon #1423 (REM sleep)

Stupidly Cute, Pointless Headcanon #7845 (blushing)

Random Hordak-Related Thought #2935 (forearms)

I Like to Think That Hordak Does Cute Things in his Sleep

I Like to Think That Hordak’s Eyes Dim While He Sleeps

Literally Me Just Having Emotions

Thinking About the Stress of Maintaining His Image in the Horde

Why Hordak’s Trauma is Particularly Disturbing To Me (compared to Catra/Adora)

Catra Overcomes her Fear of her Abuser; Hordak Does Not

All of my Emotions over the S4 Finale

Hordak’s Goddamned Smirk Lied to Me

I Have Feelings about Hordak’s Enforced Self-Care

I Need Hordak to Know that He is Loved

Hordak Goes Pew Pew and It’s Cute

Watching Hordak Lift Things Makes Me Smile

Hordak’s Unreasonable Expectations Make Me Sad

Please Just Let Hordak Rest

A Sassy Post About People Complaining the Hordak and Catra are Forgiven

All My Words About That Hordak/Adora Scene

Hordak Taps the Asphyxiation Lever With Two Fingers And It Makes Me Happy

I Wonder If Individuality Felt Blasphemous To Hordak

Please Don’t Stab Clones In Their Ports, Thank You

Hordak Clasps His Hands And It Makes Me Anxious

Hordak Shaming Catra Mimics the Purification Room And It’s Disturbing

Watching Hordak Give Up Is Heartbreaking

I Worry About Hordak Handling Anxiety

People Being Considerate of Hordak Makes My Heart Smile

I Wonder If Magic Was Frightening to Hordak at First

Thinking About Hordak Progressing in Terms of Self-Care

Prime Never Calls Hordak by Name, not Even Once

Just Being Sad While Realizing the Sort of Life Hordak had to Look Forward To

Strange Fic-Like Things No One Should Read

Please Consider: A Concept Masterpost

Hordak Practices Eyerolling

Imp Hacks Up The Worst Color of Hairball

#hordak #masterpost #entrapdak #this post fills me with an exquisite mix of pride and abject horror

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meirmakesstuff · 4 years ago

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anon talking about the sarfatis again (and making them identifiably jewish in fantasy) -- divination magic exists in this world and is widely practiced; my understanding is that it's forbidden in judaism. 2J3O, but what kind of mixed or complicated attitudes would jewish characters in this world have towards it/how do i convey those? [1]

[2] my original idea was that their mother, when her eldest son expressed interest in divination as a field of study, sat him down and had a long conversation with him, and at the end concluded that as long as he honored god and used magic only to help people, she would accept it as his adult decision, and i'm wondering how this comes across to more observantly jewish people.

Hi Anon, sorry it took me so long to get back to this. Hopefully it’s still relevant. For other readers, this is a follow-up to this ask, which in turn is a follow-up to this one from a different writer also thinking through questions of Jewish representation in fantasy fiction. As always, standard 2J3O disclaimers apply.

That said, from my perspective what you’re describing is a pretty believable conversation for a family to have. While it’s extremely familiar for those conversations to be present in a modern Reform or even Conservative affiliated family, it’s also the sort of thing we see a lot in Jewish American history. Magic might not have been on the table, but questions where halacha (Jewish law, the code of Jewish practices) conflicts with parnassah (the ability to support yourself and your dependants) always have. There have always been shopkeepers who can’t afford to close on Saturdays, merchants or peddlers who can’t avoid eating meat, doctors who can’t turn their pagers off on Yom Kippur, and astronauts who have to make a call on what observance might even begin to look like in a place where the measurement of time, our fundamental guide, is fully arbitrary.

I remember when Joe Lieberman, who described himself as observant rather than Orthodox, became the first ever Jewish vice presidential candidate in a major political party, when I was in high school. He was asked very pointedly whether he was willing to break shabbat in the event of an emergency or pressing official business, and had to assure the public that he would. The question of course is a product of the antisemitic assumption that Jews’ loyalty to their country is inevitably partial or divided, and only people with the kind of assumptions that prompted the question would be surprised by the answer: to Jews and those who know us well, it’s so obvious that we could easily have left it unsaid.

A question to ask yourself about this example is why either character believes divination specifically is forbidden. We aren’t given explanations in Torah for most mitzvot, especially the ones that warn us against the practices of other groups. The mother and son might have completely different assumptions about what the prohibition means, based on their different educations or life experiences. If the mother assumes the main goal is to prevent assimilation or idolatry, asking him to assure her that he will not adopt non-Jewish/non-monotheistic beliefs makes sense. If he assumes it’s for another reason--or refers to a different definition of divination--then he might have a reason for wanting to pursue that course of study that doesn’t perhaps satisfy his mother but does allow him to assure her that he’s not planning to abandon his Jewish identity.

In our world, avoiding assimilation and avoiding avoda zara (engaging in non-Jewish worship) are the most common reasonings offered for the prohibition on fortune-telling (among those who feel it needs to be explained: for some people, to seek reasons for the mitzvot is to miss the point: we do the mitzvot because they are mitzvot, period). Personally, I avoid tarot and astrology primarily because I don’t find them interesting but also because I consider them avoda zara. To others*, it’s not a form of worship at all, but a fun psychological game or a way to think through their hopes.

*I’m excluding in this analysis the people who engage with these practices because they misunderstand them as being a science, because they’re consciously engaging in non-Jewish spiritual practices, or to intentionally deceive others, and only considering people who consider themselves to be within the bounds of Jewish practice, regarding tarot as the spiritual practice of a different group.

If I were sitting down with someone whose religious life I was part of shaping, and they told me they were interested in astrology, my questions about it would center on what they feel astrology does for them, what they believe that it is, and what they believe that mitzvot do for them, and what they believe that a mitzvah is. These are the kind of questions that a Christian teacher might feel they have “right” answers for,” but for Jews these are intensely personal questions that a Jew over the age of 13 must struggle with for themselves, and are almost guaranteed to disagree on.

This is all a very long way of saying that I think the conversation you’re imagining between mother and son is incredibly realistic and valid. I get a little itchy when a Jewish character is more focused on the concept of “relationship with God” than “culturally appropriate actions” but some Jews really do think that way, and that could be another difference for them to talk about or for him to think about afterward: if she’s a very spiritual person whose way of thinking about her Jewishness involves an emotionally personified God figure, and he’s a practical sort whose spirituality comes from keeping his actions and motivations in line with Torah values, it’s no surprise that she would use language like “honor God” that he can easily agree to yet not find troubling or compelling himself.

Once again you’ve asked a really interesting question--let me know if I skipped or left out anything relevant, and to readers please feel free to chime in with your thoughts about how this scenario might unfold.

#Meir Makes Stuff #Meir makes long posts #answered ask #Jewish #Jewish fiction #Jewish characters #Jewish fantasy writing #Jewish representation #writing advice #Fantasy representation

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ryanmeft · 5 years ago

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My Top Performances of 2019, Part 2

Here is the second half of the list of my favorite film performances of 2019. I tried to be as objective as possible, but it’s also a result of personal preferences. As before, the order is unimportant. Part 1 is here: https://ryanmeft.tumblr.com/post/190668845597/my-top-performances-of-2019-part-1?fbclid=IwAR3_d80vj0FbIVXqWaTV1heUlIDJJmL-JB_ZksaadO_oNRztnhBMICxzTd8

Zhao Tao in Ash is Purest White

She’s got everything you could want in a rusting former industrial town: a good boyfriend who has influence in the area’s small underworld, which gives her power, love and money all at once. In a blink it is all gone, and she finds herself adrift in the world, dealing with the resentments of people with no patience for what she has gone through. Tao is the key component of this crime drama, which is more drama than crime. She does not take the world in blazing force as a crime figure in a Scorsese film might do, but quietly and slowly accepts that the days of her power are past---and unlike the men around her, tries to adapt to, rather than battle, the inevitable.

Ana De Armas in Knives Out

Knives Out is in the grand, disappearing tradition of the character actor, albeit with the parts mostly played by superstars. Yet among a roster that includes Captain America as an irresponsible playboy and Michael Shannon as a professorial-looking semi-Nazi, De Armas’s humble heroine Marta stands out. Maybe it’s because Marta is humble but not naive or entirely innocent, and De Armas manages to capture both her cunning and her honesty without turning her into a doe-eyed victim. She’s the kind of character you want to become a Nancy Drew-esque mystery hero for adults, so you can revisit her later adventures.

Joaquin Phoenix in Joker

Some hated the movie, some loved it, but one thing it seems everyone could agree on is Phoenix’s performance. He’s credited as Arthur Fleck, not as Joker, and his handling of the character couldn’t be more different than any previous portrayal. Arthur is sad and lonely, not at all an enigma---his private life is laid out for us in great detail---and Phoenix portrays him as just sort of being blown through the world, bereft of any real agency. You can debate all day whether the character deserves to be portrayed in a sympathetic way, but you can’t say Phoenix doesn’t pull it off, making us root for this maladjusted, societally-forgotten misfit almost up ‘till the end.

Sienna Miller in American Woman

In a just world, Miller, hardly a household name, would have her face up on the stage Sunday night for playing this role, a drunken, hard-partying too-young mother and grandmother whose life begins to change when her daughter disappears. I say begins to, because this is not one of those magical stories of miraculous redemption. Debra does not become a good parent to her grandchild right away, and never becomes a great one. Instead, the film follows her throughout years of her life, during which, naturally, she must go on living as she mourns. Miller embodies each stage of this perfectly, never once allowing drama tropes to disturb her unflinching portrayal of an ordinary life.

Jeff Goldblum in The Mountain

What does the word “monster” conjure for you? Whatever traits it brings to mind, they are all present in Dr. Wallace Fiennes. He’s an egotistical, self-interested, callous man who performs lobotomies on mental patients in the 1950’s American heartland, the kind of person for whom his gruesome practice is not an outmoded method to be improved on by advancement, but an art form in itself, and his patients merely the canvas. This isn’t handled like a horror movie: Goldblum is not a mad scientist cackling away in a lab, but an urbane, cultured, engaging professional---which makes him all the more frightening.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw in Fast Color

Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel were, to a large extent, a marketing department’s ideal female superheroes: always flawless, gorgeous even when kicking ass, unable to make any very serious mistakes. Ruth is very much not that. She’s living wherever she can, dealing with the effects of past addictions, running from the government, scared of her own powers. She’s not just unlike any other woman in tights (without the tights), she’s unlike any mainstream superhero ever has, can or will be. Mbatha-Raw is one of our most underrated actresses, and she portrays Ruth in a way that allows us to both sympathize with her plight and support her as she grows stronger. The movie’s not getting a sequel, because the Hollywood franchise machine isn’t ready for imperfect superheroes yet, but it is getting a series, so at least we’re getting more of Ruth in some medium.

Renee Zellweger in Judy

I won’t pretend I knew much about Judy Garland going in, and frankly I’m not sure I understand her after seeing the movie---it was, in most respects, a fairly typical music biopic. Where it broke the mode is in Zellweger’s performance. I think it’s fair to say the once-household name has been largely forgotten by Hollywood in recent years; she never had the perfect starlet looks or the ideal girl-next-door adorableness that is the main standard on which women are judged. But she had the acting chops, and here she finally gets to prove it. Her Garland is twisted and gnarled inside and out by years of sexist treatment and the resulting substance abuse, but still a loving mother to her children and a great singer---and justifiably angry at the industry that used her up and spit her out.

Paul Walter Hauser in Richard Jewell There was never a single chance of seeing the camera pan to Hauser during Sunday’s roll call of acting nominees---both he and the person he plays are about the polar opposite of Hollywood’s image of itself. And it must be said that while Jewell should not be forgotten, Eastwood’s movie, with its ginned-up anti-press narrative, maybe should be. But none of that is on Hauser, whose performance firmly proves that fat guys can be more than bumbling comedic relief or ineffective sidekicks in the movies. It matters that someone who looks like Jewell is portraying him, and that he does it so well that we can almost overlook the film’s other faults.

Honor Swinton Byrne in The Souvenir

This one was little-seen, and though it generated awards buzz initially, it’s already been largely forgotten. That’s too bad. Byrne’s Julie is a woman torn between her own ambitions and her love for a man who is---abusive? How to judge him? It’s a toxic relationship fueled by addiction on his part, but the movie is more about how you cope with a partner who is committed but not capable of commitment. Perhaps the most resonant aspect of Julie’s character is the way she holds out hope even when everyone tells her not to, even when she herself knows deep down that it is hopeless. You may find this weak, but I’ve never known a human being who wasn’t in some measure susceptible to it.

Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins in The Two Popes Everyone has strong feelings about the Catholic Church---it’s not a thing you go half-measures on. And every Catholic has strong feelings about the last two Popes---again, they aren’t the kind of personalities that inspire milquetoast reactions. What Pryce and Hopkins do in portraying Francis and Benedict, respectfully, is remind us that no matter how much they claim to be the chosen of God, these are after all two men---two men with flaws and opinions, whose own lives have shaped them every bit as much as the Bible or the church. When they are on screen together, you can imagine them in an odd couple buddy comedy, two aging road trippers tending to the flock. Lots of performances didn’t make my arbitrary 20-point cutoff. To be dead honest with you, it’s entirely possible that if you ask me in a year, I’ll have re-considered who is on the main list and who is in the honorable mentions; the idea that what I say now, when all these movies are fresh in my mind and affected by immediate emotional reaction, has to be my inviolate opinion for all time is silly. That said, here are some excellent and noteworthy performances that didn’t quite make the cut.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Kelvin Harrison, Jr. in Waves

Zack Gottsagen in The Peanut Butter Falcon

Isabela Moner in Dora and the Lost City of Gold

Alessandro Nivola in The Art of Self-Defense

Cate Blanchett in Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

More or less everyone in Little Women (I couldn’t decide, and thought more of the acting than the overall film)

Jodie Turner-Smith in Queen and Slim

Cynthia Erivo in Harriet

Kaitlyn Dever in Booksmart

Edward Norton in Motherless Brooklyn

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alwaysspeakshermind · 5 years ago

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Top 5 Anti-Varchie Arguments & Why They Make No Sense

#3: “Varchie breaks up every other day/they’re so toxic.”

Yeah, so...to quote both Hamlet 3.3.87 and that one Bugs Bunny meme—NO.

[Quick but serious question: is this whole “they break up all the time” thing a trying-to-be-cleverly-snarky exaggeration, or are people really just that unobservant? I want to believe it’s the first, but I see it so often now that I’m becoming horribly afraid it’s the latter.]

Over the course of three seasons and 57 episodes, Archie and Veronica break up three times—three!—and each of those times, the breakup is precipitated by outside events, no one is happy to be breaking up, and both parties make a concerted effort to remain friends while neither ever actually quits caring about the other.

Regarding the toxic argument: no they are quite obviously a safe and non-toxic ship. (Although they do appear to present the occasional choking hazard for children under the age of 13 who cannot seem to swallow Varchie’s happiness).

“Toxic” is, however, a term I refuse to unpack and dissect at the length it deserves right now because I’m so incredibly sick of the misconceptions Tumblr and the rest of the internet perpetuates regarding toxic/abusive relationships that my exhausted frustration with this subject alone can fill pages and it’ll drag me off topic. So instead, I’m just going to point out that while none of Riverdale’s main ships is toxic (everyone’s just young; there is an actual difference), Varchie is the ship with the fewest elements the internet typically likes to designate as such (antagonism/aggression toward each other, childish/petty behavior designed to get under the other’s skin, resentment/bitterness directed at the other person following a breakup, etc.), so the frequency with which this argument is thrown around is extra-laughable.

Especially considering how demonstrably willing both Archie and Veronica are to overcome their unfamiliarity with each other’s world, share each other’s concerns, support each other’s interests, and essentially serve as each other’s partner because they both consider all those things fundamental parts of being in a relationship (which they are).

**IMPORTANT NOTE: if you struggle to discern the difference between:

(1) a healthy real-life relationship (which, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, will in fact include arguments because people are people and no human being who possesses a mind of their own agrees with another human being all the time)

(2) a toxic real-life relationship (which can include arguments but doesn’t have to)

(3) healthy and toxic fictional relationships (which are entirely different beasts, particularly in book or TV series as plot requirements frequently dictate that characters react in ways that no actual person would, because the narrative needs conflict or drama to function and publishers/networks still over-rely on relationships to provide that conflict or drama)

then you probably will believe Varchie is toxic, and you definitely need to do some research that goes a little deeper than Wikipedia/that one post with a bunch of notes that was written by a person who came out of their first college psychology class feeling like Sigmund Freud. Toxic relationships are no joke, and it’s a little frightening to see how many people on the internet are so confused as to what constitutes one in reality that they frequently interpret normal, healthy relationships portrayed in fiction as toxic, and borderline-toxic relationships in fiction as healthy. (Also, it doesn’t help that people who, for whatever reason, feel the need to paint their dislike of a certain pairing in homilectic terms, are in the habit of taking scenes that check off a few of the “toxic relationship” boxes and twisting them out of context so that they can pretend there’s an element of moral superiority to their prejudice.)

But, important reminder! Fiction and real life are not the same thing, so if you want to measure fiction by reality’s standards, you have to apply liberal amounts of common sense to your assessments of the goings-on in a fictional world and recognize that many developments are necessitated by things like plot advancement, network executives, deadlines, and your basic this-actor-got-sick or that-actor-is-going-leave-soon randomness. Playing judge, jury, and executioner on the toxicity of TV relationships is, if possible, even more complex than just judging the toxicity of real-life relationships because by arbitrary unwritten law, TV relationships must include some onscreen friction.

In fact, one of the first things you’re taught about writing fiction is that no one wants to read/watch/hear about the thing that almost happened, so don’t waste valuable narrative time portraying that—yes, everyone likes to joke about how they would love to watch a show where the kids went to class everyday and everything happened normally, but it’s a joke. It’s not true. No one who’s done with high school really wants to go back again and listen to an hour of boring lectures week after week, and no one who’s still in school wants to come home and watch a show that’s a repeat of their entire day. TV shows (or books, or movies) expect you to understand that each episode/scene/chapter/whatever is a story they’re telling you about the time something did happen, and that expectation also extends to fictional relationships. Just because you happen to witness a couple’s every fight/argument/disagreement onscreen does not mean you’re expected to conclude that “OMG, this couple is so toxic! All they ever do is fight!”

No.

That would be like concluding the only holidays in the town of Riverdale are Christmas and Labor Day because we haven’t seen them have Halloween or New Year’s yet. You’re expected to put two and two together and assume they’ve celebrated those holidays that logically must have preceded and followed Christmas, just like you’re expected to grasp the underlying implication that after weeks/months of happiness and fun and peace, these two characters who love each other are now squabbling/experiencing tension over something important that they disagree on. Archie and Veronica are shown working together, being happy, enjoying one another’s company etc. multiple times before conflict ever arises between them, and them figuring out how to navigate through that conflict is intended as a facet of the story’s plot and a developmental point in their character arcs, not a red flag denoting an unhealthy relationship.

But anyways.

Back to the “they break up all the time” argument and why its fallaciousness is so obvious that it needs to be retired with all possible speed. (And as a bonus, also back to its close relatives “they break up for stupid reasons and get back together in five minutes.”

The “Shouldn’t-Be-Necessary-But-Apparently-Is”Quick Guide To Varchie Breakups:

Breakup #1: The end of episode 2x08

Duration of breakup: Almost one whole episode (that spans the course of at least a couple days)

What leads to breakup: Archie, the comfortable-with-feelings person, drops the L-word and desperately wants to hear it back. Veronica, the uncomfortable-with-feelings person, isn’t sure she can say it back and doesn’t want to go on acting like it’s not a big deal when she can see how important it is to Archie.

The outcome: Neither Archie nor Veronica’s actual feelings change at all from the time of the breakup to the time of the reunion. (No, not even when Betty kisses Archie.) Veronica just finally realizes that what she feels for Archie is love, so she goes to see him and tells him face-to-face. Archie is happy to get back together right then and there, and they resume where they left off.

“Breakup” #2: The end of episode 3x06

Duration of “breakup”: three +/- episodes (end of 3x06-beginning of 3x10)

What leads to “breakup”: Archie believes Hiram’s vendetta against him endangers everyone close to him, not just him, and decides running away is his only option.

The outcome: Once again, neither Archie nor Veronica’s actual feelings change. They both attempt to move on/forget (Archie with Farm Girl Whose Name Escapes Me, Veronica with Reggie), but don’t exactly succeed as evidenced by Veronica’s anger, Archie’s remorse, and how quickly they want to get back together when he returns to town.

NOTE: This is the one I sarcastically refer to as “the breakup” because it was over the phone (which, as everyone who’s ever utilized this dodge knows, is the easiest way to keep yourself from going back on a hard decision you don’t want to make. It should be obvious to those with functioning sensibilities that Archie does it that way because he knows if he goes the in-person route he’ll have to see Veronica cry and won’t be able to handle it). Besides that, Archie tells Veronica that he loves her and she was “it” for him from the day he met her, and it clearly kills both them to say goodbye. So again, as any viewer with common sense can see, it’s a breakup in name only—their heads are forced to accept what their hearts can’t, and everything they think is resolved is really only postponed.

Breakup #3: The end(ish) of episode 3x10

Duration of breakup: ALMOST TWELVE WHOLE EFFING EPISODES (end of 3x10-middleish of 3x22). COUNT THEM.

What leads to breakup: Archie has in no way recovered from his rough experiences over the past months, and is behaving erratically. Veronica observes his out-of-character behavior with a lot of concern, and Reggie (whether accidentally or on purpose) fuels the idea that Archie is no longer Archie, so when Hiram ends up shot the day of the PSATs, Veronica knee-jerk reacts due to all the stress, worries that Archie might be responsible for it, and doesn’t contradict Archie when he asks if they’re done.

The outcome: Once again (surprise, surprise!) neither Archie nor Veronica’s feelings for one another change. They again try to move on/forget each other by dating other people (Josie and Reggie), but it doesn’t work. They remain close, continue to look to each other for comfort/support, and as soon as they’re faced with a life-or-death scenario, they throw caution to the wind and tell each other the truth (“I love you. I don’t think I ever stopped loving you”/“My heart ached for you. Because I felt the same way.”)

To recap: what do these breakups have in common?

(1) Each breakup is due to a legitimate concern involving the other person, i.e., they are breakups for mature reasons, not breakups for “How dare you not text me back within five minutes” or “I’m a free range pony that can’t be tamed” reasons (with all due respect to Fat Amy)

(2) Neither Archie nor Veronica wanted to break up

(3) Both Archie and Veronica continued to love each other

When you’re young, the un-fun truth is that you frequently make really bad decisions in love. (You also do it sometimes when you’re older, too.) Archie and Veronica breaking up because they mistakenly perceive certain issues as insurmountable, trying to move on with other people and then going back to each other to make things right and reaffirm the love they couldn’t pretend away the instant the opportunity arises isn’t them being fickle, or toxic—it’s just them being young and clueless and trying to recover from young and clueless mistakes as maturely as possible.

And believe it or not, their relationship has been handled very well by Riverdale. There are few other TV couples who’ve been as steady as A&V, and none of them are teen couples (in fact, the only ones that even come to mind out of all the shows I’ve ever seen are married and/or background couples, not main couples, because main characters’ relationships are always put through more drama). It is basically unheard of for a teen show’s protagonist and their primary love interest (who, incidentally, is also another main character) to only go through three breakups in three seasons. It is rarer still for each of those breakups to have a justifiable concern at its core, and rarest of all for the characters to take the mature and difficult let’s-be-friends approach rather than the easy and childish let’s-personally-attack-the-other approach.

That is not a back-and-forth and/or toxic relationship. That is a fictional teenage relationship handled more maturely than many a fictional adult relationship, and that is good.

Postscript to the rant:

Veronica does not break up with Archie in 1x01, because they are not yet together.

Veronica does not break up with Archie in 1x11, because they are not yet together.

Archie does not break up with Veronica in 2x01; he’s telling her he wants her to leave because he’s upset and lashing out.

Archie does not break up with Veronica in 3x01, he just tries to soldier-heading-off-to-war her because he loves her too much to want her to waste her time waiting on him and Veronica refuses to agree to it because she loves him too much to back out because the going looks like it might get tough.

I don’t know why all of these scenes are forever being cited as breakup scenes, but they are, and it’s so bafflingly incorrect that it makes me shudder. They’re not breakup scenes. End of story.

#varchie #archie x veronica #riverdale opinion #rant #my opinion #my post #three times #they broke up three times #on a teen show #on the CW #do people seriously not get how unicorn-like a concept that is?

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theramblingonesie · 6 years ago

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Facing Our Making Part 4: Makeup and Performance

Misty Copeland as “Firebird”

Welcome to the grand finale of the makeup blog series! It’s been a great experience writing about all of this because it’s given me an incredible opportunity to really dig into myself to discover my own biases, blind spots, preferences, and ways I can learn and grow. I dunno about you, but I rather enjoy that shit. I hope that maybe you learned something, too, or at least had a chance to tease out and reflect on how the subject has affected you in your own life.

Getting into social customs and how we each feel about them is an interesting sport. For me, I liken it to when you get your blood pressure measured at the doctor’s office.

You put the arm cuff on,

“Okay, here’s this social topic”

and they put the stethoscope on you to hear your pulse,

“Hello, world. Here’s what I think…”

and then they start pumping and tightening the cuff.

“This is wrong! Here are some arbitrary rules! Less of those people! Restrict! Cancel! Humiliate! Isolate! Deprive! No! Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong!”

They go until they can’t tighten anymore, and pause.

“Yes, I’ve arrived. This is the TRUTH.”

And then release.

“Actually, fuck it, let people live their lives”

Whooooooosh!

Leaving you with the sound and feel of your own beating heart, the pulsing of the blood as it rushes back in.

“Hello, life.”

(Sorry, I think the sexy blood pressure pout is goddamn hilarious. )

We can do a review of previous blogs in this series, but ultimately what I hope you’ll walk away with is this:

Let’s stop arbitrarily restricting people, whether directly or through complicity, and let them live their best lives.

Yes, we need to examine social and structural cancers. But no, a boy with a purse and an 80 year old woman in sequins snake-print pants are most certainly not that.

I want to write about makeup and ageism. I want to write about makeup and classism. I want to write about makeup and racism. I want to talk about makeup lineage in families and cultures. I want to write about intimacy and faces, and a million other topics that makeup touches, holds and carries. But I am not a makeup artist or enthusiast, nor any kind of image specialist (fun fact: I’ve never been to Sephora), and I must move on to other things. At most, I am a shapeshifter who delights in the moods and adventures that dabbling in makeup and fashion can provide to the human experience. Who knows, maybe I’ll tackle another piece randomly in the future. But regardless, I strongly encourage anyone who feels called to pick this up and run with it. Nothing I’m writing is original-- it’s just a collection of thoughts and opinions gained from experience and conversations had over the course of my life. I want these conversations to be had. They’re already being had, and we need to add voices to it. So please-- let’s hear yours <3

Here’s an oversimplified review of the rest of the blog series:

Beauty standards are impossibly harsh and cause a lot of unnecessary pain. Let womxn decide what they want to do with their own damn bodies and stay out of it. Unless they hire you for a consultation. Wearing makeup is awesome, and so is not wearing makeup. Your gender presentation and basically any presentation of your body and behavior do not determine who you are and aren’t attracted to sexually. And fuck gatekeeper behavior. If someone tells you that you aren’t the gender or sexual orientation you know yourself to be, then that’s a reflection of some internal shit they’re fighting with, boo-boo. Not you. But I know that doesn’t make it hurt less, and I love you. How toxic masculinity ruins the day in relationship to makeup or not makeup needs to die, and YES women and cis-women** also support and host this behavior (internalized misogyny).

How you choose to adorn yourself does not make your human experience any more or less “real”. Qualification for living a real life in a real body: having a pulse. Just because it is not your experience does not make someone else’s experience a myth. Womxn who wear makeup are not whores unless they are, in fact, professional whores. Professional whores keep the world turning, and bless em for it. The problem isn’t sex work. It’s violence against sex workers. Consider your complicity.

If you want sexual attention because you enjoy sex, then that’s your business and FUCK YEAH GIT IT!!!

Christianity was largely instrumental in informing men that they are not allowed to wear makeup, lest they lose their “manhood”. I have so much to say about that, but I’ll leave it to a recent quote I heard from poet Regie Gibson: “We must learn to fear churches that fear drums.” That will resonate deeply with some and confuse others. Think about it.

The art of drag is centuries old. Makeup has been used by all genders and sexes for decades as a form of protest, revolution, equality, and visibility.

Whatever body you are in, whatever gender you are, you deserve to wear makeup if that is part of your desired expression. It is up to the rest of us around you to do the work to create a world that accepts and allows you to safely do so. Your level of perceived attractiveness does not determine the size and capability of your brain. What does need to be examined is how we sexually and emotionally abuse “attractive” girls and women, both in person and through media, in a way that forces them to believe that they cannot achieve a full life without using sex as currency, or that none of their accomplishments or thoughts matter because their only purpose is being a sexual accessory. As we’ve seen time and again, sexually “attractive” women are punished for straying beyond the purpose of being unintelligent sex objects. Or, there’s a lot of “woke” folks out there who are all “yay! Hot women are also smart, give them opportunities!” and will ONLY respect and listen to women they deem worthy of sleeping with. I will also challenge society by saying that it is sexual abuse to strip a person of their sexuality simply because they don’t fit what you’ve been conditioned to believe are your “standards”. No, one is not required to be sexually active with anybody. But denying another human’s right to love and affection due to superficial beliefs IS abuse, in my opinion. Forcing a person who does not fall into conventional beauty standards to intellectually perform beyond their abilities is abuse, and based in the illness of consumer culture.

What is your purpose?

WHAT is YOUR purpose?

What is your PURPOSE…

THING?

Are you picking up what I’m putting down?

A person’s decision to wear makeup, not wear makeup, or augment their body is their business, because those are decisions they make for their own personal survival. Do not blame them for wanting to survive. Consider the bombardment of messages we hear daily about “worth”. What our bodies look like determine too much to be listed here, but for many, it’s the difference between life and death, even if that’s not an immediately conscious motivation.

Marinate in that.

So let’s get down to the series conclusion. This is an exciting, though brief, one for me:

Performance and Makeup

When my friend Aepril (from blog #1) messaged me about her dilemma of being asked to show her “real” face, we both connected over the uniqueness of the application of makeup as performers. For a performer, makeup goes beyond wearing a nice face out in the world while we conduct our business. Makeup becomes a ritual act, and a space of channeling energy required to suspend disbelief and transport an audience to other times, realms and worlds.

Makeup for performers is also practical: don’t get drowned out by bright stage lights, and accentuate features so that the audience can follow your expressions while you’re telling a story.

One of my favorite parts of performing is, honestly, the pre-show ritual. I love the act of transformation. I go from my blank little pasty potato face and limp baby hair to creatures and characters from my dreams. I can be:

Super femme

Super butch

Superhero

Child

Old man/woman

Dragon

Cat

Spy

Femme fatale

Ballerina

Goddess

Bird

Elemental

Victorian socialite

Bum

Cartoon character

Someone’s dad

Heartthrob

Potted plant

And the list goes on…

Important note: I recognize that my age, whiteness, and stature grant me certain privileges of transformation that not all are afforded. I think this is important to acknowledge, as well as participate in conversations around greater equity in the entertainment industry. Except in cases such as blackface or cultural appropriation, it’s important to challenge type casting and beliefs around the limitations of who can play certain roles.

Makeup allows me to embody the energy I want to convey. If I can look like it, I can believe it. Sit backstage and watch performers after they’ve put on their makeup and costumes. Often, it’s as if their “normal” personality has left the building, and they begin taking on traits and mannerisms of the character they’re playing. It’s a wild experimentation in the realm of the human psyche- peering into our layers and depths of possibilities and dormant desires and aspects of ourselves. Some performers will reference a character they play and say, “yeah, that’s not who I am. But understanding that character gave me greater compassion for people like that”, while others will tell you that their character is a portrayal of their truest selves.

Because of the perceived separation from reality (though art imitates life), the stage is often the safest place for artists to fully show themselves. There is always the option to retreat afterwards and say “oh no, that wasn’t me. It was all pretend.” Or conversely, moments on stage can empower the artist to be supported in their moment of authenticity, because the audience understands that their role is to respectfully hold space and witness. I find that audiences are far better at allowing for differences when the context of being confronted by them is in an environment separate from their daily lives.

Plainly said-- everyone loves a loose cannon or bold personna on stage or in the movies. They feel far more threatened by it in the workplace or in their beds.

I’m neither advocating for, nor dismissing acceptance of all personality types. But I also sometimes find myself in a producer/manager stress space of saying, “yes, I get that this is wicked cute on stage or in the movies, BUT THIS IS REAL LIFE AND COULD YOU PLEASE ANSWER YOUR EMAILS AND NOT STORE THE KNIVES WITH THE HAIR BRUSHES, THANKS.”

The stage is a place where your desire to give everyone the finger and store the knives with the hair brushes is totally okay. And I think it’s great to have that outlet.

Pro tip: it’s smart to carry bandaids on a film set or backstage at a show.

Makeup gives us the courage to let those pieces out. Sam, looking like Sam, won’t do a lot of stuff. Sam looking like a person, animal or entity she admires (or loathes), will do almost anything. Yes, you can have a field day digging into that psychology, but the fact remains nonetheless.

A couple weeks back, beloved Boston burlesque Monster Queen and icon, Devilicia, recommended that I watch “Susanne Bartsch: On Top”, a documentary on Netflix. If you don’t know who this is (I didn’t), here’s an excerpt from her biography on her site:

Susanne Bartsch is New York City’s patron saint of transformation and inclusion. The parties she’s thrown for three decades—from Paris to Tokyo—have provided a venue for countless creative souls and “creatures” to express themselves, come together and forget the hum-drum of the everyday. As Michael Schulman wrote in his 2013 New York Times profile, Susanne’s “empire” continues to flourish “particularly among scene seekers too green to know her history. Wherever Ms. Bartsch goes, the demimonde seems to follow, as if summoned by the bat of her curlicued fake eyelashes.” Fashion mogul John Badum once referred to Susanne as “Mother Teresa in a glitter G-string.”

I can’t recommend this film highly enough. One of the most important parts was when Susanne tells the interviewers that she never had any artistic talent for painting or any other such creative mediums. She instead decided to use her body as her canvas for expression, exploring what makeup, color, texture, and so on could create, and that relation to the world around her. She refers back to the restriction of her upbringing, and how that influences her openness and dedication to personal expression. Susanne influenced countless careers and communities, especially for LGBTQA+ folx and those who consider themselves to be “outsiders”. When people who attend Susanne’s legendary parties were interviewed, many of them speak of these communities as life saving. It was a place where they could just be themselves, and finally be around others who either understood them, or allowed them to be exactly who they are. All of this through the power and creativity of makeup and fashion.

Makeup serves infinite purposes-- safety, transformation, personal exploration, etc. But one thing I love about this craft is its ability to amplify visibility as a sort of flag for finding your people. Often when I’m in a new city, I find myself dressing in a way that will signal to others who might share similar lifestyles that I’m out and available for connection. When I’m at my incognito cafe job and a womxn with black stiletto nails comes up to the register, I’ll give her a certain acknowledging smile and say “I love your nails”, which really means “I see you, friend.” The same way a lonely gay man will show up to one of Susanne’s events with mirror glitter on his eyelids and a tutu made of eyeballs thinking, “hello, do you see me? I’d love to be a part of this family”, so many of us will walk around the world looking for signs of matching lipstick, hairstyle, eyeliner, and tattoos in hopes that we will find other aliens who might accept and understand us.

Photo by Cheryl Gorski

Some people find community through the act of not wearing makeup. Yes, I use the word “act” intentionally, because in today’s society, I believe it is a conscious decision to not wear makeup, just as much as it’s a conscious decision to apply makeup. But from personal experience, the people I most often attract when I’m not wearing makeup are not usually “my people”. I give off a very different impression when I wear muted tones, a floppy messy pixie cut, and display my thin, pale, generically-European facial features. When I outwardly express myself through makeup and fashion, it’s like throwing a direct line to the crowds and conversations I want to be having. It’s not a flawless system, of course. Sometimes the same people who love and adore me while I’m dolled up have absolutely no use for me in muggle form, not always realizing that I’m the same person. Sometimes that makes me laugh, sometimes it makes me cry. Depends on the day.

I stand by the belief that your decision to wear or not wear makeup is revolutionary. It is a decision made that acts as agency in how you want your life to be played out. That’s powerful, whether for better or for worse. So many people say “ehhh wearing makeup is conforming” or vice versa. But I’d like to present the challenge that what we do to our own bodies is not the conformity, but rather the conformity lies in the pressure we put on others to think, feel, and present as we do, or in a way that’s convenient and pleasurable to us.

If you did the exercise from the first blog in this series and kept your list of all the reasons why you do and don’t wear makeup, go ahead and look at it now. Reflect on each of those responses, and remember that it’s your fucking life. Our bodies dictate almost all of the experiences we will have in the world. It is your right to try and have as much say in that as possible.

Thank you so much for reading, and best of luck on your journeys of exploration, expression, and finding a home with your people, whoever they may be.

** “women and cis-women” is a term my friend Alexis recently said to me, and I’m playing around with it.

#makeup #bodypolitics

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luciebell-writes · 4 years ago

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DeFi's invisible ceiling

The Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem has made great progress in the past couple of years, and I've been considering the competitiveness and market size at the agreement level. I analyzed the former in April (), this short article will concentrate on the latter.

Regarding the current DeFi status of Ethereum, my biggest concern is it is susceptible to one or a few invisible ceilings (I will explain below). According to Eugene Wei's definition, the invisible ceiling is an invisible upper limit-it can not be measured directly, and will only can be found in an analysis that violates the facts-but it really limits growth. Although it is prematurily . to create an assertion, the DeFi ecosystem might have touched these limits. For example , the greatest value of ETH pledged in the DeFi protocol makes up about about 2-3% of the sum total ETH. In this specific article, I'll evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of the existing DeFi system in accordance with CeFi (centralized finance). Then, I'll try to explore some invisible ceilings that limit the growth of DeFi and produce solutions. Application Scenarios of DeFi Even though the application scenarios of DeFi are very rich (including no-running lottery, prediction market, pledge, identity, and so on ), its current main uses are the following:

* Increase leverage (for example, pledge lending in Maker, Compound, or margin trading on dYdX) * Transactions (e. g. 0x, Uniswap, Kyber, IDEX, dYdX) * The three major applications of synthetic asset exposure (such as Synthetix, UMA) account for the majority of the DeFi activities. Each of the aforementioned decentralized financial agreements directly competes with centralized alternatives. Next, we analyze the dynamics of the application scenarios one by one to know the invisible ceiling of DeFi. For some traders, the two most critical options that come with leverage are leverage and cost. But in these two aspects, DeFi is inferior to CeFi.

* DeFi has lower leverage. Subject to system delay (Ethereum block generation time is 15 seconds), the leverage can not be too high. Why does a greater latency reduce steadily the maximum multiple of leverage? Thinking about the volatility of encrypted assets and the danger of serial liquidation within 15 seconds of block time, it's burdensome for DeFi to supply highly leveraged products. dYdX launched a 10 times leveraged BTC perpetual contract () in April, however in comparison, the typical leverage of BitMEX users is 25-30 times (). * CeFi has lower borrowing costs. CeFi organizations reduce trust-based mortgage requirements (such because the size of the loan department dealing with trusted customers) by expanding credit (such as banks like Silvergate), or by giving large amounts of customer deposits (such because the loan department of Binance and Coinbase) To achieve this. Even though sometimes, the loan interest levels of the existing DeFi agreements are lower, they have structural flaws. Although it is theoretically possible that traders will slowly start trading Compound's cToken-the protocol effortlessly replicates the advantages of Binance and Coinbase's centralized ledger-but this may decentralize the liquidity between cToken and the underlying assets. So can the DeFi protocol provide more leverage? Thinking about the volatility of cryptocurrency and the existing flaws of Ethereum (15-second block time), it's hard to imagine that a platform will give you more than 10 times leverage. The tragedy of Black Thursday on March 12 continues to be vivid (). But some Layer 2 solutions (such as Skale) can achieve 1 second block time and reduce network latency (please note that the vanilla optimistic rollup architecture can not reduce block time, so it can not solve this defect). But it's unclear whether decentralized exchanges (DEX) and traders like dYdX will transfer settlement to Layer 2 solutions such as for instance Skale. So in the end, can DeFi agreements provide more competitive loan interest levels? The clear answer is: probably not. I are expecting that in the next several years, increasingly more banks (which can provide credit through partial reserve loans) will enter the crypto field, and the cost of capital provided by centralized finance institutions will gradually decrease. Additionally , since DeFi agreements can not insure trust relationships, they require a greater mortgage ratio, that may further increase the capital (opportunity) cost. In the foreseeable future, I think the DeFi protocol won't be able to defeat conventional leveraged providers. Even though DeFi agreements can provide some clients with marginal profits that conventional vendors can not provide, industry share is quite small. Most market participants aspire to optimize the fee and availability of leverage, and the DeFi protocol is difficult to match CeFi in these two aspects. Today's market data also clearly shows this: almost all leverage in the present crypto ecosystem is provided by conventional exchanges. Source: DeFi Pulse, Skew It is worth noting that when all trading activities are used in a certain, open and credible neutral DeFi standard protocol (for example, an individual Layer 1 I mentioned a few weeks ago), then DeFi can eradicate basic risks, Thereby improving the capital efficiency of all market participants. But this possibility is quite low in the foreseeable future. Transaction DeFi protocols are far inferior to centralized alternatives in a number of main aspects. Over all, these factors prevent DEX from grabbing CEX's market share.

* Delay and probabilistic determination. Since Ethereum adopts the Nakamoto Consensus—the consensus is followed by high-latency probabilistic determination—the buyers and sellers can not know their exact location in real time. As a result of not enough precision, their transactions must be more conservative (for example, utilizing a larger spread). In this regard, any solution with a shorter block time can alleviate the problem. * Miners are front-running. As the crypto ecosystem matures and traders transfer more transactions directly to the chain for settlement, block producers will quickly maximize the huge benefits (MEV) available to miners. At these times, miners will quickly trade first, which can be very detrimental to liquidity providers. * Whole position leverage and offset positions. Currently, Binance and FTX provide users with different types of product full positions (for example, a bullish perpetual position to ensure call options). In the next year, I are expecting they'll gradually offer offsetting positions (for example, through ETH short positions, users extend long BTC positions), after which other centralized exchanges will observe up. Even though a decentralized environment can theoretically provide full-storage leverage, since the decentralized trading market is not yet mature, practical operations tend to be more difficult. * Lack of legal currency channels. It is difficult to transfer users from the fiat currency world to the encryption field in a decentralized way on a large scale. You can find indeed a few teams working on this dilemma, but non-e of these are finding ways to crack it. Before that, stablecoins certainly are a good stopgap measure for users who already hold cryptocurrencies. * Throughput and gas costs. Traders desire to settle transactions quickly, readjust the mortgage ratio, after which quickly open new orders. These operations demand a lot of gas costs. Therefore can the DeFi protocol reduce latency and offer faster certainty? On low-latency Layer 2 (such as Skale) or Layer 1 (such as Solana), the answer is yes. Can the DeFi protocol alleviate the risk of profit-seeking miners? Some Layer 1 does have theoretical solutions, nevertheless they cause higher latency, complexity, and gas costs. For a few Layer 2 license verification nodes, the answer is yes. Can the DeFi protocol replace having less legal currency support? With stablecoins, the answer is yes. In the foreseeable future, it's difficult to see decentralized exchanges surpass centralized exchanges. Even though you can find relatively clear answers to solve the issue of delay and finality, experienced traders 1) don't want block producers to preemptively trade, 2) aspire to have the ability to trade margin trading and offset positions so that you can boost their capital efficiency. This case can also be very obvious in the information: conventional exchanges account for almost all trading volume, and almost all price discovery depends upon CeFi. Source: CoinAPI, Bloxy Synthetic assets To be able to trade synthetic assets, the exchange must make provision for 1) a mechanism for managing collateral and paying winners/losers, and 2) a dependable price oracle. Currently, these two functions of conventional exchanges are very good: they both manage collateral and run a centralized price prediction system for perpetual contracts (perps). Additionally , FTX also launched ingenious synthetic assets for the 2020 US presidential election, including the TRUMP and BIDEN contracts. Even though theoretically DeFi protocols can provide arbitrary synthetic contracts (for example, through Augur), they don't seem to have any execution advantages besides inheriting all of the inherent options that come with DeFi protocols—autonomous custody and permissionless oracles (but It could be a loophole rather than an advantage, depending on the situation). Centralized exchanges have been in a great position in synthetic market competition, and so they have proven this through perpetual contracts. Breaking through the defects mentioned on the DeFi invisible ceiling, the most common one is delay. Since the price of encrypted assets fluctuates so sharply, delay is crucial. Its price might fluctuate by a huge selection of points in just a couple of seconds, and the 15-second block time and Satoshi Nakamoto's consensus make systemic risks worse. The operating time of centralized finance is measured in nanoseconds; the operating time of decentralized finance is measured in seconds. At the moment, there is almost no DeFi that will operate in the nanosecond time dimension, but with an answer like Solana-it may be the only blockchain that separates global state updates from time changes-the running time of DeFi may be reduced to micro Second level. In Ethereum 2. 0, it'll generate a brand new block every 12 seconds. DeFi may be the current highlight of Ethereum, but Ethereum 2. 0 is not optimized for DeFi. Again, throughput is an obvious problem. Even though the Ethereum network is operating smoothly more often than not; but on your day of Black Thursday, March 12, its dilemmas were exposed-Ethereum simply cannot withstand such a large transaction volume. Although DeFi transaction volume is just 1% of CeFi. On the other hand, encrypted CeFi transactions only account for 0. 1-1% of conventional asset classes (excluding foreign exchange). DeFi features a long way to go. Investing in DeFi Even though the DeFi protocol faces structural disadvantages for most users and traders, their services continue to be much better than CeFi in a few market segments, and these market segments might contain vast amounts of dollars in opportunities. For example , I think there's a huge market for non-custodial perpetual contract transactions. Because of the causes mentioned above, DeFi perpetual can not replace CeFi in a short span of time, but I think a platform that delivers DeFi perpetual contract transactions will have a substantial market share. Given that the sum total market value of main-stream CeFi exchanges is approximately US$20 billion, and industry continues to be growing rapidly, a trading venue that delivers non-custodial perpetual contracts might be a good investment opportunity. With the continuous improvement of DeFi's underlying technology infrastructure, it'll gradually occupy CeFi's market share. At some time in the next couple of years, as all necessary infrastructures be and much more complete, I are expecting a step function change in the DeFi growth rate. So just how does people judge when DeFi won? The clear answer is: when price discovery shifts from centralized exchanges to decentralized venues. If you're developing any novel DeFi protocol or infrastructure that powers DeFi, please call us via email or Twitter. As a result of Haseeb Qureshi for his feedback on this article. Disclosure: Multicoin Capital held SOL, ETH and BTC and invested in Skale and dForce at the time of publishing this short article.

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rightsinexile · 7 years ago

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Thoughts on the Deportation of De-Facto Citizens

The following article was submitted by Tom Clark and was initially posted to the Canadian Council for Refugees email list on 20 February 2018. It is reprinted here with permission.

In December 2017, I ended up as part of a small delegation in a general hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. What provoked the hearing was the concern of two lawyers I had worked with during my work-life in refugee affairs. They were concerned about the deportations of many persons with relatively minor criminal records to dangerous situations and with separation from families. The lawyers were concerned about the lack of any meaningful legal recourse. Since then I have thought more about this issue.

The deportation of de-facto citizens by Western countries has gone on since at least the mid 1990s. I refer to young people, mostly men, often in refugee families, brought to a country like Canada in their childhood, then deported on the basis of crimes committed at the end of adolescence to countries they hardly know – countries that cannot be held responsible in any way. It is taken for granted that such deportation is part of immigration management. The practice is a carry over from times when border authorities had freedom of action over “aliens.” Loosely used terms like “public safety” or “national security” are accepted without question as legitimate purposes. For any de-facto citizen whose core family members are living in Canada it just shouldn’t happen. For such, who have strong ties to Canada from living, being educated and working in Canada, deportation is far too easy. With respect to crime and exile de-facto citizens should be treated like formal citizens.

There are some limits on deportation established in international human rights law. Case law from the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the UN Committee against Torture and the UN Human Rights Committee has established that deportation would violate human rights treaties when there is a real risk of torture as a consequence or when the balance between violation of family rights and the seriousness of a crime committed would be “disproportionate.” These international standards could prevent many of the deportations from Canada. But problems with the deportation of de-facto citizens go deeper.

The slew of injustices attached to deporting de-facto citizens is topped by discrimination. The criminal justice system is the general tool for setting sentences for crimes and dealing with related issues of public safety. Deportation comes after the allotted sentence for any crime committed has been served. Deportation acts as a discriminatory additional sentence for non-citizens. It comes from legislation directed only at non-citizens. So far, the fact that deportation is a direct extension of criminal justice has only been acknowledged by the Inter-American human rights system.

In 2003 the UN issued a report on the human rights of non-citizens. That report built on changes following the UN Declaration on the rights of non-nationals in 1985. The report emphasised that the human rights regime brought in by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent international treaties – the Covenants - intended non-discrimination for non-citizens to the extent possible. Indeed following the adoption of the 2003 report its emphasis on non-discrimination appeared in some subsequent jurisprudence of international human rights bodies. But that emphasis has yet to fully extend to deportation practices.

The special issues around the deportation of de-facto citizens became clear in the 1990s. There were cases around de-facto citizens in which the European Court of Human Rights ruled that family rights could preclude deportation except in the case of the most serious crimes. But the issue of “second generation immigrants” – what I call “de-facto citizens” - were not addressed at that time. Concerns were strongly stated in a dissenting minority of three judges in the European Court of Human Rights case Boujlifa v France 1997. Those judges argue for a different approach for de facto citizen cases and they disagree with the majority ruling that allowed Boujlifa’s deportation.

Since then, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has found that full criminal law standards of due process apply to deportation proceedings. Yet the full range of issues around deportation and de facto citizens has yet to be addressed.

There is some arbitrariness in these deportations. It is just a fluke of fate that many of the persons involved are not formal citizens in the first place. They often arrived as young children with parents. For example, in Boujilfa v France, Boujifla was 5 years old when he arrived in France. Some of the persons facing deportation are shocked to find out that they are not citizens. They were educated and learned their skills and developed their problems from their social context in the country where they lived. Siblings may be citizens. Their core family is usually in the adopted country. Some are married or living in stable relationships. Some do not know the language of the country from which they were brought as a small child.

There are reasons to take the fluke of fate and a de-facto citizenship seriously. In its Nottebaum Case from the 1950s, the International Court of Justice found that citizenship related to more than just a formality – there had to be some real attachment of the person to the country. In the case of the de-facto citizens, there is often an overwhelming attachment to the country that is seeking their deportation. There is little to no attachment to the country to which the person is being deported - beyond a formality of birth. So from an international law perspective it is not clear-cut what rights and obligations the deporting and receiving countries have in these situations. Certainty, it is hard to see why another country should inherit a person resulting from Canada’s perspective on crime and problems developed in Canada. In other words, hanging over this process is the possibility that it may be illegal in international law.

Moreover, the process brings other issues from international law. The role of the criminal justice system is viewed as rehabilitation of the offending person to society – in our case Canada’s society. If our law has done its job, the person is rehabilitated to Canada. After serving a sentence, the person goes back to society. The person was not rehabilitated for another country. Moreover, the criminal justice system normally deals with related public safety so that some of Canada’s most serious criminals (usually formal citizens) return to society eventually. The question of the purpose of deportation after a served sentence is important. Why is there a need to second-guess the criminal justice system in the case of de-facto citizens?

Deportation passes over Canada’s concerns plus a settlement obligation to the receiving country. The lack of support from family members and spouse or common law spouse after deportation can make resettlement particularly hard for the individual and the receiving country. A measure like deportation seems strangely unsuited to the context of the de facto citizen, today’s human rights world and fairness among nation states.

The basis for deportation is questionable and also the rationale of public safety is tenuous. True, the systems dealing with non-citizens have accepted so far that serious crime and related public safety can be invoked as a basis for deportation. But in theory, before any court looks at whether the constraining of the person’s rights is disproportionate, as an international human rights body will do, it should examine and establish that there is indeed a legitimate purpose. To my mind, the international presumption should be that the sentence served and release of the person into society by the criminal justice system means that the person is rehabilitated and that any public danger is minimal – the assumption made for formal citizens. Time honoured assumptions about public safety and crimes committed sound plausible but need to be re-thought. I am not convinced that there is a purpose for deportation of de-facto citizens that could withstand serious scrutiny. Then, even if there is a clear purpose, is it necessary to deport the person to achieve that purpose? After all, this is not immigration. Canada is not choosing to bring anyone into Canada in these situations. The person was admitted long ago. The person has lived most of his or her life - and the formative part of it - in Canada. Finally, as part of the legitimacy and necessity of deportation, there is the question of whether Canada has the right to pass to another country a process which requires it to resettle one of Canada’s de-facto citizens as a result of Canada’s second guessing of its criminal law system because Canada’s immigration and refugee law says an immigration official may do so.

Beyond this, the decision-making in Canada’s law is questionable. It can be triggered or not by an official once a person has committed a crime with a prescribed maximum sentence and the person has served the actual sentence set by a criminal court judge. This means that when a government gets tough on crime and increases maximum sentences, a whole lot more non-citizens can qualify and face potential deportation. The actual sentence given can be very much less than the maximum established. In the ancient world, exile was the ultimate punishment. It is now banned as a punishment for citizens. But for de-facto citizens, exile is just an administrative matter in immigration law that an official may or may not choose to apply. For permanent residents in Canada there can be a fair trial process by a tribunal. But the presumptions current in the law will not default to those international human rights standards which discourage deportation. Certainly there is little chance of a re-examination of the fundamentals that this article is suggesting. And for non-citizens who are not permanent residents, there is only a “Humanitarian & Compassionate” application or a “Risk Assessment.” Indeed the practice of Canadian law has allowed non-citizens with serious humanitarian situations and plausible risks of torture to be deported. Some cases that went before international human rights bodies make the point. (Committee against Torture, CAT, Singh v Canada 2011; Human Rights Committee, HRC, Dauphin v Canada 2009; HRC Kaba v Canada 2010; HRC Choudhary v Canada 2013; HRC D.T. & son v Canada 2016.) Sometimes the international human rights bodies will ask Canada not to deport pending their examination because there is a plausible risk of torture. Canada may or may not honour such a request. (See CAT Sogi v Canada 2006; CAT Concluding Observations, Canada 2012; HRC AHG v Canada 2015 - the government said the authorities did not get the request in time; HRC Concluding Observations, Canada, 2015.)

Some domestic legal decisions reveal the problems. For example, see the 2006 Federal Court of Appeal Thanabalasingam case. In the case, a served sentence by a criminal court judge of 6 months that fit a “serious crime” definition in the law led to a deportation order for Thanabalasingam. He was from the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka that faces suspicion and risks of mistreatment. He had been in Canada for some 15 years.

Then, there is no meaningful appeal. There is access to the Federal Court but by leave. Then the best that can happen is that a lower court may raise a question with a higher court. This happened in the same Thanabalasingam case. In that case, the Federal Court of Appeal established that a court review defers to the original decision maker. The court considered only the question and so saw no problems with the deportation. The law was being followed. That was all that mattered.

In such ways national and international courts can limit themselves to avoid human rights determinations. It is true that the European Court of Human Rights has developed useful case law that aims to ensure that nobody will be deported to a serious risk of torture or cruel treatment. But it has otherwise limited itself to considering whether the violation of the right to family life is “disproportionate” given the seriousness of a crime. The dissenting judges in 1997 were right. A de-facto citizen begs wider questions.

It is worth adding that people remaining in Canada have rights limited by these deportations of de-facto citizens too. The family life of each of the remaining family members is diminished by having a grown child or sibling removed from Canada and barred from entering Canada. And there must always be some impairing of rights to security of the person. Few parents would be unaffected by the exile of their child. These effects are discounted in European case law.

In sum, de-facto citizens deserve a regime that better respects non-discrimination in criminal matters and their deep attachment to Canada, and the family rights that they and their family members are owed.

#Thoughts on the Deportation of De-Facto Citizens #deportation #tom #clarck #march #march 2018 #2018

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