#20t

[givemegifs]

[garlandedspirits]

Isabella and the Pot of Basil

William Holman Hunt, 1868 // Arthur Trevethin Nowell, 1904 // John William Waterhouse, 1907 // George Henry Grenville Manton, 1919

[ttofupuff]

ok i know seed prices are steep year 1 but i just made 3,500t selling flour. you just gotta get through that first year of farming and then the prices are nothing to you

[koushikrockboy]

Leader Kids Children || Boys,Girls 20T Cycle🔥🔥🔥

[hellsitegenetics]

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, DStJ, PC, FRS, HonFRSC (née Roberts; 13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013), was a British stateswoman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold the position. As prime minister, she implemented economic policies that became known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.

String identified: agat a Tatc, a Tatc, G, , t, C, , C (é t; 13 ct 1925 – 8 A 2013), a a t tata a Cat tca a t t t g 1979 t 1990 a a t Cat at 1975 t 1990. a t gt-g t t t 20t ct a t t a t t t. A t, t cc c tat ca a Tatc. A t at t " a", a ca tat ca acat t cg tc a a t.

Closest match: Muscardinus avellanarius genome assembly, chromosome: 21 Common name: Hazel dormouse

[meliponeon]

Until we met again

Phoenix Wei Ying x Dragon Lan Zhan illustration for the WX hybrid exchange event! You can find the collection here:

<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/49912129"><strong>Until we met again</strong></a> (0 words) by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeonDharmae"><strong>NeonDharmae</strong></a><br />Chapters: 1/1<br />Fandom: <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/tags/%E9%AD%94%E9%81%93%E7%A5%96%E5%B8%88%20%7C%20M%C3%B3d%C3%A0o%20Z%C7%94sh%C4%AB%20(Cartoon)">魔道祖师 | Módào Zǔshī (Cartoon)</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/tags/%E9%AD%94%E9%81%93%E7%A5%96%E5%B8%88%20-%20%E5%A2%A8%E9%A6%99%E9%93%9C%E8%87%AD%20%7C%20M%C3%B3d%C3%A0o%20Z%C7%94sh%C4%AB%20-%20M%C3%B2xi%C4%81ng%20T%C3%B3ngxi%C3%B9">魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù</a><br />Rating: General Audiences<br />Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply<br />Relationships: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn<br />Characters: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn<br />Summary: <p>For the WX hybrid exchange!<br />Phoenix Wei Ying and Dragon Lan Zhan</p>

[demonicaldamage]

Did a little sketch of Xie Lian from @mrcformoso fic “paper flowers for the god of gods” with his lil pink carnations 🥺.

A highly recommended read!

The most recent chapter makes me wanna stab Jun wu and hug Xie Lian.

<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/51515710"><strong>Paper Flowers for the God of Gods</strong></a> (26111 words) by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrcformoso"><strong>mrcformoso</strong></a><br />Chapters: 6/10<br />Fandom: <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/tags/%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%98%E8%B5%90%E7%A6%8F%20-%20%E5%A2%A8%E9%A6%99%E9%93%9C%E8%87%AD%20%7C%20Ti%C4%81n%20Gu%C4%81n%20C%C3%AC%20F%C3%BA%20-%20M%C3%B2xi%C4%81ng%20T%C3%B3ngxi%C3%B9">天官赐福 - 墨香铜臭 | Tiān Guān Cì Fú - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/tags/%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%98%E8%B5%90%E7%A6%8F%20%7C%20Heaven%20Official&#39;s%20Blessing%20(Cartoon)">天官赐福 | Heaven Official&#39;s Blessing (Cartoon)</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/tags/%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%98%E8%B5%90%E7%A6%8F%20%7C%20Heaven%20Official&#39;s%20Blessing%20(Webcomic)">天官赐福 | Heaven Official&#39;s Blessing (Webcomic)</a><br />Rating: Teen And Up Audiences<br />Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply<br />Relationships: Huā Chéng/Xiè Lián (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), Huā Chéng & Xiè Lián (Tiān Guān Cì Fú)<br />Characters: Huā Chéng (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), Xiè Lián (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), Jūn Wú (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), È-Mìng (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), Hè Xuán (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), Shī Qīngxuán, Yǐn Yù (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), Shī Wúdù<br />Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Rapunzel Elements, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Flower God Xie Lian, canonverse, Flower Language, Minor God Xie Lian, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Xie Lian has flowers in his hair, Origami, Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, POV Xiè Lián (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), POV Huā Chéng (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), Flashbacks, Love at First Sight, Parallels, Jūn Wú Being an Asshole (Tiān Guān Cì Fú), Gaslighting, Developing Relationship, Height Differences, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Panic Attacks, suicide ideation<br />Summary: <p>In another universe, The Crown Prince of Xian Le, Xie Lian, did not ascend as a martial god, but as a god of flowers, a minor god.</p><p>A minor god who made a mistake, and was punished, sealed in his own little portion of heaven with barely any power, indebted to the Heavenly Officials for their mercy and kindness. He spends his days in isolation, occasionally visited by gods when they want him for their festivals. He cannot refuse.</p><p>All days were nice. All days were the same.</p><p>Until a new 'god' visited, one draped in red with a large, red butterfly perched on his shoulder.</p><p>“Hello, Gege. You can call me San Lang.”</p><p> </p><p>Or: FlowerGod!XieLian x GhostKing!HuaCheng AU with Rapunzel and Hades &amp; Persephone vibes</p>

[croissantlover24]

I have no idea what Moon is saying in the thumbnail. I’ve been working on it for an hour now and am still lost.

I think I should take a break because currently, my notes look like this:

“U(1)r(2) a(3)p(4)l(5)s(6)c(7)k(8)g(9) q(10)x(11)k(12)g(13), b(14)h(15)p(16)f(17) v(18)p(19) e(20)e(21)b(22)b(23)! d(24)v(25) n(26)a(1)x(2)d(3)w(4)w(5)d(6) e(7)h(8)u(9) h(10)k(11)n(12)y(13)o(14)k(15)f(16)q(17).

a1, b2, c3, d4, e5, f6, g(7), h(8), i(9), j(10), k(11), l(12), m(13), n(14), o(15), p(16), q(17), r(18), s(19), t(20), u(21)

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 01010101010101010101010101

01011000001001111110011111011001010100100010

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 10101010101010101010101010

Ur aplsckg qxkg, bhpf vp eebb! dv naxdwwd ehu hknyokfq.

10100111110110000001100000100110101011011101

count how many of each letter? 1 = r, 2 = u, 2 = a, 2 = p, 1 = l, 1 s, 1 c, 4 k, 2 g, 2 q, 2 x, 3 b, 3 h, 2 f, 2 v, 3 e, 3 d,

Remove first half of alphabet: Ur ps qx, p vp ! v nxww u nyoq.

Remove second half of alphabet: alckg kg, bhf eebb! d add eh hkkf.

abcdefghijklm/nopqrstuvwxyz

Caesar cipher of 12 changes “ur” to “if”, 13 changes “ur” to “he”, 19 changes “ur” to “by”

v = t? p = o?

Ur aplsckg qxkg, bhpf vp eebb! dv naxdwwd ehu hknyokfq.

d can be a or i (it or at)

d = a?

Ur aplsckg qxkg, bhpf vp eebb! dv naxdwwd ehu hknyokfq.

qfkoynkhuhedwwdxanvdbbeepvfphbgkxqgkcslparu

1a 2b 3c 4d 5e 6f 7g 8h 9i 10j 11k 12l 13m 14n 15o 16p 17q 18r 19s 20t 21u 22v 23w 24x 25y 26z

21 18 1 16 12 19 3 11 7 17 24 11 7 2 8 16 6 22 16 5 5 2 2 4 22 14 1 24 4 23 23 4 5 8 11 14 25 15 11 6 17 2118116121931171724117281662216552242214124423234581114251511617 baahaafabaicaagagbdaagbhaffbbafeebbdbbadabddbcbcdehaaadbeaeaafa”

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know!!

I tried putting it through a substitution cipher, through every caesar cipher, into binary code, and into every other combination I can think of. I tried removing letters that have various quantities or quantities of multiples of 16 (for July 16th) and put those through every caesar cipher. I’m stuck.

[which-item-poll]

Website is in the tags!

[orlissa]

Another thing I can be anxious about: as per our agreement with the owner of the partment, we are to pay the rent by the 20t each month (well, I handle the whole deal, so I am to pay it by the the 20th). But since the owner pays the utilities, I cannot wire her the money until until she tells me how much that utilities are that month (mind you, sometimes she only sends me that like on the 21st or the 22nd). I always, and I mean always, without fail, pay within like 12 hours of her sending that month's total.

Now it's the 18th, she hasn't sent me the total yet, but I'm leaving tomorrow, so I asked her, for the first time ever, if it would be okay to pay on Monday/the 23rd, when I get back from my trip. She said sure, but I sure worry now that I've asked too much.

[sadderbutwisergirrl]

Jim Hightower is an old pro at populist grass roots mobilization. We need to listen to this political elder!

“We’re collecting actions that grassroots people can take, and are collaborating with longtime friends and allies to light a fire under the butts of Democratic Party leaders. We’ll keep you updated on those efforts, but to start, here are two groups to join up with.

Demand Justice has been advocating for the Judiciary Act, which would expand the court by four seats. They’re asking people to call their representatives, and to join their rapid response team. https://demandjustice.org/

We’ve long been a fan of Lisa Graves (you can watch our 2022 Chat ‘n’ Chew episode with her here), and she’s teamed up with the folks at Court Accountability for a new round of intense actions called Justice Can’t Wait.

They’ve shared with us a list of things you can do:

Share the Justice Can’t Wait updated website. https://justicecantwait.org/#

Raise awareness of the seeds being planted by Trump and his allies to deny the results of the 2024 election if it doesn’t go their way. Trump has refused to commit to accepting legitimate election results if he does not win, and his allies are laying the groundwork for election denial through lawsuits and false claims about election fraud.

Urge Congress to pass reforms clarifying the Insurrection Act, which Trump plans to invoke to deploy the military against the American people, on his first day in office. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/trumps-insurrection-act-threat

Share Stand Up America’s Supreme Court Voter website, which aims to educate and mobilize voters on the impact the next president will have on the future of the U.S. Supreme Court. https://www.courtvoter.com/

Educate Americans on the economic threats that the extremist Project 2025 poses. Economic concerns “consistently rank as top issues among likely voters,” and people need to understand the likely consequences and chaos for our economy and American families if Project 2025 affiliates are able to carry out their dangerous agenda. (The NYT article was behind a paywall so I replaced it with this link) https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/what-is-project-2025-and-why-is-it-alarming/

Join United for Democracy in calling on Congress to rein in the out-of-control Supreme Court. https://unitedfordemocracy.us/get-involved/

Drive home that this is Trump’s Supreme Court. Trump installed the corporatist majority that has taken away women’s fundamental freedoms and stripped away protections for Americans’ health and safety. Even after Trump led an insurrection, the Court that Trump built is now tipping the scales to help him win again in November and protect him from accountability for his actions.

From the Hightower staff: And let’s not forget how the Supremes view actual bribery: as nothing more than a tip or a token of thanks for a job well done. They’re basically creating loopholes to legalize their own corruption!

Stay tuned for more, and let us know what other concrete actions and organizations you’re hearing about—the comments on this post are open to all subscribers. Let’s do this!”

[autolenaphilia]

I think it’s important for lefists to know that there is such a thing as a reactionary anti-capitalism. The root of recognizing it is that it objects to capitalism on the basis that capitalism destroys traditional culture, family and religion, and thus must be opposed to preserve tradition.

Marx’s Analysis

Now this charge against capitalism is of course completely true. Capitalism in Marxian analysis is a revolutionary force, one which destroys the material and social conditions of feudalism.

As Marx himself put it in the first chapter of the Communist manifesto:

“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation... In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation. “

“The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation. “

“The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. “

The most famous quote on the subject from that chapter is probably this description of what capitalism brings: “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.“

This is ultimately a good thing in the Marxian analysis. The concepts of family, religion and cultural tradition swept away by capitalism are just sentimental nonsense and itself a mask for exploitation and oppression. Any queer person knows that intimately.

The origins of reactionary anti-capitalism

Now this revolutionizing of the world does not only leave the working class, dissatisfied, but also the old elites of the feudal world left behind by this development. In the European context in which Marx was writing, the old aristocracy reacted violently to capitalism and liberalism sweeping away their old feudal privileges. This led to the creation of conservative and reactionary ideology, in the original sense of the word, which was fiercely anticapitalist. Also the old religious elites of course also react negatively to all that is holy being profaned. The Catholic Church thus became and remains one of the main reactionary forces on the planet.

And this reactionary ideology was anti-capitalist, and can take on a deceptively socialist form. This was true even in Marx’s time, and he devotes the third chapter of the Manifesto to taking on “reactionary socialism” and “feudal socialism” and “clerical socialism.” which are well worth reading even today. As Marx notes, the exploitation of the working class was often used as a cudgel against the new capitalist system, but the old medieval feudal system that these reactionaries romanticized (quite literally in the case of the romantic artists) was no better towards the peasantry.

After Marx’s time

And in the 175 years since the manifesto, while the old feudal aristocracy is no longer a political force to be reckoned with, reactionary anti-capitalism is still a thing.

Of course the Catholic reactionary tradition has been very much alive in this period. It started with Joseph De Maistre, one of the founding ideological fathers of conservatism and through groups like Action Francaise still informs catholic politics today. The Catholic church supported fascist or fascist-like dictatorships in many countries during the 20th century, like the Estodo Novo in Portugal, the Francoist regime in Spain, the Austrofascist ständestaat in Austria, the Nazi puppet regime led by a Catholic priest in Slovakia and the extremely violent Ustashe in Croatia. And this is not in the past, you can see similar developments in Poland and Hungary today, where a kind of far-right fascist catholic dictatorship is developing.

And the Catholic church ideologically tends to not fully accept capitalism but instead preaches an social teaching and their own somewhat incoherent economic philosophy distributism as an alternative to both capitalism and socialism. It opposes capitalism from a reactionary standpoint, it’s why the Pope and the church both make anti-capitalist statements and anti-lgbt statements. The Catholic clergy is an old religious elite who doesn’t appreciate competition from the bourgeois.

Of course, the Catholic church is not alone among Christian churches to engage in this kind of rhetoric, the Orthodox churches have similar views, and you can find all kinds of politics in the protestant churches. Catholicism however is unified, global and consistent in a way no other religious movement is, and its politics are defined by this kind of reactionary thought.

20th century Fascism inherited the reactionary anti-capitalism of reactionary catholic thought. “The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.“ as Umberto Eco put it, and that puts it somewhat with odds with capitalism as capitalism does play a revolutionary role. And so fascists use anti-capitalist rhetoric. They often appropriate socialist rhetoric for this end. Benito Mussolini was a former Italian Socialist Party member and knew how to sound like an anti-capitalist man of the working people when it suited him. And the Nazis called themselves National Socialists precisely to exploit popular enthusiasm for socialism and anti-capitalism.

Much of modern fascism are influenced by the French Nouvelle Droite, which borrows extensively from the left, not just anti-capitalist rhetoric but also anti-colonialist rhetoric. They have a doctrine of “ethnopluralism”, where each ethnicity should live and develop their cultures separately, and accordingly immigration to Europe of non-white people and European colonialism of non-white people are both condemned.

We can also speak of there being reactionary anti-imperialism in non-western countries. They have developed largely independently of the European forms of anti-capitalism, but arise from similar social conditions, like a religious leadership fearing being swept away by capitalist development and western imperialism. The forms of islamism that are explicitly against the west are a good example of this reactionary anti-imperialism, like the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic of Iran. There are of course other forms of islamism that are effectively aligned with the western world, like that of Saudi royal family and Erdogan’s government in Turkey.

Of course, none of these movements I mentioned have when they have come to power actually abolished capitalism. In fact, these fascist movements has frequently been backed by and controlled by the capitalist class. Reactionary anti-capitalism has remained a matter of rhetoric and ideology rather than practice, but that’s the point of it. It’s purpose is to manipulate people’s discontent with capitalism to support reactionary ends. Their position in practice is very much “not all capitalism.” And the dividing line is drawn in blood.

The Anti-semitism of reactionary anti-capitalism

This deserves its own section because it’s very important. Practically all the movements I mentioned above have been violently anti-semitic, and their antisemitism is central to their ideology. And antisemitism is central to practically all forms of reactionary anti-capitalism. This has been well-known for a long time, even by the 1890s antisemitism was called “the socialism of fools” by German socialists. Nowadays it’s sometimes hidden, in terms of “bankers” and “globalists” or by calling out individual wealthy Jewish people like George Soros rather than outright writing “the jews are doing this.”

The Jewish heterodox Marxian historian Moishe Postone wrote a brilliant analysis of Nazi antisemitism in his article “Anti-semitism and national socialism”, where he discusses nazi antisemitism as a “foreshortened anti-capitalism.” Antisemitic “anticapitalism” often condemns an abstracted and parasitical finance capitalism associated with jewish money-lenders/bankers, while valorizing industrial capitalism for producing concrete and real things. This was in practice how the nazis could justify allying itself with gentile industrialists while condemning jewish bankers. This is what runs through a lot of reactionary anticapitalism, and explains a lot about them.

What reactionary anti-capitalism is today

How do we recognize this reactionary anti-capitalist thinking and keep us from being drawn in by it and spreading it? As I said before, reactionary anti-capitalism objects to capitalism on the basis that capitalism destroys traditional culture, family and religion, and thus must be opposed to preserve tradition.

This means that it often is anti-modernist and makes appeals to nostalgia, to a mythical past golden age. The modern capitalist age has decayed and we must return to tradition to revive this golden age. It’s the concept of degeneracy, which I’ve written about before.

There is a strong but often non-explicit antisemitic current to this idea, where the wealthy jewish conspiracy is deliberately doing this to weaken the white race, by weakening white individuals moral and genetic strength.

One part of this that often goes unopposed by supposed leftists is the opposition to modern art, to atonal music and abstract art and other modernist artistic innovations. I have also written about this before.

The Family

The family is seen as all important, but also universally threatened by modern capitalist developments. Capitalism causes alienation, but in reactionary anti-capitalist discourse this term loses its complex Marxian definition and becomes simply about loneliness. And the cause of this loneliness is the capitalist destruction of the traditional family. The community offered by religion and other forms of traditional culture is also praised as curing this alienation, but also threatened by capitalism.

Feminism for example is often blamed in this kind of discourse. There is a type of anti-capitalist anti-feminism which focuses on women working outside the home as some unique great evil, because they are exploited by capitalism. And then the anti-feminist tells this story of a mythical golden age where women were mostly housewives and that was good because they didn’t have to work. And then capitalism destroyed this utopia to exploit women.

Of course in reality, being a housewife was only a thing for a minority of women at any point in history, working class women have pretty much always worked outside the home. And women being financially dependent on their husbands was not a good thing. The problem nowadays is not both partners in a straight relationship working, but the fact that they both are exploited by capitalism, and that women in addition to wage labor are often given the entire burden of taking care of children and the home, due to misogyny.

The threat of Queerness

And another threat is of course queer people. All forms of queerphobia, homophobia, lesbophobia, transphobia and transmisogyny are all part of reactionary anti-capitalism. Queerness is seen as the product of modern neoliberal capitalist degeneracy, and rainbow capitalism is seen as proof. The global spread of capitalism, globalization, is seen as spreading a kind of “globohomo”, which seems to both stand for “global homogenization” and “global homosexualization”, destroying the traditional family and culture across the globe by spreading queerness.

The reactionary hatred of queer people is of course tied to the antisemitic conspiracist thinking that pervades this discourse. I can recommend the article “The Eradication of “Talmudic Abstractions”: Anti-Semitism, Transmisogyny and the National Socialist Project” by Joni Alizah Cohen that examines how antisemitism, transmisogyny and nazism are all tied together.

The reactionary thinking of radical feminism

And this also goes though most of radfem thought, which is often a form of reactionary anti-capitalism. I criticized how antifeminism is given an anti-capitalist coat of paint, but you can also give reactionary thought (including antifeminism) a feminist coat of paint. Radfem ideology uses the arch-reactionary binary between the good, natural, concrete and gentile and the bad, artificial, abstract and jewish. It thus reproduces uncritically traditional ideas about womanhood. I talked about this before in this text, which I’ve already linked, but it’s relevant again. In radfem thought, trans women are the products of capitalist bioscience run amok, whereas cis women are natural. Modern commercialized forms of femininity such as make-up are “degenerate”, while a womanhood grounded in the ability to bear children is natural and thus unquestionably true and good. It’s the same ideas about womanhood fascists have, which is why radfems are able to work with them.

The opposition to legalizing sex work is often rooted in a reactionary anti-capitalism. The opponents of legalized sex work have a visceral reaction to it, because of a sentimental view of sex as some special act of intimacy. Sex work to paraphrase Marx removes that “sentimental veil” and “reduces” sex “to a mere money relation.” And the wish to criminalize sex work is trying to restore that sentimental veil. It’s often justified to save the sex workers, but in practice it just makes their work far more dangerous. In James Baldwin’s words, sentimentality is “the mask of cruelty.”

Conclusion

It’s all nonsense of course. The reason women and queer people are rebelling against the family is because it’s an oppressive institution for them, it is a patriarchal structure that favors the straight man. The community offered by traditional family, culture and religion often depends on the subjugation of women and queer people. And the traditional form of womanhood centered around childbirth is not good for neither cis or trans women, so we reject it.

To the extent that capitalism does destroy the family and traditional values, it’s a good thing. The problem with capitalism is actually that it doesn’t really destroy the family. Capitalism actually uses misogyny and queerphobia to keep the working class oppressed, and true liberation can only be achieved under socialism.

Of course there are lots of leftists that swallow this reactionary nonsense since it’s given an anti-capitalist coat of paint, even here on tumblr. So a lot of right-wing positions are seen not as right-wing at all by credulous uneducated left-wingers.

There are a lot of queer leftists who react to the topic of abolishing the family and criticizing misogynistic and queerphobic forms of religion in ways that is barely indistinguishable from the right-wing nonsense. You will hear a lot about the importance of “tradition”, “religion”, “culture” and “family” that wouldn’t be out of place in any fascist nouvelle droite website. The tumblr “leftists” won’t use words like “degenerate”, “globohomo” or “ethnopluralism” of course, but the ideological concepts behind those words are very much there.

And that’s the point of reactionary anti-capitalism. It’s to launder reactionary ideas by appealing to people’s discontent with capitalism. It redirects that discontent into dark territory.

[timberwind]

The pop-sci takeaway from the Apollo program is always "if we'd only kept building more Saturn Vs we'd be on Mars by now!", which is of course very tempting to believe - it's an iconic rocket, undeniably very cool. Unfortunately the truth is, imo, more along the lines of Saturn V being a historic mistake from the start; the post-Apollo stagnation was assured more or less the moment we agreed on taking the fastest route - a big booster lofting the whole mission at once.

So it's like, launch cost is almost entirely dominated by the fixed cost of infrastructure - this is why Shuttle became such a white elephant by the way, the original hopeful cost figures were predicated on a twenty-to-fifty a year flight rate. We achieved, at best, nine (and then more or less immediately after the Challenger happened, but this is a whole other tangent). Saturn V had two real payloads - the Apollo missions, and Skylab. In the absence of sustained 1969 mission cadence and all the enormous funding commitments that entailed, the huge fixed infrastructure of Saturn V would have rusted on the Cape Canaveral coast most of the year waiting for a single mission, even if they hadn't closed the production lines before the first piloted Apollo mission even launched.

How could this have been different? Plausibly we could have gone with an EOR (Earth Orbit Rendezvous) or even split LOR (Lunar Orbit Rendezvous) plan, much like the original plans proposed by Von Braun at the pre-NASA Army Balistic Missile Agency - flotillas of smaller Saturn 1B (~20t to LEO) or Saturn C3 (~50t to LEO) launches carrying the crew module, the Trans-Lunar-Injection stage, the lunar lander, and propellant for all of the above to staging points in Low Earth Orbit, where they'd be put together like god's own lego set and sent on their way. This, notably, would have allowed two things - one is amortization of the launch infrastructure over more flights, which also allows for learning-curve cost reduction as tooling gets better at handling successive launchers. The other is amortization of the enormous fixed cost of a space launch complex and it's concomitant "standing army" of technicians and their support staff over a great many launches. Notably, unlike the massively oversize Saturn V, those launchers would also have had the ability to cost-effectively launch other payloads during 'off season' - commsats, military birds, weather satellites, space probes, whatever - more cost effectively, driving down the effective cost of a single launch yet further.

This would all be water under the bridge, of course, if it hadn't convinced everyone since that we simply can't do missions to the Moon without a hundred tons of throw weight to LEO - after all, that's what the sole example looked like! One study carried out by the 2000s Augustine Commission (a government advisory group founded in the wake of the Ares Program's failure to produce a big new rocket), found that even then we could have achieved lunar missions with only slightly upgraded versions of the existing EELV (Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle) fleet and some orbital aggregation. This was unfortunately discarded in favor of yet another big rocket though. I guess that's just the way things go, but it is unfortunate imo!

[lord-of-the-prompts]

CREATE A CHARACTER (FANTASY):

(Feel free to use as many or as few of the prompts to create your character!)

Name: the first letter of your character's name using the day you were born (1-31)

1A, 2B, 3C, 4D, 5E, 6F, 7G, 8H, 9I, 10J, 11K, 12L, 13M, 14N, 15O, 16P, 17Q, 18R, 19S, 20T, 21U, 22V, 23W, 24X, 25Y, 26Z, 27Á, 28Ë, 29Í, 30Ö, 31Û

Hair Colour: your character's hair colour using the month you were born (1-12)

1 red, 2 orange, 3 yellow, 4 green, 5 blue, 6 purple, 7 black, 8 white, 9 blond, 10 brown, 11 grey, 12 multicoloured

Species: your character's species using the month you were born (1-12)

1 sorcerer, 2 witch/wizard, 3 fairy, 4 pixy, 5 merperson, 6 dwarf, 7 angel, 8 demon, 9 jinn, 10 werewolf, 11 elf, 12 spirit

Features: one of your character's main physical features using the the last digit of the year you were born (0-9)

0 scars, 1 tattoos, 2 piercings, 3 freckles, 4 glasses, 5 birthmark/beauty marks, 6 different coloured eyes, 7 curly hair, 8 jewlery, 9 you chose

Weapon: your character's weapon of choice using the last digit of your age (0-9)

0 dagger, 1 batons, 2 staff, 3 war hammer, 4 spear, 5 mace, 6 shield, 7 axe, 8 bow and arrow, 9 sword

Supernatural Ability: your character's supernatural ability using the month you were born (1-12)

1 telepathy, 2 invisibility, 3 shapeshifting 4, mind control, 5 telekinesis, 6 illusionist, 7 teleportation, 8 flight, 9 hypnosis, 10 prophecy, 11 invisibility, 12 time travel

Role: your character's role using the last digit of the year you were born (0-9)

1 protagonist, 2 antagonist, 3 deuteragonist, 4  romantic interest, 5 confidant, 6 foil, 7 the caregiver, 8 the joker, 9 confidant

Occupation: your character's occupation using the day you were born (1-31)

1 smuggler, 2 knight, 3 animal handler, 4 barmaid, 5 pirate, 6 dancer, 7 painter, 8 musician/bard, 9 assassin, 10 gladiator, 11 farmer, 12 hunter, 13 prince/princess, 14 ranger, 15 thief, 16 explorer, 17 alchemist, 18 healer, 19 highwayman, 20 herbalist, 21 sailor, 22 swordsman, 23 writer/playwright, 24 actor, 25 executioner, 26 emperor/empress, 27 astrologer, 28 diviner, 29 guardsman, 30 historian, 31 messenger

(Inspired by: @creativepromptsforwriting)