domain:shapesinthefog.substack.com
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1hr ago
As far as I can recall, you're correct. The fact that the law necessitates grouping minorities (blacks) into their own districts was started to prevent Southern states from chopping up the districts to give blacks 0 representation, but now it's a net-negative for Dems since it basically forces Dem voters to be inefficiently allocated.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1hr ago
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1hr ago
The other problem for democrats in an all out gerrymandering war is that they simply have fewer seats to eek out. The most gerrymandered states in the union are all blue; red states going tit for tat isn't actually something they can escalate that much against.
This isn't true. This dataset shows 4 different metrics of "fairness", and in every single one of them it's shown that Republicans are doing more gerrymandering today than Dems. Both sides could become even more crappy about this in the future if they wanted to, and we're probably going to see that happen unfortunately. It's not particularly hard to find states where Dems could increase their outcome by a lot, e.g. if they did North Carolina-level gerrymandering in New York it could easily amount to several seats.
ThisIsSin
Liberty has an anti-privilege bias
2hr ago
Where else do you think the Kirk x Bones shipping came from?
faceh
2hr ago
Gardening or light landscaping.
Raising chickens, if your zoning allows.
DIY home improvement projects that aren't structurally critical. Teach the kids how the permitting systems works (partially serious there).
If you have trees, you can install a small zipline.
Treehouse, or a similar small construction project that they can then manage and maintain. My friend had his kids build an aquaponics system and they could grow whatever they wanted in it (aside from weed).
Jiro
2hr ago
In order to write seriously about religion, you probably have to believe seriously in religion. Given that Mormons are mostly in a small concentrated area of the US I would be unsurprised that a lot higher percentage of Mormons seriously believe than other religions.
self_made_human
Sajjano durjano bhūyāt, durjano badhyatāṃ sadā, baddho'nyān nibandhāyet
2hr ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/09/style/westminster-preview-golden-retrievers.html
Very important story. It makes me realize how hard I fell for the little Golden my family got while I'm away in Scotland.
OliveTapenade
2hr ago
There's probably a worthwhile discussion there, right?
Sanderon, Card, Correia, and Meyer are all Mormons. Now as it happens I don't count Mormons as Christians, but that aside - it is interesting that all these examples are from the same religion. Are Mormons in general punching well above their weight in science fiction and genre spaces?
Tenaz
2hr ago
She wrote a vampire romance story where the main characters waited until marriage. In fact the entire story seems to be built on top of resisting the temptation to sleep together before then; Edward's bloodlust an obvious metaphor for actual lust.
There are some other connections--the eternal youthful marriage, the vampires from Rome possibly representing Catholics, the idea that you need to develop and grow as a person as much as you can before becoming immortal--but those are all stretches.
Sanderson's works deal much more explicitly with religion, but I'd argue his most important religious themes are also subtextual. For example, Mistborn has the explicit themes with Sazed, but the entire story is built around the implicit themes--
All the explicit dealings with gods are pretty lackluster in comparison, and arguably not really "religious" at all. The Percy Jackson books had that.
anon_
2hr ago
Dirigism with retarded characteristics.
[ With sincere apologies to Deng Xiaoping ]
Corvos
2hr ago
Blood+. The main character has multiple love interests (sort of) but the story is both intensely focused on her attachments to the world in general (brothers, father, friends and other more spoilery ones) and an excellent globe-trotting thriller.
MachineElfPaladin
2hr ago
I only read part of it, but I believe Beware of Chicken was initially aiming to be something similar. It's not exactly the described trope - rather than "clueless initiate stumbles into a position of being feared/respected" it's "young rising star decides to get out of the game and run a farm but attracts weirdness which he then disarms with his unusual mindset" (with IIRC isekai possession justifying the initial dropout) - but it has a similar theme of people misunderstanding the MC because they don't know what's actually motivating his choices.
I got the impression that as it went on it got more centered on standard cultivation, though.
chooky
2hr ago
Sort of... it was ultimately the grandma's misunderstanding of the magic's source/purpose that created the anxieties that led to the magic not working anymore, but it was this abstract anxiety that was the antagonist rather than an outright malevolent force. The only stakes for the magic not working were that the magic was cool and it would be sad for it to not work. To me, actualization/fulfillment is a perfectly good goal for a story.
Corvos
2hr ago
Property was cheap, food expensive. A doctor they knew was said to spend an incredible amount of money on food, and we're talking groceries, not dining out.
When my father was growing up, chicken costed as much as steak. And not because steak was cheap! They hadn’t really invented intensive farming.
DradisPing
2hr ago
I keep seeing The Vorkorsigan Saga pop up in recommendations.
I gave the Warrior's Apprentice a shot, but Miles spends so much of it moping around the house not doing anything. Can you recommend one of the other books that's friendlier to someone with a short attention span who isn't that interested in hearing about the main character's family members?
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2hr ago
IIRC, Terminator: Sarah Chronicle Chronicles was showing clear signs of being about to be derailed when it was canceled. (That is, they pulled the whole "let's change the setting entirely" thing as a cliffhanger)
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
2hr ago
I don't know how execs don't know what their IP is or how it works. But they repeatedly fail on exploiting it, time and again.
HorthyMiklosKatonaja
2hr ago
Gone with the Wind
Atlas Shrugged. Dagny Taggart could be seen as a prototype girlboss.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2hr ago
The government has various parts, including the "Social Security Trust Fund", which hold its own liabilities.
PokerPirate
3hr ago
We're about to close escrow on a house. What are some fun things you can do with a house you own that you can't do with a house you rent? I'm specifically looking for ideas that small kids (ages 2-7) will find fun.
HonoriaWinchester
3hr ago
Hi! I also enjoyed The Black Cauldron. :)
Welll my first reaction to your OP, before I even scrolled down to see "AuDHD," was, "Another day, another 'gifted kid is unhappy, must be autistic'" soo... And warning, treating for autism with a kid who isn't actually autistic just makes things worse / the child angrier.
But that said, individuals I've known who were both gifted and actually autistic have been helped by Good Intentions Are Not Good Enough by Winner and Crooke (for adults about the workplace), and The Asperkid's (Secret) Book of Social Rules by Jennifer Cook. Winner and Crooke also wrote Socially Curious and Curiously Social: A Social Thinking Guidebook for Bright Teens and Young Adults, which I haven't seen but hey, same author and for teens.
In particular, Winner and Crooke have a thing about "People have an idea of what counts as a big deal and what doesn't, and if you react super strongly to what they think should be a small deal, they'll see you as unpredictable/crazy and treat you badly."
Which is true. But oversimplified. And doesn't account for like actual differences and justifiable stronger reactions. After all, different people are different and how is it fair that one group gets to just dictate what is and isn't a big deal? (As many of your responses pointed out.) (I'd add that giftedness can be the sole cause of "over"reactions. Or can just be a partial cause with autism and/or ADHD as the other part(s).)
Enter idiosyncrasy credits / "weirdness points".
Idiosyncrasy credits are increased (earned) each time an individual conforms to a group's expectations, and decreased (spent) each time an individual deviates from a group's expectations. Edwin Hollander originally defined idiosyncrasy credit as "an accumulation of positively disposed impressions residing in the perceptions of relevant others; it is… the degree to which an individual may deviate from the common expectancies of the group".
--once established as a generally trustworthy person / good friend, then you can stand up for your interpretation of the situation where it is so a big deal. (Being innately different, even solely due to giftedness, means you just are disadvantaged in this. It forces you to use up more idiosyncrasy credits on basic needs. Unfair but true fact of life.)
Based on your description, he's stuck in the opposite situation: He's already established as "the one who always overreacts." Uphill battle there; from a solely social perspective would be best to switch schools. The new dx will, socially, operate as a "well he's defective so he gets a pass for his constant overreactions." Might or might not make the situation tolerable for him ("You see, the autism means that X thing that doesn't bother most people really bothers him, so be kind to the defective and don't do it"), but that's never gonna be as healthy a situation as a new school where he started off on the right foot (and got established as "the overall good guy who cares weirdly a lot about X, we like him so we'll respect that").
See also Stephanie Tolan's A Time to Fly Free (about a preteen but still). And Grace Llewellyn's The Teenage Liberation Handbook.
(Ran this by one of the diagnosed AuDHD+gifted people I know and he cosigned it.)
SkoomaDentist
3hr ago
No, but perhaps I should. I tend to be awerse to watching series that have (or at least should have) long term plot but were cancelled before resolving it or, worse, started strong but were derailed / ruined before the end (cough Game of thrones cough).
sodiummuffin
3hr ago
The full copypasta:
Meng Hao walked into the McDonald's. The cultivator taking his order gave a derisive snort, but Meng Hao did not really care, because he had repressed his aura down to the Single Patty Realm, and a fool would not be able to tell his true level of burger eating.
"Give me... a Happy Meal!"
The cultivator's face flickered before he finally regained his composure and laughed. "You couldn't afford a Happy Meal. Get lost! Don't you see that there are Double Quarter Pounder Realm eaters waiting behind you?"
Meng Hao slapped his bag of holding and threw 80 billion spirit McDonald's coupons onto the counter, causing an earthquake which demolished half of the restaurant. Everyone dropped their jaws. None could see how this was possible!
"I'll take that Happy Meal with a side order of fries, " Meng Hao said. He was as calm as the ocean in a painting of an insanely calm ocean. "And let me see your manager!"
The cashier cultivator coughed up a mouthful of ketchup. He simply could not handle Meng Hao's killing intent, because he was only at the Quarter Pounder with Cheese realm himself. Even though Meng Hao had suppressed his aura, because he had cultivated the Heavenly Burgin' Qi, this was enough to kill people a few levels higher if he truly wanted.
It was then that another man which a much more fierce aura stepped forward. "You dare make trouble here?"
"P... Patriarch Hamburglar!"
Patriarch Hamburglar was 99 cents of the way into the Big Mac Realm, plus tax! Meng Hao was pushed back two feet, knocking over a soda machine. Powerade Mountain Berry Blast geysered outward, killing several onlookers.
Of course, Mayor McCheese saw all this happen through the window.
Meng Hao coughed up a mouthful of blood, snorted, constricted his pupils, and then his expression went calm. He unleashed the aura of 64 patties, condensed down to a 2 patty stack that could fit into his mouth!
Mayor McCheese coughed up a mouthful of cheese. His pupils constricted.
"Is this... Seeking the McRib stage??"
Meng Hao had the gentle air of a scholar, but it wouldn't stop him from killing several people in a McDonald's.
"Burger Devouring Scripture! I'm Lovin' It!"
With the first keyword of the Burger Devouring Scripture, everyone below the early Quarter Pounder With Cheese stage exploded into purple mist. The light of the immense heavenly burger shone down with the contours of a golden arch as 9 illusory burgers floated around Meng Hao's body, which is probably an important xianxia number that matches the number of lakes in some sacred Chinese province I've never heard of. But that was only a fraction of Meng Hao's power. He waved his arm, bringing forth thirty more cultivation techniques that hadn't appeared in over 400 chapters!
"Heavenly Tribulation Fries! Eastern Everburning Egg McMuffin! Fruit Smoothie Guillotine! Soul McCafe Mocha Incarnation!"
Meng Hao's expression was the same as ever as he slapped his bag of holding, and brought out his karmic ketchup packet, Fry Cook Lord medallion, seventeen different wooden time spatulas, a five-coloured resurrection coupon, the silk burger wrapper, various souls of lightning McNuggets that he may or may not still have, and his mask of the legacy of Ronald McDonald. Oh, and the image of a flying Chicken Snack Wrap dragon appeared. Remember that? It was basically his Main Thing at the start of the novel, but quietly faded into irrelevance. Until now!
All of this takes some time to describe, but actually happened in the space of only a few breaths.
"What! Impossible!"
Meng Hao wanted to summon the parrot as well, but it was too overcome with eroticism by the purple fur depicted on a nearby poster of Grimace, and was busy drilling out a glory hole straight through the poster, and the wall it was pinned to, with its strong parrot erection.
But it was more than enough. The Hamburglar's soul flew out and was absorbed into his mask! He screamed as his body was destroyed completely.
Meng Hao brushed off his robe and swept up his spirit coupons and everyone's bags of holding which probably didn't have any cool sh*t inside unless I write him into a corner later, and anyways, don't worry about it for now. He surveyed the rubble that was all that remained of the McDonald's.
"Guess I'll be taking that Happy Meal... to go!"
Originally from this review of I Shall Seal the Heavens.
That sounds very much like Let This Grieving Soul Retire!: Woe Is the Weakling Who Leads the Strongest Party, which got an anime adaption last year. It's not cultivation though, just Japanese light-novel/webnovel fantasy.
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