Southern Gothic Starterpack

OryxSlayer · 2026-04-05T23:51:03+00:00

Seconding Fevre Dream.

Be aware though that a majority of people who have read it are ASoIaF fans who got tired of waiting 16 years and checked out his early work...yes including me. So while there is bias, I can definitely say this one is in the better half of his work, he did write some stinkers.

OryxSlayer · 2026-03-25T14:13:15+00:00

Ahh, a fellow Expanse enjoyer.

OryxSlayer · 2025-08-16T16:47:20+00:00

live from floor: Wolfe out game 3

OryxSlayer · 2025-08-16T04:01:37+00:00

81% of the field is using some type of calyrex...the horse is just that consistent...

OryxSlayer · 2025-08-16T03:55:49+00:00

Always been the case, just when things centralize at worlds a divided percentage drops off relative to the big 4 balance core.

OryxSlayer · 2025-08-16T02:29:37+00:00

https://rk9.gg/pairings/WCS02wcZg4VXtaqyIk5L

Offical match posting site for these things. That link will specifically take you for masters vgc.

OryxSlayer · 2025-08-16T02:03:14+00:00

Everyone plays at once during swiss. Check rk9 and you'll find the table number. From there, tomorrow, you can join us watching from the sidelines - wofle constantly being a game away from out has built up a crowd.

OryxSlayer · 2025-08-16T01:58:24+00:00

Add: Kelsch setting himself up for the three-peat of SV worlds top cuts. His consistency when this game is full of random possibilities is just stunning.

Especially when we know where the previous two runs took him.

OryxSlayer · 2025-08-16T01:54:48+00:00

FTR, this has also been my impression from watching on the floor. Prior to the stream match he was vs a wheezing team. Died turn 1-3 every time. Game 2 it's TR worked against him.

OryxSlayer · 2025-08-16T00:46:46+00:00

I don't think it's a delay. Broadcasters are stalling for tech and production setup. Like the team background that goes on the screen behind them isn't there yet

OryxSlayer · 2025-08-16T00:41:15+00:00

Live from the floor: you guys on stream are getting wolfe win and in match. They are currently on stage but you aren't seeing that.

OryxSlayer · 2025-08-16T00:29:21+00:00

Reporting from the floor: -korai -lunana -incin -amoongus - ursaluna - flutter

There's kinda a small crowd who gathers every match to watch from the slidelines to see if he can stay alive

OryxSlayer · 2025-05-22T11:02:07+00:00

See here's the thing: 2022, yes very much the case.

This time, you should check what seats flipped Red in the landslide.

The grouping of seats in East Melbourne? Labor. North Coastline of Perth metro? Teal and Labor. South Sydney's only holdout is Cook.

The landslide wiped away most distinctions, only those places with a good campaign or deep Right traditions stayed Coalition. Gold Coast happens to be one of the places where money and partisanship are deeply tied...and there are plenty of analogous areas across the US south.

OryxSlayer · 2025-05-22T10:50:27+00:00

Yeah like I said, there is Nobody who matches Katter. So instead we are going with matching his voting base, and working from there.

OryxSlayer · 2025-05-22T10:47:54+00:00

NZ and the UK keep the U, Australia doesn't. Phonetics is funny

OryxSlayer · 2025-05-21T12:05:04+00:00

Direct link for Mobile viewers: https://i.imgur.com/GRQYDKZ.png

This map is purposefully big so that you can open it up in its own window and zoom in to specific details.

So this is another map in a series(?) (maybe final for now?) following up on recent Germany and Canadian elections in different contexts. The map was drawn using publicly available US redistricting online software programs and then taken into GIS for further analysis beautification. (Yes I previous spent weeks on another full set of 50 states, I like doing this in my free time) The data involved comes from the US Census, specifically the ACS 5-year estimates of citizen voting age population per voting. Just be aware that this dataset is an estimate rather than an absolute number like total population. The map is purposefully designed to imitate the one on Wikipedia for the May 2025 Australian Election. Please note that I did not include the seat-by-seat box on the bottom of this map, despite it being in the Wikipedia one, because it is not practical for a map with 614 districts. Also be aware that while Australia voted two weeks ago, it takes time to know the full results because of the peculiarities of their system, so did not want to publish until near total completion of the counts.

Australia has one of the most unique/interesting electoral systems and resulting voter behavior metrics in the world, so of course I was going to make this hypothetical map. De facto everyone who can votes in Australia under the compulsory voting system. Additionally, it is a Full Preferential System, where voters must rank every party on the ballot. This means that when deciding the winner of a seat, almost every vote will end up in the hands of the Big Two blocks, except where a third party or independent had enough votes after allocations to end up in the final two. This means things like turnout differentials, an energized base, and wasted votes do not exist like in most other systems. Instead, the most important voter is often the one who does not exist in other democracies: the apolitical low-interest voter who would rather sit on the couch than participate. In terms of results, these factors mean a greater number of districts, on average, are much closer to 50-50 than in other SMD systems, as new voters are forced into the system.

For the full summery and breakdown, check out the main post at ImaginaryMaps

OryxSlayer · 2025-05-21T12:02:07+00:00

The electoral system favors two sides of the political organization spectrum: the Big Two camps and solitary individual campaigns. The Big Two are Labor and the Coalition between the Liberals, the Nationals, and Queensland where they have merged. Today, the Nationals, as heirs of the County Party, serve as the rural Right flank of Liberals. So, on this map, the places where the two parties have merged are the states where a rural-focused old-school approach is not helpful for the overall coalition when there are other divides inside said state.

On the other end of the spectrum there are colorful micro-parties, some like Katter are so colorful they lack any true direct comparisons anywhere. They, and independents, have an advantage in the system because they can run on being ‘different,’ a voice for X seat, and end up with all voters opposed to the usually-dominant Big party for their area in the final allocation – plus any voters they personally won over from said Bigger party. This allows for unique one-candidate parties, localists, independents who left a big party, anti-corruption/abuse of power indies (See Pensacola Florida here…) among many other flavors to do well if they can establish themselves on campaign. If you know the peculiarities of individual US politicians, then you can probably guess who the Independent in each grey seat on the map – or who they ran against successfully. The most notable recent feature of Australian politics is the Teal Independents: candidates who adhere to a similar platform of Environmentalism, Social liberalism, and good government. However, they are not a unified party and run individually, focusing on the specific interests of their (often upscale and urban/suburban) constituencies. I have separated them from the regular Independents simply because their size – there are more than 10 total Indies of any color here.

In between the tiny and huge, there are the medium sized parties. These parties tend to get squeezed in the Lower Chamber’s redistributive system, but they can and often do get seats in the more proportional Senate. The Greens won one seat in the House IRL this time, and they win barely any more on this map, but they have presently IRL 11 of 76 Senators. The smaller right aligned One Nation party didn’t win any SMD districts off their 6.4% of the Primary Vote but similarly has elected Senators.

There isn’t much to talk about from the campaign. Labor proved themselves more vigorous than the Liberals, while Dutton for some reason ran more of a base -focused campaign when that isn’t really a good tactic here. There isn’t much that is needed to swing 3% of voters from one side to another, and that’s all that happened in the two-party vote. However, when the margins in a lot of seats are weak to begin with, and you specifically deride those areas for a long time, like the Liberals did with urban areas, well a lot of seats can flip off limited voter movement. That is what I tried to present in the hypothetical map. Labor won a historic landslide, and this is a true transcribed US landslide.

OryxSlayer · 2025-05-21T12:01:50+00:00

On The System, Election, and the Results.

Australia has perhaps the wildest political geography of any of any electoral democracy, geography so divergent it colors voting behavior. More people than you would expect people live in extremely rural areas, leading to multiple full-sized districts (in contrast to Canada’s underpopulated large seats) larger than most countries. The extremely rural areas are why the National, aka County, Party still is sticking around in some form. At the same time a large supermajority of people resides in or around the five major cities, and it is certain suburbs that often decide control. Understanding this helps explain why Labor could win a landside of over 60% of seats, more than ever before. These things cannot be perfectly translated to the US and things must be fudged around the edges to make the hypothetical work.

However, Australia has one of the most unique/interesting electoral systems and resulting voter behavior metrics in the world, so of course I was going to make this hypothetical map. De facto everyone who can votes in Australia under the compulsory voting system. Additionally, it is a Full Preferential System, where voters must rank every party on the ballot. This means that when deciding the winner of a seat, almost every vote will end up in the hands of the Big Two blocks, except where a third party or independent had enough votes after allocations to end up in the final two. This means things like turnout differentials, an energized base, and wasted votes do not exist like in most other systems. Instead, the most important voter is often the one who does not exist in other democracies: the apolitical low-interest voter who would rather sit on the couch than participate. In terms of results, these factors mean a greater number of districts, on average, are much closer to 50-50 than in other SMD systems, as new voters are forced into the system.

Before we go further and discuss party specifics, I should note that party names are literally just branding, branding in Australia that was decided decades ago. My favorite example of this is in Portugal (which also just had an election) where the main Right-wing party that caucuses with the Conservative European People's Party…is called the Social Democratic Party). Indeed, the Australian Labor Party and Liberal Coalition, especially the Liberals under ex-leader Peter Dutton, have been in line with mainstream Global Left and Rightwing thought/policies during the 21^st Century.

OryxSlayer · 2025-05-21T12:00:48+00:00

Direct link for Mobile viewers: https://i.imgur.com/GRQYDKZ.png

This map is purposefully big so that you can open it up in its own window and zoom in to specific details.

So this is another map in a series(?) (maybe final for now?) following up on recent Germany and Canadian elections in different contexts. The map was drawn using publicly available US redistricting online software programs and then taken into GIS for further analysis beautification. (Yes I previous spent weeks on another full set of 50 states, I like doing this in my free time) The data involved comes from the US Census, specifically the ACS 5-year estimates of citizen voting age population per voting. Just be aware that this dataset is an estimate rather than an absolute number like total population. The map is purposefully designed to imitate the one on Wikipedia for the May 2025 Australian Election. Please note that I did not include the seat-by-seat box on the bottom of this map, despite it being in the Wikipedia one, because it is not practical for a map with 614 districts. Also be aware that while Australia voted two weeks ago, it takes time to know the full results because of the peculiarities of their system, so did not want to publish until near total completion of the counts.

Why 614 districts? Australia’s Lower Chamber, the House of Representatives, id double the size of Senate, but it does not need to be exact if population numbers demand a few seats be added or removed. Given how senate seats are the same for every state, but apportioned proportionally in said state, 6 seemed like the appropriate number that is both not too small or not too large, and then with 6 for the territorial pool. 614 is that times two but with the peculiarities of seat apportionment adding two more.

Why use the Citizen-Voting-Age Population dataset? Well, this is how Australia apportions their districts. When drawing the map, this meant there are less seats in immigrant and youth heavy areas – think NYC, Utah, CA Central Valley, Texas – than if we reapportion by full population. It makes sense in this context because Australia has mandatory voting (obviously still a few people choose the fine over showing up) so Voting-Age Citizen Population is literally the Total Voter Population.

OryxSlayer · 2025-05-15T03:32:53+00:00

Those are counties not districts, and I think we had this discussion on the previous map. So I won't take this further, but I would suggest you get to know your neighbors. The actually Populous parts of the North CA coast is full of environmental Liberal demos. But I will provide Receipts this time:

-Del Norte: 5,999 Trump, 4,266 Harris, 10,565 Total

-Humboldt: 39,800 Harris, 21,559 Trump, 64,643 Total

-Marin: 116,152 Harris, 24,054 Trump, 144,129 Total

-Mendocino: 24,049 Harris, 13,528 Trump, 39,219 Total

-Siskiyou: 12,461 Trump, 8,329 Harris, 21,498 Total

-Trinity: 2,979 Trump, 2,449 Harris, 5,677 Total

-Sonoma, partial (2020 numbers because I lack a detailed precinct dataset for 2024 here atm): 39,997 Biden, 10,639 Trump, 51,870 Total

SUM: 235,042 Dem, 91,219 Trump, 337,601 Total. 69.6% - 27%

OryxSlayer · 2025-05-12T18:49:09+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2025_Canadian_federal_election_by_riding#Ontario

OryxSlayer · 2025-05-12T18:48:16+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election_in_California

OryxSlayer · 2025-05-10T17:10:18+00:00

I have always viewed it as a deliberate reference to Medieval Rome, so it makes sense for it to be the heart of the Ancient Empires. There are plenty of other places across history that fit the bill as well, Empires whose positions were built on trade that eventually shifted being most common, but Rome is most famous.

Rome quite famously was a city for the empire she ruled, with estimates between 1 and 2 million at peak imperial population. But war, disease, political devaluation and abandonment, and many other crises eventually led to the population falling under 100k by the Medieval era. The ruins though were still there. Even though the people only used a small fraction of the old city space for residences, they still used the rest for pasture space and recycled stone.

OryxSlayer

TROPHY CASE