Ever went through all the trouble of getting your blorbo from danmei into a tournament, only to have them eliminated in the first round because the poll didn't reach enough danmei fans? This blog aims to help with that!
I'm keeping an eye on a number of brackets myself, but if you find a poll I missed, message me with a link, or just tag me in the poll's replies, and I'll reblog it asap. Similarly, if you find a tournament that's just perfect for danmei submissions, be those characters, ships, or novels themselves - send it my way!
Then, happy voting 🫶
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important! blacklist #hot take warning if you don't want to see polls with controversial / negative takes at all; and "#[character] critical" if you want to avoid such takes about a particular character.
- by author / novel -
MXTX: SVSSS || MDZS / CQL || TGCF
priest: Qi Ye || Tian Ya Ke / Shan He Ling || Zhen Hun || Liu Yao
Have You ever thought "Wow, This character sure is Dead Wife Material (TM) !! I sure wish there was a poll where I could submit my favourite dead body to pit against other people's cadavers !" Well then, we have just the poll for you !! Any character that feels wife or dead can be submitted through the form down below (under the cut)
rules for who counts as a dead wife:
Is some form of dead / not alive / ambiguously dead
Death has significant ongoing impacts and relevance in the plot
Has a love interest (IMPORTANT: doesn't have to be canon) / platonic partner / rival / etc
Does not have to be a female character
We'll judge submissions based on case by case basis if a character is ambiguous dead or ambiguously wife, first come first serve basis (as well as whoever the mods are biased towards).
This tournament was created by the two of us and we have encountered many dead wifes in our fandom journey. So of course, we want to know, w
May the deadest wifest character win !!
Submissions close on 22nd March
inspired by tournaments like @transmasculineswag, @fictional-twink-bracket, @bestpolyshipbracket,
Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 1C
Choose a book:
Heaven Official's Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu by Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù
Pentecost and Parker series by Stephen Spotswood
Voting ended onMar 1, 2025
Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:
Heaven Official's Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu by Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù
Born the crown prince of a prosperous kingdom, Xie Lian was renowned for his beauty, strength, and purity. His years of dedicated study and noble deeds allowed him to ascend to godhood. But those who rise may also fall, and fall he does—cast from the heavens and banished to the world below.
Eight hundred years after his mortal life, Xie Lian has ascended to godhood for the third time, angering most of the gods in the process. To repay his debts, he is sent to the Mortal Realm to hunt down violent ghosts and troublemaking spirits who prey on the living. Along his travels, he meets the fascinating and brilliant San Lang, a young man with whom he feels an instant connection. Yet San Lang is clearly more than he appears... What mysteries lie behind that carefree smile?
Fantasy, romance, xianxia, series
Pentecost and Parker series (Fortune Favors the Dead, Murder Under Her Skin, Secrets Typed in Blood, Murder Crossed Her Mind, Dead in the Frame) by Stephen Spotswood
Endorsement from submitter: "A delightful mystery series set in late 1940s New York City, each novel is a new case taken on by Lillian Pentecost, private investigator, and her assistant/detective in training, Will Parker. Parker is an explicitly bisexual woman who prefers to dress in a tomboyish manner, and she serves as the narrator, bringing a cheeky, almost noir-esque voice to the series. each novel is a fun, thoughtful mystery, but the series also explores how the changing political landscape of post-war America influenced women in the working world, queer rights, and disability (Pentecost has multiple sclerosis and her disability often impacts the plot)."
A wildly charming and fast-paced mystery written with all the panache of the hardboiled classics, Fortune Favors the Dead introduces Pentecost and Parker, an audacious new detective duo for the ages.
It’s 1942 and Willowjean “Will” Parker is a scrappy circus runaway whose knife-throwing skills have just saved the life of New York’s best, and most unorthodox, private investigator, Lillian Pentecost. When the dapper detective summons Will a few days later, she doesn’t expect to be offered a life-changing proposition: Lillian’s multiple sclerosis means she can’t keep up with her old case load alone, so she wants to hire Will to be her right-hand woman. In return, Will is to receive a salary, room and board, and training in Lillian’s very particular art of investigation.
Three years later, Will and Lillian are on the Collins case: Abigail Collins was found bludgeoned to death with a crystal ball following a big, boozy Halloween party at her home—her body slumped in the same chair where her steel magnate husband shot himself the year before. With rumors flying that Abigail was bumped off by the vengeful spirit of her husband (who else could have gotten inside the locked room?), the family has tasked the detectives with finding answers where the police have failed.
But that’s easier said than done in a case that involves messages from the dead, a seductive spiritualist, and Becca Collins—the beautiful daughter of the deceased, who Will quickly starts falling for. When Will and Becca’s relationship dances beyond the professional, Will finds herself in dangerous territory, and discovers she may have become the murderer’s next target.
Xie Lian (Heaven Officials Blessing) vs Celestia (My Little Pony)
Xie Lian
Celestia
Voting ended onFeb 22, 2025
Characters' info under the cut
Xie Lian (wiki)
Domains: Ascended thrice and was banished twice. First time as a Martial God, second time as a God of Misfortune, third time as a Scrap God.
Propaganda:
To ascend to godhood once is already a rarity. Twice is unheard of. But thrice??? How cool is that? He keeps getting banished by the Heavenly Emperor but the Heavens (a separate power over which the Emperor has no power over) want him up there sooooooo bad. Xie Lian is a person who once said 'Live Laugh Love' to a ghost and then said ghost took it so incredibly personally they decided to make his life living hell until he was just like them. Xie Lian went through all of that and just became kinder as a result. He spent around 800 years living with the worst luck possible of his own will just because he wanted to atone for what he had done when the ghost had nearly broken his spirit (the events preceding his second ascension). He's God's whumpiest soldier. He's an incredibly unreliable narrator because he simply Will Not think about things even if it's relevant to the story until he's face to face with them and unable to ignore them any longer. He's suffered so much physical trauma over his life that he can no longer feel pain. He starts the book not particularly healed from the trauma but he's compartmentalized it enough to be relatively stable and then the book takes a sledgehammer to every single one of his weakpoints so he can actually heal. Good thing his third ascension allowed his future husband to finally find him after the same 800 years of searching (they knew each other in the past) and he can be there to support him through it all <333 yes this book is a BL. He's gay and he gets a husband who adores him so much he defied death and literally became the world's strongest ghost by the force of his love. Xie Lian my beloved. Vote Xie Lian
The loser. The layoff. The legend. It's the Trash God himself, coming back into the ring for round three. This god was kicked out of heaven and pulled back by complete accident on account of his sheer power - on more than one occasion - but he'd much rather spend his days taking naps, sweeping the floor of his little shack, and sending lavender essential oil tips in his heavenly groupchat.
No one gives off great-great-great-grandpa vibes quite like he does, and when he's put his nose to the grind, he's racked up a good spectrum of feats. (Including but not limited to: a coincidental military escapade, swashbuckling, saving a falling kid from a balcony, and several horrific warcrimes.) He's perservered for 800 long years and is long overdue for a break, so here's to a peaceful future alongside his wonderful ghost husband, who would probably be cooking the celebratory meal for this tournament in interest of not giving the other competitors dysentery. As his friends could tell you, he's got a good heart, he's just a bit of a cosmic plaything sometimes - but deep down, don't we all have a clown in us?
He is one of the few characters in a lot of media I’ve consumed that feels so real to me. He is a god but he is so human in his way of acting. His backstory is incredibly complex and tragic, so glad he got a rich husband in the end.
He deserves everything I love him so much ohhhh my god someone more eloquent needs to write propaganda for him cause all I can say is 🥰🥰🥰🥰
Please
cw: age gap, student x teacher, bad communication, child abuse mention, major spoilers
A is a bodysnatcher, who (not by choice) takes over the body of an abusive mentor of B's. A grows instead into a beloved mentor and father figure for B, and is the only person aware that A will later be forced by something of a prophecy to banish B and ruin his life. A knows that B will return, and expects B to kill him for it. B comes back, and instead of killing A, wants to know why he did it. Terrified upon his return and not listening to anything B says, A flees and fakes his death.
B spends the next several years searching for a way to bring A back. When B finally finds A is still alive, B has a breakdown so bad that A realizes what B needed all along was just for A to talk to him. They finally talk and A apologizes, in as much as he knows how to do that.
They end the series married, and B has no idea that he still doesn’t know A's name.
Vocally Bound
Aquamarine needs someone to kill his father for him, and Obsidian needs someone who accepts him, including his past.
Aquamarine discovers Obsidian's history as a supernatural serial murderer, and blackmails him into doing his bidding. Obsidian never even sees his face, only receiving audible messages from him. Given Aquamarine's high social standing, and the even greater power behind his father, it's only natural that he'd be careful.
Aquamarine is harsh, and malicious. He tests Obsidian's loyalty and skill, and relishes the opportunity to be less than graceful in his demeanor. So then, the longer the threats persist, the more Obsidian finds them a comfort; after all, the safest knife is that which is held to one's back, yet refuses to pierce the skin. At the end of it all, what is an enemy who refuses to strike, if not a friend?
"ok so he was kind of shitty and also slept with the guy his friend was kinda sorta seeing at the time, except well the two of them weren't officially dating yet so it's kinda a grey area tbh (I don't think they even fully agreed to be exclusive at that point but I could be misremembering, but they were definitely not dating). Anyways his friend finds this out later on when he and that guy are now officially dating and decides to get revenge on Boston by obtaining a sex tape of Boston that was filmed without his consent (of him sleeping with a different guy) and then threatening to out Boston to his dad with it and holding it over him as blackmail. He also loses his entire friend group and is the only excluded from the main 6 in the end, even though literally every main character is a piece of shit and does shitty things and break laws and hurts each other but Boston is uniquely evil for having a lot of sex. and the show was even marketed on being the show about messy relationships and gay sex, but the one who does it the most is treated like he's the worst by every other character. Like one the main 6 literally recorded the audio of Boston having sex with the other guy without his consent and spread it around their friend group, another one literally engaged in reckless drunk driving and could have killed someone, after publicly revealing all of his friend's dirty secrets to everyone at a bar and calling the guy he had a fwb thing going on a whore, and several characters do hard drugs which is seen as a much more serious/bad thing to do in Thailand, but somehow Boston is uniquely evil and the only one who doesn't get a happy ending cause he likes sleeping around and isn't the biggest fan of monogamy and was an asshole about it (but again they're all literally assholes)"
I mean - don't get me wrong! child abuse is bad! But surely not 'had all his limbs torn off, his eye plucked out and his tongue torn out, also his best friend was lured into an ambush and shot with a thousand arrows ' bad."
Which Retribution is more Disproportionate?
Boston being blackmailed with a sex tape and pushed out of the friend group
