There is enough interest from the poll on my other blog that I want to try and see if this will work! I don't have tons of time because of school, but I already go on Tumblr anyway, so might as well have something to host while I'm at it, lol. So, I'll try and host this thing.
Rules: Whoever is interested, please submit 1-2 original characters (from fanfic or original writing) for the tournament (if you want to group them together, please let me know, if not, I'll just have them be separate), either by messaging this blog, submitting to this blog, sending an ask to this blog, or reblogging this post and putting the information there! I will ask that you also submit your introduction to the character that you want on the poll post at the same time, and that once the poll is live, you can submit propaganda via ask or submission that I'll publish.
Since I do have school, I ask that everyone be patient. I might not be able to respond right away to everything, but I'll try to be as on time as possible! You'll have a week to submit, so submissions close January 16 at 12 pm Central time! I'll try to have a preliminary post with the characters in their brackets (if I use brackets) by sometime the next day. Also, please, if you have any ideas or suggestions, please let me know! I have never done this before, lol. Would you rather have the polls last one day or one week?
I'll try to update this post with links and extra things I think about, and this post will be pinned so it'll be easy to find! Also, I am planning on having a character in this as well, so I hope that's ok!
Here are links to the active polls:
Final Poll: (Chess vs. Crislie Crimsworth vs. Nat Finch)
Answers to questions I have gotten:
Characters can be from anything you've worked on: fanfic, WIP, or finished/published work, as long as they are an original character of yours!
Submissions should include some information about your character, preferably name, pronouns, any unique features, and backstory, but it can be as long or short as you'd like! I'll put that information on the poll post for voters to see! And if you have a picture (picrew, drawing, etc.), please send that along with your submission so I can put it on the poll post as well!
Propaganda will be allowed to submit for your character when the poll is active, but bribes will not be allowed.
So far, I am thinking of having the polls be random, where I put the characters in a random wheel spin and put them in polls against each other based on that. So, probably no brackets. I just like the idea that it'll be completely random!
For a prize, @somealienquill graciously offered to draw a portrait sketch of the winner!
Blogs who showed interest on the poll post are tagged below the cut:
Chess (she/her) @concealeddarkness13 (the picture for her is made by the wonderful @drabbleitout, and she is the person on the left with the prosthetics in the picture): Chess is a special character, and I hope to show how special and awesome she is! She’s extremely distrustful, but she’ll trust people who even treat her with an ounce of decency, and she’ll protect the people she cares about with her life. She’s flirty and confident, but underneath, she has an abysmal amount of self esteem and thinks she’s a monster that will never have love or friendships. She is my blorbo who has been rotating in my mind for the past two years, and I hope you can love her as well! Someone described her in one of the AUs I’ve done as oscillating “between being a poor, wet little meow meow and a fierce feral protective lioness being held back by the scruff of her neck because she is still little”. (credits to @ratracechronicler)
She did start out with a loving family, but like all good protagonists, her parents were murdered when she was 10, and she was left alone. Especially because the society she lives in ignores violent crimes and the victims of those crimes, erasing them all from society as if they never existed. So, she technically didn’t exist in society’s eyes, so she couldn’t get a job or own property or anything. The people around her helped her for a few years until she was old enough to take care of herself, and then she learned to steal.
At twenty years old, she was kidnapped and forced into prosthetics experiments that gave her fire magic that hurts her, from her prosthetic right arm and left leg now. She has a magic fire in her lungs that flares up during physical or mental stress and burns her throat and makes her cough up smoke. Aeflin, the person running the experiments, believed her to be very strong (because she snarked at Aeflin so much and didn’t let her see her pain as much as possible), so she decided to make Chess into her weapon.
She changed her name (since Chess’s original name was Ezra) to Chess, and she put her through even worse torture. Finally, Naivi, the other person running the experiments, got Chess her own team and sent her out into the world to do what the experiments were for and to get her away from Aeflin.
Chess tried to escape that, but a random person found her and took away her memories and brought her back into the enclosure, where most humans are trapped. And she realized right away that the humans inside the enclosure found she was from the experiments and hated her and hurt her and called her a monster because God forbid women do anything (just trying to survive). She learned that the only way that she could get a warm place to sleep (not an alley) was to make herself attractive to people and flirt. She liked sleeping with people, but she mostly did it to have a warm and somewhat safer place to sleep. And even then, she’d have to stay alert because her partner could wake up and try to hurt her.
That’s where she is at the start of her story! She will get a found family and someone or someones to love! She’s pansexual and polyamorous and flirty, and she loves physical touch! She just wants people to treat her decently, and if she has to, she’ll fight to protect her boundaries. And she loves punching jerks in the face with her prosthetic! And we love a woman who loves to fight, right? Thanks for reading!
Crislie Crimsworth (she/her) @gailynovelry: The story of Crislie’s life is that she followed a really sad, really pretty girl out of her sleepy little village and got several new scars, a case of lycanthropy, a little bit of god-killing, and lots of trauma out of it. But she did get a girlfriend and a sick ax along the way, so it balances out! Since “sunset orange” is a mourning color in her country, she’s also a casual goth as well as a jock. If you become her friend then she will carry you around like a sack of potatoes and sometimes hand you a little carved wooden animal. I love her dearly.
Nat Finch (he/him) @albatris: I'd like to submit Nat Finch! he/him, 25 years old, brand new baby vampire. he works the night shift at dodgy petrol and convenience store Stop 'N' Go, where he falls asleep on the clock and encourages shoplifting. he's schizotypal like me and he loves cats, cooking, and his friends! he's the protagonist of my campy gory horror trilogy, though he'd rather not be!
he's short and fat with red eyes and lots of freckles. his hair is long and black, often uneven and choppy in length, because he just cuts tangles out instead of untangling them ❤
he's a sweet boy, earnest boy, awkward boy; he doesn't have many friends at the start of the story due to his paranoia, psychosis, and social anxiety, but by the end of it has a whole bunch of good friends AND a kitty he adores named Grub who purrs like a faulty tractor
in this story vampirism is a sentient entity and all connected via a hivemind known as "the Garble".... it lives in the vampires' blood and can manipulate their thoughts as well as give them heightened strength and speed, claws and fangs, and night vision when they need it. it can be useful, but mostly it's a bully and an inconvenience
at the centre of the Garble hivemind lives the very first vampire, an undead rotting corpse and the god of vampires, and a few of their close friends and confidants. all life force collected by regular vampires flows to them at the centre and grants them immortality and power. it's a sweet deal for the folks at the centre, and a terrible deal for ordinary vampires like Nat who rarely reap any real benefits from their condition, but are threatened and manipulated into participating in this system regardless
Nat's story sees him struggling to solve the mystery of how and why he was turned and trying to balance his kind, caring nature with his new violent condition... and eventually leads him to, "hey, I think I'm going to hunt down and eat the rest of vampire god"
good for him!
some other Nat Facts:
huge drama queen (will play up being sad and pathetic to get what he wants)
vampires are hardwired to seek warmth and coziness so Nat is always down to snuggle 24/7
bouncy cheery overexcited lad who will grin for weeks if you say something nice to him
vegetarian, aside from eating people, which he insists does not count
speaking of eating people, primarily preys on rich pricks and abusive bosses
is too awkward to tell his neighbours he bought them a cute knitted blanket he thought they might like for their corgi because what if that's a weird thing to do. this has been going on for three weeks
is too awkward to tell his neighbours his name is Nat, not Matt. this has been going on for three years
has a giant scary monster mode full of eyes and teeth >:3
Because I just enjoy making polls so much, I have two options of how the three characters who will move on will be handled, since it's an odd number, so I can't just go on like everything's fine and normal. I know I've already asked, but I'd appreciate a visual for preferences, lol. Tagging the writers who participated: @gailynovelry, @grailfish, @pen-of-roses, @somealienquill, @abalonetea, @maple-writes, @lieutenant-amuel, @albatris, @calicohyde, and @concealeddarkness13
How should the next round be handled?
Three-way finale
Bring back one of the characters who lost (through a poll) so there are four
Crislie has a smattering of different people that she cares about, but the top of the list is definitely Navaeli and Gildhe.
Mep too, but in a bit of a begrudging way; her friendship with Meparik is definitely more more of a mutual "we get along mostly because of Our Favorite One (Navaeli)" situation. Amicable, but they each prioritize her over each other and prioritize each other mostly for her sake, if that makes sense. And they respect each other for that stance.
She also worries and cares about her family quite a bit . . . but besides her brother Evain, she can't really stand being around them for too long.
no one is more important to Levi than his brothers, and he’s the most important thing to them too. Probably a good thing, considering he needs all the help available figuring out how to be a werewolf!
He's a huge pushover, baby! At least at the start of the story, he craves love and affection to the point where he'll put his own values on the backburner in order to please other people. He'll do just about anything to feel useful and needed, and if you're nice to him he'll give you his life, no questions asked. As such, he's incredibly easily swayed and his morals don't often stand up to pressure :(
It also means he's impulsive and unpredictable at times! He doesn't have a solid sense of self and his personal values can fluctuate wildly depending on what he thinks other people will like!
If you're his Important Person Of The Day, because you've complimented him or given him a hug or whatever else, you might find him quick to lash out at people who are unpleasant to you, or you might find him overly affectionate, or you might find he suddenly ghosts you because he's stressed himself out trying to impress you... he's always going through some inner turmoil due to his desire to Fit In and Be Liked, and it often means he comes across as kind of confusing and flaky!
For Crislie, it's probably her tendency to rush into action without forethought. And by "action," we usually mean "violence."
Someone picking on a friend of hers? That someone just got a knuckle sandwich, and she just got a broken thumb. Sea serpent appear? She has an ax, might as well use it. Guards at the gate are being unfair? Yell back, push back, tell 'em what for! Oops, now there's a bunch of knights after you. That didn't solve the problem.
On the flipside, it does mean that she acts quickly in crisis situations and breaks other people out of being bystanders by moving first. Every flaw can be a boon in the right situation.
Neuron’s is probably being stuck somewhere like a hospital, where he can feel everyone’s hopelessness and grief and can’t do anything about it and can’t escape it
Besides the somewhat more obvious fear of being in front of a crowd, or some other social situation where everyone's looking at her, Viper is afraid of a lot (but she pretends that she isn't).
Her most prominent big fear is loosing the life she has now (loosing Winter, losing her friends in the Aristata who accept her like family, losing stability etc...) and having to be on her own. She's scared of having to make her own choices, and that she would trust the wrong person and end up captive or dead.
