#sword showdown poll

[ultimate-sword-showdown]

Round 1, Match 3: Falchion vs. Wavebreaker

Falchion

From: Fire Emblem

Wielder: The Royal Family of Altea, specifically Marth, Chrom, and Lucina

The Falchion is forged from the fang of the Divine Dragon Naga. It has been passed through generations of the bloodline of Naga’s chosen, and even then only those of certain sacred blood can wield it. It is very effective in slaying dragons, and it can also heal its wielder. It has slain the Shadow Dragon Medeus and the Fell Dragon Grima, and has saved the world many times.

Wavebreaker

From: Worlds Beyond Number

Wielder: Eursulon the Wild One

Wavebreaker was crafted by the King of Storms as a gift for his son, Naram the Wave Lord. The seven-fingered fist on the pommel references Naram, who has seven fingers on each hand. The sword is able to defend against and break curses when wielded by a spirit.

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Gay wrongs tournament 🏴‍☠️ bonus poll* 🏴‍☠️

* One ask mentioned it'd be funny for OFMD and Black Sails to end up against each other, just like in a certain infamous best pirate poll. Because of this, the pirates get a bonus poll (Zosan is included as well, I'd feel bad leaving them out since you guys submitted them quite a lot for the tournament. Also they're pirates too so 🤷‍♀️) Bonus polls are just for fun, they are not counted in any way for the tournament.

[theultimatesexypeopleshowdown]

[raddest-hat-showdown]

🎩 Raddest Hat Redemption Round👒

Impa from Skyward Sword vs Detective Rama from Guild Wars 2

Loser's semifinals

[four-of-them-showdown]

Propaganda under the cut!!

Airen, Brett, Judith, Illia:

"Them's just a talented gang of friends who deserve more recognition, even if they don't win <3"

Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Candance:

No propaganda ! :(

[animated-disney-movie-showdown]

Play-In Round: Week 1

Please reblog to gather as many answers as possible!

[wingshowdown]

ROUND ONE

[mrkanman]

fellow transistor-heads. you must listen to me.

we NEED the transistor to make it through more of the ultimate sword polls. mr. nobody and red didnt have the best love story ever to lose this...

this second round will be difficult. the grass blade from adventure time is a respectable opponent. but it cannot stand against true love!!

vote transistor. sword boyfriend sweep.

[thesweetsvillainshowdown]

ULTIMATE VILLAIN SHOWDOWN 3

May the best villain win

[chanto-love]

Blorbo Showdown: Round 2, Match 2

Piers and Ikkan aren't the only two who have inspired long fanfic plans through power of kinning. In fact, Spirit of Justice Reborn is the only one that's actually in progress... 60k words and i PROMISE im working on the next chapter. very slowly.

[besttropeveershowdown]

The Second Best Trope Ever Showdown: FINAL POLL

Odd Friendship

Two characters who are very different from each other are friends.

Propaganda:

Because I love it when two characters who seem like they would never go together become friends!!!

Bunny-Ears Lawyer

An eccentric character is so good at their job that people look past their eccentricities

Propaganda:

I really like characters whose personalities and actual competency levels seem to go in opposite directions

Dark Is Not Evil

Dark colors, styles, themes, and powers being associated with good.

Propaganda:

Sometimes this trope means examining how those cast in traditionally “evil” roles are not inherently bad and, in more extreme cases, can use their abilities in creative ways to help others, thus doing away with harmful stereotypes regarding how appearance or circumstances of birth determine morality. Sometimes it’s just having your hero wear all black and wield a giant demon sword because it looks cool. You can’t go wrong either way.

[ultimate-sword-showdown]

Round 5, Match 1: Splatana Stamper vs. Magolor's Ultra Sword

Splatana Stamper

From: Splatoon

Wielder: the player

The Splatana Stamper is an ink-based sword designed to look like a wheeled date stamp mixed with a chainsaw. Since its blade is made of stamps, all of its slashing power is derived from the ink that coats its business end. Every time you swing it, it shoots a slash-shaped ink projectile that acts as its main source of damage and travels surprisingly far, with the added damage from the blade itself in melee range being more of a bonus. When you charge it up before swinging, its ink slash will be twice as powerful and travel slightly farther but move through the air more slowly, and getting hit with the blade itself becomes an instant kill.

Ultra Sword

From: Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe

Wielder: Magolor

The Ultra Sword is a gigantic sword fueled by dimensional magic. It can break the strongest shields in a few hits. It can be summoned at any time, and due to its large size it works effectively as both an area-of-effect attack and a finishing blow. It is not just a powerful weapon but also a symbolic memento for its wielder, Magolor.

[drag0nalias0]

Hua Cheng!

Tgcf spoilers below

-->

Tbf he tore out his eye to make his sword. He tore his eye out instead of using human sacrifices bc he knew that his god (who becomes his future husband) would want to save those people. After doing that he was given a chance to ascend to the heavens and become a god but he refused bc his god( xie lian) was banished and the other gods up there hated xie lian and said mean thing about xie lian and were generally horrible to him.

Also eming (his scimtar) is the best

Correct me if i got anything wrong btw. Its been a bit since i read the novel & i have horrible memory

Edit bc i forgot:

He also waited 800 years for the guy he loved. Gay af fuck

Edit 2:added a read more

Sword gays showdown, round 1, bracket two

*Camilla fanart by @friendamedes, used with permission

Propaganda:

For Hua Cheng:

King of ghosts and ruler of Ghost City. So good at sword he beat 33 gods in duels. Canonically gay and in love with the former prince, current exiled god of trash Xie Lian. His sword is sentient and also his own eye. Its name is E-Ming and if it ever cut you, it can reopen the wound any time. It's really cute despite its reputation, wants to be pet by Xie Lian like a little kitty.

He's got a sword that is literally a part of him. He made it from his own eye. It's sentient and behaves like a puppy and I just really love E-Ming

Spoiler but he has a very cool saber thats (kinda) alive and made out of his own eye? Does that count?

For Camilla:

she prefers dual-wielding two short blades but can fight with pretty much anything. she's ambidextrous she's autistic she's even sex-repulsed ace. she sighs longingly when reunited with her weapons. she's from planet academia and dresses like an off-duty librarian. literally one of the most iconic moments of the entire series is when she gets challenged to a duel and absolutely wipes the floor with her opponent even though she doesn't even like rapiers that much. 'swords don't lie.' 

OK I’m sure you’re getting just about every character from The Locked Tomb but Cam is my favorite. She's a nerd AND a jock. She is in this deeply intense and loving and unhealthily codependent soulbond partnership with her best friend second cousin and prince. She is smart and deadpan snarky and fights like a grease fire and I have never been able to get that line out of my head.

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 3, Wave 2, Poll 6

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included. 

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Eda Clawthorne-The Owl House

Qualifications:

She has a magical chronic disorder which has flare-ups, is mitigated by taking medication (potions), and has similar side effects to many real disorders such as fatigue, greying hair, and physical impairment (drains magic, a natural ability of *most witches). Unlike in other stories however, her condition is NOT ever completely cured. It does evolve and become more manageable over the course of the story, but she still experiences symptoms from it. Eda also loses one of her arms later in the story. She does get a replacement hook, but it is never shown whether she has a functional prosthetic or not. Most likely, she only has one fully functioning arm after this. As for being queer, she is in a relationship with a nonbinary person and is all but confirmed bisexual (has a secret box with the bi flag on it seriously why else would she have this). Also the owl house has a Lot of queer characters in it and I mean. just look at her. I would be surprised if she wasn't queer somehow.

Bisexual, and has a curse that affects her day to day life

Bi & lost arm and has a chronic illness metaphorically

Propaganda:

Has canonically dated both men and a non-binary person. Her curse affects her ability to use magic (and at one point outright stops it), which is very important in witch life. Said curse also causes her body parts to fall off sometimes. Many have said her curse is like a metaphor for depression but really it's more like a magic version of a physical disability (although I wouldn't be surprised if she actually also had depression).

Uuuuh she’s great and stuff idk I can’t propaganda well sorry

Ballister Boldheart-Nimona (Flim)

Qualifications:

He has a boyfriend (and then they have a sort-of-breakup but they're back together by the end) and he has a prosthetic arm.

He’s gay and missing an arm.

He’s explicitly gay, in love with a man. He loses his arm then builds himself a prosthetic while on the run like a badass.

His boyfriend cut his arm off :( he uses a prosthetic now.

His arm got chopped off after being falsely accused of killing the queen, he spends the rest of the movie with a prosthetic metal arm. His arm was also chopped off by his lover, Ambrosius Goldenloin, during said false assassination.

His boyfriend cut off his arm

Canonically has a boyfriend and built his own prosthetic

Qualifies by both being canonically disabled (amputee) + canonically gay

Propaganda:

Please plz plz vote for him

His boyfriend cut off his arm. He made himself a prosthetic. He used his arm to block someone’s sword. He kissed his boyfriend. He has sad wet cat eyes, which isn’t relevant but still. He has them.

He’s so GOOD even though he’s having like the worst day ever (specifically talking about movie but webcomic also applies). He has the biggest wettest eyes how can you not root for him????

People love him! He kinda looks like a sad, poor little cat. A real soggy wet kitten man.

Let's see. He and Ambrosius are lovers, or at least boyfriends, from the moment they're introduced. Ballister gets his arm chopped off by Ambrosius during the false assassination. Ballister spends the rest of the movie trying to convince Ambrosius and the kingdom of his innocence, with a metal arm replacing his missing one. It originated the phrase "Arm Chopping is not a love language!" Did I mention he's a main character too?

Is a science nerd, built his own prosthetic arm with his non-dominant hand, accidentally adopted a trans chaos demon of a 1000yo being

A knight, Nimona's best friend and father figure of sorts, but the plot mostly revolves around him- Ballister is framed for murder and has to hide while trying to figure out who framed him and how to prove he's innocent. Nimona becomes his sidekick (he didn't want one, she just showed up at his place one day like a very chaotic stray cat) and together they form a great duo against the corrupt government. This is complicated by Ballister's ex Ambrosius, who accidentally cut off Ballister's arm and is a bit brainwashed by government propaganda. Oops. You should watch Nimona it's great 💞🦈

The qualifications and propaganda paragraphs correspond, @foulfirerebel is the fifth submitter, and there were at least 7 others.

[raddest-hat-showdown]

🎩Losers Bracket Finals👒

Jezaille Brett from Ace Attorney vs Impa from Skyward Sword vs Ranni from Elden Ring

[zeldatourney]

Polls and Explanations

The tourney is over, and it's been a lot of fun! Especially for me, who got to see all the comments everyone left.

One recurring question I got (other than "Why would you pit two bad bitches against each other;" sir, this is the "pitting two bad bitches against each other" blog) was why I matched things up as they did. For example, putting Wind Waker up against Breath of the Wild in round one, when that seems like a final battle sort of deal.

There are two things that have always bothered me about poll tourneys.

Overwhelmingly, the results are dominated by "which is more recognizable" rather than "which is better." Just about everyone in the Zelda fandom has played Breath of the Wild, so it would outcompete almost everything based on sale numbers, which was boring and predictable.

The first few rounds never seemed to MEAN anything.

Number 1 was easy enough to fix: just add in options for "I haven't played these" and specify that you want answers from someone who's played both, and boom! You get informed opinions on which is better.

2, though, was more of a problem.

See, the way most brackets are engineered is to build up FOR that final battle. You want a clash of the titans as your finale! You want the biggest and baddest to have to claw their way to victory! You want your favorite game to have the highest kill count!

Which means your first round pits those titans against small competitors that never stood a chance, just to get them out of the way. With the exception of meme entries, nothing ever comes from that.

Of course Breath of the Wild would blow Cadence of Hyrule out of the water.

Of course the Oracles games wouldn't stand up to something like Skyward Sword.

None of these polls answer any questions. They're just obligatory so the match can get to that final battle without complaints.

Wanting to avoid that, the way I approached this bracket was a bit different. Instead of guessing at which would be the most popular and reverse-engineering that epic showdown, I wanted to match like with like.

So I made something to test the waters:

Without an explanation attached, this one made a lot of people mad! Why was I separating Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, which shared a map, but not Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, which were vastly different games?

I didn't have enough poll options to do every single game, so I had to mix. And the mix was strategic:

Most games on here that are paired together share fans. For example, the majority of Ocarina of Time players either like or are ambivalent towards Majora's Mask, while a VAST majority of Breath of the Wild players take issue with the story of Tears of the Kingdom. If I grouped BotW with TotK, I wouldn't be able to get a read on how many people loved TotK, because BotW would be so overwhelming.

I'd seen about equal fandom obsession with Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, or with Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, so I could take their result and divide it by half.

Anyone who didn't fit either of these criteria got grouped together as best as I knew how. Wind Waker and Minish Cap are both full of whimsy. Tri Force Heroes, Cadence of Hyrule, and Hyrule Warriors are all different gameplay loops than the standard Zelda, and are (at least honorary, in TFH's case) spin-offs.

This poll gave me good data. There was about an equal level of interest between Four Swords and Echoes of Wisdom. Minish Cap probably made up a very small percentage of Wind Waker votes, so it would have to fight its way up through smaller guys. Something BIG would have to go up against Breath of the Wild to have a fighting chance.

With all that in mind, I started hammering out what the polls would be. I wanted each one to

Be paired with something that had a similar level of interest

Answer a question or sate a curiosity

That way, hopefully, they'd be neck-and-neck, and I'd get some good opinions out of the people who voted one or the other.

So, with all that in mind: here's my thought process when making this tourney, step by step. You might have to click to be able to read it all.

So...what now? A loser's bracket? A re-do with different matchups?

Not exactly.

I'm going to make a separate post on that. Rest assured, though, this tournament is far from over.

This was just the first run.