#the grand tourney

[melisusthewee]

My friends knew this was going to happen eventually. I commissioned @point-maitimo for a tarot card of the last of my major Dragon Age OCs, Ser Horatio Morris, three-time champion of the Grand Melee as The Sun.

The warm colours of the piece are beautiful with the draped banner of purple and gold is a wonderful reference to both the Rider-Waite card as well as Ser Morris' sigil colours. And if you pay attention, you can see the little silver highlights in his hair! I adore this card. It is extremely beautiful and I cannot thank them enough for putting together such a perfect and wonderful composition!

[splatoonpolls]

SPLATOON OC TOURNEY GRAND FINALE

MUFFIN BY @demi-s-fucked-up-dog VS THE INKOID TYPHOON THAT RAVAGES THE SHORELINE BY @nylonvintage

PROPAGANDA

Inkling born at the Square who's recently moved to Splatsville, she earned the money to move there in ways she's not really proud to admit, usually keeping it hidden from even some closer friends

Her dad was a jellyfish and her mom was a humboldt, her dad being a jelly made her very squishy and stretchy (arrow pointing at her says "silly putty")

She ate a buncha canned specials (with the can) when she was 16 so she's constantly charged with special charge (Arrows pointing at her and her tummy say "She's like an electric eel" and "Full of metal" respectively)

She can recharge this energy by eating, don't overfeed her tho. She'd get a tummy ache, and probably release a buncha electricity

Agent^3 (Agent to-the-power-of Three) (Cube for short)

She shows up every tuesday at 3PM to train with the Captain

Birthday on April 28th

She's Afro Latina

Even if I don't win, I'd appreciate your vote and if you're interested in her in any way feel free to ask about her!!

POST I FOUND

TYPHOON

The Inkoid Typhoon that Ravages the Shoreline (Typhoon for short)

Backstory stuff:

Her egg got stolen and taken home by an inkling to be sold off and she ended up hatching in Splatsville, but later when she was little she got stolen back during a Big Run. Now she's inkfish-shaped and she Hates it (according to lore the salmonids have different builds based on where they hatched/how they grew up). Currently she plays drums (pots and pans) in a band and likes to take grizzco weapons from players to blast their faces off with. She also wears stolen grizzco uniforms bc they're the only clothes she has access to that fit her

She became inkfish-shaped due to her egg being stolen by an inkling and nearly sold off, but she hatched before that could happen and ended up wandering around Splatsville in her earliest years

Later she was able to rejoin a school of salmonid during a Big Run, but the early influences of Splatsville caused her to grow up shaped Like That (aka it's what made her a salmonling)

Despite her build, she's gotten herself a pretty solid place in her school! Her battle prowess especially is what earned her a name

Trivia:

Her necklace is made of fishing line and the charms were debris collected from the ocean

She wears stolen grizzco uniforms because they're the only clothes she has access to that actually fit her. The stolen grizzco weapons are just for funsies tho

She sometimes joins runs, but only ever comes out during low tide (since that gives her room to run around)

She Does Not like inklings or octolings. At all. Both because she got stolen by one and because the constant fights are getting annoying

She plays pots and pans as drums

DOODLES UNDER THE CUT!

[best-type-moon-couple]

Finals

[Live or Die by the Sword / What power do you hold in your hands…? Dancing flames, decaying Earth, withered ocean]

[gentle-giant-swag]

GENTLE GIANT SWAG: GRAND FINALS

TOTORO (MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO) vs KIRYU KAZUMA (YAKUZA)

Propaganda under the cut

Totoro

Is the gentlest giant

i've never watched totoro but he looks so big and soft i want to nap on him

Same than previous anon. Haven't watched it but he looks very huggable. Also I have several childhood friends who absolutely loved him (Totoro fans, wake up, your propaganda is made by people who haven't even watched the movie)

Kiryu

He is the legendary Dragon of Dojima who would do anything to make his adoptive idol daughter happy, runs a sunny orphanotrophium on the beach of Okinawa and can never forgive making children cry. He will break bones and heal hearts. He is also a giant himbo who falls for most scams he encounters and was incarcerated for ten years for a crime he did not commit, all to protect his best buddy. He has a great singing voice and loves playing with cats.

[yall-hate-kids-tourney]

Grand Finals: Chara Dreemurr (Undertale) vs. Amane Momose (MILGRAM)

Propaganda below the cut

Chara Dreemurr (?):

They were constantly blamed for killing all of monster kind in the no mercy route, despite players choosing to go that route. People ignored that they sacrificed themselves to attempt to free the monsters from the underground.

----

everyone wants to blame their own actions (genocide route) on chara, who is a literal child. i don’t know how to tell you this but you are the one playing the game. it’s about YOUR CHOICES. chara is there is punish you for that, you killed the only family that ever loved them! how could they not be upset at that! also if you don’t mind, here’s a good video essay on the subject 

Amane Momose (12):

Amane was voted guilty in the first trial so that she would acknowledge her guilt. It backfired, and now she’s considered a threat. Well, everyone is a threat, but nobody’s threat level has been as heavily discussed and debated as hers. Consider the next prisoner in line, Mikoto. He’s objectively more dangerous and cannot be restrained. He beat up the guard in trial 1, and he was able to hold his own when the other guilty prisoners were attacked. But a good incentive to forgive him is so that he will calm down. You know what? That’s a good incentive to forgive Amane too! But she *can* be restrained, so a good portion of the discussion went into how she should be voted guilty so she *will* be restrained and not a threat. Since her vote was a near 50/50, of course a good chunk of the voters expressed dissatisfaction with her forgiven verdict. Some are already planning to vote her guilty for trial 3, calling her a “lost cause”. She hasn’t even done any concrete harm yet. Hold the pitchforks until she actually causes harm, please? And what if she *was* voted guilty in trial 2? We’ve been warned that she will continue to deny our judgement. A second guilty verdict won’t make her better either, and then what? She’d be called a “lost cause” as well. There is no winning with her.

----

Where do I even start? So first of all she’s an cult child who was physically and mentally abused and tortured by her parents and then (presumably) murdered her mother after her mother killed a cat that she took care of.

Now everyone in Milgram is a murderer but when Amane came and her MV showed her murder and circumstance in an admittedly highly fictionalized depiction of it the audience decided to…repeat the cycle of abuse!

She was voted guilty for the main reason of “teaching her” and helping her “realize that she was abused.” I would like to note that this tough love approach is something her parents utilized against her. “We are only doing this to help you.”

So the audience replicates Amane’s abusers and repeats the cycle of abuse and that’s pretty shitty but it isn’t exactly “Fuck Em Kids” level.

And then Trial 2 happened. Cause Amane is bitter and angry and horrifically traumatized so she acts aggressive and hostile. Especially towards another prisoner.

Now, again, everyone here is a fucking murderer (of atleast could be constructed as one) These people being able to Harm is a core concept of this series.

Yet for some reason it feels like people treat Amane as a “delusional creepy kid who wants to kill people” which completly takes away the nuance of her character. She does have the capacity to harm! Everyone here does! She’s not Uniquly Dangerous! She just has a Reason to be Dangerous. A Reason we GAVE HER by REPEATING THE CYCLE OF ABUSE.

In short: In a series full of Murderers I’m honestly a bit pissed that the 12 year old abuse victim is the one who’s treated like the guy from American Pyscho.

----

TL;DR: "We metavoted this abused, indoctrinated child guilty in trial 1, but it didn't work. Now she is a threat to three grown adults: one who is fully free and two whom she has been shown to get along with. Please metavote her guilty again so she will be restrained and unable to attack them, even though that means subjecting her to further psychological torture." Amane Momose is the youngest of ten murderers, prisoners of Milgram who are to be judged innocent (forgiven) or guilty (unforgiven). In the first interrogation (voice drama), she said that what she did was in line with her religion's doctrines. If we judged her the "wrong way", she said she will just deny the verdict. Combining the voice drama and music video, you could piece together that she was raised in a cult and abused, even though she is cheerful and downplays her pain. She never shows *who* she killed, only *why* she did. After the first day of her vote, she was 81% innocent, but this wouldn't last the whole three months. Many people voted her guilty so she would "see her sins", part of the practice commonly known as "metavoting". Her innocent percentage rapidly decreased, and she hit guilty in the last 15 days, finishing at 51% guilty. At the end of the first trial, Jackalope (who is something like a host) went over all the prisoners' verdicts and commented on the general reasoning. When he got to Amane, he *laughed* at the audience for voting that way to make her realize her sins. Trial 2 rolled around, and it was revealed that Amane's victim was her abuser. On day one, she was at 74% innocent. Seems like a cut-and-dry case now, right? Well... in the intermission, two of the prisoners (Fuuta and Mahiru) were badly beaten up and became reliant on the care of Shidou, a doctor. Amane became hostile to Shidou because what he was doing was against her beliefs. She visited all three of them on their birthdays to convince them to change their ways. She seems to be especially close to Fuuta, who is now murmuring about salvation. Guilty prisoners are psychologically tortured, forced to listen to voices that reject their beliefs. Fuuta and Mahiru both say that the mental strain is worse than their physical injuries. But Amane, who also looks worse for wear, was thrown under the bus because she isn't injured and is considered a physical threat to them (never mind that she gets along with them). She's considered a threat to Shidou, a grown man who is twice her size and fully free, while she is partially restricted by the long sleeves in her trial 2 uniform. She might indoctrinate Fuuta even though, in a prison of ten people and one guard, she's the only voice of her cult. Fortunately, she got a break. Her vote was falling at a similar rate to the first trial. But this time, it stabilized at 51% innocent, 12 days before the end of her vote. But there's no way this is over.

[nasuverse-most-breedable-tourney]

Bracket B, Round 1 (Match 16)

[pinkhairswagtourney]

say hello to our finalists !!

starting on 09/16/2023 , we'll have a week-long poll to determine which of these two characters is the biggest pink-haired cringefail loser of all time !!!!

GRAND FINALE MATCHUP

Giovanni Potage - Epithet Erased VS Hitori Gotoh - Bocchi the Rock!

[strawberrylemonadeswagtourney]

say hello to your grand finalists !!!

they've made it through the entire competition and they're so close to winning the crown ! they only have to make it through this last round to claim the title of swaggiest pink and yellow character of all time !! starting tomorrow 05/18/2023, we'll have a week-long poll to determine the winner of this competition ! good luck, and may the best contestant win ♡

[asoiafreadthru]

A Game of Thrones, Eddard IV

Ned was aghast. “Aerys Targaryen left a treasury flowing with gold. How could you let this happen?”

Littlefinger gave a shrug. “The master of coin finds the money. The king and the Hand spend it.”

“I will not believe that Jon Arryn allowed Robert to beggar the realm,” Ned said hotly.

Grand Maester Pycelle shook his great bald head, his chains clinking softly. “Lord Arryn was a prudent man, but I fear that His Grace does not always listen to wise counsel.”

“My royal brother loves tournaments and feasts,” Renly Baratheon said, “and he loathes what he calls ‘counting coppers.’”

[samarecharm]

Playing ssbu; i really do love the direction they went for akiras entire moveset. His melees are sharp and aggressive, while his weapon and spell moves are nice and fluid. Really love how Legs he is; he is a gazelle prancing on the stage kicking everything in sight. Also love his midair neutral B; why is he spinning out of control??? And why is it so effective ? Every little detail they added to make the moves more ‘realistic’ really adds to his character 😊

[taintedtowers]

shes gonna be the best part of lr4. just trust me here.

[melisusthewee]

Hi Mel, happy Friday! For Horatio, from the dialogue prompts, how about "It wasn't your fault."? Hope you are inspired!

Thank you for such a great prompt! I really liked being able to focus on Morris as just a solo piece where he's in those awkward young adult years but also getting a chance to do a bit of world building surrounding the ins and outs of the Grand Tourney.

I Want to Be Ser Morris Word Count: 1,124 words Rating: PG for @dadrunkwriting

Ser Horatio Morris never pulled his punches.  He'd been taught that you never swung a fist or bludgeon or any such thing unless you meant it.  That had been a problem the first time he stepped into the melee ring, dressed in piecemeal armour and clutching a blunted hand axe that he knew looked more like a hatchet than anything else.

Which was why he now sat on a patch of grass, his face smeared with sweat and dirt and a vacant expression on his face as a lone elf swept fresh sand to hide the splatter of blood Morris - no, his opponent - had left behind when two healers had dragged the man's lifeless body out of the ring.

Because he never pulled his punches.  Because he didn't know how to.  Because his first opponent had a chip on his shoulder and something to prove, and had taken one look at Morris and his ill-fitting iron that clanked and rattled as he moved, and asked him whose arse he'd buggered to get himself entry and a fancy title.

So Morris had hit him, because wasn't that the point of the melee?  And Morris had made sure to hit him hard to show him that the "ser" had been properly earned.  The strike had been sudden and quick, because Morris had a friend who had taught him that opportunity and surprise were sometimes more important than brute strength.  But in Morris' sudden burst of movement, he had not quite turned the hand axe so the flat edge of the head made impact.  Where he had intended to simply knock the man backwards or perhaps daze him, he had instead cleaved off part of his jaw and left him bleeding in the dirt.

His first tourney.  His first match.  And he'd maimed someone.

At first he thought he'd be arrested or at the very least disqualified.  But while the adjucator blew the horn to end the match, Morris was declared the victor and told to clean up, rest up, and prepare for the next round.  Morris didn't want to move on to the next round.  He wanted to go be sick somewhere and then he thought he very much wanted his mother.

"Your gear will rust if you just let it sit there."  A familiar gravely voice broke through the fog filling Morris' head.  He looked up to see Ser Calanth, his old mentor now even older and somehow smaller than he ought to be.  Morris wasn't used to seeing him out of his jousting armour and down on the ground without a horse.

"Did you see what happened?" Morris asked hesitantly.  If he felt bad for having sliced open a man's face, he knew he was about to feel even worse under the gaze of the man who was practically a second father to him.

"Not many people can say they won their very first match with their very first swing," came the answer.  "I think it could have used a little more showmanship for the crowd's benefit, but you'll get better at that with time."

"You what?"  Morris turned and stared at the old man incredulously.  Was Calanth going blind in his old age?  That could be the only explanation for why he was praising Morris for what he had done.

But Ser Calanth's gaze was as sharp and steady as ever as he looked at Morris.  "People bleed in the melee, lad.  They come away with bruises and cuts and all sorts of injuries.  Half of them don't even have proper armour.  It's why they dull the weapons.  Did you think when you chose to do this that you would go your entire career without hurting anyone?"

"You never did," said Morris.  He'd always thought that Calanth was one of the kinder knights in the joust, perhaps because he didn't have the same drive for glory and fame that so many of the others did.  He'd treated Morris well as a boy which wasn't something every squire in the Grand Tourney could always claim.  Morris had looked up to him, and had grown up wanting to be the sort of knight he felt he was.

Only Morris wasn't very good on a horse and couldn't afford one anyway.  He'd arrived at this year's tourney having borrowed his father's draft horse which was good for ploughing fields and pulling carts but not much else.  He wasn't built for jousting anyways as he'd grown from an average-looking boy into a broad shouldered and stocky young man.  He was made to hit things from on the ground, not atop a horse.  But he hadn't wanted it to be like this.

"I'm sure every man who was knocked off his horse by the impact of my lance would disagree."

Morris knew it was intended to comfort him, but he didn't think their circumstances were the same.

The elf had finished up their sweeping of the sand.  The next two challengers on the list were preparing to square off against one another.  All evidence of Morris' fight was gone.

"You're a good lad, Morris, you always have been," said Calanth after a time, "but you're a soft one too.  We're all here performing various kinds of blood sport for entertainment.  When your opponent bleeds, it isn't your fault.  It's his for not being quicker or smarter."

When Morris didn't say anything, Calanth added, "You can always quit if you want.  It's a choice to be here and you can go back home if being a farmer is what you prefer.  You should be making this choice for yourself, not because you feel you owe me."

Morris looked up at that, frowning slightly.  He had wanted knighthood for years.  He was grateful to Ser Calanth for the education he provided and the allowance he had always been able to bring home to his parents, but that wasn't why he was here.  Squiring had been a job, no different than all the work he'd done on his father's pig farm.  But Morris had kept at it because he had decided long ago that he wanted very much to become a knight instead of a farmer.  He'd seen other boys grow up and disappear from the tourney either because they weren't good enough or didn't want it.  But Morris wasn't one of them.  He wanted to be here, he wanted to fight and drink and be a knight.  He just hadn't expected it to feel like this.

"I don't want to be a farmer," he said softly.  "I want to be Ser Morris."

"Do you?" asked Ser Calanth.

"Yes," said Morris, and then more firmly, "yes, more than anything."

"On your feet then, lad, and get yourself watered.  There are more matches to come."

[whitewingedcrow]

Wanderer has arrived at the tourney, and his no-good asshole bird is probably about to get him in trouble. First proper illustration for this Anathema ARPG I'm trying out, serving double duty as a clothing ref for Wanderer. It sucked not getting to draw at all last weekend due to being up north and far from my setup (and just work stuff, MAN I don't have nearly so much time to draw anymore), but it does feel good to race through an illustration when I get all the pent-up drawing urges out!

[best-type-moon-couple]

The Winner of the “Best Type-Moon Couple” Tournament is…

Gilgamesh and Enkidu (52% of the Vote)

[Congratulations for the Runner-ups, Mr. Sakamoto Ryouma and Mrs. Sakamoto Oryou, who came close with 48% of the Vote]

Thank you so much to the 502 people who voted in the final poll, as well as everyone else who participated/nominated/followed this tournament. I appreciate every single one of you and hope to see you next time I do something like this again. Until then, thanks for voting, see you whenever there’s a next time!

Letter from the Mod (Under the Cut):

Introduction:

So… uh… been a while since we talked like this, completely nervous, unprepared tournament mod to the hundreds of thousands of potential listeners and followers of the poll. Well, now that it’s over, I want to introduce myself.

Hi, you can call me Snow. I’ve been a Type-Moon fan for about a year now. I got into this series when my cousin introduced me to “Fate” and from there I started to grow on this series at an… large… unnormal… potentially problematic and unhealthy way.

“Where’d the inspiration come from?”:

When I got into Fate, the one thing that reached out to me were the characters themselves and their relationship with one another, and the more I looked into the nasuverse, the more characters that I found that I feel in love with, the more I started to hate, the more I started to have convoluted and mixed feelings towards, but the one thing I loved about most was how characters interacted with each other and how well, or unwell, they get along and nothing else can show my love and appreciation for character dynamics than the couples of Type-Moon.

The couples of Type-Moon range anywhere from being weird to comical to sad to disgusting to wholesome and even genuinely life changing, with the characters themselves having dynamic that either showed how much they pine for love, how love broke them, how love managed to fix them, or by simply how wholesome they are. When Samurai Remnant released and featured a character who loves their spouse very much that they make it their main focus in game, juxtaposed by their spouse still showing their love and devotion for them, it was the thing that eventually caused me to make this tournament in the first place (they weren’t in the tournament though, but it’s the thought that counts).

Running the Tournament:

I was completely sure that I wanted to run this tournament, but the main caveat was the fact that I never ran a tournament like this before and it became very clear, very quickly that I had no idea what I was doing (the potentially weird rules for the tournament and the delayed start times were a big red flag of this, so I’m glad we had so many people stuck around despite that).

Still, I wanted to do my best for this tournament, so I created everything myself (with my sister helping to find a tournament bracket website). And when I mean everything I mean I edited together the main banner of the blog and edited together most of the couple portraits (I got lazy and used official art for some of them, guess which ones)

What’s next?:

Honestly, I want to do another tournament sometime. Obviously not immediately since I also want time off, but I’d also want to do something else and see more people come together to vote on something we all may or may not enjoy. And while I have no ideas at the moment (if you want to give any ideas then feel free to share then through the askbox or through the submission box) but maybe this blog will go through a renovation when I figured something out, hm?

Want to see what I do?:

Well, in case you wanna follow me specifically, then you can follow my personal blog (@player-blandon) for more of my personal things or things I post about games I like sometimes. I don’t post there consistently, and when I do it’s probably, mostly, shitposts unless I’m live-blogging a game I’m playing through or (in the most recent post’s case) doodled something I wanted to share. It’s the place where I share things sometimes and hopefully it’s a place where I can talk to all of you about some stuff as well (chances are I’m going to be posting more fate and type-moon things after this tournament).

Closing Thoughts:

Honestly, this tournament was a bigger undertaking than what I originally thought, but I’m glad I did this. I consider it a learning experience.

Thank you all once again for participating in this tournament. Congratulations to the King of Heroes and his only friend for winning and good job Ryouma and Oryou for putting on a good fight. We all put in a lot in this tournament and I hope to see you all again when I do something like this again…

…until then, I’ll see you whenever I can. Goodbye everyone. See you later!

[gentle-giant-swag]

Gentle giant swag grand semifinals part 2

Kiryu Kazuma (yakuza) vs Zinnia (super lesbian animal rpg)

Propaganda under the cut

Kiryu

He is the legendary Dragon of Dojima who would do anything to make his adoptive idol daughter happy, runs a sunny orphanotrophium on the beach of Okinawa and can never forgive making children cry. He will break bones and heal hearts. He is also a giant himbo who falls for most scams he encounters and was incarcerated for ten years for a crime he did not commit, all to protect his best buddy. He has a great singing voice and loves playing with cats.

Zinnia

While she's a gigantic dragon who lives in a huge cave, she's very friendly and helps teach magic to those who wish to learn as well as preparing the party to face their ultimate challenge. She shrinks down when she has visitors in order to better accommodate them, but her initial size is shocking to many when they first meet her.

[bigandtalltales]

Hunter Black Page 153 - I Stand Corrected

What I Said Then: "The benefits of the Revenger. I love Panel Three, and the blood on Genno’s head. The follow through from last page takes this farther and farther away from the inspiration for that line I was talking about."

What I'm Saying Now: BTW, when I said "benefits of the Revenger," it didn't occur to me that readers might think that Hunter was wielding the Revenger. That's a practice sword.