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After some digging I've also found that every single one of the blogs who messaged me and left replies requesting the disqualification of the result, minus the first, was an empty sideblog with no replies to/comments on posts other than these. As a result, I'm not able to confidently trust that they're not, at least in large part, bad actors. The point being repeated by multiple of these blogs is "Lots of people are liking our replies, which means we're the majority", but with the appearance of sock-puppeting occurring, I can't take that as consensus.

Astarion/Wyll's result will stand, and I'll consider this post the final say. Any hostility in the notes - on either side - will be removed and repeat offenders will be blocked from participating further. I saw one blog with some initial hostility toward the losing ship's voters, which I believe I've removed, and a lot going the other way around from these blank blogs, but if I've missed any that should be removed please do let me know - a lot of things haven't been showing up for me today.

And remember: criticising a character or ship - or even insulting them - is not an offense. This is fiction. You can hate a character or ship as much as you like. The trouble comes when you turn your hostility toward real people, and direct it to those who vote for or support something you don't (or vice versa).

Ship Tournament, Round 2 — Match 5 / 15

Astarion/Wyll

"Much has been said about how Wyll's romance better fits what Astarion seems to truly want in a relationship, that Wyll is happy with a more chaste relationship, etc etc. But what's often missed is that Astarion is actually a fantastic match for Wyll! Wyll is self-sacrificing to an unhealthy degree, and often minimizes the abuse and trauma he's been through. Astarion, meanwhile, is much more open-eyed to what he's experienced. He's happy to choose himself when needed and pushes those he cares about to do the same. And if you play as Astarion, you're given unique dialogue options to compare Mizora and Cazador and urge Wyll away from being passive in response of how she abuses him. Astarion needs someone to teach him how to empathize with others, and Wyll needs someone to teach him to fight for himself as much as he does for others. They complete each other!"

vs. Ansur/Emperor

"THE doomed exes ship. ansur loved balduran enough to search for him, shelter him, try to save him, and then couldn’t accept what he’d become. the emperor loved him enough that killing him is still framed as this huge buried wound centuries later, even through all the mind flayer emotional repression and manipulation. it’s horrible because neither of them is uncomplicatedly “wrong” in the emotional sense? ansur sees the person he loves transformed into something he believes is a monster. the emperor sees the person he trusts most deciding that mercy means killing him. they loved each other and it still ended under the city with a dragon’s corpse and a sword in the dark. what the fuck man."

"sometimes romance is a dragon looking at the illithid wearing your lover’s memories and going “i can’t live with this” and the illithid going “i am alive, why is that not enough”"

"Is the Emperor still Balduran? Is Ansur loving him, mourning him, or rejecting him? Is the Emperor’s anger betrayal trauma or the cold self-preservation of a mind flayer? It’s messy and awful and romantic in the gothic “this ends with both of us ruined” way. Exactly what I want from a dragon and his fucked up squid ex."