#iersei

as a glenn fan (and probably a really vocal one when it comes to the polls on this blog haha), i'm really happy to hear the sentiment that the dndads fans have been positive parts of the competition this time around! i know what it's like to have a character you care about be insulted time and time again, and it's. disheartening. so, at least for me personally, i prefer to just continue uplifting the characters i care about and maybe even shouting out the cool things about our opponents! i feel like it makes for a more enjoyable experience for everyone.

...but you did say that it'd be okay if we were a little mean. and that this blog is fair game to be an arena of bloodshed. so if you don't mind me rambling for far too long about my thoughts on the 2025 round robin (TL;DR at the bottom it's a lot i've thought about this extensively):

you've very clearly laid out the rules and already given your opinions about creator involvement and the use of various forms of propaganda, and i'd be a hypocrite if i tried to act aghast at the idea of bribery. after all, i love to offer up art requests in exchange for votes! i love it because it's a display of passion to dedicate that time to those requests, and because it means i get to do something nice for anyone that supports one of my favorite characters! i get to convince people who otherwise wouldn't know about the tournament to be interested in my cause, and i've had some people tell me that they vote without requesting anything because they see my dedication as reason enough to vote for the character(s) i care about!

that is to say that i respect and appreciate your open acceptance of fans incentivizing voters one way or another. and i think that, by itself, the comic incentive in particular was a pretty cool bribe! it's just that, at a certain point, it became almost THE entire motivation and talking point for fans of hi nay AND for hope's hearth and see you space cowboy...

as much as i would like to not call people out directly, those creatives were such a vocal and involved part of this round robin that it'd be obvious who i'm talking about. in my most charitable of interpretations, it's just an indicator of how much these people care about the characters that they help bring to life. and as a creative myself, i'd fully understand that sentiment! but after a while, it felt less like friendly competition and moreso needlessly moralized promotional content. never anything that went against the rules but still a lot of things that left a bad taste in my mouth.

even beyond the pushing of the comic incentive on all fronts to the point that it felt less like a fun bonus and more like a carrot on a stick for the entirety of the overlapping groups of fans, it's that their status as creators made their high level of involvement and the way they talked about their series feel. different. because it wasn't just about these characters anymore. it was about these podcasts as entities. i'm all for taking opportunities to promote your projects and for small creators supporting other small creators, but when the entire argument straight from the creators' mouths boiled down to "vote for MY character BECAUSE they're from a smaller podcast"? it felt like...entitlement.

i will not deny that dndads was one of the more popular podcasts competing this year. objectively, it has a sizable listener base. though i maintain that the degree of popularity overall was overstated (dndads has an official youtube channel. its sub count isn't nothing, but it's not 9 million. quick internet search will tell you that much but whatever.) the fandom on tumblr is not in the thousands either, but it's got a presence i'll give you that. but it was still just a fandom just wanting to show appreciation for a character we care about at the end of the day. so seeing my friends having to deal with petty, almost bitter attacks on the popularity of our podcast as if it was a podcast vs podcast affair and not just fans trying to have fun on the internet really soured my experience and my opinion of those involved.

the antipropaganda too! i barely even want to respond to and dignify the comments that glenn shouldn't win polls because they thought he was white and not chinese (especially because spanks, notably so white that he has blonde hair and blue eyes, was awarded second place. like damn, if you're gonna play the race card, at least be consistent.) or because he's a man (you're allowed to not be attracted to men, but don't act like i'm an awful person for it or for wanting him to win??). because that's just a YIKES.

what i do really want to comment on is the antipropaganda about his parenting. because it sucks a little when people flatten or misinterpret a complex character that you care about, but this is the internet. it happens. and usually, i don't care. sometimes it's a fair hit! sometimes it's funny! just because i don't like to make use of anti-propaganda being allowed doesn't mean i don't think it makes for interesting engagement.

but when it's a creator making those bad faith comments? when it's someone you see touting around their own project? it does not give me confidence in the nuances of their story or about the way they engage with other stories. for example, i'm never going to be able to listen to see you space cowboy... because all that i'd be able to hear when sammy speaks is him insinuating that glenn didn't fucking love his kid enough. which sucks because i'd be willing to take that audio propaganda as all in good fun (the "well if it was MY crew" felt like a playful jab in a vacuum) if it were not for all the weird hostility that came before eroding any good faith i had for where those comments from that entire voting bloc were coming from.

the entire damn point of dndads is that NONE of the main dads are good fathers. the plot is all about these fathers grappling with their generational trauma and trying (and often failing) to learn to be better for their kids. it means a lot to me that glenn is a complex man who is grieving like hell but doesn't know how to cope with it and can't cope with it but all that he wants to do is try his best for the son that he'd do anything for. and i know that some of us echoed that sentiment because it means something to his other fans too.

so i really wish that those creators and those fans would have told me ANYTHING about their characters other than their identities. more than just "he/him butch lesbian", i would have loved to know who the hell elly was and what they mean to spanks and his role as a mentor or about any sort of depth to his character! i would have loved to know more about how husky conducts herself as a space captain or about her femme side or to see ANY of that mentioned on the polls themselves. i would have loved to know more about what horrors mari faces (i'm filipino myself! i would have wanted to know if there's specific folklore! inspiration from her heritage!) or what kind of horrors behavior she exhibits! but i'm never going to find out those things because the behavior coming from the entire fan base (not just the creators but the environment they have cultivated) has fully ruined all three of those podcasts to me and turned me away from ever listening.

i loved seeing the wolf 359 fans rally around their badass space commanders and how they could kill you! i loved hearing about how antigone is a wretched little freak, and i am SO checking out wooden overcoats later because of it holy shit she sounds so hot. the madge fans weren't super vocal, but i read through her propaganda compilation (i read through EVERYONE'S compilations) and i loved hearing about all the shenanigans she gets up to! i remember the love that fans had for pickman (even if that love was directed into vengeance later lol), and i still think that she seems like an AWESOME character! and yes, in retrospect, i even respect the energy that nightvale fans brought in 2023 where they just wanted cecil and carlos to have matching titles.

i have sympathy for the mari fans that had to watch their efforts fall before a goliath. if ANYONE knows what that's like, it's me and my friends. because those efforts by the wtnv fans meant that we lost the 2023 title, but i know that it wasn't nightvale's popularity alone that was convincing people to vote. it stung. it stung that WEEKS of hard work didn't result in that final win. it stung that i knew that their popularity was still a big reason behind it. but i know that it was never the only reason. so we picked ourselves up and tried again.

i don't think anybody is allowed to say that we didn't fucking want this and want it bad. that we didn't try. that we didn't do it out of love. because trying to dismiss the significance of the efforts of my fellow fans? trying to paint yourself as an utter victim to the big bad popular podcast? it's insulting. it's disappointing. it's just plain sad. and i have no sympathy for that.

vote whichever way you want! do whatever you can to support characters you love because whatever strategies you use are your perogative! winning is awesome and losing can suck when you're invested, but all this was supposed to be was a silly competition for fans to have fun. i just wish it stayed that way.

TL;DR: i have no problem with the rules allowing creator involvement or antipropaganda or bribery. it's that the attitudes that some creators and fans brought to the round robin explicitly took away from discussion about the characters and moved it to almost solely be about popularity, thus dismissing the involvement and feelings of other fans and making for a less fun event overall.

(I went back and forth about publishing this but ultimately I wanted to because I agree with a lot of this, but I need everyone to be cool and not send antagonistic messages to each other. Ultimately the only difference between this ask and some I posted in 2023 about how people were turned off of DnDads because of the fandom response is that there were then more DnDads fans than people this ask is referencing, so people weren't as identifiable from an ask. But also I know in 2023 I got asks complaining about specifically iersei offering art, even though I've always been open about thinking art bribes are cool.)

Honestly yeah, I did not like doubling down on both propaganda and anti-propaganda that were based solely on the size of the podcast, let alone the status of individual members of a podcast. It wasn't fun and it wasn't an argument anyone could win, because there are always smaller podcasts out there.

And I put out the full brackets so people can game it if they want, because games are fun! I know some tournament blogs keep the bracket secret so people can't be strategic with their vote, but when Round 1 dropped for a different blog I was trying to game it for a specific Round 4 match-up. But as poll runner I found it less fun when creators/fans purposefully threw a match or two so that another character would win, especially when the reward was a bribe and not mere bragging rights or a different match-up they were trying to set up.

I do prefer people talking about the characters, and anti-propaganda is only fun when it is true. There were a couple of instances this year, in both the 2024 Bracket and 2025 Round Robin when people made dismissive anti-propaganda statements about characters that I knew weren't true, and I haven't listened to most of these podcasts so who knows what people said that I missed!

It's hard to write effective propaganda without falling back on shortcuts. Y'all watch me fail at this quite frequently when I reblog other polls. It is way easier to ask for a vote and give a reason (because x identity, because means y to me) than it is to make an argument for why a character is genuinely more of z trait than their opponent. (I can't explain why Clementine Kesh is more pathetic than Harrowhark because I don't know Harrowhark and the most I remember of Clementine is from a very very spoilery part of her life. But you should vote for Clementine anyways because Friends at the Table means a lot to me and The Locked Tomb wins enough polls on Tumblr. I am utterly sincere and also this is obviously a bad argument that isn't even endearing. (The only other part of Clementine's story I remember is that she is in chronic pain from a botched surgery and while chronic pain sometimes makes me feel pathetic, that would be horrific for me to use as evidence.))

me, several hours later having read it all in one sitting: 🧍‍♂️

My EVIL and NEFARIOUS plan has worked once again!!!!

is da joker still the main persona or is it more evenly split? and which is your favorite rogue for hermie to play as?? :0

HI SEI HIIII !!!

hmmmm da joka is a classic, however i am looking at a more even split between the rogues! i also want to tweak the plot pacing to allow for more time dedicated to exploring each of the different villains, since there’s so much potential for themes and jokes to be had. by nature of how im shifting hermie’s origin i have clayface slated as the “main” persona simply because that’s how hermie is able to shift into all his others! however like i said i want an even split for story purposes lol

in terms of FAVORITE rogue… selfishly i would say poison ivy bc that one involves my beloved erin o’niel <3 however when it comes to themes i REALLY like clayface simply because of how it allows me to focus on HERMIE and his emotional arc as well as its logistical function!