Ms. /co/ 2022

The 5th edition of the annual Ms. /co/ tournament began on the 2nd of September 2022, 19:00 Eastern Standard Time. (23:00 UTC) It ended on September 11, at 19:00 EST, when the results of the final round were revealed.

The tournament was primarily hosted by NightShift Anon !!9A2duD1C25+ in the absence of other hosts like the previous Stats anon. Nominations were handled in collaboration with Fern avatarfag' !ma9qovM58k, while night shifts were ironically managed in part by newcomer Ghost' !!eh0Fgi0FQSV. Several rogue threads were made early on by a supporter of Luna Loud from The Loud House before being taken down by /co/ moderators.

The Elite Eight contestants of 2020 made their return this year: Queen Tyr'ahnee, Fang, Kim Possible, EVE, Starfire, Chel, and Jucika. Of those, three (Fang, Tyr'ahnee, and Chel) were able to advance to it again alongside five newcomers: Mrs. Brisby, ENA, Nicole Watterson, Nani Pelekai, and Shirley the Medium. This included several firsts for both Ms. /co/ and Mr. /co/lympus, including a character making Elite Eight three times (Chel); a character featured in a Don Bluth production (Mrs. Brisby), and a character debuting in an internet animation (ENA). It also tied Courage the Cowardly Dog with Looney Tunes for the series with the most amount of unique representatives in the Elite Eight, at four each, although Looney Tunes is still one ahead if Tyr'ahnee from Duck Dodgers is counted as an extension.

Continuing the trend of progressively greater nominations each year, a record number of 1422 girls appeared in the qualifier. The tournament also saw a record number of overall voters.

A large amount of controversy was stirred over NightShift's allegations of potential rigging after the third round. He alleged that seven candidates, mainly furries (Gadget Hackwrench, Tigress, Mrs. Brisby, Nicole, Karen, Judy Hopps, and Shirley) had garnered a suspicious influx of votes around the same time. These claims and his further explanations were met with mixed reactions in the following threads, with a notable amount of anons questioning either his methods or the allegations as a whole. Despite this controversy, the tournament as a whole mostly went on as usual afterwards despite some people distrusting NightShift afterwards.

The tournament ended with Fang beating Shirley the Medium by 54.9%, and NightShiftAnon declaring Shirley's second place title being revoked due to Shirley cheating both in Round 3 and the finals. This made Chel the second place winner by default.

The response by people in the afterparty threads were very mixed toward this revelation. Some proposed that Shirley, as well as Nicole and Mrs. Brisby in some cases, be pinned with an asterisk(*) similar to Spinel in the 2019 tournament in response to the alleged rigging. The asterisk was notably used by NightShift in some posts related to the three girls. Others chose to ignore or refute the accusations entirely. While debate continues over Chel and Shirley's placements, the rest of the tournament results have been near universally accepted by anons.

The trio of main characters from Ongezellig (Coco, Maya, and Mymy) were simultaneously given the Ms. Literally Who award based on replies in the threads.

Rules
Source: Stats anon's pastebin link

Some of the rules may be added, removed, or changed depending on the anons' inputs on the 2021 feedback poll.

How to nominate?

 * To nominate a character, a user must include their name, picture, and series in their post. Nominating 2 or more characters in a single post is not allowed.
 * All characters must either originate from /co/ media: Western animation and comics
 * Each valid nomination must garner at least nine (9) replies in order to qualify for the contest. These replies are only counted if they are all within a single thread, and do NOT carry over to other threads.

Eligible Nominees

 * All female /co/ characters (except those listed under "Excluded characters" shown below)
 * Any character that was allowed or has appeared in past Ms. /co/ tournaments (Grandfather Clause)
 * Characters can be any age
 * Puppets are allowed (e.g. Muppets, Sesame Street)
 * Generalization Statute: Multiple versions of the same character --- be it from various adaptations, spin-off series, or alternative universes --- are combined into a single entrant. In other words, you are voting for the entire history of that character, not just one particular iteration.
 * Example:   Zatanna (DC Comics, Young Justice, DC Super Hero Girls, etc.)
 * Character Limit: Each series can only have a maximum of three (3) girls in the main bracket. These are decided by their votes in the qualifying poll. However, there is no restriction on the number of girls that can be nominated from a single series.
 * Exceptions: Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and Disney core universe characters + related series (Mickey, Oswald, Goofy, and Donald)

Restrictions

 * Any character that is clearly not /co/ is not allowed (e.g. /a/nime and live action shows)
 * /v/ideo game characters that did not originate from /co/ media are not allowed
 * Real-life politicians that are portrayed as cartoon characters / caricatures are not allowed, satirical or otherwise.
 * No /mlp/ characters
 * No Board-tans
 * No "OC donut steels"
 * No meme creations (e.g. Virgin vs Chad)
 * One-Month Old Clause: Any character debuting from the 1st of the previous month to the start date are ineligible.
 * Which means that new cartoons or comics released from August 1, 2021 and later cannot be nominated.
 * Grandfather Clause: All characters who have previously made it into Ms. /co/ or Mr. /co/lympus tournaments, and are not banned by the Elite 8 rule, are eligible to participate regardless of the above restrictions. (Examples:  Dr. Eggman,  Saxton Hale,  JFK,  Wendy's,  Princess Zelda)

Excluded Characters
Elite Eight Rule: Characters appearing in the quarter-finals of the previous contest are not allowed to compete in this edition. They will be eligible for nomination next contest.

Jenny Rule: Ms. /co/ champions are permanently retired, and will be barred from participating in future tournaments.

Qualified
Live nomination list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TqYywLKDJzZRcsoh_hsCL1MUHUTRrJLBAW_XcYFpG8Q/edit?usp=sharing Results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CeA91C5Do9e8TPRXoaDsKwK0hkL5wgJGl-0OagKLRHY/edit#gid=2105913565 A total of 1422 characters were successfully nominated. The qualifying poll received 738 responses.

Ties are resolved by series name in alphabetical order, then character name in the same order. Only the names written on the Rentry and Google Docs are considered. Characters who appear in the bracket for the first time are labeled in bold.

Excluded by Series Limit
The following characters have enough votes to qualify for the main bracket, but are excluded due to the 3 characters per series rule. The series limit does NOT apply to DC, Marvel and Disney as a whole.

Tournament Bracket
Challonge link: https://challonge.com/fgcizphb

Round 3 rigging allegations
After the poll for the third round of the tournament had concluded, NightShift Anon !!9A2duD1C25+ began to post in the then-current thread about concerns about potential rigging. He confirmed that the "couple of characters affected" had strong campaigns that year and was worried about how the claims would potentially affect them. There were also implications that one of the characters had apparently been "cheating from the start" (revealed to be Mrs. Brisby in the after party threads). Asking how to follow up these claims, many in the thread asked for him to just reveal the characters' identities. As a result, NightShift then dropped the names of the characters he suspected of rigging: Gadget Hackwrench, Tigress, Mrs. Brisby, Nicole Watterson, Karen, Judy Hopps, and Shirley the Medium. The response to this was vicious. There was a mix of people who immediately began to deride these characters, and others who questioned NightShift's motivations against these characters. In particular, all of these characters but Karen were considered furry characters. This pattern led to theories that a dedicated furry or group of furries had planned a way to rig the polls, or even the possibility that NightShift had either ignorantly or purposefully identified voting patterns that simply pertained to how most furries might vote at this point in the tournament. Due to the latter point in particular, many users began to turn on NightShift and allege that he was stirring unnecessary controversy. Some compared this controversy to rigging allegations against Nyarlathotep/Fuhrer from Persona 2 during King of /v/ 2021, in which NightShift had hosted alongside Dominos Anon !w86bRI0tYM.

In the Round 3 thread, NightShift asked what to do next (this is now considered a universally awful decision by voters). Stating they (the hosts) could not redo the round due to a time limit imposed by the moderators of the board. He stated he could remove the unfairly winning characters, or push them on and reveal their names. Anons (most likely assumed samefags) choose to reveal the girls and push them into the next round. The narrative pushed at the time was that they would be voted out in the next round. However, voters did not know there would be several rigged candidates, and accusations began to fly.

NightShift, at the behest of the thread, chose to reveal the entire spread of votes on the latest poll and later dropped pie charts that displayed the results had the alleged rigged votes been removed. It was revealed that Mrs. Brisby and Tigress would have won regardless, but that most of the accused characters would have lost in this scenario. Gadget lost by a lot on both cases. This led to some further debates on the status of Brisby and Tigress, with some anons claiming to be "fair candidates" as a result of this compared to the others. Regardless, it was decided that the tournament would continue on as planned despite this controversy, at the behest of most in the thread. Round 4 was largely made up of further questions regarding the rigging accusations, but they mostly settled down after this point.

A few anons had petitioned to replace NightShift mid-tournament, but these claims went nowhere. The most prominent response was [Temp Anon] !vHqM1sfAlM from the infamous 2021 Tag-Team Tournament attempting a sudden coup despite warnings from the overwhelming majority of other anons, before he was promptly banned for months by /co/ moderators after his poor attempts at a separate thread and re-do of Round 3's poll. The reaction toward this was a mix of criticism and mockery, with it tanking Temp's reception even further after his amateur handling of certain aspects of said tournament. Based on polls held by other anons in the thread, the majority were still fine with NightShift remaining a host despite the controversy, whether out of agreement with the claims or just a lack of better options. He would go on to host Mr. /co/lympus 2022 with no major hassles, along with a new rule to silently removed alleged rigged votes rather than call them off after responses to a feedback question in the final poll of Ms. /co/ 2022.

ENA gender "controversy"
After she reached the Elite Eight, there were some anons who accused ENA of being transgender based on one of her various voices and that she should be disqualified as a result. Supporters of ENA would come out to strongly refute these claims with evidence, including Tweets from the character's own creator Joel Guerra. Due to these claims only coming about after ENA defeated Propane the previous round, a lot of anons began to suspect this to be a falseflagging campaign from Propane supporters. These claims would come back around to an extent during later rounds of Mr. /co/lympus 2022 with a similar song and dance, despite ENA not being a competitor in this tournament.

Gallery
See also: Character Plate, Poll Picture, and Swimsuit Round.

Thread Links

 * Google Polls Results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CeA91C5Do9e8TPRXoaDsKwK0hkL5wgJGl-0OagKLRHY/edit#gid=2105913565