straightbait tournament F.A.Q.
HEY: i am drawing free propaganda for anyone who can donate $5 or more to any of the funds or orgs in this post, such as this fund to help karam and his family rebuild their life.
where can i find the current polls?
all polls will be tagged as #straightbait tournament round (numeral), so you should be able to find current and completed polls by searching that on this blog.
you can find the updated bracket here.
round one results here.
round two results here.
rest of the faq under the cut:
what tags do you use?
#straightbait tournament round (numeral) - for polls from a specific round of the straightbait tournament.
#straightbait tournament - any post generally about the straightbait tournament.
#singles tournament round (numeral) - for polls from a specific round of the singles tournament.
#singles tournament - any post generally about the singles tournament.
#honor the fallen - posts announcing the eliminated baits from completed rounds.
#announcements - important announcements such as start and end dates for each round and other information directly related to the tournaments.
#mod talks - casual posts and most asks. if you only want to see info that is prescient to the tournament, you can block this tag.
#(ship or character names) propaganda - propaganda for individual straightbaits.
#basics - posts concerning "vital" information, like rules and faqs, although i'm pretty sure that tag is busted atm, so this faq is kind of taking the place of those posts. you can find the original rules post here.
#other tournaments - posts promoting other tournaments, in which this blog has been tagged. there are some pretty cool ones in there!
what's your policy on ties?
only a perfect 50/50 counts as a tie. if one bait is even .1% higher than another, they win. i did this because i thought it would be funny and i also want to avoid tiebreaker rounds as much as possible
do you reblog propaganda?
yes! you are free to tag me in propaganda or to send it as an ask, although i may not reblog/respond to anti-propaganda (you're free to tag me though)
what are you counting as straightbait?
the definition of straightbait in this tournament is intentionally very loose, and the poll question is also vague on purpose (is it celebratory or derogatory? who knows). i've accepted submissions with more obvious examples of "straightbait", such as cases where m/f couples are teased but never get together, or couples who seem straight but are revealed to be queer. however, i've also accepted couples where they have some kind of weird fucking thing going on that could be interpreted a number of ways but isn't straightforward canonical m/f romance, "buried straights" who die after romance is confirmed, and a number of other things. i go more into this tournament's definition of straightbait here and here. i don't believe straightbait is an actual thing i'm just having fun and being sillay
why is this couple in the tournament if they get together canonically?
see above. in most cases where this question comes up, we're talking about buried straights. if the characters in question are queer, it is straightbait at least partially by virtue of those characters not being straight. and if neither of the above, the answer you are looking for will be in the propaganda.
you're free to argue about the validity of a straightbait in the tags, amongst yourselves, or in propaganda, but please don't come to me about whether a bait should or shouldn't be in the tournament
for more on queer characters being submitted to this tournament see this post and the tags of this post
what is The Policy?
i used to rb posts that i tagged with #as per The Policy. the policy says that any time i encounter a post on my dash that is related to one of the pairs in this tournament such that it could be used as propaganda, i have to reblog it. i decided to stop doing this because i realized it just biases the tournament in favor of the media tastes of my dash lmao
how were the matchups decided?
i sorted all my submissions into popularity tiers, then randomized matchups within each tier, so characters were matched up with others of equal or similar popularity to the best of my ability. tiers were based on how many submissions a pair received and how well they did in the singles tournament. there were five or six tiers in total, although it's been long enough since i made the bracket that i do not remember the exact number. if you ask me for more details on this there is a good chance i will no longer remember hdjshkdsj
what is the singles tournament?
the singles tournament was a preliminary tournament that i ran for every pairing or character that was only submitted once, hence "singles". i only automatically qualified straightbaits with more than one submission, so i did this to allow more submissions to enter the main tournament without having to create an absolute monster of a tournament. also a chance to see your blorbo in a poll at least once, even if they didn't qualify
what should i do if you've gotten something wrong?
send me an ask or a message, or leave me a comment! if you send an ask, please specify if you want me to answer it privately, as i will answer publicly by default. although be advised if i've made a typo in a poll option or poll title, i cannot edit it
what should i call you?
i've been referring to myself as straightmod/mod, but you can also call me karinyo! i use they/them, he/him, and ze/hir











