Behind the Scenes

Introduction
Hello, everyone. I'll be using this blog post as a place to post some information on my thought process while writing the 400th Games as well as revealing some things that could have happened but didn't. In short, this is a look behind the closed doors of my mind...That sounded funny.

#10 301st Games My biggest qualm about the 301st is just how basic it is. There's not really much that makes it unique or sets it apart from any other Games on the wiki, and that fact is what has me ranking it so low. It does have some great tributes and interesting mutts, but there's not any plot point that really grabs me and the Victor's story and motivation is perhaps too formulaic. While I still like these Games, I don't quite like them as much as the others on the list.

#9 300th Games The 300th are obviously written worse than any of my other Games and that in itself is one reason why I'm ranking it at #9. I've talked about these above, so I'm just going to reuse my quote up there; "the 300th has some serious flaws and poor characterization for several of the tributes. But it's also a fun romp with some interesting characters, a couple nice surprises, and most importantly, laid the groundwork for the series as a whole." Another thing about the 300th (and what has me ranking it higher than the 301st) is that it's very unique. While some of the twists didn't quite pan out, they did succeed in setting these Games apart from any other.

#8 326th Games This ranking will probably surprise some people. The 326th is probably best known for the rivalry between Doug and Frade, and while that is undeniably a huge strength of these Games, I can't help but feel that it is also a weakness. That rivalry and plot point overshadows pretty much every other storyline to the point that there basically is no other storyline. All of the tributes, with the exception of Train and Philo, are pulled into the conflict and more than a few of them are killed off to further the plot. I'll speak more about this when the re-read reaches the 326th, but I wish that I could have done more with some of the characters here. Something that I really like about the Games, however, is the tributes themselves and how I made each side sympathetic, even with most of the Hellraisers being...well, insane.

#7 401st Games I don't know what it is about the 401st, but something about them just doesn't click with mw. Since finishing them I've actually only reread it once and I came away feeling oddly disappointed. Still, I really enjoy the tributes themselves and their storylines. Takeko and Carey's story in particular was one I always wanted to try and pull off. The Nahual was also really fun and interesting for me. Fun fact: Topher was initially just going to be the Nahual in disguise from Day One, which is why he lies to Zamara about that. I changed my mind on this before the Games began, however, because I wanted to at least try and introduce the Nahual beforehand and give some exposition on it. Honestly, I wish I had just gone with my original plan. That way Topher's storyline would have had a better ending. Also, I got totally sidetracked there, didn't I?

#6 325th Games I really like the 325th and the way it changed the series. There's so many great characters here and story moments that I love. However, because there is so many characters I feel that too many of them are underutilized. Still, that's a great "problem" to have, all things considered. Some things probably aren't as sharp as they could be, but I love the arenas and the mutts contained within. The finale is also something I find surprisingly disappointing; it might just be the weakest finale in the entire series.

#5 400th Games These Games are huge. Really, really huge. It's almost impossible for me to break them down in just one go, so I won't try to go too in-depth here. There's so much story going on here that it boggles my mind that I actually managed to succeed with these. The reason I have them ranked at #5, though, is because every time I think of these I remember that I still haven't finished War of the Hunger Games. WotHG is so connected with these that in my mind that I can't help but think of the 400th as unfinished, even though they are. This is just a personal issue I have as the writer of the Games and probably not something the rest of you face.

#4 302nd Games I really love the 302nd, even if they haven't aged so well. But all of the characters, plots, and twists are done in a way I just enjoy and the finale especially is something that I truly like.

#3 327th Games

#2 398th Games

#1 399th Games

Josef Wilder: 9 (400th) Anais Morrisa: 8 (399th) Silve Wisp : 7 (401st) Ice Hunts: 6 (301st) Austin Aitken: 6 (327th) Topaz Grace: 5 (302nd) Thalia Combe: 5 (325th) Dragon Lord: 5 (327th) Buck Rockwell: 5 (398th) Watt Powers: 5 (400th)

300th

Male: 9

Female: 11

Mutts: 1

Arena Hazards: 2

301st

Male: 20

Female: 5

Mutts: 2

302nd

Male: 7

Female: 14

Mutts: 5

Arena Hazards: 1

325th

Male: 22

Female: 26

Mutts: 3

Arena Hazards: 1

326th

Male: 16

Female: 9

Arena Hazards: 2

327th

Male: 28

Female: 18

Mutts: 5

Gamemakers: 1

398th

Male: 16

Female: 7

Mutts: 6

Escaped: 2

399th

Male: 13

Female: 13

Mutts: 2

Arena Hazards: 1

Escaped: 2

400th

Male: 39

Female: 28

Mutts: 1

Arena Hazards: 3

Natural Cause: 1

Peacekeepers: 1

Those Who Don’t Exist: 1

401st

Male: 13

Female: 15

Mutts: 3

Total Series Kill Count

Male: 183

Female: 146

Mutts: 32

Arena Hazards: 10

Gamemakers: 1

Natural Cause: 1

Peacekeepers: 1

Those Who Don’t Exist: 1

— District 1: 48

District 2: 24

District 3: 18

District 4: 30

District 5: 26

District 6: 19

District 7: 27

District 8: 35

District 9: 10

District 10: 13

District 11: 6

District 12: 16

District 13: 14

District 14: 10

District 0: 8

The Capitol: 19

Training Scores

1: 2

2: 8

3: 12

4: 24

5: 35

6: 40

7: 62

8: 83

9: 56

10: 29

11: 20

12: 4

PoV Count

Remus: 3

Mercia: 1

Valor: 1

Alcmene: 1

Atticus: 1

Lilith: 1

Zekel: 2

Talia: 1

Mako: 1

Marina: 1

Faren: 3

Opal: 1

Maximo: 1

Teal: 3

Killen: 1

Yewan: 0

Notcher: 2

Aiku: 1

Harmon: 1

Discordia: 2

Damian: 1

Briar: 2

Chrome: 1

Shiloh: 0

Matiss: 1

Kia: 1

Solomon: 2

Lucia: 2

The training period has come to an end! Training Scores & Odds will go up tomorrow, then the four Pre-Games POVs will either be done on Thursday or Friday. After those are up the first advice period will begin. But before any of that, here is the first set of questions for these Games!

1) Which tribute(s) do you currently like the most? (Excluding your own)

2) Which alliance is currently your favorite?

3) Which tribute(s) do you wish to see featured more?

4) As of right now, who do you want to win the competition and become President?

5) How many tributes do you think will die at the bloodbath?

Roscoe: Solomon, Chrome, & Marina

Rozlyn: Kia, Mako, & Lilith

Dimentio: Opal, Aiko, & Alcmene

Aurilee: Remus, Faren, & Harmon

Escortius: Valor, Atticus, & Zekel

Erevan: Damian, Teal, & Discordia

Nedry: Killen, Matiss, & Notcher

Unclaimed: Lucia, Maximo, Talia, Shiloh, Yewan, Mercia, & Briar

District 1 Male: Elvis Alexander (300) -1 Dragon Lord (301) 2 Cole Harrison (325) 0 Karma Blood (325) 1 & Warwickite Jewelly (326) 3

District 1 Female: Astrid Bellia (300) 1 Diamond Coman (301) 4 Raven Armor (302) 1 Skylar Windbreeze (325) 0 Artemis Grace (325) 1 & Kate Willis (326) 0

District 2 Male: Johnny Clarke (300), Damian Weatherby (301), Drewsiff Bloodwonky (302) -2 Yuki Kokyu (325) 3 Hatch Scright (325) 5 & Jeffrey Killheart (326) -3

District 2 Female: Bethany Clarke (300), Pansy Costello (301), Onyx Eboni (302) 3 Chloe Black (325) 0 Teresa Silver (325) -1 & Ella Massey (326) 4

District 3 Male: Noah Everest (300) -1 Courage Blitz (302) 3 Elecc Commission (325) 6 Chip Parks (325) -4 & Rebel Groots (326) 1

District 3 Female: Di Thorn (300) -2 Bethunia Underium (301), Syren Song (302) 0 Elecctronny Watson (325) 0 Vision Faith (325) 0 & Watt Chargy (326) 6

District 4 Male: Flick Rivers (300th) -1 Cody Freshwater (301st) 0 Trident Bekke (302nd) 3 Giller McFish (325th) -1, Wayne Defleckt (325th) 0 & Ryan Marine (326th) 3

District 4 Female: Kaylay Netter (300) -2 Wari Oceani (301), Swatty Lakeside (302) 2 Nymph Mere (325) 1 Fressa Saltie (325) 4 & Seafoam Majesty (326) -1

District 5 Male: Trenton Powers (300) 1 Watt Powers (301), Tameo Arghus (302) -1 Kodai Hitogoroshi (325) 6 Sebastian Hive (325) -5 & Philo Ventus (326) 2

District 5 Female: Allie Costigan (300), Swift Twirpshkin (301) -2 Trick Treat (302) 6 Allana Darkbloom (325) 1 & Bonnie Cougar (326) -2

District 6 Male: Cosmo Fyngelli (300), Xavier Woods (301) -1 Illegal Drugs (302) -3 Zak Slaughter (325) 4 Wolbert Toonico (325) 1, & Train McBridge (326) 3

District 6 Female: Belladonna Saware (300) -1 Luna Fern (301) Bluffy Silvestein (302) 2 Mimic Slaughter (325) 3 Eleith Lightstorm (325) 0 & Blondie Genesis (326) -2

District 7 Male: Ransom Overman (301) -1 Wocky Oak (302) 2 Shade Spectrus (325) 4 & Frade Spectrus (326) -1

District 7 Female: May-Ann Hunter (300) 1 Nastya Gushkin (301st), Willow Firethorn (302nd) 3 Maple Leavestruck (325th) 1 Chumps Harvaria (325th) 1 & Voolia Kelopi (326th) 0

District 8 Male: Nick Kobarg (300) 0 Josef Wilder (301), Dome Citadel (302) 5 Jax Griffin (325) 1 Tot Tenham (325) -2 & Yuri Collins (326) 0

District 8 Female: Coco Joansi (300), Cashmere Prada (301) 0 Freya Prada (302) 1 Galina Von Dover (325) 2 Catalina Tweed (325) 2 & Odessa Garnetstone (326) -1

District 9 Male: Eli Dawn (300) 0 Mark Haulk (301) -2 Hunther Hayes (302) 0 Jake Price (325) 5 Folly Rover (325) -1 & Tito Granso (326) 0

District 9 Female: Plasma Perimen (300) -1 Perrie Grain (301) -1 Varina Tapora (302) 3 Layla Twozone (325) 2 & Vera Luchabra (326) 2

District 10 Male: Morolith Dmitry (300), Bronco Bagwell (301), Vlad Rockford (302) 2 Alec Cohen (325) 0 Kwarts Diodin (325) 2 & Alex Lexys (326) 1

District 10 Female: Gracie King (300) 1 Seeker Amaryllis (301) 1 Ellis Blackberry (302) 2 Alecia Cohen (325) -3 Vivan Incomstanti (325) 3 & Cassie Lexys (326) -1

District 11 Male: Wess Cornstob (300th) -2 Darker Horrfi (301st) 3 Shimdt Raspberry (302nd) 1 Trent Korey (325th) 3 Seez Croppley (325th), & Zippy Oakster (326th) -2

District 11 Female: Mondi Bakerman (300) 3 Flow’r Raspberry (301) 1 Rasp Southern (302), Flora Sapsling (325) -1 Eva Destiny (325) 1 & Flippy Twinmind (326) 0

District 12 Male: Gogh Lizta (300) 1 Exolian Dynamite (301) 4 Knight Castle (302) 0 Jack Cayman (325) 1 & Julian (325) -3

District 12 Female: Amaryllis Silvermoon (300) 1 Regina Victorious (301) -3 Mina Ebony (302), Salem Calla (325) 1 Thalia Combe (325) 0 & Steammie Pic (326) 5

District 13 Male: Ice Hunts (301) 3 Aeron Ashkyn (302), Harley Swoop (325) 1 & Douglas Biles (326) 0

District 13 Female: Saidy Dauntless (301) -2 Kiara Mitchell (302), Violetta Nobel (325) 1 Piper Quinn (325) 4 & Jenessa Whitten (326) -1

Capitol Male: Ramon Constancy (301) 3 Avian Monte (302) -1 Josool Wiranda (325) 0, Dexter Malon (325) -1 & Olympic Oblado (326) 2

Capitol Female: Shervert Wonkalandia (301) -1 Cassandra Oracion (301) 1 Flawra Moonshadow (325), Amelia Puregold (325) -1 Isolde Blair (326) 6

302nd

Courage: 8 Swatty: 7 Dome: 7 Topaz: 6 Freya: 6 Bluffy: 5 Wocky: 5 Syren: 4 Trick: 3 Hunther: 3 Varina: 3 Willow: 3 Aeron: 3 Kiara: 3 Cassandra: 3 Raven: 2 Ellis: 2 Shimdt: 2 Onyx: 2 Drewsiff: 1 Trident: 1 Tameo: 1 Vlad: 1 Rasp: 1 Knight: 1 Mina: 1 Avian: 1 Illegal: 0

325th

Mist: 10 Hazel: 7 Missy: 6 Piper: 6 Josool: 6 Galina: 5 Electronny: 5 Wolbert: 5 Harley: 5 Acheron: 4 Elecc: 4 Chip: 4 Fressa: 4 Shade: 3 Cole: 3 Chumps: 3 Tot: 3 Chloe: 3 Teresa: 3 Vision: 3 Giller: 3 Dexter: 3 Sebastian: 3 Jake: 3 Karma: 2 Nymph: 2 Kwartz: 2 Vivan: 2 Thalia: 2 Violetta: 2 Amelia: 2 Hatch: 2 Mimic: 2 Trent: 2 Jax: 2 Eva: 2 Alec: 1 Alecia: 1 Yuki: 1 Wayne: 1 Allana: 1 Zak: 1 Eleith: 1 Maple: 1 Catalina: 1 Folly: 1 Jack: 1 Salem: 1 Kodai: 0 Layla: 0 Seez: 0 Flora: 0 Julian: 0 Flawra: 0 Skyler: 0 Artemis: 0

326th

Charce: 8 Doug: 7 Train: 6 Watt: 6 Ella: 6 Frade: 5 Philo: 4 Jenessa: 4 Ryan: 4 Alex: 4 Olympic: 3 Odessa: 3 Warwickite: 3 Vera: 3 Cassie: 3 Kate: 3 Rebel: 3 Isolde: 2 Seafoam: 2 Blondie: 2 Voolia: 2 Tito: 2 Bonnie: 1 Yuri: 1 Zippy: 1 Flippy: 1 Steammie: 1 Jeffrey: 0

327th

Austin: 10 Soot: 8 Rufus: 7 Ryan: 7 Annabeth: 6 Shade: 6 Hybrid: 6 Cassandra: 5 Courage: 5 Percy: 5 Dome: 5 Augusta: 4 Train: 4 Marcia: 4 Watt: 3 Wario: 3 Alissa: 3 Zia: 3 Darker: 3 Varina: 3 Dawn: 3 Blade: 2 Dragon: 2 Willow: 2 Cashmere: 2 Alicia: 2 Vlad: 2 Twix: 2 Vivan: 2 Swatty: 2 Glique: 1 Kodai: 1 Woody: 1 Mimic: 1 Jake: 1 Hunter: 1 Bella: 1 Gloom: 1 Daisy: 1 Exolian: 1 Ice: 1 Kingsley: 1 Piper: 1 Celia: 1 Ramon: 1 Dusk: 1 Trick: 0 Evelyn: 0 Mondi: 0 Astrid: 0 Julius: 0 Hatch: 0 Jerica: 0 Ella: 0 Amaryllis: 0 Rio: 0

398th

Solar: 9 Buck: 8 Aisha: 8 Shuppet: 6 Aelia: 6 Raven: 5 Banette: 5 Luigi: 5 Crimson: 5 Celica: 5 Odin: 3 Johnathan: 3 Nikki: 3 Drago: 3 Furcifer: 3 Fiora: 2 Stephen: 2 Radiant: 2 Angel: 2 Amore: 2 Juline: 2 Trinity: 2 Trevor: 2 Aemillia: 2 Scarlet: 2 Nick: 1 Lyman: 1 Cleopatra: 1 Zoey: 1 Avia: 1 Sombra: 0 Lucinda: 0

399th

Azalea: 8 Anais: 7 Ganta: 7 Jake: 7 Fawn: 6 Jac: 6 Amaya: 5 Colin: 5 Luxio: 4 Iris: 4 Rosalie: 4 Bellamy: 4 Henry: 3 Fenrir: 2 Bailey: 2 Arbor: 2 Carmine: 2 Aspen: 2 Octavia: 2 Kaye: 2 Mizu: 2 Clark: 2 Missy: 1 Julio: 1 Billy: 1 Misty: 1 Alexandrite: 1 Luxray: 1 Hammer: 0 Kim: 0

400th

Solar: 7 Todd: 2 Aelia: 9 Rosalina: 2 Elvis: 4 Cole: 3 Cullinan: 2 Jake: 3 Anissa: 3 Trinity: 1 Rodeo: 0 Luigi: 0 Pansy: 1 Ena: 2 Carmine: 3 Chloe: 5

District 1: 6

District 2: 3

District 3: 14

District 4: 6

District 5: 5

District 6: 9

District 7: 8

District 8: 13

District 9: 6

District 10: 2

District 11: 3

District 12: 5

District 13: 6

District 14: 3

District 0: 5

The Capitol: 6

Trick and Stario die in training
The idea of having a tribute die before even reaching the arena has always been a situation I wanted to happen. And oddly enough, Trick was usually involved. Back in her first Games, the 302nd, I had the idea of her killing a tribute in training. I didn't end up pursuing this idea because I wanted Trick in the actual arena and I could think of no way how she wouldn't be executed for defying the Capitol's rules. So that plan was scrapped. However, the idea resurfaced in the 327th Games, were I was perfectly willing to have Trick die before the actual Games began. I encountered another problem, when I wondered why Trick would kill someone and put her own life at risk. She's insane, but not stupid. The Games itself would offer plenty of opportunity for killing, so she wouldn't need to risk herself for one early kill. Also, having the Capitol execute her wouldn't have the desired effect. I mean, everyone would be glad that a bloodthirsty monster was killed, and the Capitol wouldn't exactly come off as villainous. So the idea died, just lingering in my mind until the 400th Games, where I finally found an opportunity to implement it. Trick scaring someone into prematurely killing her was a perfectly reasonable thing to happen. Plus, I'm rather fond of how I pulled the scene off. I think waiting to use the idea paid off.

Triple Cornucopia's
When I first came up with the idea of what the arena should be, I didn't have the notion of there being three bloodbaths in my head. Originally, I was just going to have there be one giant cornucopia where every tribute would engage in a massive bloodbath. I had a few problems with this idea though: 1) It would be confusing to write. I'd need to keep tabs on ninety different tributes running around a single cornucopia. That would get messy and chaotic, if not just plain confusing. 2) I wanted the different locales of the arena to come into play sooner. If everyone just started at one cornucopia (which would have been located at the shrine, by the way) it'd take a few days for everyone to spread out into the different zones. That would have been less interesting, I think. 3) All of the alliance's would be together. This wasn't exactly a problem, but I just thought that things would me much, much more interesting if all the alliance's were split. It would offer some very intriguing storyline situations and I just knew that I needed to try and pursue these.

The Bloodbath goes as planned
Usually when I pre-plan the bloodbath, there's a death or two that end up being cut from the actual writing. Sometimes this is because of advice, other times I just change my mind. That didn't happen this time. Everyone I planned on dying in the bloodbath died. That's not to say I have some regrets. Mizu was someone I kinda wished had survived, just because of how she'd operate in the Games. Then again, I do feel that her death had a poignant effect on Amaya and how she interacted with her allies in the future.

Fressa Dies Early
When I wrote Fressa's death, I anticipated it would be considered the most surprising of them all. Not just because everyone knew she was destined to become a Victor of the 325th Games, (You can find out more on her page) but also because how unimportant it seemed. An arrow hits her in the chest and she dies. That's all. No fancy monologue, no big action scene, just an arrow hitting her. It did serve a purpose though; There was a reason why I had Josef take out Trent, Sheol, and Fressa, all very strong tributes, with such relative ease. And that was to show how big of a threat he could really be. Not that it was the only reason. No, I didn't just kill her to make another character look strong. I also didn't have much of a storyline for her to follow. She was a known betrayer, and while I could use that to great effect, she'd need an active mentor to make any such big decision. Trident and Chloe's brewing story also cut into what I had planned with her, leaving me with a difficult choice. Should I wait to see where she'd fit into a new story arc? Or should I use her to bolster a on-going one? I made a choice. One that may have surprised many.

Kaneki Meets Rufus
Okay, time to admit something. Rufus was a tribute that I really, really wanted to have involved in these Games. But since he didn't get voted in, I had thought that his time with the series was over...Then I remembered Kaneki and his ability to see spirits.

I was a bit worried that I hadn't developed Kaneki and his ability very much up to this point. He has only one PoV before this moment, and it was rather short. Would everyone understand he could see ghosts? I didn't exactly explain it well, mostly because I didn't want to just retell his backstory, something that I (perhaps wrongly, perhaps not) assumed everyone had already read. No one complained about it being confusing though, so I think it turned out fine.

Having him converse with Rufus felt like a good first real look at his abilities. It showed off a recognizable face, and made Kaneki's fear of his own gift well-known. Also, it revealed a different side of Rufus. He was willing to help Kaneki, even if it was only because he had nothing else to do. And was that fear in Rufus' eyes when he spoke of the demon? Rufus had never shown fear in the series before, so I thought it would give a decent idea on how dangerous this demon was. And let me tell you; it is very, very dangerous. Something that will become clear later in the Games...

Wess Dies From Dehydration
I always want there to be more natural deaths in the Games, and what I mean by that is having people die from dehydration and exposure and stuff like that. I don't implement it much, mostly because it's not very exciting and sponsors usually bail a tribute out before they reach a critical point, but I try to make it happen when I can. It's not realistic for everyone to just get killed by another tribute, so deaths like Wess' make perfect sense. Especially when you're in a desert with just an axe.

Banette and Johnathan Attack the Cornucopia
This is an interesting PoV. I really liked how I wrote it out, making it one of my personal favourites of the day. Dylan surrenders, and then Banette and Johnathan have to figure out what to do with him. You could argue for either side here, and both would be adequate solutions. If you kill him, like Banette wanted, then you remove a threat while getting yourself supplies. And you risk becoming a soulless monster. If you do as Johnathan dictates, you spare the guy and still keep your soul and supplies. At risk of him coming back for vengeance. They choose to spare him, the opposite decision Aisha chose later in the day. That could prove to be very interesting later in the Games...

Watt Speaks with Axiom
This is the set-up PoV for Watt's story arc. It gives her a motivation and a reason for investigating things that are happening. Even if, as we learn later, Axiom is manipulating her. And about that; There's a fair share of foreshadowing in his PoV. First off, Axiom is just wandering around the courtyard, looking nervous. Yet when he speaks with Watt, his nerves completely disappear and he tells her that he needed her help. As you can tell, he purposely wandered in, hoping that Watt would encourage him to speak with her. That way, it would be less suspicious when he brought up the secret files.

Secret files that he never read. Axiom is perfectly capable of hacking into the mainframe, he merely didn't need to because he already had access to the information. He also did not disable the cameras, though he was capable of doing so.

Finally, the biggest hint that Axiom gives is probably the hardest to notice. At the end of their conversation, he says that they could really take an evil "entity" down. He doesn't say the Capitol, he says a rather vague word that just implies he's speaking about the Capitol. Well, as we learned later, he was referring to Those Who Don't Exist.

Josef Takes Out an Entire Alliance
I've always wanted to write a PoV like this. One where a single tribute takes out an entire alliance with their stealth and cunning. I never quite found the right spot for it before now, but I think I pulled it off well here. Josef made for quite the deadly killer and the trio of Marlon, Ashley, and Amira I didn't have any real plans for. It didn't help that Marlon's and Ashley's mentors sent literally no advice for them. Amira was different, as I actually felt like she could have lasted a bit longer in the Games. Still, she wound up dead...

Introduction
Hello, everyone. This new blog series is something that I've always wanted to do, and now I've finally decided to do it. In this series, I will be rereading my entire series (in chronological order) and offering my thoughts and opinions on what I've written. There will be talk of things that I may have done differently and explanations as to why I did some things. Feel free to reread these games alongside me as I take a trip into the history of this series. And now, without any further talk, I will get right into it.

Training
Before I get started, here's a link to the Games in question. http://thehungergames.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:LightStone123/The_300th_Annual_Hunger_Games

First off, I should probably give some backstory that led to these Games creation.

I first heard about the Hunger Games when they began advertising the movie (yes I was pretty late to the party) and I decided to go get the first book and after finishing it got the other two. (Personally I thought the first one was absolutly brilliant, the second was good while the third was just "meh")

Anyways, I then found THG Wiki (I kinda don't remember how...) and I also somehow found the Games people made. (I know the first one I joined was dedejacobs') and eventaully I saw Cloveismywife 225th Games which I read, but didn't have a Tribute in. I really liked how it seemed more...like a story I guess and had more depth to the characters then some of the other Games I had patricipated in. This inspired me to try and do the same thing myself, which why on October 22nd, 2012 I decided to create the 300th Annual Hunger Games, which, as it would turn out, would be the progenitor of this entire series. −

Oh, man. My writing here is absolutely atrocious. Okay, well, maybe it's not that bad, especially considering that back in the time these were made, Games weren't written anywhere close to as good as they are now. Other than for a few select writers most of the games were actually of the same quality as these (or lower. Much lower). Still, I cringe when I read it now. But I also have a twinge of pride, seeing how much I have improved since then.

It's interesting to see that I didn't do any Reapings for these Games. They're the only games I've written in the series that doesn't feature Reapings. At the time these were written, I actually thought that Reapings were pointless. It wasn't long before I abandoned that way of thinking.

Now, onto the actual content of the games. It just drops you right into things, doesn't? You really have no idea who any of these characters are, or why you should care about them. But once again, that was the way of the era. And the result of having no reapings.

Rereading the first PoV, I'm reminded how much I hate Nick Kobarg. Not as a writer, but as a reader. The dude is crazy, but the realistic kind. I've seen people just like him in real life, people who are insanely possessive of other people, and it annoys me. You don't own that person, so stop. Just stop. Also, foreshadowing for his death here. Flick kills him in the bloodbath, just like he said he would.

The second PoV features one of my favorite quotes from this games.

''I shrug and watch the 7 boy swing an axe and send a dummies head flying across the room. He’s extremely muscular, but also hairy. I briefly wonder what would happen if someone set him on fire.''

That is hilarious. Not the idea of Edmund burning, but the fact that that Wess was wondering such a thing. Also...I just realized that I sung the praises of something I myself wrote. I hope that doesn't come off as egotistical or something. It's certainly not my intent.

Also, I have no idea who Tom is or why he lied about volunteering for Wess. See, this is the kind of things that happen when you don't have a reaping! (I jest. Mostly).

I...really don't have any thoughts on the third and final PoV of the trainings first day. It's just Morolith sitting around and examining his competition during lunch. I think I have a PoV like this in every Games training, where one character sits around and watches others. It gives a good look at all the tributes from outside their own heads, seeing their weaknesses and strengths, while also showing what the PoV character thinks about them. Wow. I said I had little thoughts on this, but look at the size of this paragraph! I guess I did have some thoughts.

Onto the first PoV of the second day of training. I can't tell if Plasma is supposed to be funny or annoying. And I don't remember which way I was trying to write her. She at least has an unique personality, which let's her stand out to the reader. It's never said in text (I think?), but Cosmo aligned with her because he saw her strength of will and sheer stubbornness as a positive.

Once again, I don't really have much thoughts for this PoV. I like how Noah is the small, smart guy, while Eli is the big, brawny dude. It makes a nice alliance.

I had totally forgot that Trenton had tried to get into the Careers. Is it ever mentioned again? I don't remember. I guess I'll see. Also, I showed off the parallels between him and Morolith here, setting the stage for their battle at the bloodbath.

Onto day three of training. Wait, day three? Yes, day three. I used to have three days of training until...I actually don't remember which Games I stopped doing three in. The 327th, I think? I don't know. Don't quote me on that.

The Careers decide that they will choose their leader based on who gets the highest training score. As the writer, I had chosen Elvis to be their leader from the very start, thus, I knew he'd get the highest score. But what would they have done if there was a tie? I imagine that it would have resulted in a fractured alliance (as happens later) with half supporting Elvis and the others supporting Flick.

Ugh. Nick. Just go away, please! I don't think that I even hated him while writing these. It's just something that's sprung up after these Games were finished.

Why did Amaryliss volunteer for the games? I don't know. And neither does the reader. Thanks, no reapings! (Seriously, I need to stop harping on that. It's perfectly fine to not have any.) Also, foreshadowing for Garcie's death. (which was the first of the Games)

''I spin around and see the 10 girl beaming at us. Why is she so jolly? Doesn’t she know she’ll be dead soon?''

I usually don't decide who'll die in the bloodbath before I'm actually writing it (or at least before I get the advice) but Gracie I decided would die pretty early on. Partially because her mentor wasn't active, but also because I wanted to kill the happy, optimist girl first to show that the Games were serious and I meant business.

And as a final thought: In these games, I often referred to tributes that the PoV characters didn't know personally as things like 7 boy and 10 girl. It's realistic, because not everyone would bother learning everyone's name. But it was also harder for the reader to remember who was who, which is why I end the trend later in the series. Sometimes realism needs to be ditched for accessibility.

And that will wrap things up for this time. Next up, I'll discuss the actual bloodbath of these games, and the twist that governs said bloodbath. Until then...

Cheers!

The Bloodbath
And onto the next part of the Games, which is actually where the Games begins. But before I discuss the bloodbath itself, I will give my thoughts on the twist. These Games were a quell, after all. But before I say anything, here's a reminder as to what the twist was.

''These Games will have a twist, which is that there will be no traditional Bloodbath at the beginning of the Games, instead the Tributes will be divided into pairs and they will then be raised into a location in the Arena that is different then all other pairs. Between each of the pairs’ platforms will be three pedestals that each holds one item. The centre pedestal will always hold a weapon that varies between what two Tributes are competing. One of the side pedestals will also always hold a backpack that contains a Canteen of Water, a loaf of Bread, and one other item. And the final pedestal may contain anything, ranging from an extra weapon to more water/food or something entirely different. This is like a normal Bloodbath but with just the two-paired Tributes by each other, they may either fight, run for supplies and/or fight, or simply run away depending on their personal preference.''

So, there you have it. I originally decided that I would use this twist because I wanted something that would set me apart from all the other games going on at the time. There were quite a lot of them, and back then it wasn't too uncommon to not completely fill out your tribute slots. So I went for this twist, which was unique to my games. Also, I had actually used a setup like this for an original story of mine before, and I thought it would work well here too.

The twist was fine for the time and it gave some interesting matchups, but looking back at it now, I can't help but feel it was lacking. I mean, this was the 300th Games, and there had been a lot of quells by that time. But the quell for this one had to make the Capitol citizens feel...underwhelmed. I mean, other than for the very beginning (and the second arena twist, but I'll discuss that later) this quell effected very little of the games themselves. While it was a fine twist, it actually impacted the Games in the most minimal way possible.

If I could go back, I certainly wouldn't change it, but I think that I would add something more to these Games. Another twist. I don't know what it would be, but something that would give the Games more of an identity.

Then again, these were my first Games, and perhaps they're better off the way they are, no?

Now for the actual bloodbath itself.

The first matchup was Elvis vs. Edmund. The two biggest threats in the Games by far. Edmund thinks that by choosing a sword as the main weapon that the Gamemakers had purposely set this up for Elvis to win. Well, that's wasn't actually the case. They just wanted a good battle between the two of them, both who were very deadly.

Bethany gets paired with Gracie, which has to be the most unfair matchup of the twelve. Gracie really has no chance in a fight here, so the Gamemakers decided to supply them with Gracie's main weapon, a whip. I already mentioned how Gracie was doomed to die, but now I should point out how she died. By being strangled. It's an odd, bloodless death, and I purposely chose it for that reason. It's so vicious and calculated, strangling someone to death. It wasn't done in the heat of the moment, it was done on purpose with clear intent to kill. This was a choice I made to show that the tributes wouldn't pull punches. Also, it showed off that Bethany really isn't very nice.

Cosmo vs. Astrid. Astrid's nickname was Astro (though no one ever called her that). Cosmo vs. Astro. See what I did there? Anyways, Cosmo flees as soon as possible, and then winds up being devoured by crocodiles. As a note, I used to try and keep everyone's tribute number fair. What I mean by that is, if someone had 3 tributes, but mostly everyone else had 2, I'd kill one of the persons with three, just so it was fair. But...that wasn't really fair, not to the tributes that were actually interesting. I eventually stopped this silly practice (after these Games, I believe) and judged each tribute on their worth alone. Cosmo, unfortunately, was a victim of this. Even though I liked him as a character, since he was a third tribute, I killed him because I felt obligated.

Finally, here's a description of all the mutts in these Games. There are also several mutts such as shark mutts, crocodile mutts, Tracker jackers, and bear mutts. We never see any tracker jackers or shark mutts (Where would they even be? The lake? The second arena ocean?), only see the crocodiles here, and hear the bear mutt once, later on. I have no idea why I listed all these mutts without using most of them.

Nick vs. Flick. I had this pairing down since their interaction in training. The Gamemakers saw their encounter and purposely chose this. Unfortunately for Nick. Actually, I'm quite impressed that he managed to put up such a good fight against Flick, who's one of the strongest tributes in the arena.

Morolith vs. Trent. This matchup was also foreshadowed in training. I knew that one of these two would die, but it was the advice who decided whom. Also, Trenton headbutts Morolith after having his head hit by a metal canister. Ouch.

Plasma vs. Belladonna. Plasma let's us know that the Games begin before noon in the Capitol. That's helpful. After reading this, I'm pretty certain that I was writing Plasma as funny, opposed to annoying. Though the readers will decide for themselves, of course. Finally, Belladonna learns not to mess with Plasma's hair. Lesson noted.

Coco vs. Kaylay. I never really liked Coco. I guess that's shown in how quickly she gets killed here. Also, both District 8 tributes went up against District 4's. That was purposely done.

May-Ann vs. Eli. First thing May-Ann thinks after she sees that she's up against Eli is this.

''Whew. I’m not with a Career. That means I should be able to get some items. Hopefully all of them!''

Has she forgotten that Eli is literally a giant? Why does she think that fighting him would be so easy? I mean, he certainly doesn't look like he'd be a pushover. Fighting giants is genuinely not--

Oh. He ran away. I guess she will get all those items! Also, I forgot how little Eli actually does in these games. Every time I think about these, I always imagine that he's done more than he actually did. But all he really does is run away here and then get killed on Day Two.

Wess vs. Mondi. They're both in an alliance, so there's no chance of violence. It's the only one that doesn't, besides for the May-Ann--Eli one. Nothing else to really say here.

Johnny vs. Amaryllis. The funny thing is that Amaryllis kills Johnny completely by accident. She didn't intend to shove him off the cliff, he just fell after her shove. And Johnny's last words.

''Avenge me Bethany!” I scream. Those are the last words I ever say as I smash into the ground.''

Really. Really? How hackneyed could I get?

Noah vs. Gogh. Noah's reason for why they're paired together is correct. This is also the start of the Noah--Gogh subplot that happens in these Games. Nothing else to really note.

Allie vs. Di. Di's strategy of charming her opponent into thinking that she's not a threat would have worked with anyone other than another 12 year-old. Allie quickly meets up with Wess and Mondi, because they were all in the wheat field.

And that's the end of the bloodbath. There were a total of seven deaths, Johnny and then both of District 6, 8, & 10. I didn't realize that so many pairs were killed here. I don't really have any regrets either, except maybe Cosmo.

The final two aftermath PoVs are mostly not noteworthy. Four of the Careers group up and Plasma blames Cosmo's death on his fashion sense. Or lack of.

Anyways, that's the end of this particular portion of the reread. It was an interesting and unique bloodbath, one very different from any other in the series. It actually took longer to read then I thought it would, which is good, I think.

But what's all of your thoughts on this bloodbath? I'd love to hear it from someone else's perspective, especially if you weren't involved in these Games the first time around. The only people who actually had tributes in this games and are still active is Nick and Erlend (who was only a wiki contributor at the time). Man, that makes me feel like an old, wizened user (even though others were around, they were not involved). Back in my day...!

Anyways...that'll do it for this time. Next up, I'll discuss Day 2. So see ya then!

Day 2
Welcome back to the reread. This time I'll be covering Day Two of the 300th Games, subtitled "I'll kill you all if you want to fight!". As seen here, I used to name days after quotes in the actual day. I change this after these Games, however, because I thought that the new way I did it was better. And it is. At least for me. Now let's get to the action.

Di wakes up in the same place she began the Games and I have to wonder whether she stayed the whole day here or not. The text seems to imply that she did, but...why? She decided that staying in the same spot would be good for her? I'm not actually sure why this happened. Also, she spies on Trenton as he joins Wess and Mondi's alliance, but Allie is nowhere to be seen, despite the fact that she had joined up with the two of them the day before. While I could come up with some sort of explanation as to why she's absent, the real reason is probably just because I forgot she was with them.

Whoops.

In the next PoV Astrid is lurking through the swamp, trying to leave when she sees Eli and this happens.

I slowly sidle up behind him and raise my spear ready to impale him from behind.

But then Noah arrives and shouts a warning for Eli, then he turns, and without moving, is suddenly far enough away from Astrid that she's forced to throw the spear in order to hit him. Looks like I've made another gaffe.

Whoops, again.

Gogh is looking for Amaryllis when he stumbles upon the Careers hunting down Plasma. I realize that this doesn't happen much in the Games; the Careers actually hunting people down one-by-one. Well, it happens here.

May-Ann's PoV exists solely to let us know that she's met up with Edmund. Nothing to say here.

All of the Careers have now been reunited, with the exception of Astrid. Also, Flick doesn't trust Di for some reason. I don't know why. I'm sure there was a reason, I just don't know what it is.

And...that's the end of Day 2. It was pretty short and I didn't really have anything to say, except commenting on a few mistakes. And both District 9 tributes died. Another pair. Nothing much to say about the dead. I always thought Eli did more and Plasma was eventually able to compete in the 400th Games, but...nothing else to say, really.

Next time I will discuss Day 3.

Day 3
In this section, I will be covering the third day of the Games, subtitled "Go!". Admittedly, it's not a very clever name. Nor is it eye-catching. It's pretty boring, actually.

The first Pov of the day shows Gogh attempting to get access to the lake and drink some water. I like this Pov, because it shows off that the tributes actually need food and water to survive. That's forgotten all too often, despite how much I love the idea. I also used this as an opportunity to show how the Career's fearsome reputation serves in their advantage. Gogh could quite easily have killed Kaylay, but his fear that the other Careers would wake and hunt him down prevented such an action. (They wouldn't have been able to catch him, by the way.)

As much as I liked the first PoV, I dislike this one. Not because of it's content, but because of its placing. The last PoV showed all the Careers sleeping, but in this one they are all awake and hunting. I feel as if the sudden time jump hinders the reading experience; it's just too abrupt. There should have been a PoV or two between this one and the first.

But for the actual content of the PoV…I liked Mondi. She was a unique character with a likeable personality, and her disability just made you want to innately cheer for her. Unfortunately, I always knew that she would die early. Having one leg in the Hunger Games is pretty much a death sentence, especially if the person in question isn't exactly the best fighter. I felt like it would be disingenuous if she were to survive very far, and in this situation in particular, there was no way she'd live. She'd never have been able to outrun the Careers.

The second death of this PoV was Bethany's. And it actually happens off-screen. I don't know why I wrote it like that, especially considering there's no suspense as to who died; Allie reveals that she killed her a few sentences later. There's some literary justice here, as Bethany had been the one to kill Mondi.

Edmund gets an axe.

Noah begins setting up a camp before he notices that Ameryllis is watching him. He's not very observant of his new camping location, is he? And when he does notice her.

''I suddenly notice the girl from 12 watching me nervously from a wall. I go to grab my axe when I think of a better idea.''

He has very little qualms about killing her. This shows the detached, clinical way Noah views these Games, which is somewhat of a boon for him. It allowed him to easily shrug off the death of his friend Eli, which he had witnessed. Also, there's this.

''I smile and she walks over and sits down watching me nervously. Why is she so cautious?''

Noah doesn't understand why she's so nervous, despite the fact that he was literally seconds away from attacking her. Noah is very smart, but is severely lacking in the understanding people department. I liked how I showed that off.

Finally, Gogh arrives and him and Noah come to an uneasy alliance, held together by Ameryllis. More of their subplot. I don't exactly remember, but I don't think this subplot has quite the payoff I'd have liked. A shame.

The final PoV of the day is practically a repeat of Day 2's. The Careers return to the lake and meet a new member. Also, Flick is kind of a jerk here. I was setting him up for an eventual "usurp Elvis's leadership" subplot, but Nick's advice puts a stop to that. The power of advice.

That's it for this day. Day 4 will be next.

Day 4
The first PoV of the day starts with Wess and his alliance roaming the arena, trying to remember which tributes are left. I've always liked little scenes like this, where the tributes aren't sure whose actually still left with them. It's realistic, and lets the characters think about each other. Also in this PoV, they wander right into Edmund and May-Ann as they try to think of the last two tributes in the arena (it's Edmund and May-Ann). Is it a little too on the nose? Maybe. But I still think it's quite funny.

Oh, and Trenton is killed by Edmund. I liked Trenton as a character, but I'm really not too broken up about his death.

The next PoV follows up with this, showing that May-Ann was hiding in the tree. Not much to say here, other than to note that the roar they hear belongs to the bear mutt mentioned in the arena description.

A fact about the bear: The gummy bear that appears in the 400th Games was created off of this mutt. When initially planning these games, before I had even created the blog, I had designed a scene where a bear mutt would attack an alliance and kill several tributes. I had actually written this scene out with placeholder tributes, but I ended up never using it, mostly because I didn't feel like killing three to four tributes with a mutt. Also, it didn't really fit the tone or context of the games.

Instead I just used the bear to break up a fight between alliances. It was meant to be a menacing foreshadow, because I had expected to have it actually show up later in the Games. But the opportunity never presented itself and the bear was never used.

So later on, during the 325th Games, I looked back at the old scene I had written and remembered the bear. Only this time I had the great idea to make it a giant gummy bear. It would totally fit the arena's theme, and I could finally use the mutt I had created. Unfortunately, I only used it as menacing foreshadow once again.

The bear finally did make an onscreen appearance during the 400th Games. As I wanted to pull out all the stops during these Games, and because it had so many throwbacks to previous Games, I finally found the right opportunity to use the bear.

And it was used pretty effectively, I think. It's definitely one of my favorite mutts from the series, and among the most fearsome. And I wouldn't rule out the possibility of seeing it again in the series...

The next PoV is more of just an update on the Careers. I didn't have any plans for them this day, so I had them remain back at the lake. I used this to further the Flick vs. Elvis subplot, too. Di ends up in the middle of the two factions, which is really District 1 vs. District 4. She's unsettled, but doesn't feel like stirring up trouble.

Wess and Alli run from the bear and climb a tree. This is just another update Pov on how they've fared since the encounter with District 7. It's odd to me how little they care about Trenton's death, especially considering how torn up Alli was over Mondi dying, and the fact that he was her District partner. Weird.

The final PoV is focused entirely on the Noah-Gogh subplot, which just reminds how disappointing it is that this doesn't really have much of an ending. Also, Gogh is right about Noah just using the two of them for his own gain. He would kill them once their value ran out. However, Ameryllis is correct in pointing out that the two of them are doing the exact same thing with him. Gogh is too distrustful to accept that reasoning, however. The only reason he can bring himself to trust Ameryllis is because she's from District 12 just like him.

And thats wraps up this day. Next up will be Day 5, where I tackle some flames and rocks. Ta-ta.

Day 5
There's not much to say about this first PoV. It's just May-Ann and Edmund setting up their plan to trap the Careers in a ring of fire. Speaking of which, I'm not actually sure whether that was a mentors plan, or something I came up with. Regardless, the plan actually doesn't end up doing all that much damage, but more on that later.

The next PoV is almost as unremarkable as the first. More set-up for the fire plan. As I mentioned earlier, the bear mutt appears off-screen here once more, this time startling the Careers into running back to the lake. In-universe wise, the Gamemakers don't actually release the bear because the fire event happens, which makes things more interesting, as Flick mentioned. Releasing the bear now would have just been overkill.

And here is the fire plan itself in action! Ironically, the fact that Kaylay is the fastest of the group is the reason why she's it's sole casualty. I chose Kaylay to die because I didn't have much of a storyline for her. In fact, I never really had any storyline for her. She was one of those characters who was, more-or-less, just "there". Usually, during big scenes like this, if I want to implement a death that doesn't necessarily fit a storyline purpose or furthers another characters personal arc, I choose to kill a character like Kaylay, who I don't really have any other plans for. That way their death drives home the action and ups the stakes of the scene.

And as for the plan itself, it's actually very good. As shown in the text, the plan would have completely eliminated the Career alliance if not for the Gamemaker created rainstorm. And that's why the Gamemakes put a halt to it. The destruction of the Careers would have (if Ameryllis's death is taken into account) reduced the number of total tributes to six.

Six tributes who would then be inserted into a new arena and put into a second bloodbath, which would certainly reduce the numbers even further. In fact, it's conceivable that the Games themselves would actually end at the second bloodbath. So naturally you see why the Gamemakers (and myself) spared the Careers.

The rockslide that takes out Ameryllis was not planned by the Gamemakers. It was simply something that naturally occured due to the heavy rainfall. Ameryllis' death furthers the Gogh-Noah storyline once more, and further upsets me that it has no real end. The two of them never even get into a another fight! Argh! Where's the symmetry? This is something that, if I were to write these Games nowadays, would probably change.

Speaking of things I'd change...I really, really dislike the twist of the second arena. It just doesn't make much sense. I know why I originally decided to implement it; I wanted to the Games to have more twists and wanted to write a standard bloodbath. But the decision was really poor, now that I look back on it.

First off, the second arena is not aesthetically different enough to warrant a change. Secondly, I use it to quickly and anti-climatically kill off several characters who had existing storylines and characterization. This works in the intial bloodbath, where the quick deaths are meant to be shocking and swift, and even in the 325th Games, where I properly used the deaths. But here...here it just comes off flat and hollow. Maybe if I had given more screentime to the deaths I'd feel differently, but as it is...it just makes me feel sour.

Well, that does it for Day 5. Next time I will cover Day 6 and the second bloodbath more thoroughly. I'm sure you're all interested in that, so stay tuned!

Day 6
I feel like I've made my opinion on the second bloodbath clear at this point, and I don't really have much else to say on the matter. I don't enjoy the unceremonious end to the dead tributes or their storylines.

It doesn't help that the bloodbath consists of only three short PoVs that are pretty much devoid of fighting and only feature quick deaths. The only real fighting is when Gogh punches Di in the face. Yeah...I'm not a fan of my own work here.

Afterwards there's a PoV of the Careers. Interestingly there was four careers left and only three others. I can't remember if there's any other time in the series when the Careers outnumbered all the remaining tributes. Of course, the Careers squander their opportunity here and a non-Career actually ends up victorious. But more on that in Day 7.

Edmund has no weapons and no allies. This is his lowest point in the Games, and the moment of truth. But he's still convinced that he's going to win, and his confidence is one thing that stands out here.

There's really nothing to say about Noah's PoV. Noah is apparently camped close enough to the see the Careers at the cornucopia. Neat, I guess.

That's all for Day 6. On Day 7 I'll discuss how the Careers end up blowing a prime opportunity to have one of their own win the Games. So see you then.

Day 7
In this part of the reread I'll be covering Day 7, the penultimate day of the 300th games.

And right off the bat I have to talk about how the Careers made a huge blunder that unquestionably led to Edmund's victory...and their own defeat. I've always spoken about how people's advice effects the Games and actually influences who wins, and I don't think it's much more apparent than right here. At the start of Day 7 there was four Careers and only three other tributes. The Careers were all aligned while all of the others were on their own. When I first began to plot the day out, and before any advice had been written, I realized that a Career victory was imminent. I like to try and keep things realistic in my Games, so when I saw the numbers I knew that I had written myself into a situation were there was only one logical outcome: The Careers would hunt down and kill the remaining tributes before turning on themselves. It was a simple and logical end to the situation.

Only that was not how it ended up happening.

The advice came in and I immediately knew that things were going to be different. Mostly because of the advice Elvis received, which undoubtedly has to be one of the worst strategical blunders made in the series. The advice, in short, had Elvis split the Careers up so that they could all hunt solo through the arena. Which is really the last thing you want to do when you have the numbers advantage.

While the advice was certainly not the best, it did match up with Elvis' character. He was definitely the type of person who'd think splitting up was a solid idea, and he'd even have an ulterior motive to do so: he was hoping that Flick, his biggest rival, would get killed in the process.

However, with such a setup you can see how things could go wrong. It's not that I wanted to make the Careers suffer for the situation, it was merely something that would logically happen when they split. In the end, Elvis was the victim of his own advice. If they had not split up, Astrid would not have died and Flick and Di would not be in a position to betray and kill him. It just goes to show that advice is crucial; not just in helping a tribute out, but by sometimes harming them too.

Moving on to the second PoV of the day, we're still going to be covering the effects of the advice fallout. Noah manages to evade and hide from Elvis, but had the entire Careers been there he would certainly have been caught.

The next two PoVs were also effected by the advice. Wess plans on killing Edmund, but before he can Edmund warns him about someone sneaking up behind him. Naturally Wess assumed that Edmund was lying. But he wasn't, and Wess ended up being killed by Astrid. Afterwards, Edmund kills Astrid with an axe sent by the sponsors.

Contrary to perception, Edmund is not stupid. He was actually trying to warn Wess, thinking that the entire Career pack had found them and that the only way to defeat them was by temporarily aligning with Wess. They probably wouldn't have won, but they would have had more of a chance. Of course, since Elvis had the Careers split up only Astrid was there and she wasn't prepared to take on Edmund.

Speaking of Astrid, she was a character who I enjoyed but who didn't actually do much. I had planned for her to die this day whether the Careers had split up or not. The only difference is that Edmund would have also died had the other Careers been with her.

The final PoV of the day brings the end of Elvis. Flick actually had a very good plan here, and by taking out Elvis he took out his biggest threat. Flick makes another strategical decision by trying to off Di in her sleep, but I'll save my thoughts on that for Day 8, the finale.

I'll see you all then.

Day 8
Right off the bat I'd like to comment on how the subtitle of the day changed from being a quote from the day to a select title. I believe that the "Finale" has been the subtitle for every Games final day in the series except for the 400th. The reason that the 400th's was different was because I had originally planned for it to be the final day of the final Hunger Games. Obviously that didn't end up being the case, but I digress. As I mentioned earlier (I think) I personally believe that the subtitles work better as prechosen titles then as characters quotes. What do you all think?

On to the actual content of the Games. I don't know how many people know this, but Flick's advice to kill Di was actually sent by being written on my talkpage instead of the comment section. Flick's mentor, Nick, didn't want Di's creator seeing the advice and making her own counter-plan for the betrayal. An interesting trivia point. I don't have much else to say about the Pov. It's only logical that Flick would win in a one-on-one fight against Di, especially if he had the upperhand.

Noah dies by running into the forcefield. This is the only time in the series that a tribute was killed by the forcefield. In fact, it might be the only time a tribute has even encountered the forcefield. I might be wrong about that, and if I am, I'm sure someone else will correct me. This was another situation where advice effected a characters fate. As I mentioned in the comment section, had Noah not received advice prompting him to run away from everything, he would have ended up aligning with Edmund against Flick. He would have still died in the fight, though. When Flick's trident goes flying over Edmund's head, it would have hit Noah instead. I had actually written this PoV out before changing it due to Noah's advic..

At this point it's down to the final battle between Flick and Elvis. My plan for writing this was to make an explosive, exciting battle that was as unpredictable as it was exhilarating. I feel like I succeeded, for the time. Looking back on it the writing is obviously poorer than the rest of the series, but that is only to be expected. But for the time, I feel that this finale was actually pretty good. Back in 2012, when these Games were written, the wiki was full of games. Most of them were just shovelware that really weren't any good. So I think that the finale, and the Games in a whole, were a success for its time when you take that into account.

Edmund ends up winning after Flick mistakenly believes he has drowned and lets down his guard. This leads to what I believe is something crucial to the entire series; Always wait for the cannon.

That brings us to the end of the 300th Annual Hunger Games, the very first Games in the series. I can admit that they are not the best Games in the series; it has some serious flaws and some poor characterization for several of the tributes. But it's also a fun romp with some interesting characters, a couple nice surprises, and most importantly, laid the groundwork for the series as a whole. It's not hyperbole to say that the series wouldn't exist without these Games and the lessons I learned while making them. But what do you all think about them? Sound off in the comments. I'm interested to hear what everyone else thinks about these, especially if they weren't around when they were first being written.

But this reread isn't over yet. Not by a long shot. Next up I will be looking back on the 301st Games, which if the 300th games laid the groundwork for the series, then the 301st built the house atop that groundwork.

See you all then.

Introduction
Before I dive in and begin the discussion about the 301st Games proper, I have a few things to say. First off, I will be providing a link to the aforementioned Games: You can find it [|Here]. Secondly, I'd like to detail the events that lead to the creation of these Games, and, in effect, the series. After all, before I created the 301st I had not planned on this being a series; I had merely been making a one-off games. The 301st was the proper start of the series. Now, let me get to the details.

The 301st was created on February 7th, 2013. This was two and a quarter months since I finished the 300th. There was a delay between the two for several reasons, namely I wasn't certain whether or not my writing was in demand, and because I myself was busy competing in other people's games. Chiefly among those was CiMW's games, which I have mentioned before were a huge inspiration for me in creating this series. His were one of the few Games on the wiki that was actually a series. Characters from past games would show up in later ones and events would be mentioned. This was, for me, the best part of his series. I love when things stretch on for lengthy periods of time, detailing many characters and their interactions with each other, and viewing exotic locales. It's part of the reason why fantasy series are among my favourite type of books and why RPGS are my favorite type of video games. Cimw's games were the closest thing to that on the wiki, and naturally I gravitated to them.

He was in the process of writing his 374th games when I decided that I would create my second Games and make it a direct sequel to my first. I could also see the writing on the wall, so to speak. CIMW hadn't yet announced that he was leaving the wiki, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that he soon would. His games were a major reason I was still on the wiki, and when they ended I'd find myself without anything keeping me there. But I knew that I didn't want to leave yet, and besides, deep down I felt that I still had something to prove with my writing.

Also, I would be lying if I said I wasn't seeking to capitalize on his audience which would soon find itself without a games.

With the 301st I added some things which would undoubtedly improve the series, like Reapings and a sponsoring system. I also began to format things in a way that would petty much stay the same throughout the series.

I think that about wraps up my thoughts for now. Next I will be covering actual content from the Games, starting with the District 1 Reaping. There'll be some interesting information covered, so stay tuned!

District 1 Reaping
This was the first ever Reaping I've written, so it's obviously not my best work. But I still feel that it has a lot to offer, and it does a good job at showing off the basic backstory and personality of the two tributes, which what Reapings are meant to do anyways.

But before I go into any more detail on that, I should address the Reaping process itself. When I started planning for these I had actually envisioned an entirely different type of Reaping for the Career Districts. Since they have so many people eager to compete, I felt it was natural that the Reaping work differently. (And the books themselves say so too). What I had planned was that the Careers from the academy would go through a rigorous selection process that weeded out the weak and inferior from the group. There would then be some finalists, about a dozen or so, who would be the only ones to actually have their names put into the bowl (Obviously the Capitol would be in on this) and one of them would be chosen, wherein they would be sent into the Games with no further volunteers allowed.

Of course, I didn't end up going through with this idea for several reasons. One was because I thought it would be difficult to relay this information to the users who were submitting Careers, and another was that so many tributes backstories detailed information about how they were reaped. If my original idea was used, most of these tributes would never have been Reaped in the first place. I didn't feel like limiting the amount of submittalss I might receive, so I opted not to change the reaping process and just keep it the same as always. Boring, yes. But it was also practical.

Onto the characters themselves. Diamond is pretty much the typical District 1 female, but she has a slight twist to her character in that she feels obligated to prove herself. She had actually been planning on competing in the 300th Games but was passed over for Astrid. This is the first reference to a past event and one I purposely put into the first bit of writing. I wanted to let everyone know that, yes, this is a series and things that happened before would impact things yet to happen.

This Reaping is also the first appearance of Dragon Lord. He's the very first tribute in the series who is absolutely insane, and I thought that was interesting. At the time, Dragon might even have been the most insane tribute on the wiki. That, of course, made me very excited to use him.

The killing of the other guy who volunteered was actually part of Dragon's backstory and not something I thought up. The Peacekeepers tazing him, however, was something I created. Personally, I couldn't see the Capitol just letting someone do something like that and get away scot free. While the murder itself is technically showing how much Dragon wants to compete, and thus pro-Capitol, it's still murder, which is illegal. The tazing was how I decided the Capitol would handle it.

Dragon, by the way, had absolutely no chance of emerging as Victor. As entertaining as he is for the audience, the Capitol would not want someone as insane as he is winning. So, if he ever were in position to win the Capitol would engineer some sort of "accident" to take him out. This holds true for other completely insane tributes, such as Trick, Drewsiff, etcetera. Caspian, however, is exempt from this. While he is clearly unstable, he is unstable in a much more tame and controlled way. Caspian would not act against his own self-interest and you can safely be assured that he will not act out before all of Panem. Dragon has no such guarantees.

District 2 Reaping
Not much happens in this Reaping.

The Reaping itself is very typical and about average for what you'd expect from District 2. It doesn't help that the PoV character is Damian. He's pretty much the template for a basic District 2 male. Try as I might, I can't really think of any traits or character quirks that sent him apart from anyone else. Nowadays he'd be a sure-fire bloodbath death, but back then there where other characters who were just as uninspired as he was, so he didn't stand out as much. The tributes who did die in the bloodbath were either somehow even less interesting then he was (Seeker) or didn't receive any sort of advice (Bronco and Watt).

Pansy, on the other hand, is a much more interesting character. While she doesn't have any sort of backstory whatsoever, she ends up being important to how things in the Games shake out, mostly concerning the Careers. Her relatively early death had less to do with her character and more for storyline implications.

She also specialises some pretty unique weaponry, but I'm not sure whether she actually uses them during the Games. Oh, well. On to District 3!

District 3 Reaping
Hmm. Once again I find myself without much to say about this Reaping. Though I feel like Marcio of all Victors has the biggest "victor's edit", it's not really apparent here. Bethunia doesn't leave much of an impression here either.

I guess that might be because, at the time, I didn't really think much of her. It didn't help that her creator didn't even remember her last name when he submitted her. Speaking of her creator, HungerGamesFanatic21, I would like to point out that he is Nick, despite him once telling me on chat that HungerGamesFanatic21 was, in fact, not him.

The reason I know this is because Nick's username at the time was WiressFan21. Note that both he and HungerGamesFanatic21 have a "21" in their username. This alone isn't proof, of course. But considering that HungerGamesFanatic21's user profile he says his name is "Nich", the fact that both users had the same IP address, and that they both would often submit advice for each others character, I feel safe in saying that the two are one and the same.

Not that I really care. By using two accounts Nick managed to submit more characters for these Games, and I am glad for that. At the time I wasn't receiving very much submissions and I was afraid that I might not fill out all the slots. But Nick really helped with that. Also, I was pretty flattered that someone liked my Games so much that they wanted to submit even more tributes.

Besides, had he only used one account we would have missed out on either Darker or Bethunia, and I don't think any of us would have liked that.

District 4 Reaping
This seems like it's becoming a trend, because once again I find that I don't really have much to say about this Reaping. I suppose that I will just talk about the characters.

Cody is a strange case, because he lasts for quite awhile in the Games but doesn't actually do much of anything. Honestly, I don't think I've ever been very fond of him. He's always seemed to just be an inferior version of Flick. I dunno. And his backstory doesn't do much to help his case. I've never understood tributes who volunteer for the Games just because their siblings or friends died in them before. How is winning the Games "avenging" them? And if you die, not only have you failed to avenge them, but you're now dead too. I don't see the logic here, but maybe one of you do?

Moving on...Wari Oceani is known as the nicest girl in the District, but that's all just an act. She's really selfish, rude, egotistical, and has pretty much every other unlikable trait. She's been pretending to be nice and kind so that when she finally got into the Games that her District partner and all the other tributes would be fooled and never expect her real personality. Okay. That's fine. A very logical strategy. But then I put some real thought into this and I came away intrigued, because apparently Wari has been pretending for her entire life. If she's always been nice and kind, when has she ever been rude? And to who? At what point does the fake her become the real her? If you wear the mask for too long, does it wear you? Wari leaves room for plenty of philosophical questions, but luckily for all of you, I'm no philosopher. NEXT.

The escort here, Starkly Moore, is actually a character I created for an original story of mine. It's actually the same story where I first came up with Those Who Don't Exist. Starkly and TWDE don't have any connection in this series, but it's still a fun trivia point. She was also a Victor.

That's all I have for this Reaping. I think I might start doing two Reapings at once from now on, because things will move faster and I will have more to say when I'm covering more story. So I'll see you later, when I come back with the Reapings for District 5 & 6.

District 5 & 6 Reaping
The Reaping for District 5 introduces some interesting characters. Watt Powers has always been one of my favorite tributes in the series, surprisingly enough. He's fat, rude, and hilariously arrogant, but he's also immensely intelligent, intuitive, and actually quite lonely. Watt has never had a real friend and no real connection with his parents despite the fact that they spoil him. This alone has shaped his personality greatly. No one really likes him because he's constantly telling everyone he's the smartest person in the room. The truth is, he usually is the smartest person in the room. He's actually among the smartest tributes in the series, with only a precious few actually possessing higher intelligence. But none of them have to face the same disadvantages that Watt has. None of them are fat. None of them completely lack social etiquette. None of them are the living embodiment of what society rejects.

With how much I'm talking up Watt you'd think he lasts long into the Games, right? Nope. He died in the bloodbath. A major reason for this was because he didn't receive any advice. Actually, as far as I remember, his creator never even commented once on the Games. Watt's creator had submitted him and his other tributes (Xavier, Bronco, & Josef) when he and I were talking on chat. He must have read the Games at some point, though, because he submitted Vlad for the 302nd. So, yeah. I don't know what was up with that. Annnnywaaays...What was I talking about? Oh, right! Watt.

You see, despite how much I like Watt as a character him dying in the bloodbath makes sense. He's not someone who is cut out for the frenetic action there and if he attended, his death would be almost certain. I was disappointed that I didn't get to use him more thoroughly, but it ended out fine, as the 400th gave me that opportunity later.

Now onto Swift. She intrigued me as a character and I knew that she would present some interesting possibilities in the Games. However, she did suffer somewhat from being one of those characters where seemingly everything in life has conspired against them. I'm not adverse to characters suffering hardships, but sometimes these hardships go too far and the characterization goes off the rails. While I don't believe this was a problem for Swift, I just wanted to throw that out there.

I have to say, though, that I don't really understand the Mayor of District 5. He abhors prostitution and thus bans businesses from hiring any prostitutes, but in doing so he ensures that said prostitutes have no way of making a living besides for continuing on as a prostitute. Basically, he's working against himself here.

Moving on to District 6. Xavier is an isolationist who prefers to be stay silent and out of the way. This avoidant personality was brought on by his parents always telling him tales of Peacekeepers and how he needed to avoid them. Another interesting note about Xavier is that he's actually the fastest tribute to ever compete in the series. I used to have a file on my computer that contained a full list of tribute stats, listing them in order of best to worst. I had one for fastest, strongest, etcetera. Unfortunately I lost this file when my computer broke and I wasn't smart enough to save a backup of it anywhere. So I lost all that information around the 327th Games and haven't tried replicating it yet. I should have really had a backup...Oh, well. Live and learn, I guess.

Luna was one of my favorite tributes from this games.

District 7 & 8 Reaping
Ransom Overman might just be the best-written bad tribute in the series. I'm not going to sugarcoat my thoughts here; Ransom is really, really boring. It doesn't help that he's basically a Mary Sue. I mean, he's a super popular kid who has everything he could possibly want but is still completely and utterly depressed. Yes, he does have some reason to be upset, but I don't think it's something that bad. He didn't even know the girl's name!

The best thing Ransom has going for him is that he was well-written. Especially at the time when the 301st was written, where it was rare for tributes to have the detail and depth Ransom had. This alone was enough for me to let him live past the bloodbath.

The Reaping itself is fine. There's nothing outstanding about it, but there's nothing terrible either. Well, except for the random bits of coding that somehow managed to get into the writing. Oh, and that huge typo in the final line. I don't know how I missed that. Did I even proofread back then? It certainly doesn't look like it! For the sake of ease, here's the line.

Soon, the entire world will my name.

Somehow I left out a "know". Don't ask me how.

The last thing I will talk about in this particular Reaping will be Edmund. He's mostly window dressing here and doesn't really do anything, but the mere fact that he was present at all was meant to show how committed I was to making this a series.

Onto District 8...

Josef breaking into a bakery is actually referenced in the 398th Games, where Jonathan prevents a different criminal from committing the same crime. It was a callback that I'm not sure anyone actually caught but, hey, you all know now!

I like how this Reaping shows off Josef's ingenuity and skill, even if its not to the extent we'll see later in the series. One big reason I've always liked Josef is that he's a different kind of threat. He's not classically trained in martial warfare like a Career, nor is he a physical beast like Vlad or Philo. He's undersized when compared to most other threats and straight up physical fights aren't his way--even though he could win quite a few of those. No, what Josef specializes in is subterfuge and surprise. He doesn't want you to notice him, to care about him. He wants to stick to the shadows and kill you when you least expect it. His personality is also something that I enjoy, but I don't want to get too bogged down here, so I'll save that discussion for later.

Cashmere starts out as a typical bratty rich girl, but she gets some character growth over the course of the Games. She doesn't do much here, though, so I'll also save that for later. Which brings us to the end of these two Reapings. They were both interesting and while the District 8 Reaping featured tributes who are more important to the series as a whole, I have to say that I like how 7 was structured. Nowadays I'd probably have put in a lot more detail, but it was pretty good for its time.

Anyways, I'll wrap this up here. Hopefully the wait for the District 9 & 10 Reapings won't be as long as the wait for these was. I plan on trying to get this moving quicker, but we'll see. My plans are prone to failure. At any rate, see you then!

District 9 & 10 Reaping
When I first started writing the Reapings for the 301st Games I didn't realize just how many Reapings I'd need to write. I didn't think I would mind, but while I was in the midst of writing fourteen straight Reapings, I got bored. Back then I didn't have the patience I have now, and there were only so many ways one could write a Reaping. A large chunk of each one is identical, after all. I knew that I hurried through a few of the Reapings, but it wasn't until just now did I realize how I basically just phoned it in for the District 8 & 9 Reapings.

In fact, I phoned it in so much that there's really not much to say here. The only interesting thing I can think of is how Mayor Grain is eventually replaced as Mayor and the Price family took over the role. The change takes place somewhere between now and the 325th, but I can't exactly name when it happened off the top of my head.

District 11 & 12 Reaping
I always thought of Darker as being like Gale. He watched the girl he liked get reaped and was left behind to watch her in the Games. The girl even formed a romance with her district partner! The big difference, though, is that they both died halfway through their games instead of winning. Another difference between him and Gale is that Darker's entire family is dead and he doesn't have anything left to live for.

I liked that aspect about Darker. If he won he wouldn't have felt bad or had any terrible memories like some others. In fact, he would have gained money and fame, and maybe even found a new reason to live. In short, he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. There would have been a lot of intriguing ground to explore in a Darker victory.

Darker was always a candidate for winning but, the more I think about it, he might just have been a better Victor than Marcio. He certainly would have had a more interesting post-Games story. At least, in my opinion he would have. But what you guys? I'd like to hear your thoughts!

On the other hand, I didn't like Darker's district partner very much. Flow'r felt like too much of a Mary Sue, and that's why I killed her off in the bloodbath.

As for the District 12 reaping...Exolian filled the role as a helpless weakling admirably. There undoubtedly would be people like him in the Games and, while he isn't a great character, he is a useful and realistic one. Though his backstory is kinda stupid. I mean, his family was cursed because he accidentally threw up onto a house that was built on a cemetery? What?

Regina is a pretty blank character who doesn't really do much. I think she has a more important role in the 400th Games than she does here, which is saying something.

District 13 & The Capitol Reaping
The man here, Escort, is President Tiberius Stryker's brother. I don't think I ever mention it in any Games, but I had that fact in my mind while creating him. He hates the frivolity and gluttony of the Capitol but loves the power it holds. That's why he chose to become an escort and get away from the Capitol itself. You may even be able to spot his connection with the Capitol by the way he interacts with certain tributes IE: Acheron.

Anyhow...I really like Ice. He was one of the best written characters of his time and had a lot of depth and nuance to him. The reason the PoV is from Saidy and not him was because I was worried I wouldn't have been able to do his backstory justice. I wish I had attempted it, though, because the one we got instead is kinda bland and doesn't showcase it very well. It does highlight Saidy's personality, however. That's good, because we don't have much time with her in the actual Games. Something I feel like I do well throughout the series is give increased screen time to characters right before they die. And yes, I had expected that Saidy would die somewhat early in the Games. I hadn't quite decided on her bloodbath death while writing the Reaping, but I knew she wouldn't get too far.

The Capitol Reaping is interesting because it is the very first time in the series that the Capitol has competed in the Games. I always thought it would make sense that the Citizens of the Capitol would eventually want the chance to compete themselves, and over the course of years the "punishment for rebellion" aspect of the Games has mostly faded. Except for when the Capitol wants to exploit that for one reason or another, of course.

The idea of the President himself being in the role of escort was just something that I really liked. It's also jells well with the fact that his brother is escort of District 13. The actual plotline for this Reaping is fairly straightforward and I assume that everyone understands the emotions I was trying to convey; the Capitol really loves the Games and pretty much everyone hates Shervert.

Shervert is...a very odd character. While I liked her characterization and think that it would be realistic for someone in the lap of luxury that is the Capitol to develop the way she did, I just...didn't really know how to use her. Her joining the Careers was also something I thought was unusual. I can't really explain why the Careers would let her in other than for the fact that the Capitol is a Career district. But since this is the first year of the Capitol competing, that wouldn't have just become accepted fact yet.

Ramon doesn't really do much here, so I'll save thoughts on him for later. And, with that, I have finally wrapped up the Reapings. I have to say that I'm actually impressed by what I wrote. It had been a long time since I actually full re-read these, and I remembered my writing being cringe-inducing. While it's still clearly imperfect, it's not nearly as bad as I thought. At least I hope so, lol.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to talk about the 301st Games as a whole. While I very much enjoyed writing these and they introduced some important characters to the series, I can't help but feel that these are less noteworthy than most of the other Games. I can't really think of any big moments outside of the finale, and the arena itself is rather lackluster. There are some interesting mutts though, so it gets points for that. All in all, while the 301st were important for me improving my writing and nailing down the formula I'd use for further Games, I can't really say it's one of my favorite Games.

But what about you guys? Where does the 301st rank on your own personal lists? I'd like to hear your thoughts! Finally, when I return I will be writing about the training period. Look forward to it!

Training
The very first PoV of training introduces an important sub-plot to these Games; the conflict between Dragon and Pansy. The rivalry between these two has a big impact in the early portions of the Games and, when you think about it, that effects the later parts as well. Several deaths are tied up to this story thread, so we'll be coming back to it later. But before I move on, I have to admit that I am disappointed with the way I wrote Dragon. He seems to come off more as a juvenile manchild than a psychotic killer. Yeah, the two aren't mutually exclusive, but the problem is that at the time I thought I was writing Dragon as this super cool psycho, unaware of the narm of the whole thing. Maybe it adds to the appeal of Dragon? I don't know. I'll leave that for you all to decide.

Watt's PoV serves to introduce another alliance and their characters. It serves its purpose admirably and I have nothing to add.

The thing I like about Swift and Cashmere's alliance is how realistic it would be for those two to align. Cashmere is the typical rich mean girl and Swift, with all her issues, is definitely someone who would flock to her side for validation. Their alliance is actually one I really enjoyed, and I like the way their friendship develops.

The last PoV of the first training day is from Josef and it's the usual "character sits at lunch and analyses the other tributes" PoV that I always use. I can't say I understand why I tried building Regina up to be a rival to Josef. Regina may be good at sneaking and...well, that's all. She's a really good sneaker. It definitely feels like I had some sort of plan for these two, but since it never materializes and I don't remember a thing about it, I can't really comment on it.

The first PoV of the second training day is from Wari. Not that you'd be able to tell; Wari never speaks and doesn't really have any thoughts. You can probably tell that I didn't have any big plans for her. The scene serves as a continuation of the Pansy/Dragon feud. Note that the Career who Dragon shoves is Nastya, who later helps Pansy try and kill Dragon. As much as I'd like to say that this was clever foreshadowing on my part, I'd be lying. I had yet to decide that Nastya would side with Pansy, and this was merely a way of including her in the text. Of course, just because it wasn't intended foreshadowing doesn't mean it's not foreshadowing anyways! *maniacal laughter*

Oh, and Damian somehow thought he was leader. Shows how clueless he was.

Marcio's PoV is meant to show off his and Bethunia's alliance dynamic, as well as a bit more characterization for them. I don't exactly remember if I had planned out their romance by this point or not, but I don't think I did. Still, it's nice to see their interactions.

Ice's PoV is...Well, it exists. It gives a little more of his backstory and showcases Bronco and Seeker, two tributes who get very little screentime. I wouldn't say they're the least shown tributes in the series, but they're definitely up there.

The next PoV is Luna's and it finally gives us her backstory. While it may seem odd that the Peacekeepers would make a deal with Luna to spare her mother if she won the Games, you have to remember that her father was also a Peacekeeper and they all knew him. They've even seen and interacted with Luna before, so it makes sense that they would try and give their friends daughter a way out of this situation. Even if it was an almost impossible one. The PoV shows Luna attempting to appear as weak as possible, so no one would think she is a threat. Of course, since no one is watching her to begin with, her efforts are wasted. This strategy of hers was actually on her submission form, back when I used to have a training strategy section. The PoV also features Mark, a tribute who I actually like. He's another sociopathic tribute but, like Caspian, he is a realistic one. He's not over-the-top compared to some other tributes and he's actually killed very few people (just his parents). The simplicity of his character actually helps him, at least in my eyes. Though I have to take this opportunity to note that his weakness, as listed on his submission form, is apparently "happiness". Yeah, I don't know what to make of that either.

Day 3 of training opens up with a Pansy PoV that is solely meant to further the Dragon/Pansy plot and give a few of the other Careers some screentime.

Darker's PoV literally exists just to remind everyone he is in the Games. I'm not even joking. That was actually the reason why I wrote it.

Like the other two PoVs of the third training day, Ransom's doesn't have much substance to it. It shows that him and his allies are becoming friends and that they're all worried about dying. It's pretty important to make that reminder, and I feel like every Games has one part where I have the characters dwell on it.

And, with that, I have finally reached the end of the training period. Next up is the bloodbath!

The Bloodbath
Now, before I get into the Bloodbath proper I will cover the five short Pre-Games PoVs. For the most part there's not much to say, as they're all very short and basically contain only world building. Each PoV is from a character who had not yet received one, thus I ensured that each tribute got at least one PoV. The only real subject of note is the fact that apparently the Capitol's jacket color is light blue. Huh. Can't say I remembered that. What color is District 4, then?

Anyways, onto the bloodbath!

First off, I will say that with a few exceptions all of the tributes who died were ones I didn't particularly care for. Seeker, Saidy, Wari, and Flow'r didn't leave much of an impression on me. They weren't all that well-developed and I couldn't really come up with a storyline for them. The other two, Bronco and Watt, died because their mentor didn't send advice. Though, to be honest, Bronco probably would have died even if he had received advice. He wasn't necessary a bad tribute just...an average one.

I'll admit that I got the idea for Dragon tackling another tribute and snapping their neck at the outset from CimW's games. I believe it was Aerial's own tribute, Drake Johnson, who came up with that strategy. So I guess we can credit Aerial for how Seeker died.

Honestly, I'm surprised that I don't have much to say about the bloodbath. It's a basic bloodbath with me using the opportunity to give some of the stronger tributes kills and the chance to gain depth from it. I do like how I managed to include a mention of every tribute, and how even some fighting that didn't result in death. I believe that Darker fighting and escaping from people becomes somewhat of a trend.

Other than that...yeah, I really don't know what to say. Do you guys have any questions about this bloodbath? Feel free to ask!

Day 1
The first PoV after the bloodbath is from the Careers and shows then reacting to what just transpired. I feel like a PoV like this happens in pretty much every one of my games. Which brings up an interesting question; how many times has an alliance other than the Careers won the cornucopia? The Hellraisers win it in the 326th, and Aelia’s Alliance wins one of them in the 400th, but I can’t remember another time it happened.

Anyways, this PoV shows that none of the Careers (except Ramon) liked Wari or thought she was useful. And, most importantly, it features the death of Shervert. She’s basically another bloodbath death, but one that has more storyline importance. Her refusal to bend to Dragon’s will is what gets her killed and has the other Careers really consider if he’s worth keeping around as an ally. Ramon thinks about how the Careers aren’t the place for him, but he’s actually one of the Careers who stays with the alliance for the longest. Go figure. Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Dragon kills Shervert by stabbing a dagger into her mouth. I’m pretty sure I meant for that to ironic or something because she’s overweight, but it just feels stupid now.

The next PoV is from Xavier and it’s just an update on his current status in the Games. Though it also makes mention of how he managed to get a weapon and bag before anyone else could. Reminder: he’s the fastest tribute in the series.

I’m not sure how I feel about this next PoV. It features Swift and Cashmere finding a barn and Cashmere has a very sudden shift in personality. The reason is because advice told her to change the way she acted, but I feel like this is a really jarring change that comes on too quickly. Nowadays I feel like I’d be able to handle this better. Something that works out in its favor, though, is that we’re in Swift’s head so we don’t know for sure if Cashmere really changed or if she was just acting. I don’t remember if her demeanor is better explained later, so maybe I’m just complaining about something unnecessarily. Guess we’ll find out!

Exolian’s PoV lays the groundwork for Luna betraying and killing him pretty well, considering that her killing him wasn’t planned in advance and was just a part of mistymolla’s advice. Basically, it shows how Luna could find Exolian weak and a liability. Another thing I like is how that the alliance doesn’t know that Flow’r is dead yet, which is realistic. Unless they saw her get killed they’d have no way of knowing whether she was dead or not.

Josef’s PoV exists to show us his position in the Games and how he’s not intimidated by the other tributes.

Ice’s PoV consists of him watching the Fallen and finding out that both of his allies are dead. His reaction to that is...pretty muted. Anyway, I do really like his summation of the dead.

So, two Careers are dead, two weaklings, my two allies and Saidy.

And that wraps up the first day of the Games. Not too much happened here, but that’s because it was the first day and apart of the bloodbath. Next up is Day Two. I’ll see you then.

Day 2
I have to say that I really like the name for this day. “When Flowers Attack”. Ha. Classic.

We start the day off with a PoV from Cody. But before I dive into that I’d like to mention how weird it is that Dragon made a big deal about going hunting in Day 1 and yet we see no followup for that. It’s not even mentioned again. Weird. Anyway, Cody doesn’t trust Dragon but is too afraid to stand up to him, which makes some sense. Damian agrees that he doesn’t trust him, and also gives one of the best reasons for why Careers don’t just immediately turn on and kill Dragon.

''“Hell no!” he whispers back but then a grin forms on his face. “But I do like how he makes all of us focus our attention on him. None of the others are even thinking about how big of a threat we can be”''

Dragon soaks up all the attention and basically acts as a shield for the other Careers. With him around none of the tributes (or their mentors) will make plans to single out the other Careers. Of course, this still doesn’t work out too well for Damian. I like this line of thought because it explains why the Careers wouldn’t just kill the obviously deranged individual right off the bat.

The next POV is of Luna and it details her betraying and killing Exolian. I never really noticed this before, but Luna comes off as a very cold individual here. She hides her water so she doesn’t have to share with her allies and she outright murders Exolian because he’s weak and she thinks he could get her killed. I have to say that this was a bold strategy from mistymolla. This could have gone wrong in so many ways, but it ended up paying off well for him. If I remember correctly, Marcio and Bethunia comment later on how they suspected that Luna had really killed Exolian and never really thought it was an accident; that would explain why they bought the flimsy excuse of “accidentally” dropping an axe onto your allies head.

Ice gets another kill here in the next PoV. The four Careers who went hunting enter the clearing where he’s hiding and he pops out and kills Damian. I’ve mentioned before how I didn’t really care for Damian and the fact that he was in the Careers with more interesting tributes didn’t do much to help him. Basically, I wanted to whittle the Careers down and I chose to ax the least interesting one. You may be wondering how the Careers didn’t notice Ice hiding behin that rock, but it’s a very big rock. It’s like the ones down by Lake Michigan, if you want an example. Oh, and Dragon swears here. See, Aerial, I let the tributes swear sometimes!

When Flowers Attack! Ransom gets devoured by a flower mutt here and I really enjoy how interesting and unique this mutt is. I believe it returns in the 327th, but don’t quote me on that. Anyway, I killed Ransom off because I didn’t see any real story path for him. And why did he get killed by the flowers? Because him and Perrie were in the meadow, where I placed the flower mutts! When I first designed the arena I stuck a mutt in each of the regions so that if I wanted to kill someone off without anyone targeting them with advice I could just use a mutt.

Darker encounters Mark in the cornfield and the two of them get into a brief fight that ends with Darker running away. This is a scene I very purposely put into the Games; back in the day when these games were made it was very, very rare for two hostile tributes to encounter one another without someone winding up dead. So I bucked that trend and wrote this fight. It also serves the purpose of featuring two tributes and showing off their personalities without it being rendered useless with one of their deaths. On another note, before Mark arrives Darker is just plucking corn straight from the stalk and eating it. Is that a thing? Can you do that? I don’t know, but maybe one of you do.

The final PoV of Day Two features Regina hiding in the graveyard lying in an open grave for...reasons. She does a lot of complaining about her lack of food which is a not-so-subtle signal to her mentor that they should send her some food. Typically if a lack of supplies is going to affect a tribute I have them do something in the text that implies their mentor should send them whatever it is that they need. Anyway, this ends the second day. The day was interesting and featured a nice mix of action and character building, which is always nice. The Fallen were tributes who I didn’t really have much plans for and ended up filling their roles admirably. Not every tribute can be a heavily featured star who defies death regularly. The Games wouldn’t work if there wasn’t midcard tributes dying in the early days.

And that’s a wrap for this day. Do you guys have any questions? Sound off in the comments below!

Day 3
The third day, titled “Inferno”, begins with the culmination of the Pansy-Dragon plot and it ends with predictably bloody results. Both Pansy and Nastya wind up dead and the Careers trust is irrevocably fractured. A note here is that this entire plot line was something I came up with and advice did not effect it at all. In fact, Pansy never received any advice whatsoever which is why her coup fails so spectacularly. (A note: Nick was actually the only person who sent advice for the third day)

So, yeah. This is the moment the entire plotline was leading to and I have to say that I am mostly pleased with the way it was handled. Though Pansy’s attack does come off a little lackluster, considering she throws a sickle at Dragon from point blank range and still misses. And there’s definitely some narrative dissonance with Diamond here; she helps Dragon and kills Nastya, which distracts Pansy long enough for Dragon to kill her. Ramon also mentions how it appears that she respects Dragon, yet in the very next day she betrays and murders Dragon. The reasoning behind this is that I was originally going to have Diamond as Dragon’s assistant/henchman for the rest of the games and be the one person who doesn’t hate him, but then advice came in for her to betray him and I just rolled with it.

Narratively I suppose you could say that Diamond saw the writing on the wall when Cody and Ramon left and knew that being alone with Dragon was a bad idea, so she did what she did. Of course, had she not killed Nastya Dragon would have already been dead and the Careers wouldn’t have split up.

Anyway, Dragon slices Pansy’s face off and keeps it as a trophy. It’s the kind of sick and twisted thing he would do and it helps push Ramon and Cody away from him.

The next PoV also contains death, and that’s from Darker killing Xavier. This was purely advice driven, Nick had told Darker to do exactly what he did; sneak up behind Xavier and kill him with a perfectly thrown knife. I was a little disappointed that I had to kill Xavier, because I enjoyed writing him and wanted to do more with him. Unfortunately his mentor wasn’t active. Honestly, I almost had Xavier win the District 6 Death Duel and come back for the 400th Games, but I decided that it was a better choice to bring a tribute who had accomplished more and had some name recognition with the readers.

Marcio and Bethunia reflect on how neither of them trust Luna (and rightfully suspect that she killed Exolian) and grow closer to one another. I think that this is beginning of their actual romance angle and it’s...it exists, alright. I’ve already spoken about how I think romances are my weakest point and I don’t see anything here that changes my mind on that.

Mark has a PoV here, the last one he has in the Games. This is the first time I read it in a long time and I really like it. Mark is a psychotic killer, but he’s also intelligent. He knows perfectly well that he can’t just charge the barn head on, so he starts a fire and creates the titular inferno instead. Once again this is all my doing and has nothing to do with advice, since none was sent for these tributes. I killed Swift to further Cashmere’s character, having her lose someone she’s come to view as a friend right after changing her ways is just too delightfully devilish an opportunity to pass up. It helps transform Cashmere from the bratty snot she was into someone who you want to cheer for...at least that was the goal. It’s ultimately up to the readers to decide if she deserves their sympathy or not.

Also, I purposely had Swift reflect on her friend back home right before she died so that her death would be felt even more.

Regina is still lying in a grave and is still hungry. Starving, even. This PoV exists to remind her mentor to sponsor or she’s gonna die. Not much to say.

Perrie’s PoV is very unsubtle with its intent. I didn’t know what do with Perrie, so I literally just had her wander the Forest wondering what to do. My goal was to get her mentor to send some advice to her and see if I could get a storyline out of that.

The final PoV is from Cashmere reacting to Swift’s death. I already spoke about that, so I’ll wrap things up here. What about you guys? What was your biggest takeaway from this day?

Day 4
The fourth day of the Games is subtitled “The Strong” and I...really don’t know why. I’m sure I had a reason, but I don’t remember it. Hopefully one of you has an idea why this is, because I sure don’t!

The very first PoV of the day features the long awaited death of Dragon. Pretty much everything that happens here was decided by advice. First off, Ramon and Cody both desert the Careers, which their mentors told them to do. Then Diamond was advised to follow Dragon as they chased after the two of them, and kill him if he was to fall into their trap. And Dragon’s mentor told him...nothing. Kekai failed to give advice. So when faced with this situation I really didn’t have a choice but to kill Dragon off.

I have to say, though, that I’m happy with how this played out, Diamond’s narrative dissonance aside. Realistically Dragon’s behavior would drive all his allies away and it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for Diamond to betray him either. Honestly, Dragon and his psychotic behavior is what doomed the Careers in this games. Had they all just stuck together it would have been almost impossible for the other tributes to defeat them, but since they fractured they lost. Actually this is pretty much what messes the Careers up every time.

The next PoV is from Luna and details her leaving Bethunia and Marcio’s alliance. Once again my biggest takeaway from this is how cold Luna is. Once she’s decided that the two of them are no longer beneficial to her, the only thing stopping her from killing them is the fact that they would instead kill her in the attempt. Of course, she’s doing all this based on the assumption that they will betray and kill her first, so she’s not acting like a sociopath or anything. To be honest I feel like her coldness actually helps her as a character; it showcases her singleminded determination to win and save her mother at any cost. Oh, Ramon and Cody are also in this PoV. Them stumbling upon the others (but not noticing it) is what gives Luna the distraction required to slip away from Marcio and Bethunia.

Josef kills Regina in this next PoV. I gave her mentor many chances to try and save her, but they never did so I finally just killed her off. She amounts to basically nothing in these Games, but I’m glad that it’s Josef who kills her because it calls back to training when she antagonized him. I would also like to point out that Regina’s moaning here is what makes Josef think the zombie mutts are another tribute. I suppose you could say that Regina somehow is responsible for that, then? I mean, I wouldn’t but you could.

I don’t know what to say about this next PoV. It features Ice sitting around wondering who died when Perrie and Cashmere, who’ve aligned offscreen, arrive and begin to rummage through their supplies. Ice promptly shoots Perrie with a crossbow and makes his third kill, and Cashmere runs off in a panic. I think there’s a missed opportunity here, considering I never even show how the two of them came together. Honestly, I feel like Cashmere is a missed opportunity entirely. She doesn’t do much for the rest of the games and just gets unclimatically killed off the next day. I don’t know why I just brushed her aside, but it’s definitely something I’d change nowadays. Maybe I should do an updated remaster of these Games and fix it. Haha.

Ramon and Cody sit around together and react to them abandoning the other Careers. There’s not much to say here other than for this error:

“Do you think Dragon and Diamond are still alive?” Ramon asks.

''“I hope so,” I reply taking a sip of water from my canteen. “But I doubt they did''

Why does Cody hope that Dragon and Diamond are still alive? Because I done goofed! Ramon is supposed to have asked “Do you think Dragon and Diamond died?” Instead I messed up and now for some reason Cody not only appears to want them alive, but it is doubtful that they are. Whoops!

The final PoV of the day is from Darker and it has him reacting to the deaths and going over who is still alive. The reason he can’t remember Josef is because in his advice Nick detailed what Darker should do if he were to encounter any of the tributes...except Josef for some reason. So that made its way into the text. The Feast is also announced here and this is the first time in the series that a Feast has occurred. How many Games don’t have Feasts? Is it only the 300th, the 326th, 398th, and the 400th? Anyway, every tribute attending the Feast has their own special bag, but I will go over that on the next day.

And that concludes the fourth day of the Games. Two of the deaths here were used well and the third was...just kinda out of place. I still don’t know what I was thinking with the Perrie-Cashmere storyline but oh well. What about you guys? What are your thoughts on the day?

Day 5
In this section I will be talking about the fifth and penultimate day of the 301st Games, subtitled “Feast”. The reasoning for the name is pretty obvious, and I don’t feel like I have to explain why I chose it. Anyway, before I get to discussing the content of the day I’m just going to to list what was inside each tributes special bag, which was chosen for them by their mentor (or by myself if their mentor didn’t pick)

Ice had chicken food. Diamond had a shield. Darker’s bag was an explosive. Josef had body armor. Bethunia’s contained darts. Marcio had mice in his. Cody had a trident. Ramon had Instant Relief. Cashmere, Luna, and Mark all just had extra food.

With that out of the way, I will now discuss the first PoV of the day, which is from Darker and features him killing Cashmere. I really can’t explain why this happens. He’s hidden on the outskirts of the cornucopia watching the Feast to see what will transpire at the Feast and then Cashmere just wanders into the scene and attacks him with a crossbow. Once again I’ll bemoan the fact that all of her character development is wasted here. What was I thinking? I literally have no idea why this happens. I’m seriously baffled. It doesn’t even fit Cashmere’s character for her to randomly attack someone out of the blue like that! Honestly, if I was writing this nowadays Cashmere definitely wouldn’t have died like that. Oh, and Darker swears here. See, Aerial? I do let the characters swear sometimes!

The next PoV is from Ice. He, like Darker, is sitting on the outskirts of the cornucopia waiting for the bags to arrive. Ramon and Cody arrive, discuss their plan, and then Ice gets his fourth kill by planting an arrow in Cody’s back. I killed Cody because he was sort of just there and at this time I was already setting up the end game; I knew exactly who I wanted in the finale and the Feast was a good way to gather everyone else up and off them in a cool and exciting manner. Cody could have survived, however, if Nick hadn’t changed his advice at the last minute. Originally Cody wasn’t going to attend the Feast, but when Vinny advised Ramon to go, Nick changed his mind and had Cody go as well. That was the proverbial nail in his coffin, so to speak.

Diamond PoV is next and it’s a continuation of the last one. Ramon and her briefly realign before they get attacked by Mark. Who is dispatched with...surprising ease. People are just dropping like flies, which makes sense for a Feast, but there’s not much fanfare here. Mark has been built up as a sincere threat, so it’s a disappointing that he goes down as easily as he does. Anyway, Ice arrives, shoots and misses Ramon, and hits Darker’s bag. Which, as I mentioned earlier, was an explosive. Nick actually chose that to be what his bag was, but I’m not sure he expected it would be such a game changer. The second I read his advice I knew that the bag was going to explode during the Feast and be the catalyst for several deaths. I really liked the idea of a boobytrapped bag, and was kinda disappointed I hadn’t come up with the idea myself. In fact, I liked the idea so much that similarly trapped bags make appearances in later games!

Josef’s PoV details the aftermath of the explosion. Ramon, who was closest to the bag, was killed. Diamond was briefly knocked unconscious, and Ice was merely dinged up. First off, I want to mention that Ramon is credited as Ice’s fifth kill, because he was the one to activate the explosive. That’s technically accurate, but I’m sure someone could argue that Ice shouldn’t get the credit for it. Diamond is killed by Josef before she can get her bearings. I’m not sure if anyone ever caught this, but the way Josef kills Amira in the 400th was a callback to this very moment. He even tells both of them “You lose” before he kills them!

The final PoV of the Feast is from Luna and it details how she set up some snares in the forest, hoping to catch someone fleeing the Feast. Josef actually gets caught in one and Luna comes the closest any tribute gets to killing him when she slams an axe into his chest. Unfortunately for her, Josef had Instant Relief. He’d actually been carrying that around since the gained it at the bloodbath and I purposely wrote this scene so that he had a chance to use it. Luna does manage to steal most of his supplies, but she leaves behind his weapons and body armor. Oh, and the Instant Relief was in his jacket, if you were wondering.

The first PoV of the Feast aftermath is about Marcio and Bethunia sitting around reacting to the Feast explosion and contemplating their mortality. I’ve never noticed this before but Marcio doesn’t really do much in these Games, does he? I mean, this is day five and he’s literally done nothing of note yet. Mostly he’s just sat around with Bethunia and reacted to stuff. In this reread I’ve found Luna to by far be the most interesting part of his alliance and I have to wonder why past me valued Marcio so highly. Maybe this will be a controversial opinion, but I feel that if I were to write these Games today Marcio would not be Victor.

Anyway, the next PoV is from Darker and it continues to make me appreciate his character. He’s astounded at the deaths of all the big threats and thinks about how that, even though everyone he loves is dead, he can still win and make them proud. There’s also some foreshadowing about how doesn’t think he could beat Ice in a fight and that someone else will have to take him out first. Which, of course, is exactly what happened. Still, I hadn’t decided that yet, so chalk this one up to accidental foreshadowing again.

Ice checks his Feast bag and thinks about everyone he has back home. I’m not certain if he actually thinks his “slightly burnt chicken food” is great or if he’s just being sarcastic. I’ll let you guys decide this one.

Luna’s PoV rounds out the day. In it I begin to show that mist and low visibility will be a big factor on the final day, and Luna reacts to the deaths and reveals how Josef survived. I’m not sure how many people read the status chart and knew he had Instant Relief, so I guess this could have came out of left field. It’s definitely not something you’d know from a casual reread.

Before I wrap this day up, I’m going to comment on the tributes who died. Though I don’t have perfect recollection on my thought process through these earlier Games (it’s been eight years since I wrote these!) I do remember the exact reason I killed the tributes this day. The moment I decided a Feast was going to occur I knew that this would be the penultimate day and that I would kill off every tribute I didn’t think would win. I wanted the finale to hold only tributes who held a real chance of winning, and 2013 me didn’t think that the five who died here had what was required. Rereading all these years later and I have to say...I mostly agree with that sentiment. While Ramon, Diamond, Cody, and Mark are good characters, I don’t feel that they did enough here to be Victor material. Ramon and Cody didn’t have enough of a storyline, Diamond was all over the place with her motivation, and Mark was a good supporting character but not someone who’d win. The only exception to this is Cashmere. I think that she should have survived this day and made it to the finale, and...I’m not sure what she should have done, but she should’ve been used better. I’m not going to go on about this again, though, because I’ve made my thoughts on that subject pretty clear. Anyway, that sums up Day Five. What about you guys? What’re your thoughts on the day?

Day 6
It’s time for me talk about Day Six, subtitled “Finale” and the final day of the 301st Games! First off, I’d like to point out that these games are tied with the 326th and the 398th as the shortest games in the series. Each of the three only lasts six days.

Onto the actual writing! In the first PoV of the day Marcio and Bethunia receive night vision glasses as a sponsor gift and these let them see through the mist...somehow. I’m not sure how that works, but I digress. Then zombie mutts climb out of the lake and they flee in fear. I had this ending designed from the moment I created these Games. I knew that on the final day zombies would pour into the arena and attack the tributes, forcing them towards the cornucopia where it would begin to rain and the final battle would take place atop the shrine. The only thing I didn’t know was who the tributes involved would be. Speaking of zombies...

In the next PoV Josef gets attacked and devoured by a horde of them. Once again, I knew that this would happen to a tribute from the moment I created the Games. How did I decide it would be Josef? Well, he was the only tribute to make it to the finale with an inactive mentor. It didn’t feel right having him survive past tributes who had mentors trying, so I had the horde take him down. I would say that, had Josef actually gotten advice, he would have had a chance at winning, but 2013 me was dead set on having Marcio win and I still have no idea why that was. During this reread I found him and Bethunia to both be way less interesting than any of the others, so I’m not sure why I liked Marcio so much. Anyway, Josef’s death is a cool moment and a fitting end for someone as crafty and powerful as him.

The next two PoV’s are entwined, and they’re from Luna and Darker. In the first she makes a poisonous gas barrel and spots Darker’s trap. This is all advice related; Max had Luna craft the poison gas and Nick told Darker to start a fire and lure tributes to him. Luna realizes it’s a trap, of course, but it doesn’t matter because she needs to kill the other tributes. So she proceeds to the fire and chucks the barrel into the firelight only to get hit with Darker’s knife in return. I don’t have perfect recollection of my thought process here. Somehow I decided that Luna was going to be fatally injured and encounter Marcio so that she could make the promise to save her mother with him, but I don’t remember why I did so. Just makes a good story, I suppose.

Ice’s PoV here is just setup for the finale. I have nothing to comment on.

Marcio and Bethunia arrive at the cornucopia and encounter the dying Luna. The famous promise is made and ultimately kept. Marcio saves her mother from death. This gives Luna a tragic death that ties into her backstory and is a reason why I never really considered having Luna win. Her death here is more emotional and poignant than her winning would be; the fourteen year old who entered a death games just to save her mother fails right at the end. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I feel that this is probably the most emotionally impactful death of the 301st Games. (though I noticed that it’s not really a promise because Marcio never audibly agrees to it)

Oh, and right at the end of the PoV Ice pops out from the shrine and kills Bethunia just as she’s entering. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to explain the reasoning as to why I had Marcio’s love interest die right in front of him. It’s an old trope that’s been used countless times before. Does it work here? Eh. I’ll let you guys be the judge of that. Anyway, this is Ice’s record setting sixth kill, which holds as the most in a games until Austin ties it in the 327th. (Anais then breaks it in the 399th, only for Josef to surpass her in the 400th) Also, I’m just going to mention that I can’t recall most of Austin’s kills off the top of my head. All I remember for sure is that he tag teams Vlad with Ryan and takes Rufus out at the end.

I’ve mentioned this before but Ice was my second choice for Victor. The only reason he isn’t runner up is because I didn’t want to go full ham with the cliches and have the guy who killed Bethunia be the final challenge in Marcio’s way. Instead I have their fight be the penultimate one of the Games and, fueled with rage and desperation, Marcio somehow manages to kill Ice. He then proceeds to climb to the top of the shrine and face Darker in an epic battle.

You might be asking yourself why the two of them randomly decide to climb the shrine. Well, the reason for that is because I thought it was cooler that way. That’s it. I don’t have a better explanation and neither does the text. Just accept that it’s super cool and stop questioning it!

The fight itself doesn’t have much for me to comment on it. It’s a cool fight scene (I hope) that ends with Marcio using some kind of martial arts move to throw Darker off the top of the shrine and to his death. Honestly I find that part a little goofy, but I’m pretty sure I thought it was the coolest thing ever when I wrote it. Following his Darker’s death Marcio is crowned Victor and he laments how he will never be able to fully recover from the horrors of the arena.

And there you have it. The conclusion of the 301st Annual Hunger Games. All things considered I find this to probably be my weakest Games. My biggest qualm about the 301st is just how basic it is. There's not really much that makes it unique or sets it apart from any other Games on the wiki. It does have some great tributes and interesting mutts, but there's not any plot point that really grabs me and the Victor's story and motivation is perhaps too formulaic. While I still like these Games, I don't quite like them as much as the others in the series.

Could they be improved with some better writing and clearer characterization? Most definitely. People seemed to like Marcio as Victor though, so things couldn’t have gone too wrong on that front, even though nowadays I personally think that Ice, Darker, or Josef would be a more fitting Victor. And... I can’t think of anything more to say on these Games. But if you guys have any questions feel free to ask them!

Of course, the reread isn’t done yet. Next up I will be covering the 302nd Annual Hunger Games and I have to say that I’m excited for this. I haven’t full reread these in awhile, but I remember really enjoying them, so I guess we’ll find out whether they still hold up! Stay fresh, cheese bags!

Introduction
Welcome to the third part of the LightStone123 series reread! Before diving straight in, I will be providing a link to the Games themselves. You can find it [|Here].

Secondly, I will be detailing the events leading up to the creation of these—Nah. That’s pointless, because there isn’t really any events leading up. I just created the blog for these while the 301st was in the finale, so there’s no interesting story or anything. I just wanted to keep writing and had already decided that I was going to be making this a series. The only thing to note is that these were created in March, 17, 2013 and ended June, 28th, 2013. They ran for somewhere around three months, which seems really short compared to how long I take nowadays.

Other than that there’s not much else to say. The sponsoring system stayed the same and there weren’t any formatting changes, so without any more fanfare I’m going to roll straight into a brand new section of the reread.

The Users
Due to popular demand I will be adding this section to these Games as well! Basically, I will list the users who competed in the 300th, along with which tributes they submitted, and talk about some interesting factoids, such as how many Games of mine they’ve competed in and so on. I’m not going to mention any users who competed in the 302nd, because I already talked about them in that section.

SuperTomato: This guy is awesome! He was literally one of my first friends on the wiki and we mutually participated in each other’s Games. Despite all that, though, I don’t actually know his name. Anyway, his tributes in the 300th were Elvis, Edmund, Gogh, and Cosmo. He’s had one Victor in the series, which was Edmund. He’s competed in the 300th, 325th, and 326th. His tributes were in the 400th, but they had different mentors then.

Thena.airice14: I don’t know anything about this person. I wish I could say something interesting, but I really don’t have anything to say. *shrug*. They had Astrid and Gracie in these Games, their only time competing. Their highest placing in the series was 6th with Astrid.

Gurule2012: Once again I know nothing about this person. Pretty sure I never interacted with them outside these Games. Anyway, they had Johnny and Bethany in these, which were also the only Games they competed in. Their highest placement in the series was Bethany finishing 14th.

MaybellRocks: A threepeat of obscurity here. I know nothing about this person. I think they’ve changed their account name, and I still don’t know them. In the 300th they had Allie, Nick, Coco, and Mondi. Their highest placement in the series is 10th with Allie.

Theman77: I’ve competed in several Games with this guy. He made some cool tributes, but unfortunately he never joined any of my Games other than these. Here he had Eli and Noah. His highest placement was 3rd with Noah.

Dedejacob: The very first Games I’ve ever competed in on the wiki were his. One of my tributes finished 5th, after getting “smushed flat” by a collapsed ceiling. I also got to know this guy during the course of CimW’s Games. He was a fun dude who had some trouble with spelling, but I think that was because of how young he was. He had Plasma and Ameryllis in the 300th. The only Games in the series that he competed in were these and the 398th. His highest placement was Ameryllis finishing 11th.

Write46747: I’ve competed in several Games alongside this guy. That’s all I really know, since I never quite interacted with him outside that context. The only Games he competed in were the 300th, and he only had Di in them. Di finishing 4th was his highest placement. YoungGuy5: Some of you may know this guy but I sure don’t. The only Games he competed in were the 300th and his highest placement was Morolith finishing 21st.

KatnissRox24: This section may be boring because I literally don’t have anything to say about most of these people. I don’t know this user. No idea who they are. Kaylay was their only tribute, and this was their only Games. Their highest placement was 12th.

District 1 Reaping
And now we get to the first bit of actual writing in these Games. I have to say that I really liked the concept behind Topaz’s character. Realistically the Career Districts would have poor people, because there is always an underclass somewhere. Topaz was actually the first time I’d ever seen someone address that issue (though I’ve seen plenty of people tackle it later) and I was excited to have the opportunity to write a sympathetic, kind Career who pretty much bucked every stereotype about them. It’s quite apparent in the writing, from the way he worries about his mother and sister to how he refuses to make fun of Puffy (the escort) and her weird appearance.

The fact that Topaz is in the Career Academy (and thus gets free meals and training) is why he’s so well fed and muscular when compared to his family, by the way.

Also a funny anecdote is that around the same time these Games were happening Junior ii submitted Topaz to another Games but was forced to change his first name for him to be accepted because, and this is what the creator of those Games actually said,“Topaz is a girls name”. First off, how often do you see a person named Topaz in real life? Secondly, even if it was a girls name, why in the world would that mean the name would have to change? You could submit a male character named Jessica or something to my Games and as long as he was a good character I’d still accept him!

That aside, I should probably speak about the second tribute featured in this Reaping, which is Raven. I always found her a strange character and never quite knew what to do with her, something you can probably tell from the way she’s featured in these Games. I don’t have much else to say about her right now, since she doesn’t really do anything of note here.

Finally, before I wrap this Reaping up I’ll just like to note that the writing, both it’s style and quality, is basically the same as the 301st. Which makes sense, since I rolled right into these without a break or anything. I remember my writing improving during the course of these, but I guess we’ll find out whether that’s just my mind playing tricks on me or what.

Up next is the District 2 Reaping. Stay tuned!

District 2 Reaping
I hate Drewsiff.

No offense to Nick or anything, but he’s one of my least favorite tributes in the entire series. He’s literally a flat, one note killing machine who I hesitate to even call a character because he barely has any. His backstory is stupid too. He’s literally killed a thousand people but has never been caught, despite the fact that he’s killed so many children that the District eventually wouldn’t have anyone to Reap. Oh, and did I mention that he started a massacre at school but the principal didn’t expel him because he had perfect grades? And then when the school board found out and had a meeting with Drewsiff and the principal (instead of you know, alerting the proper authorities) they both just killed the school board and went on their merry way? And don’t even get me started on how he kills people by sucking their blood out with a vacuum cleaner. A vacuum cleaner!

Aaanywaaays, let’s move onto the actual writing, shall we?

Onyx is second twelve year old Career in the series, but she actually has some justification unlike Di. Her father is a Victor and a renowned figure in the District, so it’d make sense that the other Careers would accept her. Onyx is an interesting character and one that I don’t feel was completely used to her best potential. I don’t regret the way I used her or anything, but I definitely see that she could’ve done more.

But the main attraction of this Reaping isn’t either of the tributes. It’s the escort, Diane. Since Drewsiff’s backstory included him killing the escort I had to make sure that she was a noteworthy character who both drew the reader’s attention and was annoying enough that the President wouldn’t mind her death. Diane practically steals all the screen time here, and personally I find it absolutely glorious. Her zany actions and mannerisms never fail to make me laugh, no matter how many times I reread it. Truth be told, she’s partially based on my Grandma and the way she sometimes behaves. I don’t know if that’s an indictment on me as a person or whatever, but it’s a fun trivia note!

The best part is that even if you find Diane to be annoying and a nuisance, then you can revel in the fact that she winds up dead! By an axe that Drewsiff pulled from his pants. Yes, his pants. I couldn’t think of a better way for him to have smuggled one on the stage so that’s what I went with. It’s lame, I know, but it perfectly fits someone like Drewsiff, whose equally as lame.

Oh, and Diane returns in the 327th Games as the new escort for District 12. Since the tributes were being revived I only felt it fair to bring back the most interesting escort as well.

Huh. Looks Diane practically stole the spotlight in this reread as well. Go figure. Well, I can’t think of anything to say right now, so I think I’ll just end this here. See you in the District 3 Reaping!

District 3 & 4 Reaping
I’m going to be combining the District’s into pairs from here on out, because it’ll make things go quicker and I’m not sure how much I’ll have to say about each individual Reaping. Anyway, let’s get to it!

The District 3 Reaping does a good job giving you a rundown on Courage’s life and how it, to be honest, sucks. I mean, it’s definitely not as bad some of the other tributes lives, but it’s not exactly one I’d like to live. And while I’m on this subject I’d like to note that there doesn’t seem to very many tributes with positive parents in the series. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Elecc. Maybe there are more and I’m just forgetting them, but most tributes parents seem to either be negative or completely absent. I understand that, of course, because parents aren’t ever going to be a big factor in the Games. They’ll basically just appear in the Reapings and then only get mentioned in passing after that. Still, it’s an interesting note.

Marcio makes an appearance here. It’s the first showcase of how the Games have had a negative effect on his life. I mean, not as negative of an effect as it had on all the tributes who died in the 301st, but still. Also it’s worth noting that Marcio is apparently District 3’s first Victor in a decade. Don’t think I remembered that.

''Bozo laughs giddily and I can’t help but notice his flabs of fat bouncing around every which way. Gross.'' Just wanted to share that so everyone has to imagine it like I did. You’re welcome.

I feel as if this Reaping does an excellent job showcasing Courage’s character as a whole and sets him up as someone to keep an eye on going into the Games. So far him and Topaz have definitely had more attention paid to them than the other tributes and that was intentional. From the outset of these Games I was way more interested in them and their possible arcs than Raven, Onyx, or even Syren. Unless some kind of advice rolled in that changed things, I knew that both of them were going to survive the early portion of the Games and thus wanted to make sure they stuck out in readers heads.

Oh, but before I wrap this Reaping up I’d like to mention that Syren herself was a tribute who I wanted to last longer, but had to kill because she was put into Checkmate by advice. In case you’re wondering what the heck Checkmate is, it’s just a term I use when there’s tribute I’d rather keep alive, but am forced to kill because of advice or another external factor. I’ll go more in-depth with Syren’s particular case when we reach it, but I just wanted to define the term here so you all understand it when I talk about it later on in this reread.

Moving on to District 4…

Swatty is a good example of a tribute who grew on me during the course of the Games. Originally I didn’t think much of her and was actually planning on killing her in the bloodbath. I thought she was too much like Wari, just without the fake niceness. But the longer she lasted and the more I wrote her, the better I understood her brand of character. This Reaping alone has her personality just leap out at you, and anytime a tribute can stick out in my head from such a short time on screen I take notice. So it goes to show that even tributes I’m not initially high on can end up going quite far!

There’s not much else to say here, but I will touch on Trident briefly. He was always an interesting character that stuck out to me. He’s one of those tributes who’ve been created with a predefined role, so you more or less know from the outset the possible story arcs they will have. Originally I debated putting him in a storyline similar to the one he adopts in the 400th; becoming attached to a female Career who uses him for her own purposes. I never found the right fit for that story, however, so I passed on it and just had Trident be that extra Career the pack always seems to have. I liked how he was used in the 400th, though, so I’m fine with his performance here.

Oh, and I have to share this gem. “Don’t be afraid of all this masculinity,” Trident says with a wink. A friend of mine uses that line on girls and somehow it actually works. I’d like if all the females reading this could please explain that to me, because I don’t understand it in the slightest.

And that wraps up the District 3 and 4 Reaping! Next time I’ll be tackling District’s 5 and 6. See you then!

District 5 & 6 Reaping
Welcome back to the reread! This time I’ll be covering the Reapings for District 5 and 6! Without further ado, here we go!

Tameo is a very depressing character. Whether you’re reading about or writing him, there’s basically nothing joyful to be had. This whole Reaping is basically set up for you to realize that nothing good has happened to him prior to now, and nothing good will happen to him in the Games. Tameo winning was never a possibility, because I felt that would be disingenuous to what I assume his character was meant to be. There would be no happy ending for him.

That said, I realize practically no one gets a happy ending in this series. The vast majority of the characters wind up dead, after all, and most of the Victors don’t really go on to have happy lives. The only ones I can really say are unambiguously happy are Edmund and Charce. Watt would have been included in that but, you know, the 400th happened. We don’t know enough about Missy, Soot, and Austin’s lives post-games to really say, and Topaz was happy up until Artemis’ demise. He probably recovered from that, though.

Oh, and Caspian is really enjoying life.

Trick doesn’t do much in this Reaping and that was intentional. I hadn’t really found the right tone for her yet, so I didn’t want to give her too much screen time until I nailed it down. I have to mention that it’s surprising her backstory is more grounded than Drewsiff’s. Which, honestly, is probably why I don’t despise her like I do him.

And that’s about all I have to say about the District 5 Reaping. Let’s move on to District 6!

You know, Bluffy is also kind of a depressing character. I mean, unlike Tameo she herself isn’t depressed, but the circumstances that surround her certainly aren’t light reading. Negligent and abusive parents aren’t happy fun times, people. And the fact that she has to volunteer for her friend when she’s only twelve years old…Yeah, not fun.

The Reaping seems to set Bluffy up as a character to watch going forward, and while she does end up placing pretty high I don’t remember her doing too much in the actual Games. I suppose that is to be expected, considering how young she is, but I honestly don’t recall what alliance she’s even in. I think it’s the proto Anti-Careers that Shimdt makes? Guess I’ll find out during the reread!

Illegal Drugs makes his debut. He, as Bluffy describes him “looks like a mean selfish brat dude.” That was literally his description on his character submittal. I’m not joking. His creator literally had that down as—get this—his weakness. Oh, and he apparently has a twin sister who won a previous Hunger Games. I don’t know if that’s ever mentioned in the series proper, but you know what? I’m officially making it canon. Lilac Drugs won a Games sometime before the 300th. Maybe even the 299th.

Enjoy that mind blowing news, everyone. Next up are District 7 and 8!

District 7 & 8 Reaping
I’ll start this off by saying I’m not really sure why I made Wocky have the POV instead of Willow. I feel like it would have been better suited for her, and we would have been able to understand her character and backstory better; something we don’t really delve into during the Games because of her romance with Dome takes up all the spotlight. As I’ve said before, I don’t believe I really nailed their romance arc and it kinda forces Willow into the background. I know people really liked their romance back in the day, but I was wondering if still held up. What do you all think?

I don’t have much else to say about this particular Reaping. It lets us know the characters and gives us insight into Wocky’s backstory, which is basically just the fact a friend of his died in a prior Games. I do find it odd that Wocky talks about his friend so much but never reveals what his name was. I know I did this because Nick didn’t pick a name for him and I didn’t want to just invent one, but I probably should have because it’s just goofy how Wocky avoids saying it.

Onto District 8!

First off, I’ll admit that I made a mistake when I said that Luna was Max’s highest placing tribute. She is actually tied with Freya. Secondly, I haven’t spoken about this much, but I really like Freya. She’s a strong character with an interesting backstory and manages to do some cool stuff during the Games. I am disappointed that I never managed to have Cashmere and Freya interact with each other in a Games. That is most definitely a missed opportunity and I wished could have explored their sisterly bond in-depth.

I think the District 8 Reaping might be one of the best in these Games. Both tributes get good characterization and moments that show off their personalities. There’s not anything I’d change, other than cleaning up the writing itself. I do believe that Dome’s “luckiest guy in the world” schtick doesn’t get played up in the series as much as it could, but that’s not really an issue in this particular Reaping, so I’ll just end things on a high note and repeat that I really enjoyed the District 8 Reaping and I hope you all did too.

Next up is District’s 9 and 10!

District 9 & 10 Reaping
Hunther has the POV here and it’s a good insight into his character. He’s not a complex guy and I find that to be one of his finer points. Simple tributes aren’t bad. Not every character has to have a novel for a backstory or lived a rollercoaster of a life. Sometimes just having a simple farm-boy in the mix can improve the story more than you’d expect.

And other than that…I don’t have much to say. This Reaping fulfills it’s role admirably and doesn’t have any glaring issues.

Oh, but before I move on I would like to make note of Mayor Grain here. Earlier in the reread I was wondering when the Grain family was replaced as Mayor, and after seeing his antics here I’d have to say it was pretty soon. No way the Capitol would leave him in charge after that. I still don’t know exactly when the Price’s took over, but that’s an issue for another day.

Now for District 10!

Ellis was a tribute who I really liked that never got as high a placement as she could have. To be perfectly honest I think that, as a character, she’s worthy of being a Victor or finalist, but in the series she never survived past the third day. In the 400th she was put into Checkmate by Aerial’s advice, but I can’t recall off the top of my head what led to her early demise in these Games. I think it may have had something to do with mentor activity, but I’d have to double check that to be sure.

Anyway, yeah, I really like Ellis. This Reaping in particular does such a good job setting up her character and motivations that, if I was a new reader who’d stumbled upon these Games, I would fully expect her to go far. Unfortunately she doesn’t, but that’s definitely not a knock on her character.

As for her District partner…Vlad is a huge mystery and to be honest I prefer it that way. There’s no real explanation for his size or backstory for him or anything, really. As he was submitted via chat and I’ve long since forgotten and lost his info, we know basically nothing about him. The only thing I even know about his appearance is that he’s seven feet tall!

But that’s fine. The mystery kinda makes him a more compelling character and I’ve always enjoyed writing Vlad. Mentor issues prevented him from going far in these, but he fares much better once Blake takes over in the 327th.

Annnd that’s it for District 9 & 10. Next up is 11 & 12. Catch ya then, buddies!

District 11 & 12 Reaping
I’d forgotten how much I liked Shimdt’s Reaping. The setup is great, the events unfold stupendously, and the payoff is perfect. Honestly, Shimdt is a fun character with a good story and, looking back on things years later, it’s a shame that he does so little in the series. This Reaping also gives a good look at District 11 and the state of disrepair it’s currently in. To be honest, I’m not sure if the District even has a Victor between here and the 333rd. I know that at one point it’s mentioned that since Charce won District 11 has gone the longest without a Victor, but I’m not sure if a time frame is ever put on that. Maybe one of you know?

Anyway, I have to be honest and say that a big reason Shimdt didn’t last too long was his name. Yes, his name. I had real difficulty spelling it out properly and got annoyed at how often I had to go back and fix it during my proofreading. The only other time I remember having this big a problem with a tributes name was with Aemillia, but she died early for different reasons, so it’s not really comparable.

As for Rasp, his District partner, I find myself with no thoughts. I can’t really remember the first thing about her, other than the fact she was apart of Shimdt’s proto Anti-Careers. Here’s a quote from the Reaping.

''For some reason she has blood on her cheeks and begins screaming to Juvus, whoever that is, and keeps crying out that she was sorry. I have no idea what she is sorry for. ''

Yeah, I have to agree with Shimdt here. What exactly is Rasp’s backstory? I can honestly say I don’t have the faintest clue.

Well, let’s just move on to District 12! (Side note: I misspelled Shimdt’s name about five times during this reread, so yeah, still have trouble with it!)

Knight is a character who has pretty much no agency. He just exists. Unfortunately that seems to be the case for most twelve years-olds in the series, but that’s only to be expected considering the innate difficulty of developing characters so young. I mean, it’s not impossible, as shown with Bluffy and Raven, but for the most part twelve year-olds only have so much storylines possible.

Mina was another tribute that I really didn’t have anything for. I remember this Reaping in particular being difficult for me to plan because the tributes weren’t particularly devoted and I had no idea what the content of it would be. I ended up just showcasing Knight’s youthful naivety and I suppose that worked well. Neither one of the tributes shown here makes it past the bloodbath, and I more or less knew that would be the case from the start. The bloodbath deaths for these Games were actually the easiest in the entire series for me to decide, but I’ll go into more detail when I reach it. For now I’ll just wrap this section up, and continue it with District 13 and the Capitol when it return. See you then.

District 13 & The Capitol
To be honest, as much as I like Kiara as a character I don’t recall the specifics of her backstory. From rereading this Reaping it’s clear she had a sister named Beth who wound up dead, possibly because Kiara failed to save her, but not much more than that is really explained. I remember Kiara having a hidden dark side, like a subdued version of Mizu, but it’s now shown here either, so I don’t know the exact specifics of how that worked.

The Mayor, Adam Devils, is also shown here. He played a major part in Ice’s backstory and remains Mayor all the way up to the 327th, I believe. Something that’s never really played up is the fact that, since District 13 was independent from Panem prior to the 301st, Adam Devils was basically the leader of a small country. It doesn’t really mean much, but it goes to show that he’s a pretty cool guy. Anyway, I digress.

Aeron is also present in this Reaping. He’s noteworthy for being the first homosexual tribute in the series. Something that I liked about Aeron is the fact that he wasn’t solely defined by his sexuality: like in the real world, he’s just a person who happens to be homosexual and not a caricature, or a character whose whole design is based around that fact. I don’t know if I can phrase this properly, but in the real world sexuality is simply a facet of a person, not their whole being. Aeron, in my mind, is a good example of this being done right. And yeah, I’m sure that I’m not really the best person to be trying to explain this, but I wanted to put my thoughts out there any way.

Before I move on from this topic, I was wondering just how many homosexual tributes are there in the series? From the top of my head I can only name Aeron, Julius, Ashley, Zoey, and Mercury. I’m sure there’s more that I’m forgetting, and if I am then I’ll expect you guys to correct me!

As for the Capitol Reaping…

It’s mostly focused on recapping Cassandra’s backstory. That’s not a bad thing in of itself, but something about the way its done here feels off to me. I don’t know what, so maybe I’m just over analyzing it. *shrug*

The President Stryker shown here is Tiberius Stryker, the first president in the series and the same one featured in the 333rd Games. As you may have noticed the name is still spelt “Striker” instead of “Stryker”. The change is simply due to a stylistic choice, and you have to admit that the second version is much more eye catching and cool. There’s no in-universe reason for the change: for all extents and purpose the name has always been Stryker for the characters.

Avian was the biggest blank slate in the series until the great Twan Crane showed up in the 401st. Erlend literally told me that he didn’t have any time to finish him, so I should just kill him off in the bloodbath. So, being the evil genius I am, I decided to have Cassandra have a vision of his death in the bloodbath while at the Reaping. That way his death serves the purpose of showcasing her powers as well as giving Avian some form of notable story moment.

I’d like to note that I purposely had Raven, another of Erlend’s tributes, be the one to kill Avian. I only felt it fair; after all, if he was giving up on his tribute I may as well let another one of his benefit from it.

Actually, that got me thinking. How many tributes have been killed by their own mentors tributes? Like, for example, how often has Aerial’s tributes killed another one of his? Other than this instance here, I can’t recall a situation where it happened. That’s not to say that it hasn’t happened, I’m sure it has at some point, but I just don’t remember it. You guys will correct me if I’m wrong, certainly.

And…that about wraps it up for the Reapings! It felt like it took forever, but I’ve finally finished these! Now it’s time to move onto the training sessions. I’ll see you then!

Training
Whew, I’m finally done with those Reapings! They seemed to go on forever, didn’t they? Well, let’s just get these underway, shall we?

The first training PoV belongs to Aeron and features him analyzing all of the possible threats amongst the tributes. Notably he marks down the Careers, Willow, Trick, and Vlad as the biggest dangers. Funnily enough one of those tributes, Trick, actually kills him during the Games. Afterwards Aeron goes and meets up with Mina, becoming allies with her in the process. Trick winds up killing both of them in the Games, but that wasn’t my original intention. As I mentioned before, I originally planned for Aeron to be the one to end Trick, killing her in vengeance for Mina. Mentor issues prevented this storyline from ever panning out and instead he just became another casualty of hers.

Raven’s PoV serves the purpose of setting up the Career alliance and showcasing how she’ll be their leader. As she says in the writing, it wasn’t much of a choice. Raven is practically the only Career in these Games suited for a leadership role. And with that being the case, I have to say she may just be the least interesting Career leader in the series. The only real competition she has for the distinction (at least the only one I can name off the top of my head) is Trevor from the 398th. But what do you all think?

The third PoV is Dome’s and it’s the beginning of his and Willow’s romance arc. Despite my own misgivings on this romance, I do like the slow burn approach taken here. Willow is initially standoffish and doesn’t really want anything to do with Dome; something that fits her character well. Oh, and Illegal is featured here. What a goof.

Remember my typical “character sits at lunch and analyses the other tributes" PoV I always use? Yeah, it returns here, this time with Syren. She makes note of Shimdt’s (took forever to spell his name) alliance and thinks that they’re basically the opposite of the Careers. As I’ve said before, this alliance is the proto Anti-Careers. A bunch of weaker, underrated tributes banding together to try and survive against the wrath of the Careers? Yeah, definitely Anti-Career style. Anyway, she also notes the trio of Hunther, Ellis, and Cassandra. We don’t get to see how those three came together, which is a shame. In fact, neither of those three have a single PoV during the entirety of the training session, which I find odd. Was there a reason for that? I don’t believe so, but I also can’t say that with 100% certainty.

Those four POVs make up the first day of training, so I’ll move onto the second now, which begins with Trident. Not much happens here other than him noticing that Trick is absolutely insane. Topaz doesn’t agree with that assessment, but that’s because he’s overly kind and refuses to think ill of any girl. Something I’m not sure most people know is that one of Topaz’ character quirks was that he wouldn’t kill a girl. He actually winds up killing three girls, but it’s all with explosives and he’s very disconnected from the aftermath, which is why it doesn’t effect him at all.

Next PoV is Rasp’s and it features the proto-antis. The whole alliance is just Nick and Vinny’s characters, a fact I’d just like to mention. Anyway, the point of this PoV was to show how Shimdt’s alliance is weak and unskilled with weaponry. Their whole arc is about how incompetent they are and that’s why they aligned together. Individually they’d all be easy targets, but together they form a more formidable force. Not a very skilled force, mind you, but one that at least makes up for their lack of combat ability with sheer numbers.

Vlad has a PoV and it’s basically filler showing him as a strong threat. Illegal shows up to taunt the giant and gets knocked out for his trouble. What a goof.

Mina has the next PoV and she reacts to Vlad’s interaction with Illegal. Other than that the only purpose is to show her and Aeron bonding. Nothing here for me to comment on, really.

Even though this next PoV is Avian’s, it really belongs to Kiara and Freya, because they’re featured the most. I can honestly say that I completely forgot Avian was even aligned with the two of them, as I had thought he was a loner. Anyway, Kiara is skilled with knives, due to her still unexplained backstory, and then Freya and her bond over the fact they both have dead sisters. A good character moment for the two of them. I really liked the interactions between these two and their storyline is one of my favorite from these Games.

Day Three of training begins with Drewsiff being a delusional idiot. He spends more time standing around thinking about how cool he is than actually training. Nyx calls him out on this and he gets angry. The point of this POV is to showcase those two as well as let me make Drewsiff look stupid. I hated that guy. The more I think about it, the closer I get to deciding he’s the single worst tribute in the series. Do any of you have thoughts on that subject?

The second PoV of day three is from Willow and continues the slow burn of her and Dome’s romance. While I’ve gone on the record saying that I didn’t like how their romance left little room for their character growth, I do enjoy the build to it. That’s probably due to the fact that, at the beginning of the romance, their characters are being developed. It’s not until they get into the Games and just sit around only interacting with each other does it begin to stagnate. If I were to rewrite these Games I’d probably try to tie them into another tributes storyline.

Next up is a Varina PoV. It continues the trend of showing that her alliance are all among the weakest tributes here and don’t have any confidence in themselves. Well, except for Wocky. He’s not too concerned about anything, it seems. A note about Wocky: I actually hadn’t expected him to place as high as he did. I originally didn’t foresee him lasting past the midpoint of the Games, but he just kept surviving each day. In fact, he was actually going to die in place of Shimdt on Day Two…but was spared because I couldn’t stand having to write out Shimdt’s name any longer.

The final PoV of the training period belongs to Trick. It’s the first time we’re inside her head and it’s about as twisted as you’d imagine. I don’t have much to comment on other than the mystery tribute that Trick is focused on. Who is it, you ask? I have no idea. I just put that into the text to present a possible storyline, if I wanted to pursue it later. Honestly I was hoping that Kekai would decide who it was in his advice, but he didn’t. Yet since Trick is insane I can reasonably say that either she herself forgot about her obsession once the Games began…or that whoever it was just died in the bloodbath so she couldn’t kill them herself. I don’t know. I’ll let you guys decide which one is the truth.

And that wraps up the training period! There was a whole lot to unpack here and I’m sure there’ll be plenty to discuss, but next up I’m moving onto the bloodbath itself! Oh, but before I do so I should probably mention the single Pre-Games PoV that exists. It’s from Courage’s perspective but doesn’t do anything special: it’s just the typical “tribute is led to Launch Room and risen into arena” scene that I usually do. The only thing worth mentioning is the following quote.

''“Ladies and gentlemen!” the voice of – yells out. “Let the 302nd Annual Hunger Games begin!”''

The name of the announcer is just a dash. Why, you ask? Because when I originally wrote the PoV out I hadn’t decided what his name would be yet, so I placed a dash there as a filler until I went back and made a decision. Unfortunately for myself I never actually made that decision and just posted the update without fixing it. Which, of course, means that the announcers name is apparently just “–“.

Whoops.

See you all at the bloodbath, I guess?

The Bloodbath
Ah, the Bloodbath. The time when I have to make difficult decisions and instantly kill off several tributes, including ones I like, for the sake of the story.

Except that didn’t happen in the 302nd’s bloodbath.

I mean, yeah, tributes died instantly and stories were progressed, but none of the tributes who died were ones that I particularly cared for, with the sole exception of Trident. That, of course, made my job deciding who’d die very, very easy. I’ll detail way that was the case in the following paragraphs.

Illegal and Drewsiff were two of the worst tributes to ever grace the series. The moment I read the submission form for both I knew they’d die in the bloodbath.

Avian wasn’t even a finished character and his mentor had told me to kill him, so yeah, he wound up dead.

Mina and Knight weren’t as astronomically bad of characters as the others, but neither one was really groundbreaking. Knight was a normal twelve year-old boy with no allies who attended the Reaping anyway, so his death was guaranteed. Mina’s death furthered a storyline and the fact she was killed by such a huge threat made sense for her character,

Trident was the only one of the six tributes who died in the bloodbath that I liked. But as I said before, I didn’t really see a storyline for him. I suppose he could have tied himself to Swatty and the two of them would have done the Chloe/Trident storyline from the 400th (which is actually what Trident’s advice was going for!) but I didn’t feel like going that route, so I chose to kill him off. I enjoyed the manner of his death, threatening Dome before being killed by Willow. It furthers their own storyline by showing that Willow was willing to risk herself to save Dome. As I’ve said before, I’m always happy if a tributes death can be used to somehow further the story. In fact, I usually strive to make that the case.

As all the deaths were easy to decide, the harder choice was picking who’d kill each of them. I don’t know if most of you know this, but I put as much effort into deciding who’ll make a kill at the bloodbath as I do deciding who’ll die. Typically I want the deaths to tie into some story or further a tributes character. You can see an example of the former in how Willow and Trick each made a kill: both of them were furthering a storyline. Examples of the latter include, Onyx, Topaz, and Vlad. Each one of those three were a dangerous competitor who was skilled with weaponry: the best way to show this was by having them make an early kill. Onyx especially so since her advice wanted her to make a kill to prove herself to the other Careers. In a way I suppose she was an example of both.

Anyway, a noteworthy fact about these Games as a whole is that only three males make a kill in them. The total kill count for these Games are the following:

Male: 7

Female: 14

Mutts: 5

Arena Hazards: 1

Topaz has five of those male kills, meaning that only two of the other thirteen males in these Games make a kill. Which is Vlad killing Drewsiff in the bloodbath and Dome killing Courage on the final day. And another interesting factoid is that two of the seven male kills happen on the first day while the other five all happen during the final day, meaning that days two, three, four, five, and six have no male kills.

And…that’s about all I have to say on the bloodbath. The next subject I’ll tackle will be the rest of day one, so stay tuned for that!

Day 1
The first post-bloodbath PoV is from Syren and gives an update on what she received from the cornucopia and what her current state is. I don’t have anything to add here, so I’ll just talk about my original plans for Syren: I was always planning on her attaching herself to another alliance, because I foresaw no viable path for her as a loner and that her most interesting character trait, her alluring voice, would be useless if she was by herself. Did I already know she’d join up with Topaz and the Careers? No, that was just something that came together on the second day. Initially my plans for where that storyline would go was much different than the path it ended up taking, but I’ll speak more on that when we reach the divergence point.

The next PoV features the alliance of Hunther, Ellis, and Cassandra. It’s basically another status update but includes character interaction and development. Ellis kinda has an attitude here, but she literally always has an attitude. That attitude is even what gets her killed in the 400th!

The Proto-Antis find the small town and enjoy the benefits of the grocery store. I purposely included buildings in the arena because, at the time these were written, most arenas in Games only included outdoor venues. Anyway, apparently Bluffy thinks that because Wocky has the most formidable weapon, that makes him the leader of the alliance, which I find strange. Also, despite being present during this PoV, Tameo and Rasp aren’t mentioned in the text at all. I wish I could say there was a reason for this, but I probably just forgot about them.

Before I move on from this POV I’d like to mention the conversation Bluffy and Varina have about the entire island being sloped. Originally my plans for the big event on the final day was going to be different. Instead of the island rising into the sky I was going to have the island flood, with everything except the cornucopia (which, as the text constantly reminds us, is on a hill) being slowly submerged. I changed my mind on this because I didn’t think the idea of the island slowly flooding was exciting enough…and because I found it harder to describe in writing. Anyway, the problem with me changing my mind on that is that this whole scene here loses its impact; instead of being major foreshadowing it’s just a meaningless conversation.

Freya and Kiara find the cove and go over their supplies. Notice how the text makes a big deal of the night-vision glasses; those play a part in the fight against Ellis later on. While I didn’t have that fight planned out yet, I had intended for those glasses to be used at some point, which is why I went out of my way to feature them so prominently. A general rule of thumb is that if I seem to go great lengths to point something out, then I have a plan in mind for it later. Maybe that tidbit will help you guys in the 333rd. Bwahaha!

Courage reaches the end of the arena and correctly deduces it is a circular island. I more or less did this so that the readers could also figure out the topography of the arena. He also finds a canister of gasoline and thinks about how he might have to do something risky tomorrow. I was employing a writing trick of mine here; when I think that a tribute’s mentor may plan something for the next day I have them think about a nebulous “plan”. That way if the tribute does have a plan, then it was adequately foreshadowed instead of just popping out of nowhere. And if they don't have a plan, then I can have the tribute think about how the plan fell through.

Courage’s mentor did not have his own plan, but did state he was excited to see what Courage’s plan was, giving me the green light to go ahead with what I had intentionally set up. What was that, you ask? Well, I’ll talk more about that on Day 2!

The final PoV of the day is from Willow and features her and Dome recovering from the bloodbath. Not much to note here, but I do enjoy reading about their interactions. See, their romance arc would have been much more enjoyable had they actually done anything in the Games. From this point on the two of them literally just sit around talking to each other until Swatty kills Willow. Unfortunate.

That’s the end of Day 1, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t discuss a big moment which occurs shortly after this day was originally posted. Namely, the fact that my computer broke. Without it I had no consistent internet access and no way to write, resulting in a almost two month long delay. The 302nd saw no updates from April 10th to June 3rd, and the by the time I resumed writing several of the mentors had either gone inactive or simply forgotten about the Games, which dramatically changed the course of these Games. In fact, the only mentors who continued to send advice after the delay were Nick, Kekai, Max, and Junior. That meant Raven, Onyx, Courage, Syren, Tameo, Willow, Vlad, Ellis, and Aeron all received no advice after the first day and that undoubtedly played a huge role in the way these Games played out.

Sometimes I sit and wonder how these would have ended had my computer not broke. Would Topaz have still won? Would Aeron have actually killed Trick? Maybe Willow and Dome would have done something! I don’t know. All I know is that the 302nd has the biggest “What Ifs” in the entire series and there’s no real way to tell what could have been.

Aw well, see you on Day 2!

Day 2
Welcome back to the reread, everyone. In this section I’ll be covering Day Two, subtitled "Peek-a-Boo!". Oddly enough I returned to using a quote as a title for the day. Why? I don’t know. It’s the only time I use it for these Games, so I must have just thought it was really funny or something. Strange naming conventions aside, it is time for me to discuss the day itself!

The first PoV is from Syren and details her failed attempt to escape the Careers. But when Topaz catches her he hesitates just long enough for Syren to use her alluring voice to convince him and the rest of the Careers to let her join their alliances. This whole scene basically wrote itself. After all, Topaz doesn’t harm girls, so it’d make sense for him to hesitate and m harming Syren. That would then give her the opportunity to use her trademark voice. But, voice aside, there’s a logical reason for why the Careers would accept her proposal. There’s only four of them left and many other tributes; they clearly were in no position to refuse assistance.

The next PoV is from Courage and features him setting the forest ablaze and fighting with Vlad. Well, perhaps not fighting. “Surviving” is probably a better word, since he never really stood a chance against him in a fair fight. Honestly, the only tributes in these Games who would even stand a chance against Vlad in a one-on-one fight are Topaz and Raven. Anyway, the whole idea of Courage setting the forest on fire was something I came up with myself. I had purposely supplied him with both the gasoline and matches so that I could manufacture this moment. I knew that Vlad wasn’t going to receive any advice so I chose to kill him early, which is why I had him positioned in the forest next to Courage. However, I also knew that he wasn’t someone who’d go down easy, so I needed a creative way to end him. Thus, the idea of Courage starting the forest in fire was born. With all the chaos that would entail, there were multiple options for Vlad’s demise.

A falling tree kills Vlad, a fitting end for the giant. All in all, I like the action scene here and it’s one of my favorites from these Games—even if Courage initially thinking that the falling tree is an optical illusion is goofy as heck.

The third PoV also deals with the forest fire as Ellis and her allies attempt to survive the inferno. Another reason I chose for Courage to burn the forest was so that there’d be something to cause conflict with the other tributes—these three wouldn’t have done anything today without it. This is a nice scene that helps characterize the alliance and sets them up for a future storyline by depositing them right in front of the cover where Kiara and Freya are hiding. I’m always thinking I’m advance!

As much as I enjoy this scene, writing wise there is a big mistake at the very end of the PoV. Ellis’ line “''Sheesh. If only she had done that sooner!''” gets repeated twice for some reason.

Whoops.

Fourth PoV also deals with the fire. This time it’s Dome and Willow sitting around and commenting on the smoke the fire generated. There’s nothing for me to say here—I told you that these two hardly do anything.

The next scene features the proto-anti’s as they attempt to corner and kill Trick. This whole plot was created by Nick in his advice and and was a concept that I really liked. Yet even though they dramatically outnumbered Trick the problem they encountered by facing her was that none of them are skilled at fighting, leaving their ability to actually succeed at their task…unlikely, to say the least. Needless to say, Trick escapes and she even kills Shimdt in the process. As I mentioned before, Wocky was originally going to be the one who died here, but I changed it to Shimdt at the last moment because I was sick of spelling his name. His name is actually misspelled twice in the text! Man, I hate that name! How the heck is it even pronounced? I misspelled it so many times during this reread! I’m glad he’s dead, so now I don’t have to write his name any more!

…Sorry, rant over. Let’s move on, shall we?

Kiara and Freya sit in the cove and watch as Hunther’s alliance takes up base on the beach. This PoV is basically setup for a future fight; I purposely made it so that there would have to be conflict between the two alliances. I had Kiara and Freya debate whether they would sneak away or fight, knowing that Max would make the ultimate decision with his advice. The funny story about that is, while Max did end up giving advice, he did it at the same time I was writing the day, meaning I never saw it and put up the day without his advice. What did that mean in the long run? Well, I had Kiara and Freya try to escape and end up in a fight with Ellis. Max’s advice, however, was for the two of them to approach the trio and propose an alliance. Had that advice actually made it in by the deadline I would have followed it and a new alliance would have been born. Yet another “What-If” moment for these Games!

The final PoV of Day 2 is from Topaz and shows the Careers returning to the cornucopia for the night. The most noteworthy moment here is the conversation between Syren and Topaz at the tail end of the day. She asks him what he thinks about the other Careers and he tells her that he likes Swatty but is creeped out by Onyx and Raven. Topaz then wonders if she is planning on betraying them. This whole interaction was part of a plan I was setting up for Day Three. See, I was originally going to have Swatty side with Topaz and Syren against the other two, resulting in a Career civil war that would end with Onyx and Raven dead. Neither one of those two had an active mentor and I had no real plans for them, so my intent was to use this storyline to kill them off.

Nick’s advice, however, prevented this plan from coming to fruition.

He advised Swatty to side with Onyx and Raven, setting up a plan that basically put Syren into Checkmate. With that being the case, I had to call an audible and change up the story. Instead of Day Three featuring the deaths of Onyx and Raven, leaving behind an intact Career alliance, it had the deaths of Onyx and Syren, and resulted in a splintered Career alliance. This undoubtedly had huge ramifications on the way these Games would unfurl, and I suppose the impact of advice is shown once again!

And that’ll be it for Day Two. I’ll discuss the whole Syren/Career debacle more in the next section, so stay tuned for Day Three!

Day 3
Welcome back to the reread! This time I will be covering the third day of the 302nd, subtitled "Betrayal". The title is a pretty obvious allusion to the fact that the Careers betray one another this day. So let's get on with it, eh?

The first PoV is from Swatty and has her laying the groundwork for Nick's plan to kill Topaz and Syren. As I said before I initially wanted Swatty to align with those two and betray Onyx and Raven instead, but his advice ran contrary to that and had her side with the opposite two I had intended. The swap didn't totally change my plan for the day's structure, and I actually liked the plan he had made—especially since it had enough holes for me to keep Topaz alive. To finish the PoV I'd like to comment on how Onyx is probably the only Career thinking long term here, as she points out that if the plan succeeds there'll only be three Careers left.

The second PoV is from Willow and has her and Dome finally confessing their love to one another. This is technically progress in their storyline and I don't have anything to say about it.

Third PoV is from Syren and features the dissolution of the Careers. The very first paragraph has her thinking about how she wants to rope Swatty into her alliance with Topaz—a sign of what my original plan was. Once the two return to the cornucopia the others are acting so suspicious that Syren immediately notices something is wrong. I felt that Syren was too smart of a character for a plot like this to go off without a hitch, despite the fact I knew there was no way she'd survive. I had her kill Onyx in the struggle because, as I said before, I was originally planning to kill her and Raven today. And this way Syren’s death has much more fanfare; she manages to kill Onyx and give Topaz enough time to escape. Topaz might not have won without her help!

The fourth PoV details Topaz’s flight from the cornucopia. My intent with this scene is obvious, so I don’t have much to say about it other than to note that I purposely had him think about sponsors so that Junior would send him something—I liked writing Topaz and didn’t want to kill him yet.

The fifth PoV is Kiara’s and it showcases her and Freya’s flight from the cove leading into a fight with Ellis, which results in the girls death. As I said before, Max posted his advice just as I put up the day, so I never saw his plan. I wrote this scene out under the assumption that all five tributes failed to receive advice, so I just went with my own plan. Honestly, had Max’s advice made it in time I believe that these Games would have turned out very differently. With all five of these tributes forming an alliance of five strong competitors it would have been impossible for it not to.

That said, I have no regrets about how this situation unfolded. Kiara and Freya’s storyline is an arc that I really enjoy, and the Feast bag scene is honestly one of my favorites from these Games. I wouldn’t change anything about this…even though the five of them aligning together is a neat “What-if”.

The sixth and penultimate PoV is from Varina and is basically just a recap of how she and her allies spent the day setting traps and gathering weapons. That was all apart of Nick’s advice to try and make the alliance an effective fighting force. Nothing else to comment on.

The final PoV is from Aeron sitting in his watchtower and it’s pretty much just an update on his situation. He does make note of the trap Wocky and his alliance set at the bottom of the watchtower staircase, and that’s why he stays put the next day. I really wanted to do more with Aeron, but mentor inactivity stayed my hand. I already planned on having Courage, a tribute I really liked, survive longer than he should without a mentor, so I didn’t really have room to string Aeron along.

And that wraps up Day Three of the 302nd Games. The more I delve into these, the more I come to realize that the middle portion of the Games are defined by mentor inactivity. Two of the the three tributes who died today had an inactive mentor—though Onyx would have died even if hers was active—and three of the four who die on Day 4 also have that problem. At this point I was more or less just clearing the board of the inactive tributes—a fact I was cognizant of when originally writing these Games.

See you all on Day Four.

Day 4
Welcome back to the reread! In this installment we will be covering the fourth day of the 302nd Games, subtitled “Rain & Pain”. The name obviously refers to the fact that a rainstorm is one of the most notable events that takes place on the day. And the pain part is just as self-evident—people get hurt on this day.

The very first PoV of the day features the proto-anti’s as they finish setting up their traps and retreat outside of their building. Obviously it doesn’t make much sense for them to shelter outside during the rainstorm, but that was part of Nick’s plan so I had them do it regardless. I’m not entirely sure why Nick thought having the alliance abandon the shelter of an actual building was a good idea, but it was the plan he came up with nonetheless. Anyway, a pack of wolf mitts proceed to attack the alliance and kill Tameo. Vinny was inactive at this point and I had no plans for him, so his death was an easy call. Wocky also gets separated from his allies here and, if I’m remembering correctly, he never reunites with them during the course of these Games.

The second PoV is from Bluffy and is a continuation of the first. Both she and Varina take shelter in a building and do their best to wait out the mutt attack. Rasp m’s death is also overheard by them. Unlike Tameo, Rasp still had an active mentor, but I just didn’t like Rasp as a character and didn’t have any plan for her. She was very forgettable, to be honest. I’m glad that both of their deaths are used to good effect, though. They upped the stakes and had an emotional effect on their allies. As for the mutts, I decided to have them attack on this day because there wasn’t much of any strategy or planning going on in the advice. By using mutts I could jumpstart the plot myself.

The third PoV is from Swatty and features the death of Raven and the final dissolution of the Careers. Raven’s manner of death, being shoved into the mutts by Swatty, was actually a part of Nick’s advice. So it came pretty naturally to me for that to happen—especially as I already wanted to kill Raven off. She’s a pretty strange character that I have no strong feelings for. Her death here is fine, and I have no regrets about how she was used. What is your guys feelings in her?

The fourth PoV is Cassandra’s and shows her and Hunther sitting in the cove just minding their own business. Something I find strange is that Junior sent advice for Topaz, but neglected to send any for Hunther. I don’t know what the reason was for that, if there even was one. Anyway, the two of them have no idea what happened to Ellis and that guilt forces Cassandra into revealing her ability to Hunther. This scene is a nice character building moment and is also build-up to their eventual demise from the Feast Bag—something which I had already planned. As Erlend was inactive and Junior seemingly didn’t care for Hunther, I felt pretty secure in plotting their deaths a day in advance.

The fifth PoV is a strangely short one from Freya. The only thing that happens in it is that they notice someone stole their rope and water. I actually didn’t remember who took it, so I had to go back and read the advice to figure it out. Apparently it was Topaz. I guess that would explain why he doesn’t make any appearance on this day. Honestly this PoV is very short. It could possibly be the shortest one in the series.

The sixth and penultimate PoV is from Trick and it details her fight with Aeron. The fight scene between them is cool and still a fun read, something that can’t be said for every 1st Generation fight. As I mentioned before, Aeron was originally planned to kill Trick, but I made an audible when his mentor went inactive. While that would have made a nice symmetry, I honestly might prefer Trick killing him. It’s a nice subversion of the usual expectations. Also, the fact that Trick doesn’t initially remember who Mina even is when Aeron mentions her, might be an indication that she wasn’t the tribute Trick was fixated on in training. I feel as if Trick wouldn’t have forgotten her if that was the case. Then again, Trick doesn’t mention that tribute at all anyway, so who knows?

The final PoV of the day is from Courage and is mostly just an update on his situation. The announcement of the Feast comes up towards the end and is probably the most important thing to note here. Unlike in the 301st there are only four backpacks and I myself chose what was inside each one. I didn’t feel like having all thirteen tributes have their own backpack…especially not since the mentor activity in these was so low. Honestly, a big part of why I even made the Feast happen was because advice was so low that I wanted to ensure there would be an event to incite tribute interactions. But I’ll talk more about the Feast when we get to Day Five.

Before I wrap this section up, I want to give some lady thoughts about day four. Remember what I said about Dome and Willow doing nothing in these Games? Yeah, well, they don’t make any appearance on day four. They’re not even mentioned at all. Topaz doesn’t appear either, but at least his existence is alluded to in Freya’s PoV. Dome and Willow simply…disappear. Strange.

All four tributes who died on this day were apart of my clearing the board of everyone who either had an inactive mentor, or was someone I just didn’t particularly like. Tameo, Rasp, Raven, and Aeron aren’t exactly heavy hitters in the series, so I don’t imagine that many people were upset at their demise. Well, that’s the end of my recap. I suppose I’ll see you all again in Day Five!

Day 5
Welcome back to the reread! This time we’ll be covering the fifth day of the 302nd Hunger Games, titled “Feast”. I really don’t think I need to explain why I chose that title. Anyhoo, let’s get right into it!

Before we delve into the POVs themselves, I want to take the time to talk about the four special backpacks provided at the Feast. To be more exact, I will detail who grabbed each bag and what was inside it: The first medium bag is retrieved by Hunther and contains the monkey mutt. Topaz took the other medium bag and found a haul of many different items; the dynamite he uses on the final day is probably the most notable among them. Wocky found the small backpack, which held Instant Relief. Finally, Courage was left with the large backpack that contained tons of food, his electric net, and the golden sword. Now let’s move onto the PoV!

The first PoV is from Kiara and showcases her and Freya as they set up their plan on outskirts of the cornucopia. This was actually part of Max’s advice. He had Freya hide in a tree and provide back-up coverage for Kiara as she attacked tributes approaching the Feast. I liked the plan and thought it made good strategical sense. An interesting note about this Feast is that the only tributes who were advised to attend were Kiara and Freya, Topaz, and Trick. Every other tribute either received no advice or was expressly told to avoid the Feast. Because of the low amount of attendees, I went out of my way to ensure Hunther and Courage went. That way there’d be more action.

Anyway, during this PoV Topaz pulls a foxface and runs off with one of the bags. Trick then makes her appearance and attacks Kiara, who actually stands a fighting chance because of her dark side. I still don’t know what that exactly is, but I do remember that being the reason why I had Kiara not only stand toe-to-toe with Trick, but actually get the upper hand. If you think about it, Trick normally avoids competent fighters and typically only attacks weaklings. This is true in all three of her Games, and is a big reason why I had her ranked lower on my tribute “Combat Ability” chart than people might expect.

The next PoV is from Hunther and has him approaching the cornucopia before getting into a fight with Courage. He mentions an offscreen vision Cassandra had, which detailed him dying at the Feast to a boy with a sword.