***South's Guide to Tribsitting!

ADVENTURES IN TRIBSITTING.

So, you've been asked to tribsit for someone! Awesome! I'm not exaggerating in saying that this is one of the highest honors you can get on this site. If someone is asking you to watch their tribute, they are entrusting you with something precious, confident that you will take care of it for them while they're unable to be here for whatever reason. If someone has asked you to tribsit, it means that they think you are smart, ethical, and responsible. However, there are a lot of etiquette-based and logistical errors made by tribsitters who don't know better; actions that can lead to tribute death, rule breaks, and worst of all, hurt feelings between you and the person who asked you to watch over their tribute. That's why this guide is here! Within, I'm going to lay down some basic rules that will make for the most enjoyable and successful tribsitting experience through all points in the Games. Let's get started, shall we?

THE BLOODBATH.

For whatever reason, the Bloodbath is the most common time when people are asked to tribsit. The BB is an all-day commitment requiring careful attention, adherence to planning, and grace under pressure. I'm not going to lie to anyone to make them feel better: getting a tribute through the Bloodbath is hard. There have been occasions where I've juggled my own tribute as well as someone else's (Denver and Mace in the 59th, Kiera and Wednesdae in the 62nd), and both times I was literally physically ill from the stress. The BB is arguably the least-fun part of the Games because of all the pressure. Being asked to get someone's tribute through that kind of hell means they really trust you, so don't break that trust! Here are some solid, universal rules for tribsitting in the BB:

GET PREWRITES. GET PREWRITES. GET PREWRITES.

YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF GETTING PREWRITES, OKAY? Prewrites are small, pre-coded BB fight posts that have been written before the event. They serve several purposes for the average tribsitter. One is making your life easier - if you have all your BB posts coded and ready to go, it's a lot less stressful. You won't be wasting precious time writing posts while other people are carving your tribute to bits. Two is ensuring character integrity - if the posts were written by the character's owner, we know they're authentic and true to the character's actual reaction. I do prewrites for my own tributes even when I'm going to be here for the BB. They make everything exponentially easier. As for the context of tribsitting... If someone asks you to watch their tribute in the Bloodbath and doesn't give you prewrites, tell them no. Likewise, if you want someone to watch your tribute in the BB, make sure you give them prewrites. This is seriously one of my pet peeves. Asking someone to carry your tribute through the hardest part of the Games and not even giving them that little bit of help is really, really, REALLY rude. If you don't even put in the work of writing your own BB posts, then sorry, but you don't even deserve for your tribute to make it out. So yeah. Prewrites. Do them, get them, whatever, just make sure they're involved.

GET A PLAN AND STICK TO IT.

Is your tribute's alliance going for the Wealth? Does their owner just want them to get in, grab a weapon, and run? Whatever the plan is, there needs to be a plan. Make sure you know what the tribute's owner wants before the BB starts, and then LISTEN TO THEM. If they say get in, grab a weapon, get out, do it. If they say to get as much as you can and leave after you hit 20 damage, do it. The tribute's owner is the boss, not you. Listen to them. Also listen to your allies. Odds are, the group has had specific BB plans from the get-go, and they won't be happy if you throw a wrench in them. Hit up your allies BEFORE the BB to make sure you're caught up on the strategy and what they want from you. A prepared alliance is a happy alliance.

IF YOU'RE GETTING SWARMED, GET OUT.

The Bloodbath is a free-for-all. That's just the way it is. People are going to take advantage of anyone who's unprepared, and sadly that means tribsitters a lot of the time. You can remedy this by actually being prepared, knowing your strategy, getting prewrites, etc. But sometimes the odds just aren't in your favor, and everyone at the Cornucopia will start attacking you. If this happens, get the hell out of there. If you hit 30 damage, it doesn't matter if the owner said they wanted the Wealth, you need to leave. There is nothing worse than coming home to find that your tribute is dead. It is YOUR job to keep that tribute safe, and their life means more than them getting all their items. I promise, the owner will understand, and will most likely thank you for keeping their character out of danger.

THE GAMES.

In a way, being asked to tribsit for a significant portion of the Games (e.g. for two weeks while the tribute owner is on vacation) implies more trust than being asked to tribsit for the Bloodbath. While the environment is not nearly as high-stress, odds are you're actually going to be doing a little bit of your own writing as the tribute you're watching. This means that the owner trusts you to know their character well enough to write them. That's huge. In addition to keeping the tribute safe, you are now expected to honor their character integrity and play them in the way their owner meant for them to be played. This can be hard as well as stressful, but here are a few handy tips on getting a tribute through the Games once they've reached the full-post portion:

PREWRITES AGAIN.

Prewrites for the full-post portion of the games aren't the same kind as BB prewrites. It's not really possible for a tribute's owner to write full posts when they don't know exactly what's going to happen (who's going to die, what attacks are going to be made, etc.), but they can and should give you some basic info on how their tribute would react to certain situations. This is where all that trust and the burden of writing another person's character faithfully falls on your shoulders. TRIBUTE OWNERS: PLEASE PICK SOMEONE WHO KNOWS YOUR CHARACTER WELL TO BE YOUR TRIBSITTER IN THIS PART OF THE GAMES. Example: There are only four people on the site who I'd trust to write Kaelen - Elegant, Chaos, Windy, and Charade. If he ever went into the Arena (not possible, but shhh), I'd ask one of these four to be my tribsitter, because they know the character on a deeper level than simple observation. A good tribute owner will look at the Anthem when they can, figure out what's going on with mandates, and send you a list somewhat similar to this:

DAY 5 - KAE AND COLT VS. REAGAN AND AMITY

Attacks:
- It's most within his character to attack Reagan since he views her as the bigger threat, but if Amity has more damage, go for Amity.
- Attack anyone who attacks Colt. Annihilate them.
- He's got a sword and a flail, but use the sword because he took blades.
- You can use the tar for a fire weapon in this fight if you want.

Reactions:
- One kill, then get the hell out. He won't compromise Colt's safety just for an extra kill.
- If someone instas, make sure to play up on his bloodlust a lot. Remember, he sees death as an art form. He'd literally see beauty in someone's throat being slit.
- He's gone a little crazy at this point. Lots of god/divinity imagery, and also pull on the fact that it's snowing (echoing the ice in his veins, etc.)
- If Colt dies... don't write his reaction. I want to do that myself. Just filler and flee.

Maintenance:
- If you have time after the fight, please boil his water, but DON'T DRINK YET. He's got one more day on water, and I don't want to waste that.
- If Colt takes a hit, use First Aid on Colt. I don't care how badly Kae's hurt, get Colt's damage down to 0 if you can.
- There should be edible plants in the area. Take one bundle for Kae and give one bundle to Colt.

That's what I'm talking about with "prewrites" at this stage. Basically, just a solid outline of what the owner wants to see out of the character. Lists can be even more detailed than that. Whatever instructions the owner gives you, FOLLOW THEM TO THE LETTER. They're putting a lot of faith in you. Don't let them down.

REMEMBER THAT THIS IS NOT YOUR CHARACTER.

I cannot stress how important this is. You are being trusted to write this character as the owner meant for them to be written. You as a tribsitter do not have the right to make personal decisions about the character, their motivations, their decisions, or anything else. THEY. ARE. NOT. YOURS. Taking a tribute and just deciding to go your own way with them is like borrowing your friend's Porsche and then taking it to get a paint job while they're out of town. It is the farthest thing from okay possible. Don't make up little points in their history. Don't change their personality. Don't decide that they're going to cut their hair off with a hunting knife. Don't do anything development-wise with them that the owner does not specifically instruct you to do. If you do, then you're basically stealing their character, and that's not only rude, it's flat-out wrong. Respect the integrity of the character, and respect the ideas of the person who made them. Please.

CONSULT THE TRIBUTE OWNER/ALLIES ON EVERYTHING.

This is kind of an extension of the whole principle of respecting the fact that the character is not yours. You don't have the right to make decisions concerning someone else's character. Those decisions should ALWAYS belong to the owner. If your tribute needs to do something maintenance-wise, consult the owner. If you've had an offer for your tribute to hook up with another alliance, consult the owner. Basically, anything that happens, consult the owner. Always. Same goes for your alliance-mates. As I said earlier, they've most-likely had a game plan from the start, and you don't want to do anything to compromise that. Keep your communication lines open with everyone, and follow any directions you're given. If your alliance tells you to do something that sounds sketchy, consult the owner. The tribute owner has the final say on everything. Period.

IF YOUR TRIBUTE DIES.

This is what it is every tribsitter's mission to avoid - losing a tribute. There is no worse feeling for a tribute owner than knowing that your character died on someone else's watch. Likewise, it sucks pretty badly to be a tribsitter and have someone else's character dying under your care. The owner trusts you to keep their tribute alive - obviously, getting them killed is the supreme way to break that trust. While tribute death during tribsitting should be avoided at all costs, sometimes things beyond your control happen and the tribute dies. Here are some things you should do if that happens:

APOLOGIZE. SERIOUSLY.

The owner put their faith in you to keep their tribute alive, and you didn't come through for them. The least you can do is apologize. Losing a tribute is bad enough on its own, but the feeling of knowing that they died when you weren't even there to write them is the definition of salt in the wound. The owner is basically going to feel like a mom who left their toddler with a babysitter who left the kid in the car at the grocery store and let them suffocate. And yeah, they're going to be pissy with you for a while. Just let them ride it out. But seriously, you need to apologize. If you don't, you're essentially saying that you don't care about what happened to the tribute that was entrusted to you, and you successfully make yourself look like a giant douchecanoe. I'm sorry. Two words. They're not as hard as you think.

INSTAS HAPPEN. DON'T BEAT YOURSELF UP.

Did you do everything you could to keep your tribute safe? That's the question you need to ask yourself. If the answer is yes, then your hands are clean. Instas happen. Random Events happen. Alliance betrayals happen. There are several aspects of the Games that you can't predict or control, and after all, there can only be one winner in the end. If you protected your tribute to the best of your ability and they still get crushed to death by an RE, you have nothing to feel guilty about. Losing a tribute can make you feel incompetent, unworthy, and generally crappy, but as long as you legitimately did your best then you have no reason to beat yourself up over it. In such cases as instas and RE's, owners will be very understanding anyway.

DO. NOT. WRITE. A. DEATH. POST.

Don't. Just... don't. A death post is the most sacred thing to any character ever. It is their last chance to develop, their final piece of writing, and the exclusive right to write a death post rests with the tribute's owner and THE TRIBUTE'S OWNER ALONE. I don't care if they're going to be gone for another six months. Don't write a death post. I don't care if you've been writing the character since Day 1. Don't write a death post. I don't care if you've grown so attached to the character that you're sitting at your desk sobbing. Do. Not. Write. A. Death. Post. There is absolutely nothing that gives you the right to take that final goodbye, that closure away from the tribute's owner. If someone did that to me, I would probably never speak to them again, not even exaggerating. This is not your character. This has never been your character. Writing another character's death post is literally the most disrespectful thing you could ever do to a tribute owner. There is absolutely no excuse for it.

RESPONSIBILITIES AND OTHER STUFF.

Tribsitting is a two-way street. Both the tribsitter and the owner have certain responsibilities they must fulfill in order to make the tribsitting experience successful. I've already discussed a lot of these in this guide, but here's a condensed list of responsibilities:

TRIBUTE OWNERS:

• Choose your tribsitter wisely.
  
• Provide your tribsitter with prewrites, instructions, and resources.
  
• Check up on your tribute's progress regularly.
  
• Trust your tribsitter to make drastic decisions in the event of needing to save your tribute's life.
  
• Understand that accidents happen and that your tribsitter will try their hardest to protect your tribute, but they may still die.

TRIBSITTERS:

• Protect your tribute at all costs.
  
• Don't make decisions without consulting the tribute's owner and alliance.
  
• Maintain the integrity of the character.
  
• Respect the fact that at the end of the day, the character is not yours.
  
• Make any posts you create your absolute best writing effort. This is an important, honored position. Respect it by giving it your best.
  
• People are counting on you. Act accordingly.

Tribsitting can be a stressful, hard, and unpleasant job, but when you follow these rules it can also be fun, extremely rewarding, and allow you to grow as a writer. Any new tribsitters that have questions for us old salts? Tribute owners, got any stories about tribsitters you particularly liked? Any experienced tribsitters that have pointers for newbies? Feel free to leave your input below!