HistoryCast 2: 55th Hunger Games [11/12/15]

Since six years and 17 Games worth of history are both quite daunting — the staff and I have started putting together a podcast project, in an effort to help give members a rundown of the old Games on the site. In an informal discussion setting, a handful of the staff are discussing aspects of the old Games that were important or that stand out to them, whether it's mechanics, development, or other background.

We're taking this from the top and going in order.

Past Historycasts:
54th Hunger Games [Aya, GreenBeads, 10Stare]

sbeeg, Stare, and I sat down again to shamelessly fangirl the 55th Games.

The cast is, in all, about an hour long and can be found here: ripred.net/historycasts/55th.mp3 - note that it contains frequent profanity.

You can listen online or download it if you want (right click, save as..., etc)

My best effort at a transcript is below, with a few footnotes I added in after the fact:

G: Alright!
S: Are we both gonna do it? On three?
G: yeah, yeah, alright. One... two... three...
G & S: [trumpet noises]

A: Historycast! Hello everybody, it's your favorite Overlord again, Aya. I GMed these 55th Games that we'll be talking about talking about - so I was kinda running the whole shebang, in the thick of things. Fangirling a lot. That's pretty much what I was up to way back in the day when these happened, and I guess that's it for me.

G: I'm GreenBeads, shortened to Geebs, and I was a tribute in the 55th, I was Daniel Decatur, and he died so... that shows - so far I've got two dead tributes in the span of this site's lifetime, yknow things are looking real good for me.
A: 0 for 2 at this point
G: It doesn't get better
S: Aw, Geebs
G: I think I have the record for most dead tributes
S: How many?
G: Let's see... Windy, Daniel, Zack, Saskia, Ally, Mahlah, Erebus, Motel, and uhhh Jeff! That's 9!
S: Nine? Hold on let me count: Jestina, August, Dysis, Ink, Destiny, Luciana, Savannah, Key... ahh you have me beat, you have me beat by one, I have eight dead tributes. Probably because you were in these Games so I did not have a tribute to die in these games, I was just an observer. I'm Stare, by the way.
A: Yeah I think you guys have me beat, too, I've only got... seven? dead oneS: Nash, Alexander, Stark, Owen, Cerise — ¹
G: Oh! I have 10! I have Viridian, Stark's younger brother
A: Right!
G: I forgot about him. I have ten dead tributes.
A: Still on top. I've got seven and one that I... wish... was dead.
S: Harsh!
A: I'm not very nice to him.
G: Whoa there
A: It's alright, I'm allowed to throw shade at myself... i've earned it
G: Fair enough, fair enough
A: yep, you guys win though
G: wooooo

A: cool, so yay! dead tributes! Gonna be talking about a lot of those
S: Yeah we had 23 in these Games
G: That's so many!
A: It kinda blows my mind to think about 23 dead tributes per games, multiplied across 16 finished ones to date, plus 11 out of the 71st right now, that's soooo many. Over 400. ²
S: I was gonna say, you gonna just do that really quick math in your head, Aya?
A: Yes. We can pretend that's what I did.
S: yeah it's crazy how many tributes died

G: The 55th, the arena was all the islands and all the cool stuff... I remember that the first death was like, a big deal, cause it was the first Games with an actual bloodbath that wasn't randomized, and the first person who died was... and I'm gonna say his name wrong, but, the boy from District 11, and he's like 7 feet tall and then like... the really tiny guy who had Rupert Grint as his face claim if I remember correctly just like crushed his skull with his bare hands somehow? question mark?
A: yep, threw a punch, crushed his skull
S: That was like when we were all like "wait, how'd he get it? How did he get that high? how did he reach?"
A: not only was that the first actual bloodbath death, that was also the first actual insta - cause last Games we only had the 'fake' instas in the 54th ⁴

G: The 55th was also the beginning of the Curse of the Pliers!
A: Yes - the Curse of the Pliers came out of the 55th bloodbath - which, I feel like, is a bit of lost Site Lore. People know that they're supposed to be afraid of pliers, but they don't really know why. And the story behind it was, um... the writer, Tea, who played Alba Hache - Hauche? 'Haush' maybe? it's kind of french looking... Alba. — was like wrestling with "I don't know, are pliers useful, should I stay in the Bloodbath for pliers? " and was like asking everybody for advice, was asking like her family for advice, "Do I get the pliers?" - she ended up trying to get the pliers and died in the process, and thus: the Curse of the Pliers was born.

S: You'll see lots of tributes in future games picking up pliers and instantly throwing them away because of this sort of superstition that we have
A: Yeah, in the... after the aftermath of the bloodbath in the 59th, we specifically rounded up all the pliers and were like "I don't really want all these in the arena?" like shoved them into one of the dead bodies⁵ (of which there were many) just like "let's... let's get these out of here."

G: Umm, while the 55th was the beginning of many new rules, I myself contributed to the making of a certain rule, that you cannot reenter the Bloodbath after you have fled it
A: Yeah
G: I had my guy, he left the bloodbath, and then I was like "Oh, well, nothing says you can't go back" so I had him jump back in, punch a few people and grab a few more things and jump back out again
S: that's bad
A: Then Aya says that you can't do that, at that point. Just "wait a minute, nah, this is too much to keep track of, so."⁶
G: no one else can do it
A: nope

A: That was actually - it was the first Bloodbath so we didn't really have anything to measure by, but by the late-50s to mid-60s standards, it was actually very disappointing. There were only 3 deaths, 4 deaths total on day 1, but one was inactivity.⁷ So 3 deaths in the actual bloodbath, no hunting or anything, just kinda... happened. Took a couple days to finish, people were just kinda popping in, popping out...
S: oh wow
A: This was actually when the rule about how many times you can be attacked between posts came up as well, because uhhh, who was it, Jasik's tribute, Sul Tervish - Jasik had like posted a little and went out to go do something, and came back and his tribute was just like, super dead cause he got swarmed by like fifteen or so people, or however many, and was like "Hey, so this is shitty, can this not be a thing?" and I was like "Oh, yeah, that is kinda shitty, let's make that not a thing" and arbitrarily decided on 6. Which I think works out pretty well, cause it could kill you, but it usually won't, like, statistically it won't kill you.
S: Mhm, it's served us well over the years.
A: Yeah that's not one of the precedents or rules that I set in the 55th that I would revise
S: The 55th really set a lot of precedents. You really spearheaded those games, there's been a lot of official rules came out - Training stations really became a legitimate thing, rather than in the 54th where they were just a paragraph - a very nice paragraph - that you wrote.

A: Yes, it was no longer just "here's some bullshit - maybe knowledge, maybe not" - it was like actually...
G: Also, I was thinking of the 55th with like, a really innovative Arena. Because, I liked the 54th arena, but it's like "...it's like a forest! but there's snow!" - And this is the first Arena that had like, the islands sinking - just like, the world itself could kill you

A: Sorry, what was that, Stare? Did you say something?
S: Oh, that was the twist that was the islands sank, right? For the quell?
A: Oh, retroactively! This was actually a retroactively-made quell. Cause we got to... the 60th were approaching, and I was like "you know what, fuck it, let's make quells every 10 games" and we did that, and then the 65th were approaching, and I went "fuck it, let's make quells every 5 games, and we can go back in time and say 'yes, the islands sinking was the quell twist, it was, the arena was like what the fuck is happening and... this counts.'"

A: It was actually interesting, too - I think, anyway - there was one resource per arena - er, fuck, per island, um, so a couple of them would have water. And those were, of course, all equally spaced so that you would get to water if you're just traveling in the right direction. A couple of them had food, couple of them had small game or whatever, um, firewood - resources in general. And you didn't know what had what until you got there, so I ended up sending like a shitload of PMs to people, cause obviously, if it's secret you gotta keep it private. That wound up being so much more work than I... would ever do now, like. It's cool, but it's really, it's not worth it to me, at this point in my life. ⁸

A: Yeah, that actually lead into - one of the deaths on Day 2, it was the District 2 Female, Autumn Radiata, who was played by some newbie-sorta member, rockgirl I think. Never really saw or spoke to her at all. She clearly didn't really understand the Arena mechanics very well. So on the second day she wrote a post on the second day that was like "Hey, so I went to this island, and I drank stuff and I ate stuff" and it was like "Oh! Sorry, everything was super poisonous, and you're dead now. Bummer." Like - I feel kinda bad about how unsympathetic I was, in hindsight, like... I would nowadays try to make sure people understand what the fuck they're doing and... ah, i feel bad about that one.
G: We all have regrets
A: yeah
G: I know I was a big asshole during these Games. I did the "Someone killed my tribute! Freaking out about it!" thing and... I regret it a lot
A: Vaguely passive-aggressive death post
G: I was so pissed though, I was so angry

S: We had a lot of betrayals in these games
A: So many betrayals, it was so cool! I mean
S: Day Two we had... or was that Day 3?
A: Day Three, Day Two...
S: We had a couple where mutt fights turned into betrayals!
A: Ahhh Day Two!
S: Like, they killed the mutts, then they're like "uh, gonna kill each other now!"
A: Yeah! That was um - so - Day Two was set up, everyone just had a mutt fight. So probably by today's standards, you wouldn't see any deaths, and if you did it would be like... one random insta that everyone is very torn up about. But this one, everyone killed the mutts no problem. But one alliance, which was, um, Kale, Sul, Nachele, and Cherry⁹ - they all got poisoned by Dart Jaguars, some of my favorite mutts. So good. And three of them got antivenom, so Sul, Nachele Cherry - or... everyone who was poisoned got antivenom, except for one, so they had n poisoned tributes and n-1 antivenoms come in from sponsorship. So Kale decides that, "fuck this, I'm going to kill you because I'm going to die anyway." So he just starts like attacking the shit out of Sul, kills him, and then Cherry and Nachele kill him before the poison can. And it was just, ugh, like, the coolest thing - I mean, shitty to do to your allies and friends, but... so -
S: Very raw and realistic
A: Yes
G: I mean - yes they're your allies, but they're also like... when you think about it, like, kids from different districts that they've never really met before, that they were just bonding together just to get through it - and then you find out you're gonna die anyway and that's like "well... fuck it"
A: Yeah, I think that his posts in that thread kinda indicated that he didn't want to die like a little bitch, or whatever, is kind of what he implied, um. Like "Yeah I'm gonna go out fighting!" And then Sul was really passive-aggressive, or aggressive, or whatever, and was like "Bro, come on, why would you do that, that's so cowardly" - and it was wonderful. I mean not... whatever. I enjoyed it.
G: It was really, it was really cool. Also, that's the same guy that ran into a forest on an island.
A: Yes! The magical forest!
S: Yes he did
A: Yep, ended up naming him Kale Forrest after the magical forest.
G: It appeared out of nowhere
A: yeah, cause he, after the bloodbath, I think we explained this after the last Cast, but in case anyone else forgot: After the bloodbath, he wrote an in-character post where he just runs into a forest, which did not exist on this small tropical island. Whatever, I mean, you do you.
G: Still one of the best moments
A: Yeah, it's memorable, it stands out

G: Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but during the bloodbath, didn't Wolf Tears' tribute, who ended up going on to be the victor, she was this little twelve-year-old from District Twelve, she had blowdarts, and she kept getting really good hits on people, so she just like, didn't roll a dice, she just put a miss, cause she was like "This is crazy, how can she possibly be hitting people"
A: Yeah
G: And that's so crazy to think of now, that someone was just like "oh, no no, this is gonna be a miss"
A: like "this is unrealistic, let me do worse." Which, I mean, that's very great - I mean, it's cool to be that dedicated to in-character.
G: Yeah.
A: I couldn't really see that happening much, if at all, now. I mean, that's fine too - it's just kinda neat. Definitely. And that's kind of a running theme, over the course of the whole Games, is Aranica just being like absurdly good for this tiny little twelve-year-old girl from District Twelve jsut getting the best rolls. I think she ended up killing like, four-ish people. Like a lot. Mostly on accident, several instas. Like "okay, sure, this happened." So, the dice have never truly had chill. It's got... well, whatever, I guess.
S: Wait, how'd you pronounce it? ar-AH-ni-kah? I always pronounced it like ah-ra-NI-kah
A: Uhm
G: I... I always say it ah-RIN-see-uh - and that's totally wrong.
A: Ara.
G: That was a good one, Ara. Just shorten it.
S: But Ara, played by Wolf Tears, then we also in those games had Dru¹⁰ -
G: Druuuuuuu!
A: Druuuuuuu!
S: — who was played by Cinder—
G: [incoherent fangirling noises]
A: [incoherent fangirling noises]
S: Oh my gosh I don't know where to begin
A: Yeah, I'm gonna get there... could do it now, it'll probably turn into like an hour long... uggggh Dru is mmmmmmf favorite - one of my absolute favorite tributes of all time across all the Games

S: If you look back and look at those posts, Cinder and Wolf Tears together really ushered in that age of longer posts, more detailed posts. Cause up until that point everyone was writing like one or two paragraphs, and they were going like hardcore - long posts even by today's standards, super in-depth, they had lyrics, very... you could kinda see that was the point where the writing took a turn
A: Yeah, that was definitely, definitely a - they, in my opinion, brought the standard for posts up so much - at least for me, I know writing with them outside of the games, especially over that summer, was just like "oh, well, let me try to keep up, a little bit - it's not going to work, but I'm going to give it my best shot" - and then - just like, everyone, I think the 55th, I would consider like, a changing point - reading Dru and Ara posts over the course of the Games for the whole site, like, if you take a look at what we saw in the 54th with - both, like length, quality, aesthetic and stuff - and compare it to the 56th - it's like a very clear...
G: Oh, it's completely different, like, if you compared like fashion styles from the 20s to the 80s, there's just like, such a big difference
A: yeah
G: stuff changed very quickly here
A: yeah, they really ushered in a era of beautiful beautiful writing, which has only gotten better since
S: it was, it was like a site renaissance, in a way, cause we had like the rules revolutionizing, and the Games, we had writing, aesthetic, it just all changed over that period
A: yeah, absolutely agree there
G: And what was interesting was they had this very strong aesthetic, and this very strong sense of POV in the writing, and Ara, i know - I don't remember about Dru — but Ara did not have a face claim, through the whole thing
A: Ara?
G: She didn't have a face claim, and when she won and they wanted to do like victor banners, they had to like, find one
A: yeah, it turns out that one of the first hits on Google, at least back in 2010 when this was happening, if you Google "Aranica" - you wind up with a lizard? I wanna say? is one of the first top hits on Google - or, it was at the time. I'm sure now it... might, somehow have associated to the face claim that she had for awhile. Before she got to be not-twelve-years-old anymore

G: How old is she now?
A: 16, 32, 4... 28! ¹¹
G: 28, oh my god
S: She was so little, so teeny
A: Grow up so fast
G: Wolf Tears and Cinder's writing chemistry, writing Ara and Dru's relationship through these games - I don't think I could describe it well enough, I need whoever's listening to this to go and read their threads, cause they're just like... crazy good.
A: Yeah, oh yeah, it's like... if I could give them a million Oscars for their posts, it like still wouldn't be enough. I still go back sometimes, and read the posts, and I'm just sitting there like clawing my face, like "oh my god this is amazing, like, holy shit i'm feeling so many things right now, it's just agh, blown away, ugh so good!"
G: That finale thread though, oof
A: ugh, ah, I - I - fffff, um, with the site wiki revival that's sort of trying to happen I went back and pulled out all the last words from the tributes in the 55th Games, and I had to, like, look, just squint for the words - the speech - because it was just like slaying me to read snippets, even sentences out of context, just... so good, and so... [thumps chest] ugh, cuts me deep.

G: I think, uh, some other really good bits - Mel and the Gulls, her fight with the Gulls, that was crazy
A: Yeah, that was on Day 2, I think?
G: Yeah, she like lost limbs, right?
A: I wanna say fingers, probably, or a hand? I think fingers
G: I just like, oh my goodness
A: Those birds, they were really intense, they were going after her token cause it was shiny
G: oh, that's right, that's right!
A: And I think she killed all three of them, cause this was back when you fought all the mutts that you and, and killed them
G: Like if all the memories from the 54th games were like "Woah! We don't know what we're doing! Aah someone tried to tame a wolf" the 55th was like "Wow, this stuff is good, there's like stuff happening." Like I'm pretty sure what we're fangirling about right now is what Capitolites fangirl about, like, "oh my god Mel in that Gull fight, that was so good" or like "ugggh" - just very reminiscent of that
A: Yeah, oh yeah, for sure, and um, I'm gonna try to keep this one a little more chronological, this Cast
G: yep, oh yes!
A: which, we're doing - we're kicking ass at, by the way, go us! - but, when we get to Day 6, I don't think I'm going to be able to form coherent words about how awesome it is, but also I could write like a 20 page dissertation about it. So. Hold on to your seats, everybody!

G: I died Day 5, I believe, so, I did not get to experience the fun stuff that was Day 6
A: nnnn - Day 3
G: Three?
A: yep
G: See, i thought it was - I didn't make it very far in this one
A: No, but, um, Day 3 - Daniel and his ally Carex had the first gay kiss in the site Hunger Games, as far as I remember. Which seems monumental
G: yeah... yeah! I definitely forgot about that. I try to block out the 55th, a little bit, just because I'm not very proud of what I, like, what I did as a person, and my writing at that time. Daniel was like "I am a robot, I do math, ha ha ha" - cause that was when District Ten was still the Science district?
A: Yeah, i think they were just straight-up Math as an industry, which
G: Yeah I think it was just math, and now like, cow-hearding yokel district, where everyone has like a southern accent, so he doesn't fit anymore
A: yeah, yeah - that's fine, I mean, yeah, it was a little weird with the industry shift, but eh, shit happens

G: Now Day Four was when the Hurricane happened, was it not?
A: Yes, it was
G: One of the big events that happened
A: Yeah, the Hurricane was like the first big arena-wide event. Basically, what had happened that caused me to do this thing was - pretty much everyone was just chilling on their islands, um, just so far away from each other, clearly not gonna get anywhere near each other, um, I'm starting to get a little bit bored - let's not have a million mutt fights all the time - doesn't look like anyone's going anywhere interesting, even though shit's sinking and stuff, so I do what - as it turns out, like, analyzing myself as a Gamemaker, in every single Games that I've run to date, there's some sort of mechanic that will literally just rip tributes apart from their allies, and just, everyone goes everywhere at my whim occasionally. Trying to be less of a dick about that.
G: Yeah, sometimes - or the eye, that's for later, that's for a later games —
A: okay -
G: So sorry -
A: wut?
G: - just forget, just forget about it —
S: Continue, continue
A: [confused but powering through it] Okay, so I um, basically grabbed all the tributes, split 'em up into three, three um.... — I stripped them of all their items, besides their weapons, and I sent their items to an island way on the other side of the Arena - And the Arena was, I guess we didn't talk about it much, in whichever... it was 12 islands that were arranged in a circle, with one in the middle for the cornucopia, and ah, movement - you kinda just were only able to go to the islands that 'bordered' your island, and some would sink sometimes and whatever - so one island would sink per day, more or less, and you wouldn't be able to go to that at any point after that.

A: So I took all the tributes and split them up into three separate groups, put them on three separate islands, and all their shit on Island 6, far away from them. Actually, everyone - with the way that the sinking was set up - was equidistant from Island 6, which worked cause I stuck a raft on the farther island that let them move two islands at a time. So everyone was, like, designed to get to Island 6 at the same time - which I will get to later, cause it's awesome - but Day 4 was basically a triple-feast sort of situation, three small feasts, allies split up. And I feel like if that happened nowadays, people would be so salty about it, like, "oh, great, I just have a weapon, maybe one ally if i'm lucky" - I'm still... I'm still so proud of that, I love that so much
S: causing chaos

G: you have a, do you have a map behind you?
A: yeah, that is the arena currently [picks up computer to show 71st arena map i have on my wall]
G: I saw a circle, and I was like "that's a map"
A: ayup! that is a map! uhh so yeah, alliances got all split up, a lot of people died. Out of the big alliance — Shameless Euthanasia was their name, SE — that was comprised of basically the Careers, Ara, and Jango, from District 6, so that was Dru —
G: I forgot about Jango!
A: Yeah!
G: Oh, Michael Cera
A: So lovably awkward, him, him as a face claim — so I had split that alliance up. Cause this was still back when you could have five, five per alliance, we bumped that down for the next Games. So I stuck Dru and Ara together, cause uggggh Dru and Ara give me life, still give me life, so — anyhow
G: So if you're dying, we just bring you Dru and Ara threads, and you're like "alright, I'm good! let's go!"
A: No, I think that'll kill me more - like - I'll go from 40 damage to like fuckin' 180, 240, just like insta'd whatever
A: So they [SE] got split up - then Argent, who we mentioned before, D2M, Rupert Grint FC, he was a nice dude, despite crushing skulls in the bloodbath
G: Crushed a skull! he crushed a man's skull!
A: Nice dude though! yeah... so he and Jango were put together, and then Shanks, the D4M, Quint's tribute was like sorta by himself out of their grouping, which, the most interesting thing to me that happened on that day was Shanks paired up with Carex —
G: mhm, yes
A: — who was the D7M played by Matta, and they kind of stuck together from that point going forward. This will become relevant later, i guess. Then, yeah, Ara made another one of her improbable kills, sunk a blowdart through Ree Thorne's eye - Reealia —
G: That's so badass, it's so badass
A: yeah, just like, accidentally killing the shit out of everybody. Adorable and terrifying all rolled into one little bundle, that's our victor. And yeah, people died, people were sad-ish

G: I think you're allowed to talk about Day 6 now
A: okay
S: Go for it, Aya
A: yeah, I'm gearing up for it. Day 5 was effectively a day off for people who weren't Semper and Sami, the D10f. Cause they were on the far island with Dru and Ara, but Dru and Ara got the raft cause that's what allowed all three [groups of] people to reach the same destination at once, was having a raft, aaaaand they fought, and this ended up giving Semper a day off for the next day, cause he couldn't make it to Island 6 on time but he still got kinda torn up a bit, like, scrapping and whatnot, but Semper won, out of those two. Okay. Day 6 now? Day 6 now?
G: yeah
S: Day 6 now!
G: Day 6 now!

A: ahhhh Day 6! So - Day 4 brought three little feasts, which were great. Day 6 turned into this giant, like, beautiful beautiful big like Hella-Feast, Holy Shit, Amazing, Everything In It Is Perfect Sort Of Deal™. So it wound up being all of SE - so Dru and Ara, Jango and Argent, and Shanks — plus Carex, who is now attached to Shanks, in sort of a buddy-buddy thing, and Mel Clarke, the D3F who previously fought a shitload of seagulls. And, like, immediately, Carex is singled out by everyone from SE, he begs Shanks for help, and Shanks is kind of just chilling, goes like "no, I'm not going to do that, that's a terrible idea." So Carex has his own terrible idea: he attacks — out of all of SE — he attacks Ara, which —
S: ahh, nooo
G: you done fucked up now!
A: ohhhh, fucked up so hard! Cause Dru and Ara had this like, beautiful, wonderful uhh sort of like protector-kind of relationship, just, amazing, so Dru immediately wheels on him, goes, here's the exact quote: "She's mine. Nobody is taking her away from me. Her life is mine to protect, mine to take away. Not. Yours. Get the hell away from her or so help me..." — and then she drives her fucking sword¹² through his eye, and it's just like - the dice did a thing, everything is perfect, I... everyone's like shrieking, we all need adults! — we're not adults yet at this point, cause 2010 —
G: yeah we're like 14 at this point
A: yeah, site collectively like just fucking losing its shit, I still haven't recovered
G: that's what you want, when you write like a really good post, and it's like "I will overcome!" and then you get like a miss —
A: yeah, whenever I do that shit, it's always like "wham line!" miss! like, alright, fuck it, never mind, it was gonna be cool, now it's not.
G: the stars were aligned!
A: Yeah it was, ugh — site like collectively shit its pants over it, it's still like one of my most memorable things that have ever happened in Games, I guess — it was just sooooo fucking perfect.

A: So past that amazing, amazing bit, shit sort of seems like it's gonna stay calm for all of one post. Then Shanks — this little fucker, I love Shanks. I love the way that Quint played him. He's like one of my favorite all-time Games Villains. So he basically turns to Ara and is like "Hey, so Jango's — the clouds have Jango" — and Ara has this sort of fear-of-clouds thing going on, so that's like basically her magic word, and she immediately starts freaking out or whatever. So Shanks attacks Jango, Jango's like "what the hell!" and attacks him back. Dru goes, basically, "well shit, now Ara's gonna attack Jango, I'd better preemptively end this before she gets hurt by this fuckery." So now Dru and Shanks are attacking Jango, Ara tries to do - Ara and Wolf Tears both — try to do as little damage to Jango as possible, but sort of try to get the clouds out of him — so she takes her blowgun, hits Jango over the head with it, uh, blunt weapon — aaaaaand it's an Insta. Crushes his skull
G: oh my god
S: she tried so hard
A: so hard! So now we've got two awesome
G: If there was a Games to be novelized, it would be this one, cause everything fits so perfectly
A: so perfect, so good, and that's only like - the first two cool things in this feast, there's still more
G: I know!
A: so good!
G: But wait, there's more!
A: yeah, so good! So at this point, Mel finally shows up, Shanks kinda sets upon her, they all kinda attack her a bit, but she gets the fuck out of there as soon as she possibly can, because, obviously it's not really a situation you want to be in. And at this point, so, one alliance is left with all the shit — so I'm like "alright, you guys can start claiming all your shit." So Argent and Shanks start like armoring up or whatever, grabbing stuff, and then Dru gets mad because she doesn't think they did anything to deserve it, cause Dru and Ara were the ones that made the kills in the feast, and she's like "no, this is not your stuff, this is my stuff, what the fuck are you doing" — and she attacks Shanks over this. And Shanks starts fighting back, and Ara like, panics and passes out a little bit, between the trauma of that and just crushing Jango's skull on accident.

A: So this is one post where WT just kind of skips attacking, goes "no, not happening, not taking part in this." So Shanks then blames Ara passing out on Argent, says that he attacked Ara, and that sends Dru into a rampage, so she starts attacking Argent, who then attacks Shanks for his fuckery. Shanks kills Argent, then Ara comes to and goes like "wait no don't kill Argent, that's terrible!" And then she ends up shanking Shanks, and Shanks dies — and it's like... the whole alliance just collapsed like a flan in a cupboard - it was so beautiful, cause like none of this was —

G: Wait, wait, it collapsed like what?]
A: Like a flan in a cupboard¹³
G: I have never heard that turn of phrase before
S: What?
G: Like a flan in a cupboard???
S: A what???
A: A spanish custard dessert put in a cabinet of sorts
G: do they fall when you put them in cupboards?
A: if you left it there for awhile, it would definitely sort of... [makes weird noise and gestures]
G: I bet if you would leave any kind of pastry in a cupboard for a long amount of time it falls
A: it's like a custard though, so it's a lot... it's very um... it's egg-based? so it will definitely collapse a lot faster than your standard pastry
G: Like an alliance fighting each other on an island?
A: Yes. A flan in a cupboard collapses like an alliance fighting each other on an island.

A: And — it's really crazy for me to think about, this whole thing, cause we started the day with how many people still alive? All five of SE, Carex, Mel, and Semper who's on a raft somewhere in the middle of nowhere, or just set adrift or something. So, started the day with eight people, really only one needed to die, effectively, the way that that was set up, mandated, etc. And after this whole feast nonsense, Dru also takes a leisurely stroll and cuts Mel's leg off and kills her. So, started the day with 8, one mandated death, ended the day with three - and, almost all of them were allies, too, and just so, soooo realistic and awesome and I - I don't have enough good things to say about this thread, but mechanically, and writing-wise as well, especially from um Cinder, WT, Tori, Micra, Quint — all of them, Matta too — just, everything kicks ass, go read this thread. I'll link it in the transcript when I type it up.

S: It was honestly just like, threw a bunch of really good writers into a thread and were like "have fun!"
A: yeah, "keep it IC" and [snaps] ugh so good, so good
G: so good, so good

G: and then the next day, Semper eats his own hand!
S: another famous Games moment!
A: Absolutely!
G: Food and water were introduced in these games, and he was out of food, Semper [the member] was like "can he eat his own hand?" So he eats his own hand! this is the kind of stuff you want from a Hunger Games! People killin' each other, people just slaughtering each other's allies for like good reasons but also like petty reasons, and like, just eating hands!
A: oh yeah, absolutely with you there! And I remember, Semper was sorta like, fucked for food, so Semper the member was like "hey so, I'm sort of fucked for food"¹⁴ and I was like "you have two hands - how many do you need?"

A: So that was um, our first recorded instance of autocannibalism. I think we've only had one more since, but it's pretty iconic
S: yes it is
G: oh my god
A: so here's for all the jokes about eating hands that you didn't used to get — you collectively as the listeners — and now you understand why this happened
G: Eatin' hands and takin' names: the 55th Hunger Games
A: aw, tag line right there
G: that rhymed! I'm a poet, didn't even know it
A: congratulations, I'm proud of you
G: thank you, thank you, I try very hard

A: and let's see... three tributes left, the next day was the finale - I just sunk all the islands, went "okay, swim for it! have fun, kill each other!" and that thread literally destroys me every time I open it, so.
S: it's a rough one, for sure - for people who didn't experience it, almost try to think of it in like the real book, if it had been Katniss and Rue that had made it to the finale
A: ahh, that is the perfect analogy for it
G: it's just, it's a pain you want to feel over and over again
A: yeah, and sub out, I guess, Semper for - or not Semper, fuck — sub out Cato also for a tribute that you kinda liked - like a lot - that wasn't overly villainous, like, Thresh or someone, I think... but not district partners... I don't know I took your analogy and I ruined it, I'm really sorry Stare
S: no, no, you're good, you're good

A: god, kills me. So Semper dies first, cause Dru and Ara have their um, Dru-and-Ara thing. This is actually where - this thread kills me so hard. Here were the rules that we ended up setting for the finale: This is where the "no instas in the finale allowed" came in, cause I didn't want it to end sooner than it had to. And I actually was toying with — we bumped up everyone's health to 50 instead of 40, just so it would go on a little longer — and um, it just ruins me a little harder, so, mistakes i guess. Although, no, not a single regret about that. Also no regrets about, uh, sorta stripping that rule from future games, cause it's almost like.... too much feeling, it's not... you want it to go on forever, but you need to rip it off, like a bandaid. Sort of a little more quickly then in that case

G: It's just, it's one of the best, just, journeys of characters, through a Games, just a beautiful arc from the beginning to the very last second. Like if someone made a movie of it, I'd watch it every day. I want T-shirts, I want books, I want a movie, I want everything
A: yeah, I, I'm totally with you there - except I don't think I'd watch it every day, because I think that would actually destroy my life, but once a month, take it out when i'm feeling sort of already kind of emotional, just get a gallon of ice cream and just watch and cry the whole time. Like, fangirl, but also watch and cry.
S: Honestly these writers were just so spectacular, if you haven't read the 55th already, you have to go and do so, it's just incredible
G: How old were WT and Cinder when this Games went on?
A: 14, I think?
G: yeah, and it's just like... damn.
A: Hot damn.
G: Hot damn. Like, we're older now, but, I don't think there's anything that I've written that ever compares to - just, oh my god it's just so good. Just, go read it, just go read it.
A: Absolutely.
G: We cannot give it justice
A: I think, I think at the various points throughout the Cast where I, myself, have literally just been resorting to making sounds and clawing at my face trying to describe it - that's, that's kind of where i'm at with it, it's just beyond words how amazing that it is —

A: and! you can actually sort of read it now, cause it used to be the way that the dice were in the 55th, it was - we now had one set of die for every weapon, so, you'd have dice=sword or whatever like you normally do - and there was this massive, massive bit of javascript that I had that would sub out words in posts for other phrases, so I took all the long six-or-eight digit dice numbers, and those all corresponded to one off a list of like 2000 or so attacks, and it would try to find and replace this shit every time you loaded a new page, especially if you had an older computer, older browser, whatever. It would take quite awhile to load a page, and it made it difficult to go back and read. Now you can read the content, but you have no idea what's going on with the dice, cause it's numbers, and I really need to post those reference threads like I said I would do after the last Cast, but still have not done because I am trash. Yeah.

S: I have a question, it's not specifically related to the 55th, it's a dice-related question. So, as some people may know, I work with a lot of programmers — I can't program myself, but I work with a lot of smart computer people, like Aya, who know about this stuff. And I was trying to explain the way that the dice kind of work. Is it true that that randomization is somehow — not predictably so — that it's somehow related to the time at which you post?
A: Umm... [thinking noises] At some level, possibly? I'm not entirely sure how the random number generation for javascript works, like, i haven't looked much into that. But the old dice on v4 would basically generate a very long random number, probably 32 or 64 digits, ish, and it would modulo that — basically you take the division remainder, if you were to divide that by the number specified when you said dice=200 - then it would add your final result to the end. That's why you'll sometimes see at the bottom of posts with dice in them, a bracket-y tag that says rand= then a whole bunch of garbagey numbers — that basically, that is the raw roll, um, at least with v4. v5 - the dice code is very, very convoluted. That did not answer your question at all, but...
S: I'm gonna go with it doesn't, cause the fact that the difference of a second could change the result of a roll makes me really scared, so I'm basically just gonna go with "no."
A: Well, if it were going off of — eeeh, would it be seconds? it's probably fractions of a second, honestly, at that point, milliseconds
S: that's even worse!
G: ahh okay, okay
A: Yeah, I um — for the first few Games — alright, like all the Games, I'm very superstitious about the dice, which I shouldn't be, but whenever I'd be in a big, like, "this is very important" thread, gotta make this roll count sort of thing, I'd always like refresh the page a set number of times, be like "alright, I got a good seed in this time, I think" — which is very stupid, cause it doesn't even put the dice in until you hit submit, so I was just like, i dunno. I didn't know that I was stupid, now I know that I was stupid. Growin' up! I used to be so stupid and now I'm slightly less stupid because I know how stupid I am.
G: Stupider, but I have bigger boobs now
A: true! not inaccurate
S: yeah I stayed stupid and flat-chested, so
G: aww

S: so on that note
A: on that note, um, do you guys wanna try to do the capitol anthem again, for intro? I liked having trumpet noises for the last one
S: you wanna give this a shot?
G: okay, okay, wait wait wait - how does it go again?
S: It's like ♫dooooooooooo♫ - there's a big long note in the beginning — ♫dooooooooo♫
G: [trumpet noises] ...I don't know how this goes, it's been awhile.
S: ♫dooooooooo♫
G: Now for the next one I do, I gotta look it up.

[snippet of the capitol anthem plays]

G: If you're wondering what the words to that song is, it's "The Horn of Plenty overflows" - but I guess not to District 12. Fuck those guys.
A: Yeah, I think the most overflowing they're likely to see is a flood - but, not a flood of characters either, cause lol District Twelve. Actually at this point, lol District Twelve, because at this point, we now have two victors, both from District Twelve. No victors for any other district
G: Three victors! Oh shit, no sorry, two victors from District Twelve, continue
A: No other victors, we've completely destroyed Suzanne Collins's canon, very beginning of The Hunger Games [book] it says "Yeah so there's literally two victors from District Twelve, one 'em is alive, it's Haymitch!" So, end of the 55th, there's two victors from District 12, none of 'em are Haymitch, both are still alive, so... moving on! It was actually kinda nice to
G: People would come on the site and be like "Why do you have two District 12 victors? You know there's no District 12 victors besides Haymitch." and it's like, "Listen." We just got our own thing going on here. And evidently District 12 gets really lucky with rolls!
A: Evidently, jesus christ... ah, yeah, I remember I personally felt really weird about it for awhile, and like, responsible cause like, yknow, one of 'em was mine, one of 'em was in the Games that I GMed, and like... our canon's just totally fucked, but in hindsight I'm really glad that that happened early on, cause I just give so few shits about... like, I dunno, victor gender ratios or what district they're from, I just... don't care - it's freeing.
G: Yeah, it's very freeing to try to adhere to the Hunger Games canon or not. I know in those first initial games, we'd get too many female victors cause we had a couple after Arbor
A: yeah, such a taco fest
G: then we were like "male victor!" but there's so many victors now that it doesn't really matter
A: yeah, then the next one that came immediately after, like, "alright guys so we have two D12 victors" was staff winning, we were kind of a little weird about too cause um, I was the Coder — sort of jack-of-all-trades, doin' my thing — Wolf Tears was the Global Mod, and the 56th were won by Lulu, who's admin, and just like... all the victors were all the three, uh, the triumvirate of upper-staff, so it was kind of like awkwardly shuffling around, kicking rocks with your feet like "yeah, so this happened... it's not like we were cheating or whatever to make it unfair" cause... I dunno, it was just very strange for awhile, but... worked out. We're in a good place now.
S: It's kind of funny though, our two first victors were a blind boy and a twelve-year-old little girl, both from District 12

A: District 12 just has like the strangest collection of victors, like, objectively - which I think we'll touch on a little more when we get to the 57th, so...
G: Wooo! 57th! I know it's the one that no one cares about, but I love it so much
A: Hey, Geebs - did... did you kill Enigma Lane?
G: uhhhhhh.... do I have to answer that? Cause I don't wanna die
A: That was, I think that's the 57th Games in summary — the first response is "Wait... what were the 57th Games?" and the second one is "Did you kill Enigma Lane!?" - which is important. These are the two important takeaways. Which we'll get to, I guess, when we get there.
G: It's an enigma, almost
A: Aww, damn
G: who killed Enigma Lane? But that's for a later Cast
A: Just a teaser, to get hyped for the 57th. Because otherwise, how's anyone gonna know how to do it?
G: Ouch.
A: well... I love the 57th Games, I do, it's just um, they always get shafted — and I feel kinda bad about that, like, they shouldn't, but they do. Hopefully we can rectify this a little bit with that Cast when we do our thing
G: I think we brought justice to the 55th, cause I know sometimes it gets really glossed over, but when you really think about what actually happened in those Games, there's so much, so much to just read and really be attached to that some other Games don't have
A: yeah, there was a lot
G: And like I said, 54th — "I dunno what we're doing!"
A: 55th we were figuring it out, and a lot of really, really cool shit happened
S: It was just, it really set the standards for mechanics, writing, everything
A: Unquestionably, I would say that the 54th were the — er, fuck, the 55th were the most important for the site, overall. Cause I know a lot of that, we didn't touch on, it was like the site Renaissance like you said earlier, Stare. But it was also, I think, a big moment in members getting closer, like, the community was getting a lot more community-ish. Like I distinctly remember having so many flailing-in-the-cbox with everybody. We started having tinychats, hanging out a lot more out side of just "hey, so, I'm gonna right you a post and maybe send you a PM, and if we're on at the same time I might say hi awkwardly in the cbox!" Like we moved from that into like actually being really... close friends, too.
G: That is, yeah, the 55th is the stepping stone where it changed from just being a site to like a real community — a community that's still stands today
S: Aww, we love you guys
A: I'm gonna start calling the 55th the Site Renaissance, thanks Stare, I love that. So accurate.
G: Cause for real, you need the 55th, cause how do you get from the 54th to the 56th? Not just number-wise, but also like style and quality wise. You gotta have... there's a missing link when you think about them
A: yeah, the 55th just... everything strung together so nicely. So much growth in all aspectS: aesthetic - that was the Face Claim opened up, towards like the middle/end-ish of the 54th but it was like becoming a thing in the 55th... yeah. Community, aesthetic, writing quality times a million — so good, so good. So important.
G: And this is why the 55th Games are very important to your Site History. A four-page report is due next Thursday. Get it done.
A: I'd do it.
S: You would. You would do it.
A: I told you, I have like a - I could literally write a thesis about that feast, the mega-feast. And the little ones! All of them, everything. Dru and Ara. I could write a thesis on Dru and Ara. I would do that, but... I'm not going to, but I could.
G: Cause then you would've written a thesis for the site, I dunno, get a bachelor's degree in Hunger Games.
A: Well... yeah, but, I mean that's — maybe if I went to like a really super laid back chill college where they don't really have structure or grades I could do that, um, I don't know how much that would help me on my current track. It'd be cool though. I wish.

G: Sometimes... I really like being a part of this, sometimes I forget about the 54th, but this has made me realize that you should not forget about the 54th. Just because we couldn't get to the forum for a long time does not mean you should forget about it. Cause it was fabulous.
A: Yeah... you said the 54th twice, I think you mean the 55th?
G: I meant the 55th! I was going oh, oh yeah - they're too close together, the sounds, with the 5s
A: the Fs, yeah, so you're even forgetting about it even as you're trying to talk about it, and that's unacceptable

G: In my head I have a very distinct picture of each Games, the 54th is just like... the snowy mountain, and the 55th is like, Ara standing in the ocean after everyone else is dead, and it's like dark purple for some reason. But that's what I think of whenever I think of the 55th.
A: The finale's dark purple in my head too, color-wise
G: Is that what her font color was, in it?
A: Yeah, Ara's font is dark purple
G: that must be it
S: Apparently to me, it's turquoise, cause that's the color I made the banner
A: Turquoise? That's Dru, so, there you go
S: There's a jaguar on it!
A: Yeah, and it's turquoise, which are Dru's colors, so I guess that's where you came down on that

A: Alright, you guys have any closing remarks beyond what we've said?
G: I think I've said all I've had
A: chill
S: I think I'm good
A: Cool, well, thank you guys very much for chatting and fangirling with me again! As always, it's been quite a pleasure
G: Anytime, anytime

---

FOOTNOTES:

[1] - I know this only adds up to five.
[2] - 402, to be precise.
[3] - Papero Hitomiya, played by Luna. Fun fact, we actually didn't have enough eligible D11Ms for this reaping, so after it became clear that the one who was reaped wouldn't be stepping up, we let the first non-reaped person to make an 11M have the slot. Crazy to think of in today's standards.
[4] - as discussed before, the 'knocked unconscious' rolls were the closest that the 54th had to instas.
[5] - Mike Smith, 1m in the 59th
[6] - can you even imagine that in recent bloodbaths?
[7] - There wound up being two other inactivity deaths, but they had posted in the bloodbath
[8] - Besides, it isn't as if tributes nowadays wouldn't be able to deduce who got what where, or wouldn't tell each other outright. Definitely not the sort of mechanic that would work in modern Games.
[9] - Kale Forrest, 12m, played by Kale; Sul Tervish, 1m, played by Jasik; Nachele Hale, 11f, played by Molly; Cherry Grace, 5f, played by Sunnyian
[10] - Dru Charlesburg, 1f, played by Cinder. [fangirl noises]
[11] - I'm doing actual math here I swear! 16 (Arbor's age during the 55th), 32 (Arbor's age now), (16-12 =) 4, the age difference between Arbor and Aranica - then 32-4 = 28!
[12] - Falchion, specifically, and as a result of this scene remains one of my favorite weapons.
[13] - I adopted this into my vocabulary nearly a decade ago from an Eddie Izzard bit about empires.
[14] - I am definitely paraphrasing here