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Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2025: Week 28
SYOT is an acronym for "Submit your own Tribute", a common kind of fanfic in the Hunger Games fandom where an author (or host) writes about an edition of the Hunger Games and their readers create and submit the twenty four tributes that will participate in said Hunger Games. They are almost exclusive to ff.net. SYOTs are rare on AO3, and most of them seem to be crossposted from ff.net for archival purposes. This is due to the fact that communication between the writer and submitters is a must, and that can only be done via private messages, a feature AO3 lacks.
The dynamics of a SYOT is simple. The author writes from the point of view of each one of the tributes. During the course of the story, all tributes will die except one, who becomes the Victor. The stories usually have a similar structure, which emulates step by step each phase of the Hunger Games seen in canon, from the characters being selected for the Hunger Games to the announcement of the Victor and a brief aftermath.
A SYOT is a long type of story, which requires a lot of effort and dedication. Most completed SYOTs average around 200k words. It requires managing twenty-four protagonists, sometimes even more if the author decides to make their edition of the Hunger Games on an alternate universe. They are not role-playing games, as once the characters are created and submitted, all decisions about their fate rest with the person writing the story. However, some authors give submitters and readers ways to influence the course of the story, usually by leaving reviews (submitters that review every chapter may have more chances to keep their tribute alive for longer) or participating in minigames in which they can win supplies for their tributes to use in the Arena. This is done as a way to increase engagement. As interactive stories aren't allowed in ff.net, this is a risky practice that may get a story deleted. SYOTs have suffered purges in the past.
The first SYOT ever written was DYI Hunger Games by JinniaFlyer450. The term SYOT didn't exist yet, but it is a SYOT in essence. JinniaFlyer450 took the concept from the Total Drama fandom, where, according to the author's notes, readers submit their own characters for the author to write their own version of the show.