I picked some wildcards from the votes, so here's them and the Nice Careers.

Sky Larch- Wandering Souls D12F

There was something in my ear. I was still poking at it when the medic came in.

"Great news!" Metallic buzzing whined in my ear as he said it. I screwed up my face at the annoying noise. "We gave you a cochlear implant so you'll be able to hear better!"

I was never much for karma, but I had to admit that was pretty funny.

Jacquard Crock- No Way Down D8M

It's a whole new me, I thought, with more anticipation than confusion. I lay with the blanket over my body, too nervous to look and see if the Capitol made me into what I wished I could be. They must have, I thought. The Capitol hated ugly people. Even if they didn't remake us like they did for Victors, surely they'd trim some of that gross fat off...

I peeked under the sheet. My body was exactly the same as it had been. I should have reflected on the lesson about me being perfect the way I was, or me having made so much progress in the Arena. I had made progress, but that didn't stop the little voice in the back of my head. It was still there whispering, and I was still hoping I'd be handsome someday.

Hadley Kinneth- In Your Hands D6F

Of all the people in all the Games, they picked me. Sure, they picked more than a hundred people, but there were more than a thousand of us at this point. And yet they thought I was one of the ones who might win. On the one hand, I was in the top three in my first Games. On the other hand, Careers were so much more competitive now. Even the outliers seemed stronger, just from sheer force of selective adaptation. Someone from as long ago as me hardly stood a chance, before I even factored in how we would get fewer sponsors. I wasn't counting myself out, and neither was the Capitol, apparently, but it was enough to make me glad Skyler wasn't here, too.

Perfecta Flawless- Killer Vacation D1F

I was really glad someone else won. Of course it was sad I died, but I should be happy for whoever won. I could win this time around instead. Maybe whoever won wouldn't have gotten picked to come back if they hadn't won. I had no concerns about my chances this time, even if I died once. Sometimes the universe makes mistakes, but surely it wouldn't happen twice. Not to someone as perfect as me.

Cinderella Dare- Res D1F

I didn't want to be with Rapture and his kind. Since they were pretty big by now, that left me with the necessary alternative of finding a different Career alliance. If I tried sneaking out of the Bloodbath on my own, I'd have a chance, but I had the feeling this Bloodbath would be a meat grinder for loners.

Tuesday was the first one I clicked with. We hadn't been allies last time around, but this was a strange case of bygones being bygones. Maybe it was the earnest look on her face, or the way she was still carrying around a notepad, but she just seemed like a better sort of Career than Rapture.

"Oh, hey Cinderella. Do you have a few minutes for an interview? I don't have time to make a book, so I started a blog. Everyone gets an intro page... if I have time to write them all."

"Sure," I said.

"Cliche, but what made you volunteer for the Games?"

"It was in honor of my friend Atalanta, who died in the Games." I tried to hide the wave of melancholy the question gave me. Atalanta hadn't been picked this year. It was bittersweet how I was almost a little excited, since I'd always thought she was a better Career than me.

"What's the biggest change since your first Games?" Tuesday asked.

"The slang. What on Earth does "bloffa" mean?" I said.

"I think it's something like 'pretty'?" Tuesday said uncertainly. "Next question: are you looking for allies?"

"About that..."

Calvin Heidi- A Night To Remember D1M

Something had been sticking in my head from the moment I woke up. It went all the way back to my first Games- to the first time I started to kill. I didn't know what to think about it. There was this gnawing feeling that I'd done something wrong, even though I'd known it was kill or be killed. It was crazy, but it almost felt like I was listening for God.

"What makes you go to Hell?" I asked Elissa.

"There is no Hell. We just keep reincarnating forever," she said.

"Can you reincarnate into one of the gods?" Jynx, who was standing next to us in line for the cafeteria, asked idly.

"I think you can," Elissa said. "I wondered about it myself. I'm not sure they die but if they do- maybe one might choose to- you could get reincarnated as one."

Jynx asked another question and they launched into conversation. I'd gotten what I wanted anyway. No Hell was a good answer. I liked that answer.

Gabriel didn't avoid me like most outliers, since I came up from behind him and he was deaf.

"Hey, sorry to bother you, but weird question: what happens in the afterlife if you kill someone?"

Gabriel turned on the device on his wrist and made some signs over it. "You go to Jahannam," his interpreter said through the videoscreen.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Hell," Gabriel said.

Castiel saw my expression and reluctantly didn't run away.

"What happens if you kill someone? You go to Hell?" I asked.

His face lit up most incongruently for someone talking about Hell. "Not necessarily! God still loves you and it's not too late. Yeah it's bad but he'll forgive."

"But just like theoretically, if someone didn't get forgiven," I said.

"Hell," he said, looking down sadly.

Tulsi looked at me indifferently as I interrupted her knife training.

"I don't believe it that stuff," she answered after I posed the question. "But if I did, the stories say you go to Naraka. Do not pass go, do not get reincarnated."

"What's Naraka?" I asked.

"Hell," she said.

Amphilia Fortuna- A Night To Remember D4F

"I was thinking maybe we could set some ground rules."

"Ground rules?" Siren asked incredulously. She didn't sound so much angry or offended as just confused.

"Sorry, weird wording," I said. "I meant like, maybe we could set up some rules for warfare? More of guidelines, really. I don't know, it's just, we're the good Careers, so maybe we could try to be... good." I stopped before the rambling got worse. How do you explain that in a survival situation, you still want to say we shouldn't kill some of the people?

"What like, treat prisoners well and don't fake surrender?" Victory asked. "I don't think stuff like that is going to come up much."

"Mostly I meant, even though only one person can win eventually, I think there are some Tributes we shouldn't target. We can kill them if they're the only ones left and things like that, but we shouldn't go after them until then," I said.

Jynx shrugged. "Most likely we won't even cross paths, so I'm game."

"Who were you thinking?" Siren asked.

"Gabriel," I said. "And Sky, since she's hard of hearing. The one girl who looks really young maybe- the one who wears clown stuff."

"That's not too bad. I would have felt bad going after them anyway," Victory said.

"Yeah, like you said, we gotta do what we gotta do, but I was not planning to go sprinting for Gabriel in the Bloodbath," Jynx said.

"It's nice there's no really young Tributes this time," Tuesday said.

"Tell me about it! That was the worst thing," Siren said. "You're trying to hunt and fight other people who volunteered for this and some terrified kid is stuck in there with you."

I smiled as I listened to my allies. They were like me, then. Some Careers didn't want to kill innocents. Maybe most Careers didn't want to kill innocents. We really could call ourselves the good careers, if only in part. In a world like ours, that might be enough to qualify.

Tuesday Erelle- Into Thin Air D2F

ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE

Hello, and welcome to One Foot in the Grave, Tuesday Erelle's Old Resurrection Games blog! Please enjoy my in-depth coverage, including:

Behind-the-scenes news!

Interviews with Tributes!

Live-blogging key events!

Today's post is the start of many on this theme. There are some one hundred and fifty of us here in the Games building, and cliques are starting to form. Most of us have come to the obvious conclusion that we'll need allies, but where do you even start with so many faces? So I thought I'd throw together a little dating site of sorts.

Allyz is an all-new connection site for aspiring allies. Create your profile and post yourself to announce you're out and about and looking for allies. To get the ball rolling, here's my profile!

Name: Tuesday Erelle, Career

About me: Hi, I'm Tuesday! Originally I volunteered because I wanted to write a book about the Games from an insider perspective. Maybe not my best idea, but it's gotten me pretty far. I'm looking for other Careers, but I'm also interested in outliers if they're especially impressive. I'm looking for Careers whose focus is on survival, not killing. I'm plenty willing to get violent, but I'm looking for more of a collaborative than aggressive alliance. What I bring to the table includes morningstars and halberd skills, plus general physical fitness. I also have a history of getting a lot of sponsors, since I like to talk to the cameras. I'd like a lot of allies if possible. Maybe up to fifteen?

Likes: Morningstars, Citizen Kane, mini golf

Dislikes: Bad conversationalists, lemons, arrogant people

Seeking: Careers, Non-Careers, Multiple Allies, Friendly

Current allies: Cinderella Dare, D1F

Drop your own profile to help me be the first to match. And Capitol readers, spread the news to the Tributes because I don't think most of them will be reading the blog unless it goes viral.

Jynx Susurrus- Power to the People D1M

Victory and I sat slumped on either end of the long couch in the One lounge, half-watching some Capitol reality TV show.

"What's the secret? What is it we're not doing that so many other people did on their first try?"

"Get lucky," Victory said. It was honestly true. No matter how hard someone trained, and how much they wanted it, there would always be an element of luck in the Games. I wasn't writing off everyone who won as just "lucky". It was just that there were multiple people strong enough to win in any one year. Only one could win, and that inevitably added some luck. It wasn't only luck that won the Games, but you couldn't win them without luck.

"Then this is it for most of us. Just coming back for a few days over and over, until we get forgotten or the Games morph into something new entirely."

"Beats..." Victory paused. "I don't know, maybe life in prison, I guess. Depends on the prison, honestly."

"So what's our legacy? What are we leaving behind?" I asked, sagging deeper into the couch.

"I've thought about that too. All this work and what do I have to show for it? Bereaved parents and an entire country who saw me botch multiple chances." Victory was looking out the window with a distant expression. It must have been bothering her for some time before she spoke of it.

"We usually score pretty well." I knew how empty it sounded.

"We don't have actively bad legacies, so that's something. Imagine being that kid who's died first like four times," Victory said.

"We definitely are better than that kid," I said, smiling a little even despite the melancholy still in the air. Historians, take note: Victory Amarinthine and Jynx Susurrus were better than that one kid from Nine.

Victory Amarinthine- Power to the People D1F

You'd never guess, looking at me, that I was my District's idol. At this point no one remembered that in our original Reaping, I'd been the darling. Jynx had been the dark horse, quiet and barely noticed. He'd won his spot fair and square, but I was the one who got recognized in the street. But that was a long time ago, in a much smaller pond. I was in an ocean now, and I didn't stick out in the slightest.

So much had changed since then that it brought to mind philosophy. The obvious difference in the resurrected Tributes was our body. It was an entirely new body, so who was to say the soul inside wasn't new? Were we getting reincarnated or were we generating new souls with old memories? But aside from that, it wasn't just our bodies that were different. I was so different in thought now I could barely recognize myself. In my first Games it had seemed so important to lead the Career pack. Now I was content to mull things over in an alliance devoid of any leadership. It felt more like a group of friends than anything else.

It wasn't the only change in me. I was less arrogant now. I still thought I could win, but I wasn't sure anymore that I was in the elite of the Careers. It might be I was just... average. I'd lasted a long time in my first Games, but that hadn't been against so many other Careers. Most of the Tributes there were scared kids... and I still hadn't won. I was more aware now that the others weren't just background characters in my life. There were multiple people here who could win and I wasn't the only one trying to stay alive.

The weirdest thing was how close Jynx and I were now. In my first time around I'd actively tried to get him out of my alliance, and he eventually left. We were rivals then, for some reason I couldn't even remember. Then the Games got us to take our heads out of our butts and we both admitted the other was pretty cool. I'd lost the Games four times, sure, but I gained a friend. Wasn't that worth it?

No. No it was not. But it was nice all the same.

Siren Kaecko- The Poseidon Adventure D4F

A hundred and fifty Tributes, one winner. I'd do my best and all that, but I was good enough at math to see the odds. My life was definitely not certain, so I would make the most of what I had before it was gone.

Tuesday typed furiously as she continued her questions.

"Okay, so what are you seeking? You can choose all the tags you want." She pointed at the screen with dozens of prepared tags, like small alliance, or no careers or physically fit.

"Careers," I started. I thought about adding "non-careers", since some of them were pretty strong, but decided against it. If any of them were bold enough to message me anyway, I'd consider them.

"Large alliance," I said, to match the rest of my allies.

"Now for the 'about you' section," Tuesday said.

"Hmmm." I looked up.

"Hi, I'm Siren. I think I'm a pretty fun girl who can work hard when she needs to but isn't too serious. I started training when I was five and got picked because of my trident and spear skills. I'm looking for a larger alliance, since the start of the Games will be so crazy. I'm looking for Careers with a broad range of skills and laid-back personalities. I don't think I'm a good fit for especially violent Careers, sorry. Any more questions, just ask!"

Likes: The ocean, singing, dolphins, drawing

Dislikes: Velvet, nori, long-distance running