Ted Leung, Esha Patel, Felicia Yen, Sherry Sarkar, Eshna Narayan, Divya Narayan, Sera Yang, Aileen Lu, Swetha Kandiyil, Neeraj Agrawal, Catherine Zhao, Kristen Wong, Valerie Tan, Catherine Kung, Izzy Shelton-Smith, Krithika Giresh, Ajit Vijayakumar, Jonathan Lin, Sarah Lee, Wesley Pang, Ithika Mirji, Rujuta Munshi, William Hao.
“Lies cut the heart. Secrets scar the soul.” It's been a trying few months for us. Tasked with a duty to keep the game relatively fair and unbiased, we've had to withhold a tremendous amount of information from you all. From family. From friends. Every time we have to lie, we die a little on the inside...
Ah, who are we kidding. It's been fun as hell keeping all these things from you guys and watching the frustration seep across your faces as you come to terms with the fact that there are some things you just cannot know. We've been offered bribes here and there, but we've stayed true to our renowned default phrase, “I can neither confirm nor deny that statement.”
It's been fun thus far, but there comes a point where it becomes just a little bit cruel. These aren't secrets we really want to take to our graves, and we figure you all deserve to know. Today, we'll be discussing all the hidden facts and connecting all the dots that have pervaded throughout the Spoons realm since February. Whether it is the identities of anonymous people or the Loop of killers and targets or the Trump Card winners, it all comes out. This is the Big Reveal.
Current Events
RIGHT AFTER THIS! We have a good amount of news to cover, so we'll get that out of the way. This day has been one of mass suicide. Every single death today has been some sort of suicide, all to three people in contention for the position of “Top Spooner”. Elin, Kotak, and Kirsten. People are dropping like flies, as they realize that they aren't able to get a Silver Spoon. Literally, my phone has been buzzing at intervals of 15 minutes or so the whole afternoon. I'm definitely going to run of data this month...
So who has each person killed so far? Elin has taken out Divya, Eshna, Sera, Swetha, Ajit, Jonathan Lin, Sarah Lee, Ithika, Rujuta, Will Hao, and Neeraj. Kirsten took out Felicia, Ted, Kristen, Catherine Kung, Izzy, Kriya, and Esha. Kotak eliminated Aileen, Catherine Zhao, Valerie, and Sherry (which wasn't really a suicide, but also it kind of was -- it was all very civil...). The kills are really flowing in, so we will be continuing to update the spreadsheet and this article with the kills tonight as they come. Check back periodically!
These three Spooners have been going berserk, basically doubling each of their kill counts. In fact, they have finally surpassed the fabled 11 kills set by legendary Cheryl Wang last year. THE RECORD HAS BEEN BROKEN! I had to make a new column on the spreadsheet, for heaven's sake. The people they've killed have responded with a variety of responses.
“I feel free.”
“I gave my life to a good cause.”
“I'm finally free.”
“I tried so hard over these past few days and chased basically everyone... Spoons was a good run.”
“Hi, I died.”
And this may be interesting news to you all, but there appear to be some odd alliances being made at this point in the game. It is a bit unclear what is going on, but we'll let you see for yourself.
Perhaps they've been putting on a show all along. Perhaps Kotak isn't the villain you all deem him to be. Perhaps there's forgiveness and truth looming in the air. The story of these two powerhouse Spooners is so long and so intricate that it needs to be one told on its own. You'll hear about it on Saturday, for our final article here on The Daily Cannon. It is perfect closure to this crazy game we have come to know as Spoons. For now, chill the eff out and stop giving that man so much shit -- he's not the heartless murderer you have all construed him to be (well, at least not the “heartless” part).
And in other breaking news, Justin ran today. With Ryan. For about 3-4 miles over the course of 30 minutes. Following Wesley Pang on a scooter, trying to find a moment to strike. Sorry Ajinkya, you've been surpassed. We would post the video but Ryan filmed it in time lapse, so it looks like it was filmed by a monkey hanging on a roller coaster after getting jacked up on Sour Patch Kids. Check back later tonight or tomorrow -- if we manage to salvage anything good, we'll post it right here!
* UPDATE (11:30 PM) * After reviewing Justin's footage of the chase, it appears Wesley bumped into the door of his friend's side gate and stepped off his scooter for a second, at which point Ryan tagged him. It was extremely, extremely close to call, but we have decided that the kill is valid. Ryan, props for your tenacity. We'll post the video of that right here as soon as it finishes uploading... Wesley came so close, so we'll just say he came in the “Top 8”.
Behind the Game
Now, to the secrets. Let's start as general as possible. We'll begin by looking at the backstage of planning Spoons, into the folder of the Goderators.
Yes, every single Immunity was planned before the game even started, as well as predicted and desired amounts of deaths per week. Over the course of the game, as we watched actual kills happen, we did tweak some Immunities, remove some, and add some. But for the most part, they were pre-determined. Even the emails were written out before the game began. Take a look for yourself.
If you're curious, take a look at the first Spoons-related document we ever made, a brainstorm of Immunities and Trump Cards. While we did end up using many of the ideas, several were scrapped, like the “Teacher's Dawg” Trump Card and the “John Cena” Immunity. If you scroll all the way down, you'll see a bunch of gibberish writing, which was like our pre-brainstorm brainstorm list.
A few more interesting tidbits. No, we did not foresee the Quota -- we legitimately considered not having one, until we realized that the kill rate was too slow. No, the game was not scripted (stop trolling our ask.fm, it was funny the first 10 times). Yes, the games of the Finale have been planned since before Spoons started.
We could bore you all day with facts about considerations that went into the planning process. But we'll keep it short and cut to the real secrets.
Trump Card Winners
One of the best-kept secrets of Spoons has been the identity of the four Trump Card holders. Most people have an idea of who has which Trump Card, but many of you have been mistaken all along. Let's see where each Trump Card started and where the winds took them.
The first Trump Card, from our “Look Ma, I'm Viral” challenge, went to Shreya Kumar for her creative rendition of “Ain't Nobody Got Time For That.”
Trump Card #2, the reindeer one, went to Elin Chee for gathering a whopping 77 reindeer. It was a pretty close race, that one. But she came out on top with this Trump Card.
Trump Card #3 is the one that got people confused. The two winners were Esther Kao (Honey Badger) and Joshua Otani (The Dark Knight). Many people (understandably) thought Jeffrey Chang won a Trump Card for his musical replica of Oliver. Unfortunately, the Trump Card didn't go to him because we received his submission past the deadline. How it hurt our hearts...
So what happened to these Trump Cards? The holders of these Trump Cards were laying low for quite some time. Well, except Josh, who took to Facebook to announce his victory quite publicly. Some people, most notably Alyssa, tried to take advantage of the fact that many people thought they had won a Trump Card by tricking their targets.
But the first actual use of a Trump Card was when Elin used hers on a free-for-all day to take out Esther. That was some next-level strategizing, because she immediately got Esther's Trump Card after the kill. A few days later, she took out Karen with the second Trump Card. In other words, half of the Trump Cards in the game were used by the scheming Elin. We applaud you.
The other Trump Card, belonging to Josh, was (accidentally) scooped up by Aditya Kotak. This goes back to our “Dawn of Justice” Immunity, where Kotak randomly tagged Josh on his way out of school (Josh thought he was dead, but Kotak tagged him again anyway just in case). Smart move by Kotak, because he ended up with Josh's Trump Card, which he used at the start of the Hunger Games.
As for Shreya's Trump Card? Never used. She died yesterday, and that Trump Card has faded out of existence. Don't think it'll be seeing any action. But we're happy that 75% of the Trump Cards were used. Come the last two weeks, we were pretty worried that none of them would be used at all. Courageous people stepped up to the plate to do so, and for that we thank them.
Secret Identities
If you've been following The Daily Cannon, you'll know that we refer to some people with random pronouns to preserve their identity. Names like “The Tricksters” and “The Hacker” and “The Statistician” help to not only keep a secret, but to build suspense. Today, we get to reveal who these masked villains and heroes were. We're sure there are more we missed, but here are the main ones!
Obvious ones first. The Statistician was Jeffrey Chang. As most of you guessed. Let's take a paragraph to appreciate what that man has provided the Spoons game with. Over the course of five articles, he not only explored trends behind killing, but also unveiled the writing tendencies of the Goderators through tedious lines of code. He created a beautiful blend of humor, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics. And that is why this man is going to Stanford, folks. We know he doesn't like that sort of attention, but he truly deserves it. Take a bow, homie.
The Tricksters who wreaked havoc in Spoons was a group consisting of Shyam Karthik Ravikumar (the man with the longest name in Spoons), Aditya Kotak, and Ajinkya Nene. What started out as a simple act of tricking Sai Namani on the first Immunity turned into something much more elaborate. We've been waiting for a while to reveal this, but they actually created a fake Spoons website, fake email account, and fake rule manual. Not only did they fabricate a few emails to their targets, but they tricked some people into texting their kill confirmations to the wrong number. Wow. They were so good at what they did that we had to ask them to take it easy, especially on the phone numbers. They literally could've taken down the game. We'll let you hear it from their own words (Karthik).
“but anyways, this text was a testament to the fact that I knew my new killer before she knew i was her target. What happened was that the tricksters had a fake website with a tinyurl that was very similar to the one used for the regular website. so catherine must have accidentally typed the wrong tinyurl instead. darn those typos. anyways, in that website, we had a fake rules sheet linked to it, where my number was substituted for yours. so when she looked up your number and texted you, she actually texted ME. I already knew that lauren was my killer, so bc of this text, i knew that catherine was my new killer.”
Speaking of people who could've taken down the game, we can't forget the Hacker. Remember our story about our epic detective work to reclaim our email account? Now you get to know who the Hacker was. Our boy Richard Liu. In first period Biology class, he was bored so he just decided to mess around with the account's password recovery system. He found a way in and just decided to wreak a little havoc. Fortunately, when we tracked him down, he was willing to cooperate and even helped us out. That is just way too much power for one man. Interestingly, when Kenny was freaking out about the hacking incident in his second period, Richard was sitting a few seats away trying not to laugh. Apparently he watched the whole meltdown episode. Well played, sir. Well played. But we do not condone hacking in any way, shape, or form.
Fun Facts
Now for some random bits of information that may strike you as interesting. The artistically-written post on March 27 entitled “A Method to the Madness” was actually written by a guest writer who goes by the pen name of “Sophia Meng” (it was Sophia). We don't really have any context or rationale behind this one. She was feeling it. We were feeling it. So we made it happen.
The Daily Cannon is actually a single Google Document. Each day, we just make a new page break and write the next article. We'd share it with all of you guys, but we're still using it. Still got a few articles left to write! Some interesting facts about it. The document is 120 pages long with nearly 30,000 words (which we think the Statistician may have touched on in his last article). Sometimes, the mere size of this document makes our Chrome browser crash. It takes days to load. Sometimes it doesn't finish loading. But we're just too damn lazy to start a new document.
Someone wrote a fan fiction about Spoons, inspired by real life events. That really put a smile on our faces :)
AND NOW FOR THE FUNNEST FACT OF THEM ALL. This one's a little gossipy, but we received conditional permission from the people involved. We'll be keeping their names anonymous to respect their privacy. So instead, we'll use some substitute names. Ethan will be the guy and Rags will be the girl. At the start of the game, Ethan had Rags as his target. He didn't know her too well, but before long he killed her. Interestingly enough, after that they began talking more. They never really talked much before, apparently, but that kill was the spark they needed to really begin talking. They talked more and more and more and soon enough... They started hanging out... And now, they're dating! Ethan and Rags, we're so happy for you. We never thought Spoons would help bring people together (in fact, we predicted it would “ruin friendships”, which it has indeed done). Now, we can add not only “Goderator” but also “matchmaker” to our resume. We look forward to seeing Ethan in a dapper suit (by Tuxedo Warehouse) and Rags in her stunning dress at Senior Prom in May. See you all there!
The Loop
Now, the moment you've all been waiting for. The revelation of the Loop. A lot of you spent the last two months really trying to figure out the Loop. Some you camped out on the “Tabs” spreadsheet and took screenshots frequently. Some of you lived on The Daily Cannon looking for leaked information. Some of you even traded information (cough Clarence cough). First things first, here is our official Loop. At first, we were trying to write down exactly how everyone got killed. That took waaay too much time so we stopped that operation. Meanwhile, here are some other noble attempts at the Loop. Click on any for your own viewing pleasure!
- Aileen Lu, Christina Tani
- Kirsten Chai, Codie Chang
- Catherine Zhao, Esther Kao
- Clarence Lau, William Wang, Sinclair Chen
With this new information, if you go back and read The Daily Cannon articles, you'll have a new layer of understanding. You'll see it from our eyes. We're going to highlight some of the key highlights of Spoons 2k16, given this new information. Let's review some of our favorite kills.
February 13: Shirley followed Tanvi to a church at around 8:00 PM, donning some formal attire and even bringing an accomplice/henchman.
February 16: When Ajinkya saw his killer at Chipotle, he ran almost 2 miles to the Miller and Rainbow intersection in an effort to escape. His killer simply hopped into his friend's car and killed him when they picked him up. Emily Zhong, you are ruthless.
March 10: Angela Gehn chased Brian on his long run around campus. She was running in flip flops and nearly keeping up with him. It is key to note that during the Hunger Games, Angela picked up one of the Silver Spoons and ran away at lightning pace, too. She is a lot faster than one would expect. Maybe her flip flops give her extra running pace. Justin needs to square up.
March 18: It is Immunity #9, the take-a-photo-of-someone's-eyes day. The photo that Hinten sent in while he was driving on the freeway to kill Emily Lum was provided to him in a video shot by Dara earlier in the day.
March 20: Jeffrey Chang followed Emily Mok to work at TeaTop in an effort to kill her, and a short while later he saw her at his piano testing place in the morning by mere coincidence.
We're sure that there's even more connections you could make and interesting things you could identify given this new information. Knock yourselves out! Before we skip over to the next session, we just wanted to discuss why this Loop was beautiful. First of all, you have our word that this list was randomized. We plugged our list of sign-ups into a chunk of code that reorders them randomly. We did this multiple times because we needed a Loop that was interesting -- if it was everyone killing someone who they didn't know, that wouldn't make for very entertaining gameplay.
As soon as we saw this, we knew it was the one. What were the key indicators? Well, right at the top, there was Sarah one person away from Jane, two Valks who could've been potentially pitted against one another. Followed by YeeJay, part of Jane's physics squad. We had Owen Li killing Shawn, a bit of Robotics rivalry. Around lines 30 to 40, we see Armin, Ramsey, Zach, and Brian Tung all a few names away from one another. Around line 90, we saw Alvin killing Sophia killing Pauline. There was Mukund and Ajit farther down. Tim and George, former football teammates. These were all solid indicators that this Loop was the chosen one. We couldn't resist.
tl;dr
So there you have it. The key secrets of Spoons, revealed in one mammoth-sized article. These next few days, we encourage you to open your eyes to the world we've created together. And savor it.
Read all the old articles (hint about Finale?), and you'll discover a whole new perspective with the information we've revealed today! Interact with us on the ask.fm, whether it be actual questions about the game or simply conversation or points of curiosity! Most importantly, come watch the Finale at the top of the quad these next few lunches.
Soon, this will all be but a distant, fond memory. But right now, you're in the dying moments of that memory -- you're in the process of creating it. Grasp this opportunity. To take it all in... Ah... Now let the final chapter of Spoons 2k16 begin.