Hello, Hello? (Is Anyone There?)

Like, by no means am I trying to weigh up the MXTX love interests' separation periods (as I like to think of them), but Hua Cheng had hope that he would find Xie Lian - he had so much hope that he actively searched for eight hundred years for him before he found him. Luo Binghe was able to bring Shen Qingqiu back, was in the midst of doing so when the mushroom body situation happen and then (while it wasn't Luo Binghe who did it) did bring him back.

Wei Wuxian died. Like straight up, no coming back, impossible to see him again, died. And I sometimes feel like saying that Lan Wangji was waiting kind of undermines the fact that this was a soul-crushing thing, and this was just going to be the rest of his life. There literally was no fucking shot of Wei Wuxian coming back in anyone's even remote comprehension, and the fact that he did come back was a fucking miracle in and of itself.

Lan Wangji mourned for those thirteen years. Hua Cheng searched, Luo Binghe (it's been a while so call me out if I'm wrong) was almost in denial over Shen Qingqiu's death even though he comprehended the sacrifice so he planned, but Lan Wangji mourned, and was going to mourn for the rest of his life. He just had to get used to the fact that he would never, ever get to see the love of his life again. There wasn't even a body to bury. It was just the memories and the gradual, slow descent of those memories disappearing with aging.

ALSO now that I'm thinking about it, the fact that he couldn't even talk to anyone else about it. Obviously, there's this whole thing of memories being kept alive through like sharing and talking about them, but Wei Wuxian cemented himself as basically a taboo subject. A monster who is only talked about to scare people or to curse out his name. Those who remember him can't or won't talk about him for one reason or another, and that means that Lan Wangji is left all alone, mourning someone who nobody even cares to talk about, and that will be the rest of his life. He has come to terms with the fact that he will die with the faint memory of Wei Wuxian's smile and that's all.

And, once again, this isn't trying to make a competition out of the separation periods, I could just as easily talk about how Hua Cheng's despair of not being able to find Xie Lian but knowing that he is alive somewhere (or is he? Has he gone? Faded away? Is Hua Cheng just looking for a memory?). I could talk about that desperation that Luo Binghe felt at losing the only person he had ever loved and been loved by, who had sacrificed himself to save him when he needed him most, who gave so many mixed signals, and then needing to get him back by any means necessary. But this post was borne of me being tired of the 'waiting' label being applied to Lan Wangji's mourning period.

@need-him-pregnant-poll

Here's the full graph of all the data I was able to collect. I can see four suspicious sections:

First: At about 4 days left, a few hours after I began screenshotting the poll, Starscream's votes increased sharply. Only an hour or so later, Stan's votes did the same, then plateaued. Stan's vote's then shot up to take the lead.

Second: At about 3 days left, Starscream's votes rose to meet Stan's, but did not exceed 50/50. They stayed tied, or very close to tied, for a while after this.

Third: At around 2 days left, Stan's votes had a couple of sudden jumps. I should say that in all these cases, for both candidates, these increases could be the result of widely sharing the poll. I know at least anecdotally it was being shared in lots of discord servers I was in. The third visible increase in this section occurs at almost exactly the same time for both Stan and Starscream, which leads me to believe that either the poll was simply being viewed by more people OR that both fandoms were botting at the same time.

Finally, the ending few hours. Now again, there have been lots of people from both fandoms saying that the poll was being widely shared during this time, which would make sense, so the sheer quantity of votes could be a natural occurrence. However, it could also be the result of both sides being botted. Starscream's votes also increase at an almost constant rate during this time, while the rate of Stan's votes fluctuates.

My data comes from two sources: primarily screenshots with the time, percentage, and total votes manually inputted into a spreadsheet. Towards the end I also started trying to take the exact number of votes for each candidate directly from the poll's html via inspect element. Unfortunately I was unable to do this at the frequency I would have liked to. Because the final few hours were tied at 50/50 most of the time, I don't have exact data from my screenshots for the exact number of votes cast for each candidate.

There is very little I am able to say definitively. Upon reviewing all my data, I don't feel that the evidence I collected is strong enough to claim that botting definitely occurred. In the future I'm going to try to get the exact number of votes instead of just the percentages to be more accurate. Or maybe I'll go outside and touch grass instead of obsessing over tumblr polls lol

Most of the suspicious spans of time occured at roughly the same time of day (between 3-7PM EST), which could be either botting (a bot set to increase votes leading up to 7PM, the hour that the poll is set to end?), but it could also just be the time that most people are online.

Conclusions:

If there was botting, it's a lot more subtle than it was last year during the Megatron poll

I don't think my data is exact enough to definitively prove botting one way or the other, I can only suggest that certain sections of the voting patterns look suspicious

If there was botting, it looks highly likely that both fandoms are guilty

My personal thoughts:

I don't want either character to be disqualified. If it was obvious one way or the other, I think I'd feel better about all this, but the way it is now I don't want to be wrong and ruin the tournament for no reason.

If there was botting, I'm very disappointed in both fandoms. I was rooting for Stan, but I wanted him to win honestly (even if it is out of character for him lol)

If Starscream moves on to the next round, I wish the transformers fandom the best of luck! I think he's got a good chance to win the whole thing this year