* weren't playtested or were discontinued for 5.5e

If you correctly predict anything, whether in your own post or in the replies or tags, you should DM me/shoot me an ask/tag me and I will bestow upon you bragging rights or a picture of one of my pets or something. Also, go buy a lottery ticket lmao.

^ unclear if Clerics of the Totality are any cleric subclass using intelligence as their primary stat (per Brennan) or if it's a unique C4-only subclass. I treated it like a unique subclass.

** if Cleric is the class, halfling is highly unlikely to be the race due to Macaroni Samsonite, but halfling otherwise doesn't fit the disqualification standards because Macaroni is a one-shot character. Same with Beastfolk Paladin.

First up, lets split out those combined stats.

Notably, we can see that the majority of fics are focused only on a single table, with NPC-only fics usually outnumbering the number of fics with a character from all three tables past Overture. With less interaction. Seekers & Schemers have the general highest overlap, driven in no small part by Hal & Thaisha's pre-existing relationship, but also their having a later split from the Soldiers, especially evident with the large number around e4.

However, it's hard to really compare the three tables in the stacked look, so instead, let's separate out each table below the cut

This represents the number of fics posted in a given week (Friday-Thursday, so following a given episode) that feature only members of the particular tables. The numbers are generally low for e1 and 2, especially compared to the totals, but there is a high point for the Soldiers in e3 where they leave the city, and spikes in e4 for the other newly formed tables, but especially high for the Seekers in response to Occtis' death and resurrection.

Interestingly, through the Soldiers arc, all three tables are fairly even, with Seekers generally but not consistently being the highest. During the Seekers arc, however, there is a strong uptick in the Seekers while the other two tables stay low.

Taking this back to the format of a line graph for ease of view...

We see that e1 has the highest points for ccross-tables (before tables had been established), and that the Seekers are less dominant, but cross-table is still generally the lowest, although more prevelant than Soldiers-only during the Schemers arc.

In order to get a stronger sense of what tables were dominant over arcs, rather than a vibes-based approach at which lines were higher, I took averages for each arc (with Overture including episode 5, the Soldiers including e11, and the breaks after a given arc included with that arc).

While we do see a small spike in Seekers fics during their arc, and a strong spike for Schemers in theirs, the fading influence of Overture and the overall decrease in total fics over the arcs makes these less evident.

But if number of total fics didn't represent the impact of an arc focus, perhaps other factors will, so I decided to also look at the total ship tags.

Again taking an average per week across the arc, we can see a much clearer peak for the Seekers (although less evident in their platonic tags). While the Schemers are tied with Seekers for ship tags, the platonic tags show another increase. There isn't a similar sign for the Soldiers, however, with a very linear decrease across arcs.

Generally, platonic tags were higher than romantic tags, likely representing the more common use of platonic tags for NPCs while there are few prominent NPC ships (Julienessa the main exception).

Of course, the numbers here are mostly focused on the few super popular ships, so to balance that out, I also measured the diversity of ship tags - how many different ships there were for each table rather than the sum of all tags.

This deemphasizes the impact of Overture, but there is still not a significant change in the Soldiers table. We also see the romantic pairings from the Seekers having less of an impact, driven by the fact there aren't many ships - over their arc, Azune was the only character with a diversity of ships, with Bolaire's only romantic tag Halaire, Hal only with Bolaire & Azune, and Murray only with Azune & King Gus.

Further looking at both quantity and amount of ships, I seperated out graphs of all the same-party ships (as well as the major NPC ships)

For Soldiers, while the peak is in Overture, we do see high points in both peak numbers and in variety of ships during their arc. Past the end of the arc, Katteor and Wicanny are the only ships to receive more than one fic per week, and even they do not reach higher than 3. In comparison during the arc we do see Teor/Wick, Thimble/Tyranny, and Kattigan/Wick making some showings, but there is not a large presence of NPCs, most of those being Thjazi during the overture. The only pairing not included is Thimble/Cyd, which has a single use.

For polyshipping the soldiers, there is no tag with all 5; included is Teor/Tyranny/Wick, the most common, but the OT4 with them and Kattigan has two uses.

The Seekers have a longer hold over through Overture, with high peaks continuing through e6 and being fairly diverse up through the holiday break. Juliocctis and Julienessa are the only ones to stay consistent, with other high points the Julien/Aranessa/Thjazi OT3, Vaesha, Davinlloy, and Occtis/Vaelus dying out to at best only a few fics, not piccking up properly until ep13 for most, e14 for Davinlloy and later for the ot3 which isn't as common.

We also see a variety of NPC ships, mostly with Aranessa but also Julien/Alogar, which don't have much staying power after the arc. Not included on this graph are several minor (<3) Julien and Occtis pairings, as well as Thaisha/Agony. There is no full table OT4 pairing, and the OT3 with Julien/Thaisha/Vaelus has only one use, as do the other various Aranessa ot3s (Julien/Occtis, Julien/Thaisha, and Thaisha/Vaelus). During the Seekers arc, we see every ship except Juliocctis fall to the wayside, with Julienessa at much lower values following her departure. Vaesha is the only other ship to get more than one fic, although there is more diversity in the minor ships here than seen in the Soldiers.

The graph for the Schemers is much less chaotic, with there not being an abundance of non-Halaire ships at any point, although there is a notable increase in the minor ships during the Schemers arc proper. Halaire itself is not particularly more active, although it had died down during the Seekers arc. It has remained the overall #1 ship since e4.

Most of the secondary ships are with Azune, with Azune/Hal and Azune/Murray the most prevelant, Azune/Hal spiking at e1 and e19, while Azune Murray more common through other arcs and later Schemer arcs. Azune/Bolaire is less common, with only 2 instances, and the poly pairings of Azune/Bolaire/Hal and the OT4 with Murray more prevelant. This is the only table to have a complete OT4, although the non-Murray OT3 has more uses.

There are some NPC ships, with Thjazi ships having some prevelance during the Overture and Soldiers arcs, but the only one that is of particular note is late arrival Murray/King Gus following e25.

And, wrapping up, I've also included the top 10 crosstable ships. These are all very low, with only Occtigan and Hal/Thaisha having any real presence but dropped significantly from their heights of e2.

Most of these pairings are either with Azune or Occtis, with Azune having the most pre-existing ties via the Torn Banner, and Occtis being the fan favorite. During the Seekers arc, we see things die out, with the only ones with any more consistent presence being Occtigan and Hal/Thaisha and Thimble/Occtis. During the Schemers arc, this is even further evident, where we see only Hal/Thaisha, Occtis/Thimble, Azune/Julien, and Azune/Occtis at all, with Azune/Julien showing a clear uptick due to the arc focus.

Cross table ships (and platonic tags) are going to be the most interesting to see as we get into the convergence, and whether this results in any major shakeups....as I'm not sure how I'll continue this analysis if there's a major table swap.