One True Comic Activity vs. One True Thread Activity — 128 Days

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WARNING: Contains spoilers!

This graph plots newpix of the OTC directly against newpages of the OTT, showing how interest in Time has fluctuated, at least among OTTers. The graph is presented in two forms: one with the bare line of OTT against OTT, and the other with assorted markings. Rate of posting is easier to make out on the bare one, but the markings provide some interesting additional information.

The blue marks show the first post to the OTT by a particular OTTer; the red marks show the latest post by a particular OTTer at the time of this graph. (Note that "latest" does not mean "final"; there's a blue and red mark for each of us, so the red marks cluster toward the right.) The green dots mark an OTTer who posted exactly once, with no follow-up.

Graph of One True Comic activity vs. One True Thread activity (PNG format)

Graph of One True Comic activity vs. One True Thread activity (PNG format)

We can make a number of observations, some of them rather surprising. The main line plots OTT directly to OTC (yes, there are over 52,000 data points): the steeper the line, the more posts per newpix. In the first week, of course, the post rate is very high.

On the sixth day, when the newpix rate is halved, I expected to see the line steepen, since there was more Outside time for posting to each newpix. Instead, after a fewpix the post rate drops sharply. That seems to be the first point at which a significant number of Waiters decide, "Randall's jerking our chain," and begin to bail out. Notice, over the next week, the density of red hash marks indicating where a Waiter posts for the last time, starting even before Time fails to end on April 1st.

Despite the flight of so many Waiters, the OTT stays fairly active, slowing down somewhat when Megan takes a nap, only to surge forward again at the appearance of La Petite. And when Megan says, "bye," we see a substantial surge in first-posters, right up through the Fade-out.

But when we join Megan and Cueball in their explorations, interest begins to drop off again; there's another surge of last-posts over the next few days. Not until the "Neat" tree and the early molpy activity does the decline stop, though some of the slowdown may have been due to school finals.

After that point, OTT activity remains fairly steady through week 16, although there are distinct surges after the raptorcat springs and after sunset. The weekly wobble is quite visible over this period, as posting slows down on the Outside weekend (just before the week lines on the graph.)

Even the appearance of the Beanies causes only a slight increase in the posting rate. Not until Megan and Cueball reach the castle does the post rate climb seriously, as we attempt to unravel Rosetta's tangled speeches and interpret her maps; another strong increase in new posters and single posters is quite noticeable. Startlingly, the post rate drops sharply at "RUN," perhaps because the following frames contain so little dialogue and almost no new terrain, or perhaps simply because of the weekend.

But the final week sees the heaviest posting since the Fading; the line goes effectively vertical at "The end." A number of single-posters appear at this point; many of these, you'll recall, are "Thank you" posts to Randall.

After "The end," the post rate is plotted against the continued hourly updates, or "nopix". Immediately after "The end" the post rate drops again, but not yet to an alarming level; the rate was slower during much of the exploration period. Will the post rate drop away to nothing, or will it reach a fairly stable condition? To find out, we'll just have to wait for it.