#Steady Tracks

[subway-boss-jericho]

hehe sprites go brrrrrr

I didn't know I could DO this, (gestures to Sprite Wizardry Onscreen Now) but I am using this for good. Steady tracks art upon ye

[doodlespite]

STEADY TRACKS WOOT WOOT

written by @subway-boss-jericho

[stxriesfromash]

a starter for @dontcxckitup

Cassandra sat in the passenger's seat of the car, staring out the tinted windows watching the world outside pass her by. She appeared to be lost in thought, her gaze a distance stare off into nothing; in her mind, however, her thoughts were swimming - drowning, even - in a whirlpool of her own making. She'd received her new orders, not just two hours ago, and was now on her way to meet with who would be her new employer for an indefinite time period. In truth, she wasn't given very much to go on, other than the fact that she would be meeting with a figure of high importance. In not so many words, her task was of top priority.

It would be a lie for her to she wasn't mentally exhausted - not too much that she wouldn't nor couldn't be able to do said mission - but to say the least she wasn't the most comfortable with undercover gigs; that specialty was best for Leiliana, her closest friend and equal within the Seekers. Where as Cassandra was known as the 'Right Hand of Divine Justinia V (her branch of Seekers' head of operations), Leiliana was the Left Hand, and much more of a spy and infiltrator type than she was. She had been assured, however, this time would favor Cassandra's expertise much more.

The car pulled into a long parking garage, the building she had not paid any attention to, although after exiting the car and following behind her escorts her sense of perception switch on - eyes taking in as much detail as she could around her as she was lead into the building, into an elevator, and towards the high upper floors.

Though stoic and composed in outward appearance, her nerves began to tighten. She didn't like being in the dark, not knowing what she was getting into; her only comfort were the trusting words of Justinia herself (and her Divine has never lead her astray before).

Through a set of doors she followed her escorts and stood attentive, hands at her sides with her head held high, her back arched taut. One of her escorts announced, "Sir. Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast," before stepping aside to reveal her.

[anderstrevelyan]

Three days left in (mini) nanowrimo and I've written more in a month than I ever have

!!!!

[bumblingbabooshka]

When Tuvok’s eyes start darting around because he’s flustered or thinking about something....yeah <3

[soldier-poet-king]

I also glued my fingers together today but that was hours before the booze and anxiety and completely unrelated

[reinelefey]

I bought a set of waist beads for myself because I always said when I used to see them that "if I could, I'd rock those!"

But I can.

So. I am.

(NGL, being Irish and wearing waist beads is a bit ...pinchy. my Mexican genes kill most of the body hair my Irish genes try to get me to grow, but OH MY GOD they keep pulling out the peach fuzz.)

But.

They're. So. Fuckin. Pretty. I actually love how they look on me, and I'm on my third day wearing them so far, and other than a few pinches here and there, and getting used to having something around my waist literally 24/7... It's been pretty good. I think I should have tied them a LITTLE loose just because of how my extra skin moves, but I didn't, so. Lessons learned for if/when I get another set.

[dykecassidy]

again dont mistake this for complaining but its always normie jim and for once id like to see normie dustin

[nyacat39]

So I am an avid fanfic reader and this one fic on AO3 called Steady Tracks Do Not Waver by @subway-boss-jericho is a fic I constantly find myself just re reading over and over with all the details! It’s really well written and it has me enthralled entirely!

This is my rendition of my favorite scene! Once again nervous about posting fanart of fanfiction but I hope I did the scene justice and made Poke!Ingo look decent enough in my style! (Also Blank/pro shippers please don’t interact)

[subway-boss-jericho]

ANTS ANTS ANTS ANTS ANTS

It’s been 10,000 years. I am So Sorry. Have a sleepy man and his ant as a treat. (I think I drew this back in... August? If that puts into perspective 1. how bad I am at posting stuff; 2. How overwhelmed life got me rn. I am alive I swear)enjoy the soft :]

[rubberbandballqueen]

About your tags: is there more that you can share about the OW fandom and fics? This was a phenomenon I wonder about too. It was one of the most popular fandoms around 2017-2018, but the way the fandom stopped on its tracks around 2019 was hard not to notice. Especially from people who didn't play the game but were aware of it's fandom.

oh! overwatch is one of about 50-ish fandoms i track for this one spreadsheet project i do as a hobby (which i Technically blog about @fandom-data-scientist, but i've been too lazy to do a proper writeup to explain what the hell it is i do), wherein i try to answer the age-old question: when did the weebs move to ao3?

(the answer is late 2015/early 2016. most likely this was in large part a result of undertale and sports anime, but that's currently just my own conjecture)

According To My Research(tm), the overwatch fandom peaked in late 2016/early 2017 when it comes to the number of new fics posted per month. after this, it declined quite rapidly, as it didn't even get to enjoy a plateau period.

(there's a reason why the plots are really wonky towards the end of this graph-- it's bc i found the past dates for number of fics archived to a particular site via the wayback machine. since those snapshots are typically bot crawls, the number of fics shown on the fandoms listings will not include fics that have been archive-locked. although i technically started this project in august 2022, i did not add overwatch to my tracking list until this june/july or so. my current guess for the small uptick in the rate of ow fics published to ao3 in october 2022 is that the sequel came out? and then the rate plunged for january 2023 bc of the ai scraping scare that happened at around that time-- nearly every single fandom i track had a significant drop right then bc everyone was archive-locking their fics. the rate shooting up in like july 2023 on this chart is bc like i said, that's when i added ow to my list of tracked fandoms; because i'm logged into my own ao3 acct when checking these numbers live, i get access to the archive-locked fics and so the display number goes up.)

in my experience, fandoms will generally kind of plateau in their fic production after their peak, which will ofc normally gradually taper off. games that receive regular lore or story updates probably have fairly long or stable plateaus, although i haven't made scatterplots or made any comparing analyses to prove this rigorously. this plateau period generally represents a time of fandom stability as the fair-weather, casual, or migratory slash fans run off to the next big thing.

if we ignore the fact the plague and quarantine happened, we can see a nice, steady, and very consistent plateau period for the danganronpa fandom from about 2018-2020!

let's look at an older fandom, like my archnemesis final fantasy:

granted, the ao3 numbers are kind of all over the place these days, but you kind of get my point by now, right? that healthy fandoms tend to plateau as the wind carries away the faintly-interested and leaves the long-haulers behind to form their communities.

overwatch struck me as unusual when i was on one of my long wayback machine trips because of the way there was a net increase of only two fics published from 1 july 2021 to 1 october 2021, when before then it had usually been in the hundreds or so. i then went on a work tangent n googled around n more or less concluded it had Something to do with some kind of scandal with the development company, but otherwise i don't really have any more comments on it hahaha.

[solradguy]

Today has been a day, tell you what

[victorluvsalice]

-->Sales continued above as Alice continued baking below -- though maybe not as smoothly as I'd hoped either activity would go. Smiler had to take a quick break to suck down a plasma fruit and then clean some of the produce stands midway through the day; one of Victor's customers tried to scare him, but did it so incompetently that they both just ended up embarrassed; and Alice's attempt to make a fruit cobbler ended up in an excellent cobbler but also a broken stove jetting flame. *grimaces* Not good! I decided it was about time Alice did her thing on the sales floor instead and directed her upstairs --

-->Only to discover that she couldn't actually greet any customers. She only had the option to tell them to leave. Baffled, I had her go shovel some of the snow in front of the store instead (only right to clear the drifts, and anyway she can always use the Fitness) --

And then, as sales started piling up on the floor, I tried clicking on a customer with her again and discovered she was perfectly capable of ringing up customers. Can't say hi, can help them check out. O.o No idea what was going on there, honestly. Maybe Alice just wanted to keep the social interaction to a minimum. :p

-->Anyway, despite this weirdness, the store remained hopping -- well, whenever it wasn't lagging, that is. I swear, there is SOMETHING about this lot that makes Sims just idle in the middle of their activities for no apparent reason. It wasn't like this when the trio first bought it! Which, of course, leads me to believe that it was filling the store up with products that has made it so freaking laggy. It's not UNPLAYABLE, it's just annoying -- we'll have to see if the situation gets better as they sell more stuff. And then, if it IS a case of too many things on one lot, we'll see what we can do to remedy that. (Though their home lot has LOADS more stuff and never lags like this...)

-->ANYWAY -- despite all that, they ended up having a very solid grand opening! Smiler handled the customers on their own for a bit so Victor could get a quick dinner in the break room and Alice join him for some TV, then they all pitched in to do some cleaning both upstairs and down before shutting the doors at 7 PM! Having sold eleven items (including the stuff I mentioned before, a box of cheese, another box of canned tomato sauce to Agnes, a box of apple jam jars, a “Rosey Disposition” flower arrangement, and a deodorizing scent) for a total profit of $3,807! Though again, it's not about the money -- they have plenty of that. It's about providing San Myshuno with good fresh food off the farm, and themselves with a way to use up all the produce from said farm! I mean, that greenhouse alone produces a LOT...

[cosmicrhetoric]

hate when a bad dream is ridiculously transparent and reflective of whatever bad thing is happening in ur life......like girl can we get a little more mystery here....can we shroud her in double meanings can we get more esoteric

[dontmineit]

I think so much about the steady tracks do not waver luxury ball though.

like. after all he's been through, ingo literally just wants to rest and be comfortable. he's literally fighting for his life and the moment he meets someone he trusts he just wants to relax oh my GODDD

[heartbreakfeelsogood]

scared that my brain is getting bad again 😔