No One Will Remain Seated During the Exciting Statistical Action! · 12:17am Nov 26th, 2014
Introduction: So I did a spreadsheet on my total published output for this site. I thought it might be interesting to post the results here. If not -- well, I'm Nightstallion Mean anyway, so that's what I do. The analysis will last forever!
I. Totals: I have published a total of 26 stories, of which 10 are complete and 16 incomplete. This comes to a total of 368,292 words in 105 chapters, average chapter length 3,508 words. I've garnered a total of 15,895 views and 1,365 comments (including my replies) for a Comment-to-View Ratio of 9%, and 1,309 Up-Votes to 117 Down-Votes, for an Up-Vote to Down-Vote Ratio of 11.19, which is pretty nice -- over 10 times as many people who bothered to vote liked as opposed to disliked my work.
II. Length: My five longest stories are
1. Divine Jealousy and the Voice of Reason (65,321 words and still incomplete),
2. Dragonshyness (38,857 words),
3. Nightmares Are Tragic (32,977 words).
4. Collateral Damage (32,226 words), and
5. An Extended Performance (26,642 words).
I'm reasonably happy in that these are also five of my favorites, stories that I am proud to have written. This means I haven't been wasting my time. I see my obsessions are spread out pretty evenly into my output -- there are two stories mainly about Luna, one mainly about Fluttershy, one mainly about Trixie, and one mainly about Changelings.
III. Views: My five most popular stories by number of views are
1. Nightmares Are Tragic (2,785 views: started 6-Dec-2013, finished 30-Dec-2013)
2. "A Meeting by Moonlight" (1,460 views: started and finished 1-Dec-2013)
3. All the Way Back (1,138 views: started 2-Jan-2014 and most recently updated 22-Mar-2014)
4. An Extended Performance (1,044 views, started 27-Jan-2014 and finished 02-Feb-2014)
5. Fluttershy Is Free (944 views, started 12-Jan-2014 and finished 13-Jan-2014).
Now it's no surprise to me that the stories which started or finished a long time ago have the most views -- they've had the most time to get views. What's interesting is that the top three stories are heavily Luna-centric and Twiluna-shipping oriented. This is in part because my Luna obsession was the strongest when I got into this fandom (it's still there, note that Divine Jealousy and the Voice of Reason has huge sections narrated by Luna, and involves frequent expressions of her attraction to Twilight Sparkle). But "A Meeting by Moonlight," while it's almost a year old now, is a short story -- 1 chapter, 2,932 words -- and it has a 50% View-Per-Word ratio -- meaning 1 view for every 2 words I wrote!
I wonder why that story has attracted so much attention? It's sincere, emotional, fanon-informative -- and it's TwiLuna. I think a lot of people who like my style like Twilight Sparkle and Luna a lot, especially together.
IV. Comments: My five most commented-upon stories are:
1. Divine Jealousy and the Voice of Reason: 286 comments.
2. Nightmares Are Tragic: 176 comments.
3. An Epistolary Legal Consultation Between Princesses: 172 comments.
4. Fluttershy Is Free: 97 comments.
5. All the Way Back: 82 comments.
Now, I'll let you know a secret about me. Comments are what I live for as a fanfic writer. I mean, I'm not being paid to do this, so what I'm trying to do is affect other people with my stories and their ideas. Views are nice, but one generates a "view" just by having someone turn to one's story, scan the first few paragraphs briefly, and go "Meh, grammatically-correct English but boring as hell, I'll pass." A comment means that someone cared enough to actually give me feedback. I've made friends through commentary exchanges.
What leaps out at me here is that four of the five of these have TwiLuna themes or strong Luna content. Fluttershy Is Free is the only one which doesn't. Though I think the popularity of two of these four are also do to external factors, as I will explain.
The big anomaly here is that Divine Jealousy and the Voice of Reason, still unfinished, is the leader with more than 50% more comments than the runner-up -- which is my Shadow Wars core story, Nightmares Are Tragic. I think that one reason Divine Jealousy attracts so much attention is that it combines a lot of interests and ships -- it's primarily about Fluttercord and Flutterbulk, but it has a lot of TwiLuna in it, one whole chapter is basically Sparity, there's a section about Flutterdash, Pinkie Pie bouncing around gleefully (the best part of it, "Pinkie, Dancing," is currently disconnected but will be re-published rather soon), and has some really good flashbacks to the time just before Discord's Awakening, including a glimpse of the Crystal Empire at its height.
The third-runner, An Epistolary Legal Consultation Between Princesses, might be surprising, but I know the historical reasons for all the comments. First-off, I got a lot of rage from fans of "Stuck," the story in which the unnamed second-person narrator who I renamed "Charlie Yu" has sex with Derpy in the first place, and to which my story is an unauthorized sequel. Then, I got a long debate about the nature of rape versus consensual sex (which is of course one of the core themes of the story). Finally, there's a lot from Twilight's POV, and a fair amount of TwiLuna in it too in those very affectionate letters Luna's writing her.
V. Up-Vote / Down-Vote Ratio: This is more important than raw Up-Votes or raw Down-Votes because it shows the overall opinion. I'm interested in ratio rather than difference because difference is strongly skewed by sheer numbers of votes, while the ratio shows you the extent of support vs. opposition.
My top five stories on this measure are:
1. Fluttershy Is Free: (UDR 82.00, obtained by 82 to 1)
2. Feeling Adrift: (UDR 49.50, obtained by 99 to 2)
3. All the Way Back: (UDR 48.50, obtained by 97 to 2)
4. "Sun Atoms": (UDR 35.00, obtained by 35 to 1), and
5. "A Meeting by Moonlight": (UDR 33.25, obtained by 133 to 4).
All of these stories are both emotional and very strongly uplifting. Fluttershy Is Free celebrates her ability to transcend an ancestral curse. All the Way Back is about how Luna climbs from her pit of desperate loneliness and self-loathing to once again be the awesome Princess of the Night that we know she is inside. "A Meeting by Moonlight" and "Feeling Adrift" are about the fact that Luna is loved, even if she doesn't always realize it at first. "Sun Atoms" is pure fluff, and it features Sundreamer and Moondreamer as cute toddlers. Four out of five of these stories have Luna in major roles. I think fans like when I write Luna.
My bottom five stories on this measure are:
22. A Long Night at the Hippodrome: (UDR 4.00, obtained by 20 to 5)
23.Trinity: (UDR 3.75, obtained by 15 to 4)
24.The Fall of Hive Hunger-Prime: (UDR 3.50, obtained by 14 to 4)
25.An Epistolary Legal Consultation Between Princesses: (UDR 3.08, obtained by 80 to 26), and
26.Substitute Mentor: (UDR 2.75, obtained by 22 to 8).
One of these is very anomalous, An Epistolary Legal Consultation (which is also one of my most commented-upon stories). This is explicable by the large numbers of down-votes cast by fans of "Stuck." As to the others ...
I think the common factor between these is that they have a strong focus on Original Characters, and that I may have accidentally had deceptive character-tags.
A Long Night at the Hippodrome centers on Piercing Gaze, who is not only a certified waifu-stealer but an over-aged Original Character waifu-stealer who has in the backstory seduced the very same canon-character waifu who might attract readers to the tale. (And deflowered her, for extra hate-points). He (or rather his Humanoid analogue) is also, obviously, going to be a very important character in Substitute Mentor.
Trinity is a very strange story because it's set in the Age of Wonders. It also gets extra hate-points, I think, for its rather sympathetic description of the Manehattan Project. Plus my clear almost lustful love for nuclear explosions. The Fall of Hive Hunger-Prime is almost entirely OC's in the first two chapters -- we're going to meet some canon characters as the story progresses, and I tagged two of them -- but have only introduced Chrysalis briefly (and an inattentive reader might not realize that Hunger is Chrysalis) and not yet shown Fluttershy (though I think most readers realized the identity of the "Queen of Kindness.")
Both stories were illustrated with nuclear explosions. Did I mention that I long ago stopped worrying and learned to love the Bomb?
Both stories are set in something other than Equestria. Trinity takes place in Amareica long before Equestria was founded, and The Fall of Hive Hunger-Prime is entirely immersed in my concept of the Changeling culture, which is a strange one by both Human or Equestrian standards. Both are intentionally strange -- I like writing outside the comfortable box of Ponyville.
Conclusion: I have some more statistics, but I've probably lost most of my audience by now. If anyone wants to comment, such would be greatly welcome.
I read the whole thing. Your analysis has failed to last forever! [insert NMM emoticon here]
Going by your analysis, it seems it would be more appropriate to call your corrupted self Nightstallion Strangelove...
In any case, certainly interesting data. Something of a microcosm of the site: shipping is a big draw, OCs are more niche, and God help you if the twain should meet. Also, some people are apparently very protective of their clopfiction.
I actually read (I'll be honest, I more or less just skimmed...) this blog post on my phone, while standing up.
Reminds me of me.
Very interesting, and very well-done, Jordan! Congratulations on all counts!
For my two-cents worth, I must go ahead and place myself firmly in the Anti-Charlie Yu camp. I hope you complete that story soon, with a satisfactory ending for dearest Derpy (aka Best Pony), one involving Luna (aka Best Princess, dammit) introducing him to her mithril-shod hooves via his face and general cranial/frontal pelvic region.
Repeatedly.
Heatedly.
And immediately.
And him living to suffer with it 'til the end of his days.
2616727
Atomic explosions are beautiful and awesome. I would love the chance to personally-witness an above-ground test. From a safe distance with flash gear over my eyes, obviously. It's too bad that we've spoiled such an incredible pyrotechnic effect by its association with mass destruction. Someday, such detonations will be set off the way we do fireworks now.
And with the Great and Powerful Trixie's Ascension, she'll still be around to set off batteries of them to complement her act.
See, to me the point of fanfic is the setting. Limiting oneself to only the canon characters is far too confining -- the wonderful thing about Equestria is that it's a whole country in a whole world. One should expand the list of characters, and the types of characters, as much as possible.
I did a mixture of canon and non-canon characters in shipping my Mane Six. Rarity (x Spike), Pinkie Pie (x Cheese Sandwich) and Fluttershy (x Rainbow Dash, Discord and Bulk Biceps) are pure canon ships -- they're shown having these attractions in canon. Twilight (x Luna) gets a highly-speculative, low-probablity ship -- which ironically turned out to be the most popular one I did). Rainbow Dash gets a mixture of canon (x Fluttershy) and Phoenix_Dragon's fanon (x Azure Sky) ships. Applejack, who in canon has no ship teases, gets a purely OC ship (x Landscape Carrot). Same thing for Trixie (x Piercing Gaze).
I can't buy the Mane Six all shipped with one another unless it's a side-effect of being the Element Bearers and uniting in the Rainbow of Harmony (which is certainly possible, but I note that most writers who do this don't even raise the issue, which is odd in itself in a "dog that did nothing in the night" kind of way). I also can't buy the "random hot dates" arrangement because it's totally OOC for three of them and improbable for the other three. I also have problems with complete asexuality, as they don't act like this in canon.
Within the context of a fanon every character -- regardless of whether they are in canon main, secondary, background or original -- is equally real. When in A World of Illusions Humanoid Trixie claims that she is more real than other people, and Lavender and Fuschia find this reasonable (well, Lavender does; Fuschia's mostly just playing with Trixie), this is a sign of Trixie's borderline sociopathy and the degree of the hold she has on Lavender's imagination. (It's ominous because we know from Substitute Mentor that Trixie could become the Demon of Delusion if she goes sufficiently insane).
The irony, of course, is that there's a sense in which Trixie (but not her two pals) is more "real" -- she's an Avatar of the Angel of Illusion. But her sanity depends on not exploiting this to abuse others. It's largely an issue of morality -- and the ethics required of any being who would wield Cosmic powers.
The problem with introducing a character such as Landscape or Piercing and positing them as being mutually in love with Applejack or Trixie is that I have to make them worthy of the love of heroines, without making them flat Exemplars of All Virtues With No Personalities Of Their Own. (Namely, what Flash Sentry is so far still just a weak version of, too inoffensive to give any reason for Twilight Sparkle to hate him, but also too lightweight to seem like someone she could love). This isn't easy, but it's the sort of situation that hones one's skills of characterization.
And yes, my Trixie's a heroine. Just a very flawed heroine. She's a messed-up egotist, but she's also magnificently stubborn, and somepony who will stand her ground when the Gates of Hell are opening and demons attacking, because this was her act and she will not be upstaged. Her dreams are wondrous, and she has the fire to translate them into reality. She is a projection of the Illusion that raises sapient life above the beasts and drives them onward to greatness.
Some of the comments, especially on the original "Stuck," downright disturbed me. While my plot is trending toward the conclusion that Derpy wasn't really raped -- because she consented even if Charlie Yu was too dumb to realize that she wasn't helpless or stupid (something I realized when I analyzed the physical situation and, particularly, its aftermath) -- Yu was still a jerk, and what's more a jerk with potentially-dangerous assumptions (what if he happened on somepony who really was helpless?).
I actually saw commenters saying essentially that Charlie was just having harmless fun and why should it bother anyone if he does that, especially to someone like Derpy (meaning, misfit and assumed to be very stupid)? Twilight's horror at the discovery of the dark side of Pony nature is an exaggerated mirror of my horror at my discovery of the dark side of some brony nature there.
2616942
I really hate Charlie Yu too. I felt sorry when I realized that what he did just managed to steer clear of the most plausible Equestrian definition of "rape," because I wanted him to suffer more. I think that he's to me the distillation of the entitled asshole who considers himself superior to people who are far his betters, and does so because they showed him kindness, enabling him to take advantage of them. Derpy, unfortunately, is the sort of Pony who has so much kindness -- and so little social skill -- that she gets repeatedly exploited, even in a hyper-civilization such as Equestria.
But she's developing certain other skills, and some very powerful allies. And she'll think of something.
She usually does.
2616973 Don't get me started—I know assholes like this...
Poor little Derpy...
Dare I ask what abilities?
To be honest, it was this story and Nightmares are Tragic that drew me to you—Tragic has one of the best Luna characterization I've read, and your Derpy is believable (I don't agree with your hypothesis that she is mentally challenged, but I do find it highly plausible).
If I may say this, if the notion ever strikes you, I would love to see a Derpy-centric fic; perhaps she and the good Doctor help in some way with the Shadow War?
2617016
Ever wonder how Derpy manages to survive delivering to the Everfree Forest? Derpy is a hellaciously-effective natural fighter, with a powerful adrenal system, almost no fear, and very little compunction against using lethal force on a foe. When Princess Luna realized this, she recruited her as a secret personal courier, and began training her in advanced combat techniques.
Also, she's not mentally-challenged. She's mildly-autistic and poorly-educated, which is not the same thing. She has trouble modeling the emotional behavior of others, which is why she winds up loving Ponies (and others) who take advantage of her. I have a very close real-life Human friend who is a lot like this, and my friend isn't stupid either.
2616968
I completely agree about setting. Equestria is a fascinating world with just enough canonical information about it to allow an author to go in virtually any direction with what's left unknown. That kind of freedom and flexibility should be embraced, and that includes creating additional population. My analysis wasn't meant to reflect my own opinions, but those of the Fimfiction zeitgeist.
Heck, my version of Ditzy Doo is pretty much an original character put in a background pony's body. Likewise Dinky, Lyra, Dizzy Twister (as Scootaloo's anxious mother,) and so forth, and that's not including full OCs like Address Unknown. Believe me, I'm the last person who'd expect you to justify the use of non-canon characters.
And yeah, this community can be terrible at times. It can also be pretty darn awesome. It's a human endeavor; both are almost guaranteed to be the case.
2617068 (raises finger in argument. Thinks. Lowers it again. Thinks. Opens mouth for incredibly intelligent response.) Oh. Huh.
In a desire to further my education (and I do NOT mean this in a smart-assy way, I truly just don't know), how is autism not a mental disability (I'm a historian, not a brain...studier...person...thing...)?
2617570
It is a mental disability, but a very specific one. A mild autistic isn't stupid, she's (*) got problems modeling others emotionally. We take for granted our ability to subconsciously understand what others are likely thinking and feeling, but this is actually a very advanced and specific mental ability, which if we had to do by detailed conscious analysis would be very difficult. And if you can't do this, you cannot easily figure out the motives of others in social situations.
Most Ponies would have known that Charlie's sexual approach implied complete contempt for them as individuals. Derpy didn't, because she easily couldn't put herself in his place and think "Now, if I were treating a Pony like this, what would this imply I thought about them?" Or rather she could only do so consciously and with little in the way of subconscious reasoning to guide her.
Derpy's thoughts were probably something like this.
"He wants sex. I like sex. Ponies want sex of other Ponies they like. Yay, he likes me!"
Which is true enough, as far as it goes. The thing is that most Ponies would have also grasped that to try to get sex that way (no prior friendship, no affectionate words, no emotional commitment whatsoever) means that one considers the other Pony to be trash. Charlie didn't like Derpy, he despised her.
She didn't understand this until he publicly-repudiated her friendship. I can't tell you who is my very good mildly-autistic friend, but she essentially experienced something like what happened to Derpy once. Different details, but the same fundamental situation in that in involved a guy who despised her, who anyone else would have realized despised her from her actions, and whom she loved because she couldn't put herself in his place.
And she's pretty smart.
===
(*) Austistics are more likely to be male; however both Derpy and the two I know personally are female.
2617804 I see. My only familiarity with it is the little brother of a former classmate who had what I guess was an extreme case of it—hard to describe in writing.
Hmmm...perhaps this lack of/diminished ability to consider another's point of view/frame of mind is what enables Derpy to defend herself so readily and effectively?
2617851
Oh, severe autism is really bad. In severe autism, the person has great difficulty figuring out to what parts of his environment he should pay attention. He is likely to ignore both dangers and opportunities and focus on something utterly trivial, such as some shape or pattern, or some pointless task such as counting the number of bricks in a wall. It's extremely difficult to get his attention to engage him in a simple conversation. He may even become violent if interrupted in his self-chosen purpose.
My good friend isn't like that. She's more likely to become focused on things than most people, but she can be spoken to and distracted away from her chosen focus. And one can have a conversation with her. She's quite capable of genuine love and friendship. She just has difficulty figuring out whether one really likes her or not. I've known her around ten years, and she's long since decided I'm her friend for real.
I've had this thought myself ... that while Derpy is if anything maybe even kinder when she's being nice than other Ponies, that both her mostly-comical determination to get something she really likes (such as muffins) and her heroic ability to fight her way through danger comes from her not being as good at automatically understanding the point of view of other sapients.
When she wants a muffin, she will go right through a crowd to get it -- she understands right from wrong so she won't actually hurt others for such a trivial purpose, but she will get where she wants to go. And when she has to cut her way through enemies to survive, she will fight them with no consideration of the fact that they are sapients like herself. And when it comes to defending Dinky -- really, you don't want to seriously threaten Dinky around her. It won't end well for you.