Centurions of Fimfiction - visualizing the site's most prolific authors · 7:44pm February 28th
This is a preview image! Check below the fold for the full size version and my notes.
For some time, I've been aware of a small and unique group of authors on Fimfiction. These are the ones who've broken the three-digit barrier and published a whopping 100 or more stories each. I call them Centurions, because I think it sounds cool.
As of February 2025, there are 70 centurions on Fimfiction, who between them have published thousands of our favorite fics. I couldn't let such an enticing dataset go ignored, so I came up with this bubble visualization, which represents the centurions as a set of nested bubbles. Each author bubble contains bubbles for all their stories, and each story bubble contains one bubble for each chapter.
The area of each chapter bubble is equal to the word count, so the whole thing is approximately to scale - you can use this to compare the word counts of different authors.
To give you an idea of the scale of the diagram, Silver Glow's Journal by Admiral Biscuit, if you can find it, is just shy of 1 million words.
I didn't know what would happen if I tried to embed a 25000x25000px image on Fimfiction and I'm not willing to learn, so I've provided image links below. Warning: These images are large!
(EDIT FROM THE FUTURE: Hi, future hawthornbunny here. There's now a redux version of this diagram available here, which is less detailed but much easier for browsers to handle.)
If the above images are too difficult for your computer to handle, I've also produced a version in the lowest quality I can manage while still retaining readability.
>>> Centurions of Fimfiction - 14000x13418px JPG image (31.4 MB) [low quality] <<<
I tested these images in Firefox, which handles the SVG fine (albeit slowly). The JPG and PNG versions take a while for Firefox to decode and appear blurry until it does. I found that image viewers (eg. Viewnior) handle these images the best, and GIMP can just about manage zooming around the JPG too. Results may vary. If the image appears blank in your browser, it might be because it's zoomed way in to the top left corner, so all it can see is white. Use the scrollbars to move about.
Good lord what is happening in there
The Centurions of Fimfiction
So who are the members of this prestigious collective? Let's meet them all:
Centurions (100 to 199 fics)
Masterweaver (104) • FanOfMostEverything (167) • Pascoite (113) • Rated Ponystar (100) • Impossible Numbers (134) • Bandy (102) • Pinkamena666 (131) • Yukito (119) • CrimsonEquine (186) • totallynotabrony (159) • The Psychopath (122) • darf (142) • overlord-flinx (119) • Cynewulf (111) • Regidar (196) • Twinkletail (111) • MythrilMoth (125) • Georg (100) • GeodesicDragon (104) • Closer-To-The-Sun (120) • TittySparkles (107) • Jade Ring (101) • Shakespearicles (135) • TheVClaw (157) • dirty little secret (117) • RarityEQM (107) • Hopeful_Ink_Hoof (107) • StormLuna (158) • Super Trampoline (175) • Justice3442 (117) • JusSonic (166) • Majin Syeekoh (125) • kudzuhaiku (145) • Flutterpriest (179) • CrackedInkWell (115) • FabulousDivaRarity (129) • David Silver (166) • Ice Star (150) • Rose Quill (109) • deadpansnarker (180) • anonpencil (114) • Damaged (112) • garatheauthor (115) • CAPTAIN YOSHI HD (131) • Archy (102) • The Dark Wolf (103) • Omegathyst (136) • Israel Yabuki (109) • Creativa-Artly01 (115) • CapNTilfy (108) • James Pwyll (104) • The Blue EM2 (164) • Dr Sharaz Jek (135) • Twilight Star (102) • Vis-a-Viscera (113) • PegPony (106) • RunicTreetops (165) • TheKing2001 (123) • Big Imagination E (149)
Double Centurions (200 to 299 fics)
shortskirtsandexplosions (235) • Admiral Biscuit (239) • Estee (230) • Holocron (261) • Ponyess (253) • Michael Hudson (205) • Jest (226) • Mockingbirb (218)
Treble Centurions (300 to 399 fics)
SuperPinkBrony12 (317)
Quadruple Centurions (400 to 499 fics)
Bendy (408) • Some Leech (421)
Notes
- The colors don't mean anything, they're just there to help differentiate the bubbles.
- The labels all overlap rather messily, but that's really hard to fix and I decided I liked the chaotic look.
- Do not go to Super Trampoline's bubble if you wish to retain your sanity.
- Between them, the centurions have written 10,629 stories.
- There are 48,228 chapter bubbles in the diagram, representing a total of 125,404,060 words. The Chase comprises 1.8% of the total wordcount.
- I did actually start working on this project last year, but I was arrogantly determined to invent my own circle packing algorithm. It didn't go well - circle packing is one of those really tricky mathematical problems. Eventually I gave up trying and used the packcircles library, which worked absolutely fine.
- Super Trampoline broke my algorithm twice - once by having a zero-word chapter (although they weren't the sole offender in that regard), and once by titling a story with a goddamn em dash.
Oh, this is fascinating. And weirdly humbling to see years and years of work expressed like this. Thank you for one heck of an infographic. (Viewing it locally is making my computer chug.)
Yikes.
This map consists of nothing but treasure
I mean, good advice around Super Tramp in general.
Around 6.8% of the site's entire story count.
And about 4.7% of the total words.
Also damn, I need to write faster. I just missed getting into the mix on this by a few months.
Amazing work, love to see it!
5833397
I wish I could have made it smaller! I feel like there's probably some obvious method I haven't thought of. I love how it turned out though, it's like flying over a map of Fimfiction. :D
5833399
If I publish an update (and ideally find a way to make this thing less disk-crushingly huge) hopefully you'll be included!
I think I finally have a way to kill my old XP-era laptop so I can finally get a better one...
But in all seriousness, this is a great infographic. Thanks for making it!
That's really neat! And my computer can only handle the .svg and it doesn't like it too much :P
I also have a zero-word chapter (as you know); not only did it win a contest but there's a dramatic reading of it on YouTube. One of my finest works, if I don't mind saying so.
Looking at the names, there are many authors who can write a lot of high-quality fics. And many more who have, to put it mildly, quality issues (but a lot of enthusiasm).
Well... I don't know what to do with any of this.
I'll hit 200 eventually! Sometime by the end of the decade, surely. This is a really cool visual, appreciate your work on this. mm delcious data
now all we have to wait for is someone (probably bendy) to end up with more fics than people currently on fimfic at any given moment
I don't know what to do with that other than to know that I'm not there.
5835623
As massive as the Centurions are, they are still dwarfed by the combined output of everyone else!
5835694
I'M GONNA HUG THE HAWTHORN BUNNY.
Very neat. Great work assembling all this!
That's some impressive stats! Very cool of you to put this together and present it
Ice Star isn’t real. I have my sources.
5844204
Probably just a statistical anomaly
5844208
This guy gets it,
I think I have the smallest circle.
5845876
You're on the lower end of circle size, but I think you're still beating a couple others :)
5845944
Oh neat. That's cool!
I was just shown this in HB's Discord. I didn't think I had a presence here anymore. This is lovely. Thank you.
And hey! A fellow oldie still here.
5835761
ech