As I've done with another contest or two before - a quick analysis of the submissions because I had too much free time at lunch.

35 total entries.

Ratings: Fairly straight-forward. 16 E, 19 T.

Red Tags: Surprisingly few red tags got used. 14 across all stories. The most common was Profanity (4), with a tie between Sex, Death and Violence (3). Non-Con came in with a single one.

Genre: Most common genre tag was Drama (16), followed by Comedy (13). Romance at 7; Slice of Life at 6; Adventure at 5. Then Random at 4 and Sad at 3. Dark and Scifi tied at 2.

Length: Fairly even split, here. 16 of the stories clocked in at 1-5k; 9 at 6-10k and 10 at 11-15k.

Miscellany: Of 35 entries, 20 were Equestria Girls-tagged. Unsurprising. Only 8 were Alt-Us. And one lone story was the only one to use a crossover - with Dungeons & Dragons.

Characters: Here's the interesting one. Focusing on the main ponidoxed characters, it was all over the board. Only six characters were crossed over more than once.

Unsurprisingly, Sunset led the pack with 5, followed by Twilight with 4 and Starlight with 3. The remainder were Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Chrysalis. Also interestingly, the only one of the main crew to not have a story focused on them was Rarity. Similarly Celesita was the only Princess not to have one.

Similarly Celesita was the only Princess not to have one.

My shame is eternal.

Yeah, I was rather impressed at the diversity of characters who got to meet their alternate selves. Some lovely creativity at work.

I'm one of those who took the predictable route with Sunset, but, well, I'm not going to apologise for that because Sunset Shimmer is the reason I write fanfic in the first place. And I haven't written a Sunset story since my very first contest entry. (Also, if I hadn't been writing Sunset I'd've written Starlight and Trixie, which would have meant I'd still have been in the joint most predictable bucket...)

7356883
Oh crap. That reminds me, I need to add the Equestria Girls tag to mine...

Also, this makes me curious. You must have at least skimmed each story to see who the ponidoxed characters were rather than just assume all tagged characters were. That must have taken some time. Especially if a story introduces more than one, and not at the same time.

7356978

You must have at least skimmed each story to see who the ponidoxed characters were rather than just assume all tagged characters were.

I'm two stories away from having read 100% of them already. (It's a thing I do in competitions - gotta read 'em all, after all.)

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How many were Spikes, if you know?

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How many were Spikes, if you know?

Just the one, unless I missed my count. He appears incidentally in two others, but the only one focusing on him is Dog Years.

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I WROTE a scene where pony Celestia is completely bemused by her counterpart's status, and meanwhile pony Luna is fascinated by the utterly boring aspects of her counterpart's work. But I couldn't get the timing right, so I cut it.

("...It literally is a high school. I thought that was a metaphor."
"No... it's a high school. See, that's where I make the morning announcements."
"Uh huh. I control the sun.")

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Will there be a folder for entries that wasn't finished on time? I have a story that I was writing for the contest, but life got in the way. I just want to add my story to the group when it is finished.

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There's already a Contradictions folder for late or otherwise ineligible stories.

7356883
Well, there's only one overt crossover. Other stories have elements of Doctor Who, Magic: the Gathering, Puella Magi Madoka Magica...

Granted, most of those are more references than the full-on crossover of Temple of Enyalius. I can see why most of them went without the tag.

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Oh. I thought it was just for judges, since they could participate.

7357204
That was actually the case until I read your comment. Thanks for the reminder.

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And to be fair, it only crossed over in terms of rules... and maybe copied look and feel a little bit. Basically imagine Critical Role set in early Equestria instead of Exandria. But played by the Pillars. And using an Eberron supplement for one character... starting to wonder if maybe I didn't think this through. Ah well.

Also, for statistical purposes: that story clocks in at the maximum word count, thanksverymuch. 15k according to the FimFiction word counter, exactly, not counting titles and author's notes.

7357289
Do we have any updates?

7363993
We know who the top three are, but not their order. Still waiting on one judge.

7364008
Given the quality of the submissions I've read so far, I'm surprised it didn't take longer to decide.

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7364010
Neato burrito. I look forward to the results.

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Agreed. There's a ton of good entries - getting it down just to a top five would be a challenge enough.

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Given the quality of the submissions

getting it down just to a top five would be a challenge enough.

Parts of that process are easier and parts of it leave me constantly second-guessing myself.

And while I can't really speak to how long it'll take to get everything wrapped up overall, only FoME and I have yet to add our blurbs to the blog but I'm about to submit mine and he's got, like, infinite time or something when it comes to reading and commenting on horsewords.