Ghost Mike looks at MLP in the Netflix figures

Over in the intro to his latest Monday Musings post, Ghost Mike takes a look at the viewing-hour numbers Netflix put out in December for the first half of 2023, with special reference to the various bits of G4 and G5 My Little Pony in the figures. There's too much to get your teeth into there for me to summarise sensibly, and I'm not any kind of aficionado when it comes to this industry-stat stuff anyway, so I'd recommend reading Mike's post for yourself. But one little nugget: S1 of Friendship is Magic is (just) inside the top 500 shows in watch hours. Four years after FiM ended. Makes you think.

PR stats: the multi-fivers

By this I mean authors who I've awarded a five-star rating in Ponyfic Roundup more than once. There aren't many of them, so I'll provide the full list below. No attempt has been made to account for the fact that some of my standards have changed over time, or that I have simply read more fics by some authors than others. The list is here purely because I thought it was mildly interesting.

Five times 

Cold in Gardez (All the Mortal Remains; For Whom We Are Hungry; Lost Cities; Naked Singularity; The Destruction of the Self)

Four times 

horizon (Quiet Boy and Moon Horse; The Dragon's Riddle; The Last Dreams of Pony Island; Watch! Watch!)
Pascoite (Ambergris; If Memory Serves; Dinkin' Donuts; The Art and Science of Letter Writing)

Twice

Blueshift (Life is a Lemon; So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish)
Cynewulf (General Amnesty; When the Levee Breaks)
Lucky Dreams (In the Place the Wild Horses Sleep; The Starlit Promise)
mushroompone (The Head; Womb)
RBDash47 (Home; Old Friends)
Skywriter (Martial Bliss; Roaming)

A total of 35 authors have had a single five-star fic.

Comparing my S5 rankings with UK of Equestria's from 2015

Long ago, back when forums were more of a thing for the Pony fandom than social media was, I was a moderator and very frequent poster over on UK of Equestria.¹ One of the things I started doing about halfway through FiM's run was to handle an annual spreadsheet of people's opinions on the seasons. We asked people to rate the season from first to last (no ties permitted) with double episodes counted as one.
¹ Technically I still am a mod there, but the place is close to tumbleweed status these days, sadly.

I won't repeat the whole of S5's ranking list here, as you can read it in my original blog post. In this post I was just going to remark on one or two things that caught my eye from almost seven years later – but in truth, there isn't much in there that's dated particularly badly. Possibly "The Cutie Map" was a little on the underrated side at the time: I think that episode's reputation has grown over the years. "Appleoosa's Most Wanted" seems a bit harshly treated, too.

As for overrated episodes... again, there aren't many in there, not really. I personally wouldn't rank "Bloom & Gloom" that high, but I certainly know people who would. I'm actually weirdly proud of the fact that our silly band of forum-goers (17 voted that year) had what in retrospect still seems like a pretty solid view of what was and wasn't a good S5 episode. :)

EqD poll results for "How old are you?"

Equestria Daily likes its polls, and there's usually one running. The one that's just recently closed was simply asking how old visitors to the site were. Of course a poll like this isn't remotely scientific, so the results should be treated with caution. It's also worth noting that EqD is not necessarily representative of the bulk of the fandom in 2020 – it's probably declined in relative importance in the last half-decade.

All that said, the results are still interesting. Very nearly a quarter of respondents said they were over 30, and just over half were 25 or above. The days when the average brony (at least on EqD) was a teenager or young student are well and truly behind us. This doesn't surprise me, even allowing for the fact that those who do their fandoming wholly or mostly on social media probably skew a bit younger.

Doubtless any outside media profiles of our fandom will continue to be written as though we're all still 18. (Some of us were never 18 during the FiM era, of course...) But though that may never have been quite accurate, it's now entirely inaccurate. We're an older fandom than we used to be. I'd love to add "and a wiser one", but I'm not sure we can really say that. Ah well.

UK PonyCon issues budget breakdown

Usual disclaimer: I am not UK PonyCon staff

The graphic above was issued by UK PonyCon yesterday. I was very pleased to see it, as I've thought for a long time that organisations such as conventions should be as financially transparent as is practical. Given that venues and suppliers tend not to be keen on doing their negotiations in public, expecting a pound-by-pound breakdown is excessive. BronyScot did just that in its earliest days, but that's not at all the norm. A percentage breakdown as published by UKPC seems a good option.

It may be interesting for any readers involved with convention organising to look at the graphic and compare how it stacks up with the cons they know. The thing that stands out immediately to me is that venue costs absolutely dwarf anything else. Audiovisual costs alone are double those incurred by the events team, and venue hire itself accounts for fully half of the entire UKPC budget. This underlines why choosing the right venue for the con is so important, and why it can't be rushed. Much as we all want to know, we do need to wait!

Something that isn't added to the cost is hiring a third-party ticketing provider. UK PonyCon, unlike a lot of similar events, does not charge a booking fee – so a ticket this year with a face value of £37 cost exactly £37 to purchase. Of course, there are still banking and PayPal costs to consider (see the top of the graphic) but I think UKPC's approach has worked well over the years. It's certainly nice from an attendee's point of view not to have 5% or so slapped on top of what you thought you were paying!

This all adds up to a lot of money. Of course, the precise figure isn't in the public domain, but you can get a very, very rough idea by considering ticket prices and attendee numbers and making some semi-educated guesses. At any rate, it's certainly several tens of thousands of pounds. It's widely accepted that BUCK's expenditure ran into six figures, but that con aside UKPC has the biggest budget of any British MLP convention in the fandom's history. That means the con absolutely has to be run carefully by people who know what they're doing. Happily, I feel completely reassured on that score.

Anyway, I congratulate UK PonyCon on producing this graphic; I think it's an excellent balance between transparency and commercial realism. I would like to see this sort of thing become absolutely standard for all cons, all over the world, with a few appropriate tweaks in parts of the globe where conventions are run in a different way. I'd certainly like to see both BronyScot and Griffish Isles issue something similar. Your move, folks.

Season 9 – the UK of Equestria rankings

For the very last time, at least in the Friendship is Magic era, the members of UK of Equestria have been giving their ranked lists of their favourite and... less favourite episodes of the season. Since there were two double-headers this season, there were 24 episodes in the list – Rainbow Roadtrip did not count as it's not officially part of the season and doesn't have an episode number.

We had 13 voters, exactly the same as for the half-time vote. As usual, I've divided the episodes into five tiers, going by their mean rankings. An episode with a mean better than fifth gets five stars, from there to 10 gets four, and so on. My own rankings are in brackets after each episode name. Here we go...

★★★★★
1. The Ending of the End (5)
2. The Last Problem (10)

★★★★
3. Frenemies (1)
4. Between Dark and Dawn (9)
5. The Big Mac Question (3)
6. Sparkle's Seven (2)
7. A Horse-Shoe In (7)
8. The Summer Sun Setback (4)
9. The Beginning of the End (6)

★★★
10. Student Counsel (15)
11. She Talks to Angel (8)
12. The Last Crusade (14)
13= Common Ground (11)
13= A Trivial Pursuit (22)
15. Dragon Dropped (19)

★★
16. Growing Up is Hard to Do (16)
17. The Last Laugh (17)
18. The Point of No Return (21)
19. Going to Seed (18)
20. Uprooted (20)
21. She's All Yak (23)
22. Daring Doubt (13)
23. Sweet and Smoky (12)

★
24. 2, 4, 6, Greaaat (24)

Number of times each episode placed first
5: The Last Problem
4: Frenemies
3: The Ending of the End
1: The Beginning of the End

Number of times each episode placed last
6: 2, 4, 6, Greaaat
2: Growing Up is Hard to Do
1: Going to Seed
1: The Last Crusade
1: The Point of No Return
1: Sweet and Smoky
1: A Trivial Pursuit

Most controversial (highest standard deviation)
1. Growing Up is Hard to Do
2. Sparkle's Seven
3. The Summer Sun Setback

Least controversial
1. The Ending of the End
2. Between Dark and Dawn
3. Daring Doubt

"The Ending of the End" was a clear victor, being the only episode that all 13 voters placed in their top seven. No other ep even had unanimous top-half placings. The fandom's doubts about the S9 epilogue were fairly firmly squashed on UK of E – although there was a small cluster of voters (including me) who placed it mid-table, it still gained enough top spots to take second position with some ease.

At the bottom, that cheerleading episode was a predictable wooden-spooner, though two people did include it in their top tens. "Sweet and Smoky" was next, to my continuing disappointment, with "Daring Doubt" ranked between 13th and 23rd by every single voter. There wasn't a noticeable gap between how the two halves of this season were received, though there was a slight skewing due to the finale and epilogue's popularity.

A notable feature of the S9 rankings was the wild variation in opinion given to some episodes. "Growing Up is Hard to Do" was ranked third by one person and dead last by another. "The Last Crusade" had almost as wide a spread, from fifth to 24th. One voter ranked "Frenemies down in 20th spot, while another had "A Trivial Pursuit" up in fifth. Even "Sparkle's Seven" received several rankings in the mid-to-low teens.

Season 9A – the UK of Equestria rankings

Since we're in the mid-season hiatus, it's also been time for the members of UK of Equestria to vote for their favourite and least favourite episodes of the first half of this final season. As in previous years, voters were required to rank all the episodes, with no ties permitted. The double-length premiere was treated as a single episode for these purposes, and Rainbow Roadtrip was not included. We had 13 voters this year, which is fewer than for 8A but more than for 7A.

I've divided the episodes into tiers on the basis of their mean rankings. One notable feature this year is that there are no one-star episodes, which I informally defined as eps with an average rating below 20. ("Sweet and Smoky" scored 19.846.) My own rankings are in brackets after the episode name; as you'll note, the one really major difference I have from the average is that I ranked "Sweet and Smoky" much higher than the average (Fluttershy bias? What Fluttershy bias?)

★★★★★
1. Frenemies (1)

★★★★
2. Between Dark and Dawn (5)
3. The Beginning of the End (2)
4. Sparkle's Seven (3)
5. Student Counsel (4)

★★★
6. The Last Crusade (7)
7. Common Ground (8)

★★
8. The Point of No Return (10)
9. Going to Seed (9)
10. She's All Yak (12)
11. Uprooted (11)
12. Sweet and Smoky (6)

Number of times each episode placed first
9: Frenemies
2: Sparkle's Seven
1: Between Dark and Dawn
1: She's All Yak

Number of times each episode placed last
4: She's All Yak
4: Sweet and Smoky
3: The Point of No Return
2: Going to Seed

Most controversial (highest standard deviation)
1. Sparkle's Seven
2. She's All Yak
3. The Last Crusade

Least controversial
1. Between Dark and Dawn
2. Frenemies
3. Uprooted

There's no doubt about UK of E's favourite episode: "Frenemies" has a clear lead over anything else, and apart from one person who placed it seventh everyone else put it in their top three. "Between Dark and Dawn" made everyone's top six, though only one voter picked it as their winner. At the other end of the table, I was really surprised (and frankly more a little disappointed) to see "Sweet and Smoky" get the wooden spoon. No fewer than seven of the 13 voters ranked it in their bottom two. (I had it in sixth spot.)

This half-season's "most controversial episode" award was also one that startled me. "Sparkle's Seven" did not get the unmixed praise on UK of E that it did in some other parts of the fandom, with four voters placing it in the bottom half. "She's All Yak" also split opinion, as did "The Last Crusade", whose controversy centred on Scootaloo's parents rather than her aunts. Meanwhile, the top two's consistent placing won them the top two spots in the "least controversial" list, too. "Uprooted" was the other ep to appear there, with all but two voters ranking it between eighth and 11th.

I get the sense that S9A has been quite well received so far – that's a British "quite", not an American one! – and that, while there's only one episode that seems set to be counted among the classics ("Frenemies") there haven't been any "Non-Compete Clause"-style disasters either. The season so far seems to be being seen as solid and better than S8, but perhaps falling a little short of the blockbuster feel that you might hope for from the very last season we'll ever see. Perhaps part two will provide that!

UK of Equestria's overall S8 ranking list

As happens each year, once again those of us on UK of Equestria have been supplying lists of how we rank this season's Friendship is Magic episodes. Double episodes count as one, so respondents were asked to provide a list running from 1 to 24. (No ties in individual lists are permitted, though they can still occur in the overall ranking.) We had 15 people take part this season, which is exactly the same as for S7. I actually find that rather encouraging at this point in the show's run.

The tier boundaries here, which differ from those I use on UK of E, are decided very simply. Any episode which has an average rating of five or better (one would mean every single respondent ranked it top!) gets five stars. From there to ten gets four stars, and so on. This does of course have the fault that it doesn't take account of how the season as a whole was received, only the relative positions of episodes within it.

★★★★★
1. What Lies Beneath

★★★★
2. School Raze (finale)
3. Surf and/or Turf
4. On the Road to Friendship
5. Sounds of Silence
6. The Washout
7. The Hearth's Warming Club

★★★
8. School Daze (premiere)
9. The Break Up Breakdown
10. Horse Play
11. The Mean 6
12= Molt Down
12= A Rockhoof and a Hard Place
14. Marks for Effort
15. The Parent Map
16. Fake It 'Til You Make It

★★
17. Friendship University
18. A Matter of Principals
19. Father Knows Beast
20. The Maud Couple
21. Grannies Gone Wild
22. The End in Friend
23. Yakity-Sax

★
24. Non-Compete Clause

Number of times each episode placed first
3: Sounds of Silence
3: What Lies Beneath
2: On the Road to Friendship
2: School Raze
1: The Break Up Breakdown
1: Friendship University
1: The Hearth's Warming Club
1: Horse Play
1: Surf and/or Turf

Number of times each episode placed last
13: Non-Compete Clause
1: The End in Friend
1: Father Knows Beast

Most controversial (highest standard deviation)
1. Horse Play
2. The Mean 6
3. Fake It 'Til You Make It
4. A Matter of Principals

Least controversial
1. Non-Compete Clause
2. The End in Friend
3. Yakity-Sax
4. What Lies Beneath

No episode this time was universally liked. The season finale was a close call: 14 people voted it in their top nine, but one placed it 22nd. "What Lies Beneath" had a similar, if rather less dramatic, distribution: it garnered 14 top-eight places and a lone 14th. At the bottom, "Non-Compete Clause" was almost universally strongly disliked: it managed one 15th place, one 23rd – and everyone else put it dead last. The AJ/RD character regression was hugely unpopular.

Unlike last year with "Fame and Misfortune", I wasn't sure in advance what would win "Most controversial episode" this season. As things turned out, it was "Horse Play", whose rankings ranged between first and 23rd. It partly depended for many on what they thought of the cringe comedy in Celestia's acting. The greatest agreement was in the poorness of "Non-Compete Clause", and in fact there was a high degree of consensus about the bottom three.

S8 has had a rather mixed reception overall. I think it's probably fair to say that most people find it a step down from S7, although the Student/Young Six are generally very popular. Without the students, I think this season could really have struggled to win favour. Personally I would still place it above S6 overall, but maybe not by as much as I'd have liked. It may have to wait until I've let things settle a bit before I'm really sure where I feel it stands.

Rating Graph

I recently discovered the Rating Graph website, which pulls TV and movie ratings from... somewhere (more on that in a minute) and turns them into an easy-to-read graph, including lines of best fit for each season where applicable. This lets you see which episodes of a series are the most and least popular, whether individual seasons gained or lost in popularity as they went on, and so on. It's interesting stuff.

Now, I'm going to put a page break here. While I won't be saying anything directly about the S8 episodes I have still to review, I will be touching on how they were received. If that's too spoilery for you, then you might not want to read any further until you've seen the whole season. For the rest of you, keep reading!

Season 8A – the UK of Equestria rankings

It's that time again – the mid-season hiatus, that is. This time around we had 15 lists submitted, up three on this time last year I'm pleased to say. One thing that was noticeable was how close things were in the middle of the pack, but there was a clear leader and an even clearer wooden-spooner. My own rankings are in brackets after the episode name.

★★★★★
1. "Surf and/or Turf" (1)

★★★★
2. "The Mean 6" (5)
3. "The Break Up Breakdown" (4)

★★★
4. "Molt Down" (3)
5. "School Daze" (7)
6. "Horse Play" (2)
7. "Marks for Effort" (6)
8. "The Parent Map" (9)

★★
9. "Fake It 'Til You Make It" (11)
10. "The Maud Couple" (10)
11. "Grannies Gone Wild" (8)

★
12. "Non-Compete Clause" (12)

Number of times each episode placed first
4: "Surf and/or Turf"
2: "Marks for Effort"
2: "Molt Down"
2: "The Break Up Breakdown"
1: "Fake It 'Til You Make It"
1: "Grannies Gone Wild"
1: "Horse Play"
1: "The Mean 6"
1: "The Parent Map"

Number of times each episode placed last
13: "Non-Compete Clause"
1: "Fake It 'Til You Make It"
1: "Grannies Gone Wild"

Most controversial (highest standard deviation)
1. "Fake It 'Til You Make It"
2. "Molt Down"
3. "The Break Up Breakdown"

Least controversial
1. "Non-Compete Clause"
2. "School Daze"
3. "The Maud Couple"

A notable feature of this list was the amount of disagreement: every single episode had at least two people placing it at ninth or below, and almost every single episode had at least one person placing it in the top three. (I'll get to the exception in a minute.) This may lend support to UK of E's general feeling that it was  a consistently decent half-season, but one without true standout episodes.

Although "Surf and/or Turf" was a clear winner, no fewer than nine episodes were chosen as S8A's best by at least one person. Compare this to S7A's rankings, when "A Royal Problem" ran away with the contest, being placed at the top of the class by nine out of 12 voters. Two episodes were given both first and last places: "Fake It 'Til You Make It" and "Grannies Gone Wild".

All but one episode had a standard deviation of rank between 2.640 and 3.871. The massive outlier, which scored just 0.561, was "Non-Compete Clause", by far the most consistently disliked episode since we started doing this in S4. Out of 15 people, one placed it tenth, one 11th... and everyone else last. Most didn't hate it, but all felt it was well below the standard of the half-season as a whole.

hawthornbunny's list of the 20 most-used titles on Fimfiction

(Source)

Here's something interesting: hawthornbunny has put together a list of the most commonly used fic titles on Fimfiction. Perhaps to be expected, 14 of them are single words. Slightly to my surprise, none of them contains a character name (unless there are some OCs in there). Here's the full list, which I've edited only in terms of formatting:

1. Memories (49 fics)
2. Alone (42 fics)
3. A New Life (39 fics)

4. Broken (36 fics)
5= A Second Chance (31 fics)
5= The Trotting Dead (31 fics)
7. Destiny (26 fics)
8= The End (25 fics)
8= Lost (25 fics)
8= A Night to Remember (25 fics)
8= Redemption (25 fics)
8= Silence (25 fics)
13. Eclipse (24 fics)

14= Forgotten (23 fics)
14= Monster (23 fics)
14= Nightmares (23 fics)
14= The Pony Games (23 fics)
14= Secrets (23 fics)
14= Trapped (23 fics)
14= Wings (23 fics)

So, if you want your story to be found easily, it's probably not a great idea to call it Memories! Also, this isn't exactly a list packed with hugely popular or well-received stories. Think of your favourite fic, and it probably isn't here.

Stats time again! The creeping advance of M-rated fic

The enhanced search now available on Fimfiction has finally allowed me to confine results to any range of dates I pick, rather than being stuck with the highly limited options previously available. One thing that occurred to me to try recently was to see what sort of fics were popular as Fimfiction evolved. The first thing I checked was how many of the top ten most viewed fics were Mature-rated:

2011: 4
2012: 4
2013: 2
2014: 6
2015: 7
2016: 9
2017: 9

Some thoughts on this past the break.

UK of Equestria's overall S7 ranking list

As we've done for the last couple of years (for S5 and for S6), we've been asking people to rank all this season's Friendship is Magic episodes. Because of having no double-episode premiere this year, members were asked to rank the episodes from 1 to 25, with the finale counting as one. We had 15 respondents, a little down on S6's 18 but still enough to get a good idea. S7 has been pretty well received overall, but what you see here is based on the overall means.

The tier boundaries were decided very simply: any episode with a mean position of five or below got a five star rating. Then any ep with an average of worse than 5th but equal to or better than 10th got four. And so on down the line, with episodes with a mean score below 20 getting a one-star rating. This year, we have eps in all five tiers, which makes my job a bit easier! It's also the first time we've had more than six episodes in the top two categories. Here's the list:

★★★★★
1. A Royal Problem
2. Shadow Play

★★★★
3. The Perfect Pear
4. Once Upon a Zeppelin
5. Parental Glideance
6. Rock Solid Friendship
7. It Isn't the Mane Thing About You
8. All Bottled Up

★★★
9. Fame and Misfortune
10. Discordant Harmony
11. A Health of Information
12. Celestial Harmony
13. Campfire Tales
14. Uncommon Bond
15. Secrets and Pies

★★
16. Hard to Say Anything
17. To Change a Changeling
18. A Flurry of Emotions
19. Marks and Recreation
20. Daring Done?
21. Triple Threat
22. Honest Apple
23. Forever Filly

★
24. Not Asking for Trouble
25. Fluttershy Leans In

Number of times each episode placed first
5: A Royal Problem
3: The Perfect Pear
3: Shadow Play
1: All Bottled Up
1: Fame and Misfortune
1: Once Upon a Zeppelin
1: Parental Glideance

Number of times each episode placed last
6: Fluttershy Leans In
4: Not Asking for Trouble
1: Fame and Misfortune
1: A Flurry of Emotions
1: Forever Filly
1: Honest Apple
1: Secrets and Pies

Most controversial (highest standard deviation)
1. Fame and Misfortune
2. Secrets and Pies
3. Hard to Say Anything

Least controversial
1. A Royal Problem
2. Fluttershy Leans In
3. To Change a Changeling

"A Royal Problem" was universally liked and widely adored: everyone placed the episode in their top nine, and 12 voters had it in the top four. In fact, it (just) displaces "Amending Fences" as the most popular episode of the past three seasons. At the other end of the table, the bottom two were widely unpopular, being more than three points adrift of the rest, and "Fluttershy Leans In" had a highest position from anyone of 17th. That wasn't even from me!

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the most controversial episode was "Fame and Misfortune", and I suspect that argument will run and run. We all know that M. A. Larson doesn't like the fact that his name is attached to it, but that doesn't stop many people (including me) from enjoying what we ended up with. "To Change a Changeling" was an unusual episode where there was near-unanimity on its middling status: out of 15 people, 13 placed it between 10th and 17th in their lists.

The general feeling among those people discussing the most recent season has been that S7 was for the most part a very good run, and certainly a step up from S6. This means that a three-star ep this time around might in fact be more popular in absolute terms than a three-star ep last year. But the rules of the poll don't allow you to make your rankings on that basis, instead requiring only relative positions to be taken into account, so bear that factor in mind.

CinemaScore for the movie is out!

As with the Rotten Tomatoes post, I'm marking this as spoilery beyond the cut, even though it really isn't. As with that earlier post, this is just a case of talking briefly about a grade. There are no spoilers for the plot of the movie whatsoever in the post itself.

Fimfiction story rankings

After reading PresentPerfect's Fimfiction post, I wandered off to my own story list to see if there were any round numbers in their current rankings. Answer: no. But then I thought I'd see how my various fics compared to each other. Unsurprisingly, I have nothing in the top thousand and nothing right down the bottom. But for my 23 completed stories (the other two are anthologies), this is how they shape up.

I'm well aware that the Fimfiction rating algorithm is far from being a properly reliable measure of stories' relative quality. I'm also well aware that taking any of this stuff too seriously is a bad idea. Rest assured that I'm not! So take my mini-analyses with plenty of salt. Here we go:

1st: It Doesn't Matter Now (3,237). No surprise there, given that it's my RCL entry.
2nd: Shining Armor's Amour's Armour (7,326). Really? Really? Dearie dearie me.
3rd: We Who with Songs Beguile (11,341). This one makes a bit more sense, frankly.
4th: The Unbearable Lightness of Bucking (12,619). I'm actually rather happy with that!
5th: Where They Understand You (16,166). This was a pleasant surprise as well.

6th: For an Angel to Pass (17,117). I think this one is a little overrated.
7th: Starlight Repeatedly Teleports into Custard (21,047). Huzzah! :D
8th: Like a Flower to the World (23,817). Not critically acclaimed, but fairly popular.
9th: This Fragment of Life (27,861). Shows the power of utter idiocy, I suppose.
10th: One Hell of a Party (28,107). Seems about right, considering.

11th=: To Be the Candle (28,877). I wish this was a couple of places higher.
11th=: Ever Let the Fancy Roam (28,877). This too. Yes, the same rating as TBtC!
13th: Kicking Back (29,563). A really silly story. Fairly placed, I think.
14th: The Light that Ignites in the Dark (30,328). I have affection for it. but fair.
15th: The Book of Ended Lives (32,091). I did think this fic would do better.

16th: By the Seashore (37,160). My lowest fic to get an R from PP. :P
17th: More than Alive (39,043). Not too bad for such a niche-appeal story!
18th: Clouded Minds (44,786). A concept I still like, despite the iffy writing.
19th: So Many Different Ways to Prey (49,395). Newborn Cuties crossover in top 50k!
20th: The 20 Percent Solution (55,122). My first ponyfic, and you can tell.

21st: Ra Ra Raspberry (55,766). Joke relies on knowledge of a specific song.
22nd: The Ballad of Wyvern's Rock (82,333). Mediocre epic poetry, so fine.
23rd: Sunset's Sales Snag (85,308). Boo! This is not that bad a silly fic!

Sex ratios in Equestria

Scootaloo beat that damn Harshwhinny mare (22-18) in #MareMadness. There is justice in this world! :D

As reported on this Equestria Daily page, a guy named Thomas has looked at every pony seen in the show and classified them by age, sex and tribe. There seem to be a couple of errors in his summaries (eg rounding 461:428 to 2:1), but I'm going to assume that the underlying data is accurate. Here is the measure that stood out to me most:

Female:male ratio by tribe
Earth: 461:428 = 1.08:1
Pegasus: 186:120 = 1.55:1
Unicorn: 199:115 = 1.73:1

I haven't done any proper statistical analysis (who do you think I am, Bad Horse?) but the gap between the number for earth ponies and that for the other two tribes really stands out. We think of Equestria as female-dominated, and indeed it is – all the more so if you look at which ponies hold positions of real power. But for earth ponies, it's not far off equality in the population as a whole.

Any in-universe ideas as to why this might be the case?

What does Logan review the most?

It's stats time again! All the numbers this time relate to reviews published in Ponyfic Roundup from the beginning through no. 146, a total of 753 stories. I'm doing this purely for fun, using the stats I have in Calibre. Still, I thought, why not share this fun with my readers? On second thoughts, please don't answer that question.

Most reviewed authors
10: Blueshift
9: Cold in Gardez
8: PresentPerfect
7: The Descendant
6: shortskirtsandexplosions, xjuggernaughtx
5: Akumokagetsu, Chris, FanOfMostEverything, Skywriter, Twinkletail

I stopped at this point since there are any number of authors who've had four reviews. Most of the list isn't very surprising. Akumokagetsu makes it in because I read all the Evil Belle stories in quick succession. I'm not sure why Twinkletail is there; it's ages since I've read one of their fics. There are a few major omissions, but that's in part because I've always tried to give an airing to less popular writers.

Most popular character tags
223: Twilight
187: OC
142: Rainbow Dash
135: Celestia
115: Mane Six
113: Fluttershy
104: Other
102: Luna
75: Spike
74: Pinkie Pie
69: Applejack
65: Rarity
51: Scootaloo

The big finding here is that last week's Fluttershy special was not only necessary but should be repeated as soon as possible. :P I was initially a little surprised that Celestia was quite so high up the list, but it turns out that she has more tagged stories on Fimfiction than anyone else – slightly ahead even of Twilight.

Most popular genre tags
400: Slice of Life
252: Comedy
153: Sad
128: Romance
119: Dark
109: Random
106: Adventure
56: Alternate Universe
50: Tragedy

I like my Slice of Life stories, so that result is no shock. Romance is a little higher up the table than I would have predicted, given that I'm really not much of a shipper. (I've reviewed one Braeburn-tagged story!) None of the newer genre tags get anywhere near this list; topping those so far is Horror, on a mighty seven reviews.

More boring reviewing stats

Present Perfect has reviewed Through the Well of Pirene. This is bad news, since I'd decided in my head that the story was so bloody long that I was only going to tackle it if it got 5/5. And you can guess what happened. So, at some point this year (I'm not being more specific than that!) it will become the second-longest ponyfic I've reviewed. One for the e-reader in the garden this summer, I think.

Anyway, on to the promised stats. Let's look at the star ratings I've awarded over the years, with the old out-of-ten scores converted in the usual way (grade boundaries at 4, 6, 8 and 9). Out of the 734 stories I've reviewed up to PR 143 (inclusive), this is the breakdown:

★★★★★: 34 (4.63%)
★★★★: 153 (20.84%)
★★★: 282 (38.42%)
★★: 199 (27.11%)
★: 66 (8.99%)

Some thoughts on this, plus more rambling, past the break.

Some reviewing milestones

My cough is just beginning to recede, but I'm still a way from being fully recovered, so you're getting another small and fairly pointless post today. The next significant one, other than the next Ponyfic Roundup, should be the review of main-series comic #50, which I hope to get out within a few days now.

Today, though: thanks to the updated BMRL and my own updated list in Calibre, I have a reasonable idea of how many reviews I've done for Ponyfic Roundup. My numbers still don't quite match Singularity Dream's, partly since we update at a different rate, and partly because unlike me, he counts the occasional posts in which I've looked at my own older fics. Up to and including the most recent PR (no. 143) I reckon I've reviewed 734 ponyfics. And the milestone reviews – first, then every fiftieth – are these:

First: The Best Night Ever by Capn_Chryssalid (PR 1, obviously)
50th: The Price by Vimbert the Unimpressive (PR 11)
100th: Flying Hard by terrycloth (PR 22)
150th: A True, True Friend? by Blazewing (PR 32)
200th: Fluttershy and Celestia Play Chess by BronyWriter (PR 42)

250th: Tea with The Queen by Lapis-Lazuli and Stitch (PR 50)
300th: Temporary Hiatus by TheMessenger (PR 63)
350th: Fluttershy Sits Down With Lyra For a Day by Church (PR 73)
400th: Griffon it Another Try by Winston (PR 82)
450th: The Best Job in Equestria by Mooncalf (PR 90)

500th: The Wrong Side of Tomorrow by Pascoite (PR 99)
550th: Twilight Likes to Read, A Lot by Saakra (PR 108)
600th: Whom the Princesses Would Destroy by GhostOfHeraclitus (PR 120)
650th: The Epic Battle Of Good Versus Slightly Less Good But Still Pretty Good In The Long Run by Akumokagetsu (PR 130)
700th: The Keepers of Discord by Hoopy McGee (PR 138)

There's some good stuff in there, but in every case it's a pure accident that it coincided with a milestone – especially as I didn't even have an accurate number until now. And in case anyone's wondering: no, I don't intend to seek out anything particularly special for my 750th review. I might do so for my 1,000th – but there's a long, long way to go before I reach that milestone! Possible themes for PR 150 are occupying my mind more as far as that sort of thing is concerned.

I may inflict further pointless statistics on you at some point in the not too distant future. This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

UK of Equestria's favourite episodes revealed!

Over on UK of E, Eunos the Fool (I'm not being rude, that's his username!) has been running a feature for the last few weeks in which he gradually reveals the overall tallies for a vote he ran asking people to list their top 20 FiM episodes of all time. Only ten people (including me) took part, which was a bit of a shame, but it provided us with heaps to talk about as the numbers were gradually revealed.

Here's the overall top 20 (well, actually the top 22), with my own ranking for each episode in brackets:

1. The Return of Harmony (6)
2. Crusaders of the Lost Mark (4)
3= Twilight's Kingdom (11)
3= Magical Mystery Cure (18)

5. The Cutie Mark Chronicles (5)
6. Amending Fences (2)
7. Filli Vanilli (19)
8. A Canterlot Wedding (–)
9. Pinkie Pride (3)
10. Sleepless in Ponyville (7)

11. Friendship is Magic (–)
12. Testing, Testing 1, 2, 3 (–)
13. Winter Wrap Up (–)
14. Maud Pie (14)
15. A Hearth's Warming Tail (8)
16. Hurricane Fluttershy (1)
17. Rarity Investigates! (–)
18. Luna Eclipsed (–)
19. Stranger Than Fan Fiction (12)
20= Lesson Zero (13)
20= Suited for Success (16)
20= To Where and Back Again (10)

For what it's worth, the episodes I had in my top 20 which didn't make the list above were, using the same format as above:

23. Slice of Life (15)
24. The Saddle Row Review (20)
40. The Cutie Map (9)
69= Buckball Season (17)

I'll admit to being a little startled that "The Return of Harmony" won overall; right from the start I'd confidently expected "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" to take home the crown. For my own part, I feel I gave slight disservice to "Filli Vanilli", and that I really ought to have placed it on the fringes of the top ten. Still, it was a fun exercise, and if it happens again in the future I'll take part again.