Shipping Survey Results: Round 1 - the ships! · 12:06am Feb 15th, 2013
The first data from the Shipping Survey is posted!
That link is where I'm putting stuff for everyone to see. I'm trying to keep my posting unbiased there. I'll be saving my commentary for here, so I can go into what this means for ships I like, and spout off about potential future trends.
Anyway, let's look at the Top Ten ships graph!
Now, the big news here is some surprising ships that snuck in. Cadance x Shining Armor? Who knew? DashFire? Huh. So, if you write shipping stories and you want the feature box, these are probably wide open for you. There's a demand, and I know there's not much supply out there compared to the other ships on the list.
I've mentioned other places the interesting difference between our three Most Liked Mane Six ships, but I'll mention it again. TwiDash is below both FlutterDash and AppleDash, but it has more "actively likes" than both of them. One could propose that, in terms of making the feature box, being actively liked is more important than passive likes. After all, actively like means that folks will not only scan the front page for it, but check to see if anything has been posted to the groups, or maybe even run a search.
Now for the Bottom Ten:
So, fandom does not like Blueblood. They dislike Blueblood more than incest, foal con, or anything else. This is interesting because, while Blueblood is an ass, Trixie was until this season and Twixie just missed the top ten (literally, it's 11th most popular.) And poor Blueblood didn't even go looking for Rarity, she was the one gold digging looking for her prince. It's not Blueblood's fault that she decided it should be him. I kinda feel sorry for the guy.
And, I'm sorry Garbo802, but Spike x Rainbow Dash is actually one of the most disliked ships in fandom. I might have some info on that when I get to "fanworks that have influenced your dislike of ships," because I know at least one person said that MallaJong made them dislike all Spike ships. Apparently the guy might not be doing your ship a lot of favors by writing it.
One thing to note, though. the Bottom Ten looks a lot different when you just look at actively dislike.
Twilight Sparkle x Shining Armor
Applejack x Big Macintosh
Big Macintosh x Prince Blueblood
Snails x Snips
Big Macintosh x Shining Armor
Rarity x Prince Blueblood
Big Macintosh x Braeburn
Scootaloo x Rainbow Dash (foalcon)
Scootaloo x Cheerilee
Applejack x Braeburn
So that's where you get the incest and foalcon towards the top. There are just enough people that passively dislike Rarity x Blueblood and Spike x Rainbow Dash to bump them up the list.
That's the first bunch of stuff! Let me know if there's anything you think is interesting, or anything you want to see. I can even try to dig up things I haven't gotten around to organizing yet.
Oh, and here's a pie chart of AppleDash, because I can:
What do you mean actively and passively?
Twilestia in top 10 liked?
SpikeDash in top 10 hated?
EQD bias in the form of Sethisto. I am curious if Trixies place changes if you filter for just EQD results.
Loving the graphs! And I'm really happy about TaviScratch! It's one of my absolute fave ships.
Also, I am incredibly happy that the foalcon and incest options got a lot of dislikes, it restores my faith in fanfic writes.
828162
These were the definitions offered by the survey:
...you misspelled "Whooves" in the first graph. I'm sorry, I know that isn't the point, but that really bugs me.
Barking-Pony-crazy though of the day: by act of Discord, LyraBon is Jossed by Hasbro. Is the fandom fallout bigger than Derpygate, Twicorngate and humangate combined? (No, really, these things randomly run through my head at times.)
828223
Fixed here. Working on it on the official blog. Thanks!
I can't believe FlutterDash is so popular. It's been months since I've seen a popular, well written FlutterDash fic, and I an't even remember the last time I saw any FlutterDash fan art. Where are all of its fans hiding?
And I guess PinkieDash isn't nearly as liked as I thought it was. This survey is turning my whole shipping world upside down.
828298
Right now, I think they're all over on the shipping group and my "Why I don't like FlutterDash" blog post that got linked from there, making really long comments about why people should like FlutterDash.
Haha! So it is fact that AppleDash is the best Mane 6 ship!
Sweet! 
828490
Everyone knew that, but I'm glad it's comfirmed
Oh come on. I like Twilight and spike... Meh, cant have them all
Ooh, can you say what ranking PinkieDash is?
I'm surprised Spike x Twilight got so low, though I actually can't remember what I said for it.
828941
PinkieDash is 14th most liked.
Graphs make everything more legit. I think its the pretty colours
Hey, Spike/Dash ain't that bad if its aged up. But I suppose there's only one real SpikeDash fic that I really like, so that says something. I too am surprised by the Blueblood hate. He was a bit of a dick, but I mean, he wasn't that bad. And now I kind of want to read a Big Mac/Blueblood fic just to see how it'd turn out... curiosity has led me to stranger things, I suppose.
(like a Dash/Blueblood James Bond-esque fic that ended up being quite entertaining - who knew?)
And yay Appledash! By some of the rapid dislike bombs certain Appledash fics get, you wouldn't know that its one of the most popular ships. Maybe the active dislikers for it are just more dedicated? Whatever, still best ship
And who knew BonBon/Lyra was so popular? I've never noticed gazillions of fics focusing on them, but I don't look for them, either, so that could be why. Also, Flutterdash is more popular than PinkieDash? I never would've guessed. This has proved really interesting so far, thanks for sharing
Appledash is best ship...no matter WHAT others may say. I love the way you put the pie chart in Dash's colors.
Haha, amusing!
I should send this to Ponydora. I suspect he'll get a good chuckle.
As an author, where's the fun in doing what's popular, anyway?
829599
No it most certainly is NOT
829599 nope.
ADAMANTITE ARMOR GOOOO!