Like I just can't understand it, even here the Rarijack group has almost twice the members than stuff like the PinkieDash group, yet that has more stories. the RariDash group has almost as much and until S5 those two barely interacted. AppleDash is something I pretty much never see talked about outside of FIMFiction anymore yet here it's like it was still S1 with it having over twice the fic Rarijack does and a much larger proportion of them are long. Practically the only ships I see get talked about outside of FimFiction are Sparity, TwiDash, Rarijack and FlutterDash, and FlutterDash and TwiDash it bears out here but with Rarijack it seems this is the one place in the fandom where it's not popular.

Not to mention just how much interaction Rarity and Applejack have continued to get in the show proper. especially compared to TwiDash (which since S4 has started getting a decent amoun but still not much) and AppleDash (a dynamic that is honestly borderline dead and the only time it's really spotlighted after S1 it still feels pretty much exactly the same.)

What is it that makes it so difficult for Rarijack to attract dedicated writers despite clearly being one of the top ships in most of the fandom? Is just difficultly relating to the characters? a load of people on FIMfiction placing more value in what they feel is "more realistic in real life" over what is more entertaining despite fiction being largely about being entertained? Rarijack not reaching mega popularity until after the peak of the fandom thus it didn't get to establish the sort of circlejerky play off each other for endless ideas community that TwiDash and AppleDash seem to have?

but with Rarijack it seems this is the one place in the fandom where it's not popular.

WHAT! THAT'S CRAZY!
There should be MORE Rarijack fictions out there. I love Rarijack.

4808569
I'd say it more has to do with establishing the two as a couple. They're not a pair that you can just throw in as logical partners like with Appledash or TwiJack; they're a pair that requires some build up, an explanation as to why they're together, if the author wants the piece to make sense. It tends to be a lot of work compared to other shippings.

4808569
Well, for one thing, art is a whole lot easier to sell a ship on that a fic is. With fanart, you just have to have the two acting cutesy, basically. I've noticed that most people don't tend to question if art just throws two characters together.

With a story, however, you can't just throw them together, since that's the whole point of the story. RariJack is one of the harder ships to sell as a viable couple, since they don't have a whole lot in common. That's all well and good if you want to just throw them together as one of those bickering couples that ends up in an on-again-off-again relationship, but it's hard to do much more than that. It can be done, but most people go for the low-hanging fruit. Less effort, equal or greater reward.

4808844
4808748

While I suppose this is true, though with AppleDash I can't really say they are as logical as people say because I really have no idea what their dynamic even is anymore given that they pretty much never speak, and I fail to see how TwiDash was low hanging fruit when it got popular given how it sorta came out of nowhere and seemed to get popular mostly on how overwhelmingly popular both characters were at the time.

My answer is go look at the FlutterDash group, a ship where the characters have even less in common and I think that would be far more likely to end in disaster given how Pushy Dash is vs how much of a doormat Fluttershy can be yet I think it has even more fic here than AppleDash which got popular years before it and almost as much as TwiDash. Now I don't got anything against that ship but when the other big ship that you can make those same arguments against has no problem getting fic well There's clearly more at work here than people just finding it hard to sell.

4808569
The reason is actually pretty simple:

Most of the people who are good at writing RariJack write some RariJack then write a bunch of other stuff.

Absolute Anonymous? RariJack was the first thing she wrote, then she wrote a bunch of other things (and like, one other RariJack fic). She quit like three years ago now.

KitsuneRisu? Wrote some RariJack,. mostly writes other things now.

HoofBitingActionOverload? Went on to write other things.

Lion? Decided to write porn instead, then quit writing altogether as far as I can tell.

Basically, our most consistent writer is Merc, and he writes humanized stuff, that most people tend to avoid because ugh no hooves 0/10.

So... yeah.

Why isn't there much RariJack?

4808748
4808844
I actually disagree with this; I think RariJack is actually one of the easiest ships to write, along with AppleDash. It isn't that hard to recast Applejack and Rarity's behavior towards each other as catty flirting, just as it isn't that hard to recast Applejack and Rainbow Dash's butting heads as having some possibly romantic undertones. Heck, White Diamonds shows that a relationship between them can be depicted totally visually.

I think that the actual problem with RariJack is threefold:

1) The things that attract good writers to RariJack attract good writers to RariJack; they aren't RariJack devotees, they're writing devotees. Why would they focus all their efforts on writing Rarijack when they can write anything and everything? That'd be silly! So you get random RariJack stories from people who are not primarily focused on a single ship.

2) Rarity and Applejack are really fun to write together, but you don't actually have to ship them for a lot of stories - it is very possible to write a lot of RariJack type stories without shipping them.

3) We don't really have RariJack pushers. Bookplayer and bats don't like RariJack. Bookplayer is/was pretty prolific, as was bats, but more importantly they are (or at least were) major centers of the shipping community; their casting her favor on TwiJack had a pretty big impact on its popularity. There aren't really any major shippers who are huge RariJack devotees or who push for it. I've got 5 RariJack stories, plus a short story collection, and I think I'm probably #2 in terms of prolific Rarijack writing after Merc. Without people actually focusing on RariJack, you don't end up with sustained promotion, and thus, encouragement for sustained production.

Oh, and 4) A lot of people perceive Rarity as straight.

So, how do we fix it?

First off, I think we should keep in mind the fact that RariJack is not, in fact, in dire straits relative to a lot of other ships; the sad reality is that most M6 shipping just isn't that prolific these days.

But second... the answer is more or less "write more good RariJack". The more people write good stories about a ship, the more other people will tend to be inspired by them and bandwagon on. So if you want to see more RariJack production, you're going to need to step up and write it yourself.

Ponydora Prancypants and Merc both write RariJack. Tumbleweed has resumed writing and has written RariJack stuff on occasion. I've got two planned upcoming RariJack stories, and I do plan on finishing Shotgun Wedding now that Mistletrapped is finished (but alas, I've got a million other things to do as well, including writing original fiction... though really, I doubt most of that will actually have any sort of negative impact on my RariJack production, it just isn't a priority). Maybe some other random person will write something.

But all of that together means like, maybe one new RariJack story every other month tops from all those folks combined, if that. You want more RariJack? You gotta write it and make it good, and make OTHER people want to write it because they see those two together and can't help but feel like they need to write a story where they kiss. That's really what makes people enthused - a bunch of good stuff that makes them want to write more of it. I know after reading good shipfics I want to write shipfics about those pairings, so y'all need to step up.

4809031

a ship where the characters have even less in common

Uh, no. Fluttershy and Dash at least have history. They're friends since childhood (which is pretty much 90% of the reason for the ship existing, honestly), and they've been together for a long time. We know for sure that their friendship will last through hard times, which is a good sign for a relationship. I think that the shelf life for them to be a likely couple has long since passed, but there are couples who got together after even longer friendships, so it's still possible. There's at least some logic inherent to FlutterDash. It's not much, but it's more than RariJack, which is pretty much just "opposites attract" (something that doesn't tend to hold true for long-lasting relationships).

Almost every Mane 6 ship is built around some shipping stereotype. FlutterDash has the whole lifelong friends thing, TwiDash has the trope of the bookworm and the athlete, AppleDash has the rivals-that-become-more trope, RariDash has sort of the same vibe as the quarterback and the prom queen cliche, RariJack is the couple that switches between arguing and making out (maybe both, if they're having angry sex), etc. Some are easier to sell as a couple, like RariDash or AppleShy, and some are easier to write for more flash-in-the-pan, get-together-quickly stories. RariJack is the latter. Due to how the show's written--Rarity and Applejack get a lot of time together--a lot of people see them getting together, but since so much of it is spent bickering, it's hard to see them lasting.

It's also a matter of pony preferences. TwiDash is the most popular ship because a lot of people, especially starting out, like Twilight or Dash best. Rarity and Applejack tend to be less popular. In fact, after browsing each of the six characters individually, it looks like Rarity and Applejack are the two least-written characters in general. Even Pinkie has more stories (surprisingly, she's in third). Dash has about the same number of stories as Rarity and Applejack combined, and Twilight has nearly double that. I know those aren't romance stats, but they are indicative of who's more likely to be written about. With so many stories about Twilight and Dash, it's no wonder that TwiDash is the largest ship. And with Rarity and Applejack being the least-written main characters, it's actually stunning that RariJack is as big as it is on-site. Much like FlutterPie, I suspect that this ship is mostly being kept afloat by its fanart.

You can very, very roughly delineate shipping pairs into the saccharine pairings and the stressful pairings. Flutterdash is saccharine: while Dash can be a bit bossy and a Fluttershy can be a bit submissive, they have a long history together that was founded on Rainbow Dash protecting Fluttershy, and of Fluttershy tempering Dash's harsher instincts. Fluttermac Marblemac is saccharine: shyness is cute, and double the shyness is double the cuteness. Raridash is saccharine: while they come from highly different backgrounds and are both driven ponies, Rarity has shown the tendency in canon to air-quotes "let Dash win" and pull the strings when Dash isn't looking so that her pride is kept intact.

Twilestia is stressful: there's the age gap, Celestia's (senior) princesshood, and Twi's former student / surrogate daughter status to overcome. Appledash is stressful: they're both strong and prideful ponies, and feel the need to assert themselves over one another. Rarijack is stressful: from S1 onward, they've had a difficulty in seeing eye to eye, and while the banter is generally understanding and compassionate, they do tend to get snippy with each other.

This is obviously a broad generalization. You can have melodramatic Flutterdash stories or dawww-overload Twilestia fics. But if you are an author interested in writing about the struggles of love, you will have an easier time starting with a couple that already has strain built into their relationship and personalities from the get-go.

And I think that's the kicker. Twilestia and Appledash are both very popular ships on this site, with 2000+ members per group. Rarijack is less popular at only 1000 members (granted, this still makes it one of the top 10 largest ship-pairing groups on the site), but as 4809099 indicated, there aren't a ton of devoted Rarijack authors. You tend to [citation needed] see authors who really enjoy writing romantic tension who will write across multiple shipping pairs—often these big three, perhaps others like Taviscratch. Combine this with the fact that there are a number of devoted Twilestia writers and devoted Appledash writers, and Rarijack feels underrepresented by comparison.

Oh, and 4) A lot of people perceive Rarity as straight.

This might not be helping matters either. I can think of a number of early fandom pieces that portrayed her as straight (establishing a shared fanon) and plus she's shown attraction to a number of males like Blueblood or Trenderhoof. So unless you want to completely disregard canon, you'd need to play her as a lesbian in denial, or as a bisexual (and bisexual erasure is a thing).

You want more RariJack? You gotta write it and make it good, and make OTHER people want to write it because they see those two together and can't help but feel like they need to write a story where they kiss.

This. I had a Twilestia shipfic in the Featured Box for a few days, and it attracted a number of commenters says "Wow, y'know, I generally don't ship / actively dislike this pairing, yet I really enjoyed this!" The way to sway minds is to show this pairing in action, showcasing not only why they work but also what makes them unique to write/read about. That drives up interest of the readers to be more receptive of this pairing in the future (or actively seeking it out), and it encourages writers to thing about this pairing the next time they open up a fresh GDoc.

4809099

That's true, Iv seen loads of people write like one or two Rarijacks but pretty much no one who has like freaking 20-30 stories about it like Iv seen with FlutterDash, AppleDash and TwiDash, nor does it have many really long fics don't really understand why that never happened but it never did. Actually Rarity in general doesn't seem to have many devoted authors, weirdly enough even among authors iv seen listing her in their top 3. Applejack has a bit more but not by much. It's just weird that Rarijacks always had at least a decent base but was never able to get one of those devoted writers.

Couple that with the fact that FIMfiction seems to have an ANTI-Recency bias with opinions here pretty much staying quite similar to what they were in 2012, I can tell you at least Rainbow Dash is now far more popular here than she is just about anywhere else ( Not that she's unpopular, but she's usually third or fourth these days) And really the only characters who seem to have broken in here since like early S3 era are Sunset Shimmer and the Dazzlings. It's all sort of a feedback loop I think, people here read a lot more fan fiction than the average person in the fandom, so their opinions are influnced by it more, and since there's so much Twilight and Dash and the Princesses they are more likely to gravitate toward and want more of those characters. Leading to the rather calcified and boring situation we have now with the featured box regularly being like 70% Twilight stories.

I can't really credit Bookplayer with much, after all he hates FlutterDash just as much and that ship has no trouble getting fic at all. Though Maybe i can credit it them for making the shipping community cooler toward Opposites attract ships than most (in most fandoms I have seen they tend to be overwhelming the most popular because writers find them more fun to write) But it's true Rarijack never really had pushers on the fic side of things, it needs someone on the fic side of things as insanely devoted and prolific as White Diamonds was with art probably, I mean Rarijack Daily did wonders for the popularity of the ship in the fandom at large but it never really spilled over into much more fic.

As for Mane 6 shipping being in decline, I blame the rise of Waifu bullshit and /mlp/ for that mostly. Though looking through the last few days of uploads there was a decent amount of FlutterDash at least (with like a very slight smattering of Rarijack, TwiDash and some random Pinkie ships). Strangely Enough I think right now Sunset Shimmer might be the most shipped character other than Twilight.

Anyway of course the trouble with all of this is if we have to attract Good writers to attract good writers, how do we attract good writers in the first place?

4809121

See while it's true they have history, DESPITE that, Dash is still very pushy and pretty tactless with Fluttershy a lot of the time, as recent as Scare-Master this can be seen, and with Fluttershy being Fluttershy I think Dash would pretty much just utterly dominate that relationship to an unhealthy level. Like some people say Fluttershy tempers Dash or something, but I really don't see it. Someone like Twilight, Applejack or even Rarity who shares the pushiness and drive to help Fluttershy out of her shell with Dash but has been shown she's more easily able to see and respect Fluttershy's boundaries would be a better match for Fluttershy in a romantic sense.

With Rarijack at least both characters are very strong willed and pretty hard-headed so they would HAVE to learn to compromise, but once they get over that big hurdle they are both also mature enough that I think they'd work surprisingly smoothly. Not to mention Rarity and AJ at least have business and stuff like that they can relate on, Which Fluttershy and Dash lack.

As for Popularity, yeah that has a large effect, for years Rarity and Applejack were lower tier (though I think as of late I feel Rarity's gotten more popular though Applejack continues to languish while I see Rarity get second or third in polls on places like /mlp/ and the MLPForums regularly in the last year. Twilight obviously always wins everywhere.) So obviously it'd be hard for a ship without one of the most popular characters in it to gain much traction (and I do suspect the Dash part of AppleDash is a much bigger factor in it's popularity than the Apple part) But it's not always completely indicative. Take for example Fluttershy, who since around 2013 has basically consistently posted as the second most popular character after Twilight, yet she is much closer to Rarity and Applejack in amount of fic than she is to Rainbow Dash, who over the years sort of declined from being top 2 to being totally mid-tier in popularity. As I said earlier, it pretty much feels like the FIMfiction community mirrors the overall community in 2012 when it comes to popularity moreso than the overall community now.

Also FlutterPie and Rarijack's situations really aren't comparable. Off of this site Rarijack is easily a top 5 ship, having over 3 times the art that FlutterPie has, it's only in Fan fic that it has any trouble.

4809702

Also FlutterPie and Rarijack's situations really aren't comparable.

Sure they are. It's only a matter of scale (and that's just because there are artists like WhiteDiamonds churning out RariJack almost daily). RariJack has a ton of art, but only a few hundred fics, whereas FlutterPie has a few hundred pics, but barely any fanfics. Organization seems to be FlutterPie's biggest flaw in competing--I had a ridiculously hard time finding a central group when I wrote one of those. There are a few dozen in one group, a couple dozen in another, maybe ten or so in a third group... it's a lot of small groups under a handful of different names.

Maybe a better comparison would be TwiShy, although that group has a better ratio of stories to users. (I'm admin there, but it's been so long since I've visited that I don't recall how many members we had. Seem to think it was about 250-ish, with just under a hundred stories.) TwiShy has a good amount of art for its size, it's just that we don't have many writers. We don't have a lot of writers churning out tons of 'em, either. At least RariJack has a few of those. I wrote three TwiShy fics, but most people seem to one-and-done that ship.

I think in general, outside of AppleDash and TwiDash, all Mane 6 ships need more stories.

Goodness knows that RariDash and AppleShy does. And TwiShy. And FlutterPie. And TwiPie and DashPie and RariShy...

Edit: It really has been a long time since I looked at TwiShy! Somewhere along the line, we tripled our story count and got to 670 members. TwiShy has more stories than this group, actually.)

4809773

WhiteDiamonds hasn't been very active in months and yet the gap on Derpibooru between Rarijack and AppleDash has remained and continued to slowly grow, there's more than just a few hyper prolific artist on that ship.

FlutterDash actually has more stories than AppleDash I believe

Wow looking at the member to fic ratio here compared to TwiShy and RainbowPie really drills in how little Rarijack shippers actually write about it. Though TwiShy getting popular isn't surprising, I see Twilight and Flutters as peoples top 2 all the time, usually the same people who relate to one relate to the other as well surprised it didn't happen even earlier. Anyway with how often I see Rarijack brought up as a thing people ship despite the lack of stories, im starting to think one of it's big problems is that it's in a lot of peoples maybe top 5 ships, but few of them actually have it as their FAVORITE, can't really think of another way to explain how this group has almost twice the members of groups like RainbowPie and TwiShy but has less fic than them.

It's crazy too cause even smaller ships like RariLight tend to at least have one super dedicated writer.

4809702

That's true, Iv seen loads of people write like one or two Rarijacks but pretty much no one who has like freaking 20-30 stories about it like Iv seen with FlutterDash, AppleDash and TwiDash, nor does it have many really long fics don't really understand why that never happened but it never did.

The main problem with long RariJack fics is that they tend not to get finished; my own Shotgun Wedding and Lion's A Terrible Reason to Be Unhappy are both incomplete. Ponydora Prancypants' RariJack series is also incomplete, as is... whoever did the one where Magnum thinks that Rarity and Applejack are in a relationship, and

Actually Rarity in general doesn't seem to have many devoted authors, weirdly enough even among authors iv seen listing her in their top 3.

I write a fair bit of Rarity stuff. :V

Applejack has a bit more but not by much.

Applejack has bookplayer.

And me someday, if I ever get off my duff and publish more stuff (I've got a bit of a backlog of stories featuring her).

It's just weird that Rarijacks always had at least a decent base but was never able to get one of those devoted writers.

Well, it got brushed on by a lot of the big folks (Donny's Boy, Absolute Anonymous, ect.) but folks don't really ship it exclusively.

Heck, I don't, either.

It's all sort of a feedback loop I think, people here read a lot more fan fiction than the average person in the fandom, so their opinions are influnced by it more, and since there's so much Twilight and Dash and the Princesses they are more likely to gravitate toward and want more of those characters. Leading to the rather calcified and boring situation we have now with the featured box regularly being like 70% Twilight stories.

There's only 2/7 in the FB right now that are Twilight/Princess/Rainbow Dash :V

Though to be fair, Celestia and Luna are fanon main characters; they're in more stories than the CMC.

All of them.

Combined.

This isn't actually that surprising, though, given the different target demographics for the show vs the brony fandom.

As far as the fandom is concerned, they're major protagonists, while the CMC are like, Shining Armor and Cadance tier characters.

I can't really credit Bookplayer with much, after all he hates FlutterDash just as much and that ship has no trouble getting fic at all.

To be fair, FlutterDash is actually in a much worse state than RariJack is. I only have to go back to July to find a 100+ upvote non-mature RariJack story; I have to go all the way back to March for FlutterDash. We had three RariJack stories get featured within a couple weeks of each other in January, one of which got 200+ votes, one of which got 500+, and one of which got 800+.

The last 200+ upvote FlutterDash shipfic I can find dates from February of 2014, which seems to be the last time one got featured outside of the updates box. And that one, I'll note, was a sequel. The two before that were The Stolen Date and Hummingbird Heartbeat, which date from September 2013. The Stolen Date was the second story I wrote for the site. I've gained 800 followers since then.

What I'm saying is, things could be a lot worse. There may be writers for FlutterDash, but no one seems to care for anything they write, and there are precious few good ones. I was a judge for a FlutterDash contest last year that had ONE entry. Two if you count something HoofBitingActionOverload released after the contest ended.

So, yeah. FlutterDash gets no respect.

Oh, also, bookplayer is a girl. She popped out a baby and everything. :V

Anyway of course the trouble with all of this is if we have to attract Good writers to attract good writers, how do we attract good writers in the first place?

Oh, we have good writers. The trick is getting them to actually write RariJack.

I mean, it isn't like there's some LAZY AUTHOR with like 800 followers who has five unfinished RariJack stories just WAITING TO BE EDITED/FINISHED. And another one that's incomplete.

I mean, that's competely ridiculous. Asinine, even.

...

YOU SAW NOTHING.

But, seriously, you get good by learning how to write better. My first story ever was Crepes, and while it was a valiant first effort, it was a major learning experience and is not up to the quality of my later works. The surest way to get good writers is to become one, then you can write good stories and no one can tell you no. :V

We even have the prompt tag for people to practice writing minifics in.

4809806
I said artists. I never said it was just WD; just the opposite, in fact. But it's undeniable that a handful of prolific artists can drive a significant amount of growth in a short period of time. RariJack has a relatively large number of artists, and it has attracted a good chunk of the prolific artists. Not all of them are as focused on it as WD at least used to be, but they still end up contributing at least here and there.

FlutterDash actually has more stories than AppleDash I believe

Right, but that's basically irrelevant. My point was that AppleDash and TwiDash don't have too much that's new or interesting left to be written, so people need to move to one of the smaller ships. There's a dearth of good Pinkie shipping incorporating post-S3. I mean, there's some great DashPie and TwiPie, but it's old. I just want to see new things being done with the other ships. And for goodness' sake, we need some good RariPie and FlutterPie. Those are each under 100 stories.

Though TwiShy getting popular isn't surprising, I see Twilight and Flutters as peoples top 2 all the time, usually the same people who relate to one relate to the other as well surprised it didn't happen even earlier.

What I had heard was that it was too "boring" of a ship. Apparently, either people saw the lack of stories or saw that TwiShy was incoming (they have a cutie map episode coming up) or maybe even saw one of mine and decided they liked the ship. The last one's a stretch, but I like the fact that it's a possibility.

4810095

Speaking of Magnum and Rarity's parents in general, I am surprised they don't show up in Rarity stories more. We've seen how different they are from Rarity, there's pretty easy but not very explored potential conflict and feels there. And in the context of Rarijack, a story where Rari and AJ get together with Rarity's parents and AJ has an easier time relating to them and stuff than Rarity herself or something like that.

I don't know I really really want to write some fics, I have a ton of ideas. Not just for Rarijack, and sometimes I start on them. But inevitably I end up feeling my dialog is super wooden and my descriptions not good enough and just give up, which I suppose is not the right attitude to have.

Well right now is a bit of an exception compared to what it's been for the last few weeks, and I think with the new Pie Sisters being big right now the featured box will be a bit more diverse for a few weeks. Before everyone forgets about them and goes back to their default state. Like what's happened almost every time a new character has appeared to become popular in the last 2 or so years. But yeah like most of the last two weeks everytime I would check FIMfiction the box would be pretty much 70% Twilight.

Of course the Princesses have more than the CMC, hell I think Luna alone has about as much as RARITY, APPLEJACK and FLUTTERSHY combined. Though personally Iv never really cared for them but love the CMC, stories about Sweetie and Rarity, Scoots and Dash all that good stuff. Though If I had to chose one it'd be Celestia. The best thing the Princesses have going for them is backstory and I find the tragedy of actually having to banish your sister and then live 1000 years without her is more interesting than the tragedy of going crazy and evil and being banished by your sister. Also the fandom around Luna used to be really annoying, so that kinda turned me off on her.

Yeah with FlutterDash I do think that is the ship that has the most borderline exclusively write this ship writers, And I do admire the dedication required to write like 30+ stories about the same thing, but most of them are at best decent. Though to be fair sometimes good fics slip through the cracks unnoticed so I wouldn't just blanket judge all the Flutterdash in the last year, and ultimately getting decent is usually better than getting almost nothing. But those numbers on those Rarijack fics make me think we really do have an interested base audience if people actually wrote it.

4810115

Well I think Pinkie in general is the hardest character to ship, and in regards to those two ships I can't really see anything the characters have in common and the opposites attract fans of Rarity and Fluttershy are mostly already gonna be on Rarijack and Flutterdash. Plus in RariPie's case it is hurt by the fact that they have always interacted very little in the show so there's not much to make people think "I really like this dynamic" before getting into fan fiction.

As for TwiShy, iv never really given it much thought so I got no opinion there really.

4809099

Basically, our most consistent writer is Merc, and he writes humanized stuff, that most people tend to avoid because ugh no hooves 0/10.

My life is suffering. And I'm so retarded I'm writing another long humanized RariJack fic too. if I was just smarter I'd give them hooves and call it good.

4810297

Plus in RariPie's case it is hurt by the fact that they have always interacted very little in the show so there's not much to make people think "I really like this dynamic" before getting into fan fiction.

Ships have sailed on absolutely nothing before. See: Flutter de Lis, Mac and Cheese, any Tom ship...

Basically, the gist of this is, there's not a lot of logic in shipping. There's fuel with any Mane 6 ship (yes, even RariPie), and someone will write it, if only for the sake of being the only one to do so, but I just wish it was more evenly distributed. There seem to be a lot of ships with 200-300 stories, but it'd be nice if we could at least get the less popular ships to the triple digits. The way I see it, if a ship has over 100 fics, there should be at least one good fic, and that's the bare minimum I expect from each ship. 'S just kind of a shame how Pinkie especially has almost no one shipping her nowadays, despite her being perhaps the most interesting and complex character on the show.

4810389

Well you are right I suppose, hell Id consider TwiDash at first to be a ship that sailed on nothing, and it's obviously mega popular. As I said earlier, Pinkie is just hard to work with when it comes to shipping.

4810489
Pinkie is a special case. It's fairly easy to write a competent Pinkie Pie--just show that she has a method to her madness and she's more than just random jokes and fourth wall antics. It's much harder to write a great Pinkie, with subtler shades of characterization.

She's one of the ones with the most range as far as shipping goes. She has shown a pretty wide emotional range, which opens up a lot of possibilities. That means it's easier to mess up with her, since there isn't really a set way we'd expect her to behave, but it also means that she can really stand out if she's well-written. That's why so many people rave over Pinkie episodes. When she's at her best, it's arguably the best stuff the show has to offer.

4808569 I wished I know I love this Ship its like my second favorite Rarity ship.

4810566
That reason is called Twilight's List.

Also, I suspect, A) they're the two most popular characters and B) they're the two most popular characters to self-insert as in a romance fic. You can either be the cool ambitious person dating the nerd, or the nerd dating the cool ambitious person.

4810297

Of course the Princesses have more than the CMC, hell I think Luna alone has about as much as RARITY, APPLEJACK and FLUTTERSHY combined.

I'm not quite sure about that, mostly because of the huge number of M6 tagged stories. Though I would be unsurprised if Luna has actually starred in more stories than those three.

Oh well. Everyone loves princesses, right?

And just think: Celestia is even more popular.

I totally break those rules though. For my stories, my most popular tags are:

Rarity: 11
Applejack: 10
Twilight Sparkle: 9
Princess Celestia: 7
Princess Luna: 5
Fluttershy: 4
Spike: 4
Rainbow Dash: 4
Granny Smith: 3

Everyone: 22
Teen: 7
Mature: 1

Slice of Life: 13
Romance: 11
Comedy: 9
Dark: 4
Random: 3

So... uh, okay, lots of Princess time. But lots of Rarity and Applejack too!

And a surprisingly large amount of Spike. I didn't realize I had him tagged on four stories.

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*pats* Don't worry Merc, I still love you.

Still need to read more of your stuff, though.

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Well that might be something, I think Rarijack has a lot more casual shippers that don't really read or write fan fiction compared to the other big ships, despite the fic numbers something in my gut just tells me if you put up a Rarijack vs AppleDash poll on a standard fandom site like EQD or MLPForums something like, Rarijack would narrowly win. But yeah not even the huge growth the ship has had in fans overall in the last year, mostly thanks to Rarijack Daily has been able to drive people into writing Rarijack fic. And I really do think at this point FIMfiction is significantly out of line with the rest of the fandom, like I pretty much never see AppleDash talked about outside of here anymore. It's just weird because of the major Mane 6 F/F ships Rarijack is the only one in this situation of being so popular in one field but having trouble in another.

People like to say "o it's hard to believably ship them, they are too different". But again, Flutterdash, now FlutterDash might have a meh level of fic quality but it still gets tons of them. And have people really forgotten that one of the most popular purely fanon things is Octavia/Vinyl? Where the fandom basically set out to make the most opposites attract ship possible.

As for TwiDash I basically just think that ship happened almost entirely cause Twilight and Dash were the two most popular characters when it did, even though they had next to no dynamic or interaction! And since then they kind of just fed off each others fan fics for a very fanon powered ship, it was lucky to become popular at hte peak of the fandom, that pretty much means it'll be be popular forever. Sadly Rarijack was always KINDA popular but it didn't get to be top tier popular until around after Season 4 or so, so that might be another reason, it kinda missed out on the era where peoples shipping preferences calcified.

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I have to say, you are wrong about Dash being top 2, she was when TwiDash got popular but she's pretty much consistently posted 3rd or fourth in most polls since around 2013 with Fluttershy basically being a consistent second, of all the characters she's one of the few who is LESS popular now than at the start. Weirdly enough on FIMfiction that shift never really happened. Probably because since as I said before, she was already featured so much that people on this site, being more influenced by Fan fiction than elsewhere just generally like her more than the rest of the fandom.

Also with a lot of the Mane 6 tagged stories they'll have the main main character tagged seperately, the ones that don't are usually ether True Group stories, or stealth Twilight stories.

Celestia is tagged a bit more yes, she's about the same as Twilight but I would bet many more of the stories tagged with Luna actually feature her in a protagonist role, honestly I would not be surprised if Luna was a protagonist in more stories than anyone other than Twilight. O and speaking of Spike, he's actually tagged in more stories than all the Not Rainbow or Twilight Mane 6.

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Love you too, sunshine.

And the feeling is mutual. I'm looking forward to the end of Shotgun Wedding, gosh-darn it.

Eh. I don't understand how TwiDash became that popular, even if the two characters don't have much actual interactions. It's sooo...

Gotta say, discussions like this are absolutely fascinating.

In any case, I don't quite keep up to date with fanfiction trends-. Partly because I don't tend to read much fic at all, much less fic centered around ships I don't care for. Still, this 'state of the ship' business is kind of amusing, if ultimately moot. Y'know why?

Because Rarijack is canon, dammit. Or, well, I may have these shipping goggles on, but still. It's not quite on the level of LyraBon's "Best Friends," but, well, come on. I'm sure someone here can find the appropriate gif's.

(On a side note, I totally got in on the Korrasami bandwagon around Season 3, and we know how that turned out, so I now assume my finely tuned naval radar is able to identify artillery at a long distance).

I dare say all my fics are Rarijack fics, as they're all set in the same vague continuity. Or something. They're a fun pair to write, especially since "high society lady and rough and tumble farmhand" is pretty much straight out of the screwball comedy handbook. I might even have a vague idea for a new Rarijack centered fic, but it'll probably be a little while before I get around to starting on it.

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That's an... odd summary of her rationale behind it. She had a list of the pros and cons of Rainbow Dash and Applejack, and decided arbitrarily (or so she thinks) between them.

Also, it isn't a real date, it is a practice date.

The basic premise of the story is that Twilight asks Rainbow Dash to humor her with a practice date, while Rainbow Dash doesn't realize that it is supposed to be such. HILARITY AND/OR HEARTBREAK ENSUES. Though there's the implication (as shown by her reluctance to discard Rainbow Dash's sheet) that maybe there's something a bit more to it than that on Twilight's part, and she doesn't even recognize it.

The story actually goes through... a pretty good list of reasons, not in the front of the story, but in the actual date, of why Rainbow Dash might be interesting to Twilight Sparkle.

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They hang out together a lot.

And the relationship actually has a lot of the same things going for it as RariJack.

As with Applejack and Rarity, Twilight and Rainbow Dash are foils. Twilight is extremely smart, while Rainbow Dash is very athletic. Twilight is the best magic-user, while Rainbow Dash is the best flyer. Twilight values thought over action, Rainbow Dash values action over thought. Rainbow Dash is quick to judge, Twilight tends to be cooler and more rational. But at the same time, they do both have a lot in common - both of them spend a lot of time practicing to be the best and know that hard work and dedication is important to get to the top (though Rainbow Dash resents the idea of having to be brainy to be the best athlete, she doesn't have any problem with physically practicing). Both of them are ambitious. Both of them are very loyal to their friends. Both of them are actually fairly quick to make friends (a trait Twilight didn't have at first, but gains over the course of the series). Both are leaders. Both are charismatic.

And, yes, they both like Daring Do.

There's a lot of similarities, but a lot of them are shown differently - both are the best, but while Twilight is humble, Rainbow Dash is arrogant. Rainbow Dash likes showing off, while Twilight doesn't. They react differently to things, but are foils, just as Rarity and Applejack are - while they have a lot in common, they have very different takes on things.

It is why it is one of the best ships, along with AppleDash and RariJack. A lot of the strongest ships are about pairing foils, and indeed, one of the strengths of the show is the fact that so many of the characters are foils for each other in different ways.

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To be fair, I think the actual writers of the show have made jokes about shipping RariJack.

Clearly, that's what's going to happen when they finally cancel MLP:FIM: they'll go out in a blaze of glory and lesbian ponies.

Admittedly at this point, there's actually a popular children's show with a F/F pairing in it already (Steven Universe, which outright says the characters are in a relationship), and no one has burned down Cartoon Network yet, so, really, I don't think it is even a big deal anymore.

But I don't actually expect them to make any of the MLP characters explicitly lesbians. I certainly don't expect any of the mane six to actually get in a relationship with anyone (inside or outside the group) until the show ends (crushes and such don't really interfere with anything, but throwing in a whole new character would be a struggle. Unless they shipped someone with Big Mac, but I think that's been taken care of ).

Though to be honest, if I was being super duper cynical, if they were ever worried about the ratings, they could totally make some of the characters gay or bi and try and stir up "controversy"/interest to draw more people into the show.

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PS. I am super excited about you writing more anything :V

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Well obviously no ship is canon, But Rarijack is definitely the ship that gets the most fuel (I mean really how can you take that sign with them on it and a heart between them as anything but a silly little tease?) and it's talked about a lot around the fandom. One of the many reasons it lagging this way is surprising.

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I think Shutupp is basically saying that toward TwiDash fic existing back then at all. That the entire ship had no basis.

Well they hang out a lot more now, but when it got popular I think it really was fair to say that they had very little interactions and not much of a dynamic. That changed over time, Season 4 onward in particular they share a lot more scenes but back when TwiDash got big it had next to nothing beyond both of them being very popular.

I agree with a lot of what you said on them being foils, But I just can't see Twilight as Ambitious. Most of her progress in life ever since becoming Celestia's student has effectively just been dumped on her. Can't really think she was working toward a goal beyond "I wanna know all I can know!".I mean the closest thing to Ambition I can give her was her wanting to do more as a Princess, but that felt more born out her feeling pointless and useless than ambition.

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Wouldn't be much of a problem in the US anymore, but it might be in one of the many countries where the show is dubbed. Like Russia or something.

Having said that IF it did happen Rarijack would pretty much be the only one that could be done believably. AppleDash just doesn't interact enough and hasn't since the end of the first season and while TwiDash is in better shape on that front currently it's also not enough. MAYBE FlutterDash. A lot more time has been invested into Rarity and Applejacks relationship than pretty much any other. But yeah Rarijack is teased enough that I think it's pretty obvious some of the writers and animators kinda want to do it.

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Twilight is ambitious, but undirected in her ambition. She LIKES being useful and accomplishing useful things, but she doesn't really care what they are - she just likes feeling useful doing whatever. But she gets frustrated NOT being useful or being left out or not being good enough.

Wouldn't be much of a problem in the US anymore, but it might be in one of the many countries where the show is dubbed. Like Russia or something.

Well, in principle, maybe. In practice, they show Steven Universe all over the place, and there's not really any hiding the lesbians there, seeing as a there's a major F/F relationship and a F/F crush is a major plot point for multiple episodes.

taking a look through the AppleDash group made me think we actually aren't in as bad a situation as I thought, since some point in 2014 the Rarijack and AppleDash groups seem to actually have had near identical upload rates with maybe like 4 or 5 more stories for AppleDash. I think people might be right when they say Mane 6 shipping just isn't as popular as it used to be. But most of the reason this group seems to be so behind the other major ships seems to be that it just didn't explode in popularity till significantly past the peak.

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Incidentally, I think that mane six shipping is really still quite popular, I just think that not a whole lot of people are writing it. A lot of the big shippers have either moved on to writing other things or have stopped writing altogether, which is a big part of the problem.

I mean, look at me; I used to write pretty much nothing but shipfics, but only 2 of the last 10 stories I wrote were shipfics.

Though that is slightly misleading; I actually have a bunch of partially finished ones.

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O yeah definitely, like on the art front there's been no slow down at all, I mean I think Rarijack actually has only been gaining images at a faster rate there in the last year, and AppleDash and TwiDash have been no slouches in that department ether.

Yeah I Think all you are saying about writers is true, old guard ether moving to different types of stories or just leaving. And the newer writers just seem to be less interested in ship fics than they were.

Having said what I said about AppleDash and Rarijack, that leave them still as top ships... but getting their asses kicked by TwiDash and FlutterDash pretty badly at least in sheer number, since almost no one seems to read or give many likes to the masses of FlutterDash fics that get uploaded, AppleDash and Rarijack have a much stronger view count and likes average. I think unlike a lot of other ships FlutterDash still just has a fair bit of really dedicated writers who churn it out still, but they aren't very good. TwiDash of course is just that this site is mega fixated on those two characters.

And for a fun note, one ship that actually I think might be bucking the slowdown trend and gaining some momentum: RariDash. It's actually slightly out preformed both AppleDash and Rarijack in the last few months, finally getting a shared episode for Rarity and Rainbow seems to have given it a kick in the ass and inspired some writers to try writing it, even a few who were previously pretty much 1 ship writers like Monochromatic.