Which ships are the most popular with fic writers?: An empirical study of Wattpad

[pilosophos]

Introduction​

Did you know there's over 31 thousand ships named in the Neverending Romance thread? Have you ever wanted to know which ones are actually popular, or have anybody actually shipping them at all?
I wrote a little program that would search Wattpad for every single ship name on that thread plus "pokemon" (to make sure the fics were actually about the Pokémon franchise), which could appear anywhere in the title, content, summary, or tags. The full search took place over the span of about 3 days.

I chose Wattpad over AO3 because it has been popular for longer and still has sizeable userbase[1], so I figured it would have better representation of the all-time shipping landscape (since Wattpad's inception in 2006, anyway), including what was (IMO) the heyday of shipping 10 years ago. I'm currently trying to get data from AO3, but this has been proceeding at a glacial pace due to network problems, so Wattpad is all I have.

I tried to scrape FanFiction.net, but I am running into issues with CloudFlare, so unfortunately we won't have data from 1998-2006 (Pokémon came out just two years prior, in 1996).

[1] For reference, see the worldwide search popularity for Wattpad, FFN, and AO3 according to Google Trends. Wattpad is only 16 percentage points behind AO3 (57 - 41) as of today, relative to the all-time peak search interest among the three.

How many ships actually have a fic written for them?​

Of the 31.8K ships listed in Neverending Romance, only 1.3% of them, or 422 ships, have at least one fic written that mentions the ship by name. It's possible that some pairings are actually represented in a fic but not tagged by their ship name, but these are not counted here.

Spoiler: Full list of ships with at least 1 fic on Wattpad

AdvancedShipping
AdvanceShipping
AdventurerShipping
AgainstShipping
AgencyShipping
AirplaneShipping
AlmiaShipping
AlmostAmourShipping
AlohaShipping
AlolaShipping
AlphaFemaleShipping
AltoShipping
AmazingContestBattleShipping
AmberShipping
AmourShipping
AnemoneShipping
AnnemaeShipping
AntigravityShipping
AppealShipping
AquariumPlantShipping
ArmorShipping
ArroganceShipping
AshesShipping
AshShipping
AuraShipping
AureliaShipping
AuroraShipping
AurumShipping
AuthorityShipping
BadAttitudeShipping
BadTasteShipping
BattleShipping
BeaconShipping
BeautifulAndTerrifyingShipping
BeautifulWorldShipping
BelleShipping
BigBoyShipping
BittersweetShipping
BlackSoulShipping
BlacksquaredShipping
BlackSteelShipping
BloomBoltShipping
BlueAngelShipping
BlueOrbShipping
BlueShipping
BoulderShipping
BoutiqueShipping
BrattyShipping
BriarShipping
BrightTomorrowShipping
BrocketShipping
BrokenheartShipping
BronzeShipping
BruiseShipping
BrunetteShipping
BrunettShipping
BurningLeafShipping
BurntLedgerShipping
CafeMochaShipping
CalendarShipping
CastellanShipping
CavalierShipping
CelestialShipping
ChampionShipping
ChangeTheWorldShipping
CharmingShipping
CheckmateShipping
CheeryFairyShipping
ChessShipping
ChildhoodShipping
ChoosenShipping
ChosenShipping
ClanLeaderShipping
ClassicShipping
ClingyShipping
CloneShipping
CloseCallShipping
ColdcoffeeShipping
ColorfulShipping
ColosseumShipping
ComaShipping
CombatShipping
ComelyShipping
CommonerShipping
ConfidentShipping
ConflictingShipping
ConflictShipping
ContestKingShipping
ContestQueenShipping
ContestShipping
CorruptedShipping
CorruptShipping
CrimsonShipping
CrimsonVelvetShipping
CrossoverShipping
CrystalShipping
CuddleShipping
CurseShipping
CurtainShipping
CuteBonesShipping
CuteLoveShipping
CuteShipping
DanceShipping
DarkAmourShipping
DarkCastleShipping
DarkParadiseShipping
DarkRoseShipping
DarkUncleShipping
DeathShipping
DefeatedShipping
DeityShipping
DeliciousBerryShipping
DeliveryShipping
DethronedShipping
DiamondBirthstoneShipping
DiodeShipping
DipplinShipping
DivergentShipping
DragonFangShipping
DragonShipping
DreamgirlShipping
DreamShipping
DressedInPinkShipping
DualRivalShipping
eBoyShipping
EclipseShipping
EeveeShipping
EgoShipping
ElderShipping
EmeraldShipping
EmoteShipping
EmulateShipping
EntourageShipping
EnvyShipping
EphemeralArtShipping
EyewearShipping
FairytaleShipping
FaithShipping
FallerShipping
FancyfashionShipping
FashionDisasterShipping
FatherlyShipping
FeelingShipping
FerrisWheelShipping
FestivalShipping
FireAndIceShipping
FireFlowerShipping
FireredShipping
FireStoneShipping
FireworksShipping
FirstFriendShipping
FirstShipping
FlavescentShipping
FondantShipping
ForgetShipping
FortuneShipping
FourthWheelShipping
FranticShipping
FrappuccinoShipping
FreedomShipping
FriendShipping
FurtherShipping
GalarShipping
GayShipping
GeekChicShipping
GentryShipping
GirlPowerShipping
GojiShipping
GossipShipping
GracefulShipping
GrantedShipping
GraySkiesShipping
GreatestTreasureShipping
GretelShipping
GreySkyShipping
GymShipping
HandymanShipping
HardenShipping
HaughtyShipping
HeartGoldShipping
HeartShipping
HeartSoulShipping
HeatTagShipping
HelsingShipping
HibiscusShipping
HikariShipping
HistoryShipping
HoennChampionShipping
HoennRemakeShipping
HoennShipping
HonorShipping
HorizonShipping
HotChocolateShipping
HunterShipping
HuntShipping
HyperShipping
IceColdLemonTeaShipping
IceSparkShipping
IconShipping
IgnitionShipping
IkariShipping
IncombustibleShipping
IndieShipping
IndustrialShipping
InsectivoreShipping
IronWillShipping
IshiShipping
IsshuShipping
JadeShipping
JeerShipping
JellowShipping
JewelShipping
JohtoShipping
JourneyShipping
JoyeuxShipping
KalaShipping
KalosKingShipping
KalosShipping
KamaciteShipping
KingsRockShipping
KodakShipping
KokoShipping
KrazyShipping
LacewoodShipping
LagomorphShipping
LaserbladeShipping
LaserShipping
LaverreShipping
LeafGreenShipping
LeagueShipping
LearnerShipping
LeFeuShipping
LightrockShipping
LightShipping
LilacShipping
LionheartShipping
LonaShipping
LoverivalShipping
LuckShipping
LuckyShipping
LumietalburgShipping
LuminaryShipping
LunarEdgeShipping
LunaShipping
MangaPokeShipping
MangaQuestShipping
MangaShipping
MareShipping
MarissonShipping
MasakudoShipping
MasaraShipping
MegaDragonShipping
MegaVisionShipping
MewShipping
MirroramourShipping
MirrorShipping
MockShipping
MoodShipping
MoonlightBlossomShipping
MoonlightShipping
MoonlilyShipping
MoonRingShipping
MorningSunShipping
MorpheusShipping
MossShipping
NaheleAhiShipping
NamelessShipping
NameShipping
NegaiShipping
NeoShipping
NeverMetShipping
NewBarkShipping
NewRedShipping
NewRivalShipping
NightBloomShipping
NightGardenShipping
NOShipping
NovelShipping
ObliviaShipping
OblivionShipping
OddShipping
OldRivalShipping
OnesidedShipping
OrangeIslandShipping
OrangeShipping
OriginalShipping
OriginShipping
OthelloShipping
OutcryShipping
PaletteShipping
PalletShipping
PastelGothShipping
PearlShipping
PendantShipping
PenguinShipping
PerfectWorldShipping
PerformanceShipping
PewterShipping
PikaShipping
PokemonShipping
PokeShipping
PoliShipping
PostwickShipping
PreciousMetalShipping
PreservationShipping
PrismShipping
ProdigyShipping
PromiseShipping
ProtectiveShipping
PunkBladeShipping
PuppyShipping
PureAndInnocentShipping
PuzzleShipping
QuestShipping
RageShipping
RaimeiShipping
RaimonTownShipping
RaltsShipping
RangerSchoolShipping
RangerShipping
RareShipping
RayShipping
RedemptionShipping
RedOrbShipping
RedShipping
RedTreeShipping
RedvineShipping
ReformShipping
RescueMeShipping
RescueShipping
ResearchShipping
ResistanceShipping
RespectShipping
ReviveShipping
RhythmShipping
RibbonShipping
RingletShipping
RivalcrushShipping
RivalShipping
RocketShipping
RomanceShipping
RomanticShipping
RoyalShipping
SacredShipping
SanyouShipping
SapphirePearlShipping
ScarfShipping
SchoolShipping
SeaShipping
SecondaryShipping
SelfShipping
SenirasuShipping
SequelShipping
ShalourShipping
ShatterShipping
ShellPWNageShipping
ShiningsunShipping
ShinyShipping
ShoppingShipping
ShyShipping
SiblingShipping
SinfulShipping
SinnohShipping
SkullShipping
SkyBlueShipping
SlayerShipping
SmileShipping
SnowlilyShipping
SnowstormShipping
SnowWhiteShipping
SommelierShipping
SoulfulHeartShipping
SoulShipping
SoulSilverShipping
SpatialDawnShipping
SpecialJewelShipping
SpecialShipping
SpiceShipping
SportShipping
StarShipping
SteamShipping
SteelCareShipping
SticksAndStonesShipping
StoneGardenShipping
SuavehairShipping
SunAndMoonShipping
SunflowerShipping
SunlightShipping
SunsetShipping
TechShipping
TeencareShipping
TenderShipping
TenthShipping
ThwartShipping
TimelessShipping
TotalEclipseShipping
TrainShipping
TrainwreckShipping
TransceiverShipping
TreasuredShipping
TrueRivalShipping
TrustedPartnerShipping
TwinleafShipping
UnkNownShipping
UnovaShipping
UnworldlyShipping
VainShipping
VatonageShipping
VermilionShipping
VioletShipping
ViridianShipping
VisorShipping
VoidCubeShipping
WhimsicalShipping
WhitesquareShipping
WhiteTruthShipping
WishfulShipping
WishShipping
XEvolutionShipping
XYZShipping
YumeShipping
ZenithShipping

Which ships are most popular?​

Since the search page lists the total number of results at the top of the page, we can use this as a proxy for the popularity of the ship. As expected, ships involving Ash (highlighted in red) are extremely popular, with his ships taking up half of the top-10 spots. Of these, PokéShipping (Ash & Misty) is the most popular. Interestingly, RocketShipping (Jessie & James), which gave us the -Shipping suffix, is nowhere in the top 10, ranking instead at #13, tied with EgoShipping (Gary & Misty).

Pokéspe ships are also well represented, with the top manga ship, OldRivalShipping (Green(m) & Blue(f)), ranking at #7, and SpecialShipping at #10 (Red & Yellow). My favorite ship, CommonerShipping (Diamond & Platinum) ranks #46.

Aside from PokémonShipping (which may represent any gender pair), the top-10 is dominated by hetships. The first non-hetship in the ranking is a manga ship, OriginalShipping (Green (m) & Red), at rank #11.

Note that the #6 spot, PokemonShipping, is a catch-all ship name referring to shipping of any Pokémon in any combination. Specific Pokémon pairings may have their own ship names.
AdvancedShipping was also removed from these charts, since it is the same pairing as AdvanceShipping. If you search for one term instead of the other, you still get the same number of fics.

Spoiler: Top 100 ships

Who are the most shipped characters?​

Here, I count the number of fics that ship a given character with another. Given the popularity of Ash ships, Ash takes the #1 spot again by a wide margin, followed by 3 of his companions (Misty, Dawn, and Serena). Three Pokéspe characters, Green(m), Red, and Blue(f), are represented in the top 10, all introduced in the first arc.

Spoiler: Top 100 most shipped characters

Conclusion​

• The vast majority of named ships have no fics written about them.
• Ash ships are really popular.
• Anime ships are more popular than manga ships, but both make the top 10 of all ships.
• RocketShipping, which gave us the -Shipping suffix, doesn't even make it to the top 10.

Some additional discussion on possible biases from usage of -Shipping names, as well as biases regarding regions where AO3/Wattpad is popular is available in this post.

 

[Welkamo]

This is really fascinating stuff. I love fandom studies, and graphs? Data????? Yummy yummy.

I would be curious what these numbers look like on other sites, because the audience for, say, Wattpad (both for writers and readers) is different from that of AO3, or a forum specific to Pokemon, and so on. I also wonder how the numbers would compare to shipfics without the ship names. A lot of little factors build up in statistics, and it’s really interesting stuff.

 

[RichestAirPirate]

Ooooh! Interesting! Interesting! I wonder what the numbers for others sites would look like.
Although I'm like 99% sure Ash would dominated no matter what the site you look at. Main character privilege I suppose.

 

[ii kanji]

I love the effort that’s gone into this! As Welkamo said I think that in order to build up a more accurate picture (e.g. Ikarishipping seems to be bizarrely overrepresented here lol), getting data from AO3 and ff.net would be crucial, but it’s fun to see the spread on Wattpad.

It would also be very interesting to see how it’s all changed over time. The dominance of the het ships for example feels very dated, probably because acceptance of LGBTQ+ people in general was comparatively so poor in that shipping “heyday”.

 

[Mialentia]

I also think checking AO3 would probably paint a more accurate picture, not only because that site has been favored by a lot of people over Wattpad in recent years, but because the tagging system on AO3 would allow for getting much more accurate numbers than just searching the ship name like you had to do for Wattpad (especially since Pokémon ship names are infamously obtuse and unknown by the majority of people).

Any ship that came into existence in the past 10 or so years is inevitably going to have much less presence on Wattpad compared to AO3, which seems pretty obvious to me given the most recent ship in the top 10 on Wattpad is from 2016 (Ash/Lillie). Now, of course, heavy-hitters like Poké and Amour will still be very high up even there, but I expect we'll get bigger numbers as well as more accurate ones over on the archive. also I hope Liko/Dot will show up on there that time lol

Edit: out of curiosity, I went to check the top 10 relationships on AO3. Here's the numbers (reminder that ships marked with a "/" are romantic and ships marked with a "&" are platonic!):

#1: Blue/Red - 1872 fics
#2: Emmet & Ingo - 1652 fics
#3: Leon/Raihan - 1406 fics
#4: Misty/Ash - 1342 fics
#5: Goh/Ash - 1159 fics
#6: Ash/Serena - 971 fics
#7: Ash & Pikachu - 958 fics
#8: Lysandre/Sycamore - 833 fics
#9: Gary/Ash - 768 fics
#10: Emmet/Ingo - 698 fics

If you combine both platonic and romantic submas pairings, then they rise to #1 and the new #10 appears to be Archie/Maxie with 660 fics.

Much like on Wattpad, Ash is very present in the top 10, though he's surprisingly entirely absent from the top three. We also see a lot more M/M ships to accompany het ships, though F/F is still sadly absent (which is a site-wide phenomenon, not limited to the Pokémon fandom).
We also see a lot of game ships to go with anime ships, with manga ships appearing to be absent (unless Blue/Red also includes their manga incarnations? I admit I'm unfamiliar with Pokéspe, so I couldn't say). Still no Rocketshipping either.

I think I'll make a separate reply with top 10s separated by the main Pokémon media types (Ashime, Horizons, Pokéspe, games), because I love stats too, lol

 

[kintsugi]

this is so cool!! I love little data digs like this. I'm kind of surprised to see empirical proof that Drew was really punching above his non-main character non-mainline game weight class. I'm also not really surprised to see <2% representation of the ship list on Wattpad specifically.

Rocketshipping being the best pun perhaps in franchise history and still not cracking top 10 is such a tragedy.

 

[Mialentia]

Other Top 10 ships by fic count on Archive of Our Own, filtered by media type:

Ash Anime:

#1: Misty/Ash (1113)
#2: Goh/Ash (1101)
#3: Ash & Pikachu (773)
#4: Ash/Serena (706)
#5: Gary/Ash (617)
#6: Goh & Ash (465)
#7: James/Jessie (390)
#8: Gary & Ash (327)
#9: May/Drew (323)
#10: Kukui & Ash (306)

This top 10 is almost exclusively comprised of Ash ships, with the only exceptions being Jessie/James (finally!) and May/Drew, which previously appeared on the Wattpad ranking. Also of note is the fact Ash & Pikachu and Ash/Serena swapped places between the general AO3 top 10 and this one, somehow.

Pokémon Horizons:

#1: Dot/Liko (282)
#2: Dot & Liko (78)
#3: Liko & Roy (74)
#4: Dot & Liko & Roy (55)
#5: Amethio/Friede (53)
#6: Amethio & Liko (51)
#7: Friede & Liko (40)
#8: Amethio & Friede (37)
#9: Liko/Roy (36)
#10: Amethio/Liko (31)

Given I used to be very active in the HZ fandom, I can attest that Liko/Dot's utter domination of this fandom isn't an accident: while it's currently on hiatus, there used to be a community event named 60 Minute LikoDot which saw fans make a piece of fan art in an hour for the ship. The event was held every two weeks, and all forms of art were accepted, leading some to write fanfiction for the event on multiple occasions. Like me. Oops.
(also not to be too Mia about this but the fact it took a coordinated fandom effort to get One Yuri Ship in Any Top Ten across the entire franchise is kind of depressing. we need to write about lesbians more)

Pokéspe:

#1: Gold/Silver (325)
#2: Sapphire/Ruby (193)
#3: Blue/Red (178)
#4: Red/Yellow (164)
#5: Black/White (116)
#6: Green/Blue (90)
#7: Crystal/Gold (83)
#8: Ethan/Silver (57)
#9: X/Y (49)
#9: Blake/Whitley (49)

This Top 10 does not have a single platonic ship, and also features a tie. How unusual! This ranking also has the most het ships of any of them, with (I believe) seven out of ten of them being het.

Main Series Games:

#1: Emmet & Ingo (1543)
#2: Leon/Raihan (1364)
#3: Blue/Red (1314)
#4: Lysandre/Sycamore (768)
#5: Emmet/Ingo (628)
#6: Archie/Maxie (574)
#7: Raihan/Piers (484)
#8: Wallace/Steven (478)
#9: Gladion/Selene (464)
#10: N/Hilbert (417)

One single platonic ship in the ranking, and it reigns supreme over any other game ship. I knew the subway masters were popular, but this is still a surprise to me! Also, Selene is the only female character to appear in the ranking at all.

 

[Daren]

I had the impression that Rocketshipping has fallen off in popularity (more recently I see some fandom assumption they're both queer and Jessie apparently started getting shipped with Delia Ketchum), but I'm a bit surprised to see it didn't even hit top 10 on Wattpad.
Absolutely amazed to see how high Paul and especially Drew rank there, too.

Ash and Pikachu is shockingly big on AO3, it seems. But bigger than Rocketshipping? I feel so old and out of touch.

 

[WholesomeCryptid]

Main Series Games:

#1: Emmet & Ingo (1543)
#2: Leon/Raihan (1364)
#3: Blue/Red (1314)
#4: Lysandre/Sycamore (768)
#5: Emmet/Ingo (628)
#6: Archie/Maxie (574)
#7: Raihan/Piers (484)
#8: Wallace/Steven (478)
#9: Gladion/Selene (464)
#10: N/Hilbert (417)

Originshipping in the gameverse top 10 my OTP keeps winning!!! the perks of having a popular favorite ship i suppose.

 

[pilosophos]

I would be curious what these numbers look like on other sites, because the audience for, say, Wattpad (both for writers and readers) is different from that of AO3, or a forum specific to Pokemon, and so on. I also wonder how the numbers would compare to shipfics without the ship names. A lot of little factors build up in statistics, and it’s really interesting stuff.

I also think checking AO3 would probably paint a more accurate picture, not only because that site has been favored by a lot of people over Wattpad in recent years, but because the tagging system on AO3 would allow for getting much more accurate numbers than just searching the ship name like you had to do for Wattpad (especially since Pokémon ship names are infamously obtuse and unknown by the majority of people).

A couple things:

AO3 native ship tags vs -Shipping ship names
I've figured out a more efficient way to scrape AO3 search results, so I'll have data on occurrences of all the different <Something>Shipping in fics in the next few days rather than in a month or so. Thanks Mialentia for researching the Top 10s on AO3 also!

I'm not done scraping but so far, but based on preliminary findings, fics that make use of the -Shipping name compared to fics that are tagged by AO3's native ship tagger are a lot sparser. For instance, on AO3, there are 388 fics containing AmourShipping as opposed to 971 fics tagged Serena/Ash, as Mia found. It's kinda sad actually, I think the -Shipping names are part of what makes our fandom so unique. We should totally encourage people to use them.

I didn't search for Misty/Ash instead of AmourShipping for Wattpad initially, as Mia mentioned, the Wattpad tagging system is not very robust, and I was worried about false positives being turned up by the search algorithm.

For the upcoming purposes of comparing with the Wattpad data specifically, I'll continue to use the -Shipping because it will create a more controlled comparison, but I do agree that using the native AO3 tags would be more holistic. I suspect people who use the -Shipping name are older or are deeper into the fandom than those who don't, but I don't know yet what the implications will be. Once I have the -Shipping data, I'll take the relative ship rankings from that and compare it with the AO3 tags rankings using a Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test, to see if there is a significant difference in rankings between people who use the -Shipping name vs people who don't.

Possible Anglosphere and Chinese bias in AO3 data
I definitely think looking at AO3 data is worthwhile (and I'm currently gathering the data), but I actually do not think AO3 by itself would a better representation of Pokémon ship-fic writers globally. Based on Google Trends data, while AO3 is significantly more popular in much of the Anglosphere (e.g. in the United States, 89% of peak popularity > 17%), China (following the Xiao Zhan incident, in 2020), the exact opposite is true in many other regions, including Latin & South America, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, and to a lesser degree, Continental Europe (see the Compared breakdown by region in this Google Trends comparison).

On Wattpad, if I search commonershipping,pokemon, 17% of the fics are in a non-English language (most popularly, Spanish). Evidently, people from non-Anglophone countries are aware of these -Shipping names and using it in their fics. Since AO3 skews Anglophone/Chinese, my hypothesis is that AO3 is not representative of -Shipping fic authors around the world.

Of course, by the same logic, neither is Wattpad by itself since it has lacked much of the Anglosphere demographic in the past few years. Probably the best thing to do is, once I have the results of the -Shipping searches from both sites, to just add the fic numbers together. This should provide a more balanced view of the shipping landscape.

 

[pilosophos]

This Top 10 does not have a single platonic ship, and also features a tie. How unusual! This ranking also has the most het ships of any of them, with (I believe) seven out of ten of them being het.

Pokéspe:

#1: Gold/Silver (325)
#2: Sapphire/Ruby (193)
#3: Blue/Red (178)
#4: Red/Yellow (164)
#5: Black/White (116)
#6: Green/Blue (90)
#7: Crystal/Gold (83)
#8: Ethan/Silver (57)
#9: X/Y (49)
#9: Blake/Whitley (49)

I think this might be a result of how shippy the manga authors are, dating back to the Ruby and Sapphire era. FranticShipping (Sapphire/Ruby) is canon (they openly confess their feelings to each other), they drop strong hints for AgencyShipping (Black/White), and LaverreShipping (X/Y) has the benefit two main characters who are childhood friends. (CommonerShipping (Diamond/Platinum) is canonically at least a one-sided attraction, but that's not in the top 10).

The fact that there are actual canon or near-canon ships in the manga (which are all het) stands in stark contrast with the Anime, where the showrunners were allergic to Ash being in love with anyone up until XY (disclaimer: I only watched up to Johto plus the first season of XY when it came out). AmourShipping being consistently popular is no surprise since it's the most canon Ash ship we'd ever seen up to that point. Aside from that, when there are no or few canon couples, fans have to fill in the void. Due to the demographic for fic writers on AO3, the bias favors non-het ships.

 

[Welkamo]

I'm not done scraping but so far, but based on preliminary findings, fics that make use of the -Shipping name compared to fics that are tagged by AO3's native ship tagger are a lot sparser. For instance, on AO3, there are 388 fics containing AmourShipping as opposed to 971 fics tagged Serena/Ash, as Mia found. It's kinda sad actually, I think the -Shipping names are part of what makes our fandom so unique. We should totally encourage people to use them.

I think this may be a bit harder on AO3 compared to other sites because of how tag wrangling and standardization works over there (maybe this is the case for FFN too). Having a standard way of tagging ships across fandoms makes it easier to decide on what format to use regardless of fandom (whereas with a case-by-case basis there are so many ways different fandoms name ships, and even within a fandom one ship might have several names).

I definitely think looking at AO3 data is worthwhile (and I'm currently gathering the data), but I actually do not think AO3 by itself would a better representation of Pokémon ship-fic writers globally. Based on Google Trends data, while AO3 is significantly more popular in much of the Anglosphere (e.g. in the United States, 89% of peak popularity > 17%), China (following the Xiao Zhan incident, in 2020), the exact opposite is true in many other regions, including Latin & South America, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, and to a lesser degree, Continental Europe (see the Compared breakdown by region in this Google Trends comparison).

Yeah, language bias is a big issue in fandom studies/internet studies as a whole (because a lot of websites/especially ones popular with fandoms are based in the Anglosphere or China, or Japan). I do know that Japanese fandom at least has a different way of naming Pokemon ships, and most fanworks are on Twitter or Pixiv, though I'm not sure about other countries/languages.

 

[pilosophos]

Edit: out of curiosity, I went to check the top 10 relationships on AO3. Here's the numbers (reminder that ships marked with a "/" are romantic and ships marked with a "&" are platonic!):

#1: Blue/Red - 1872 fics
#2: Emmet & Ingo - 1652 fics
#3: Leon/Raihan - 1406 fics
#4: Misty/Ash - 1342 fics
#5: Goh/Ash - 1159 fics
#6: Ash/Serena - 971 fics
#7: Ash & Pikachu - 958 fics
#8: Lysandre/Sycamore - 833 fics
#9: Gary/Ash - 768 fics
#10: Emmet/Ingo - 698 fics

How did you get these numbers? When I use the AO3 native tag search with these settings, I'm getting significantly different fic counts that change the ranking. I'm seeing Leon/Raihan (1898 fics) at the #1 spot, and Lysandre/Sycamore (433 fics). I doubt there have been 300 new Leon/Raihan fics published since yesterday, so we must be doing something differently.

 

[Mialentia]

How did you get these numbers? When I use the AO3 native tag search with these settings, I'm getting significantly different fic counts that change the ranking. I'm seeing Leon/Raihan (1898 fics) at the #1 spot, and Lysandre/Sycamore (433 fics). I doubt there have been 300 new Leon/Raihan fics published since yesterday, so we must be doing something differently.

Oh, I just went on the fic list for the given fandom. I assume that those 300 extra have been privated or something, so they come up in the tag search but not the fic list? I am logged in, so I can see archive-locked fics just fine (that can't be the issue).

Edit: Thinking on it for a moment, it might also be due to the ship being tagged in fandoms that aren't Pokémon-related? As for the tags that lose fics on your end, maybe it's because other tags get wrangled into the main one on my end and it doesn't show through tag search.

 

[staticmoth]

Oh, I just went on the fic list for the given fandom. I assume that those 300 extra have been privated or something, so they come up in the tag search but not the fic list? I am logged in, so I can see archive-locked fics just fine (that can't be the issue).

Yeah, you're going to get conflicting data on this depending on if you're logged in to the site or not. And for accuracy, you're probably are going to want to be logged into Ao3.

Admittedly the loss of -Shipping names is a bit of a disappointment, but I agree it makes tracking the ship names for capturing this kind of data a lot easier (not to mention the work for tag wranglers.) I'm honestly kind of surprised -Shipping names actually get used on Ao3. They're just additional tags rather then relationship tags, right? (I don't normally use them for fic I upload.)

My additional question to this is, with ao3 you can also have art listed in the tags along with fic. Are they being counted in this data set as well? Does Wattpad also have art in addition to fic?

 

[pilosophos]

I now have the results of searching AO3 for fics containing -Shipping labels. I'm going to take a little break before I make the charts and stuff. As a little preview, there's 786 ships with fics in AO3 (compared with 422 in Wattpad, for a difference of 364 ships), of which 257 are represented on both sites.

Oh, I just went on the fic list for the given fandom. I assume that those 300 extra have been privated or something, so they come up in the tag search but not the fic list? I am logged in, so I can see archive-locked fics just fine (that can't be the issue).

Edit: Thinking on it for a moment, it might also be due to the ship being tagged in fandoms that aren't Pokémon-related? As for the tags that lose fics on your end, maybe it's because other tags get wrangled into the main one on my end and it doesn't show through tag search.

Ah, private fics showing up when logged in seems like a plausible explanation for tags where the fic count in your list is higher. There's also the case where logged-out tag search actually has a higher fic count (1222 > 1101 for Goh/Ash), which I don't know how to account for.

Yeah, you're going to get conflicting data on this depending on if you're logged in to the site or not. And for accuracy, you're probably are going to want to be logged into Ao3.

For ethical reasons, I want to make sure to include only publicly available fics in the data, even if it is at the cost of accuracy. For rarepairs with maybe only one or two fics (2 is the median # of fics for any given ship on Wattpad), if the dataset shows 2 total fics but only 1 is public, then a fic that has been posted as private becomes identifiable.

Admittedly the loss of -Shipping names is a bit of a disappointment, but I agree it makes tracking the ship names for capturing this kind of data a lot easier (not to mention the work for tag wranglers.) I'm honestly kind of surprised -Shipping names actually get used on Ao3. They're just additional tags rather then relationship tags, right? (I don't normally use them for fic I upload.)

As for the tags that lose fics on your end, maybe it's because other tags get wrangled into the main one on my end and it doesn't show through tag search.

It seems that some canonical ship tags (e.g. Kasumi | Misty/Satoshi | Ash Ketchum) have their -Shipping name as a synonym, but only for a limited set of ships. Searching the canonical tag in Work Search returns all fics tagged PokeShipping, but not the other way around.

A big challenge I'm facing is that I can't unambiguously relate the two characters in all the canonical tags with the characters listed for any given -Shipping name in Neverending Romance using automated means. There's 783 -Shipping tags represented in AO3, and up to 533 characters represented among those. Worst case scenario, I'd have to manually identify all 533.

In my ideal world, Bulbapedia would have a knowledge base like Wikidata, which has collections of entities in a fully machine-readable, structured format with unique identifiers (like Q9351: Pikachu). Then all the ships and character would be entities, and each ship would have a link to their corresponding tags on AO3 or whatever. I wonder if we could convince the Bulbapedia people to set that up...