A statistical analysis of the @shoot-from-the-ship results: Setting the Scene and Round 1 Results
Disclaimer: this might be one of the most insane things I've ever done.
If you're reading this, I'm guessing you've seen the bracket ranking that @shoot-from-the-ship is doing at the moment to find out what the favourite SFTH ship is. And, as someone with 3/4 of a physics degree and an obsession with SFTH, I decided to analyse the results to the best of my abilities.
This is an ongoing project that I will hopefully continue to work on as more results come out. If this doesn't interest you, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, but if this does, I hope you have at least a little bit of fun.
Setting the scene
There are 32 ships in the ranking, a list of which you can find on @shoot-from-the-ship 's blog. For all of these, I have listed:
Canon/non-canon
Straight/queer (where straight is classified as a female character and a male character and queer is classified as two male or two female characters)
Which SFTH members play the characters
Number of fics on ao3 (as of 23/7/2026)
Number of views per day for each longform (as of 23/7/2026)
The first three of these points organise the ships into categories to see if there were any general trends in the type of ship that is preferred by the fandom. The final two points are two separate measures of popularity of each ship - number of views per day being representative of the popularity of each ship amongst all SFTH fans, number of fics on ao3 being representative of the popularity of each ship amongst people who are very involved in the SFTH fandom (the thinking being that people who vote in a Tumblr poll are significantly more likely to be writing fics on ao3). The numbers for these two factors were recorded on the evening of 23/7/2026. The number of views per day was calculated by taking the number of views on YouTube recorded on the 23/7/2026 (at about 9pm) and dividing this by the number of days between the release of the longform and 23/7/2026 to account for older longforms having more time to be watched in. This is a fairly good estimate for the popularity of each longform, although it does not account for the increase in the popularity of SFTH over time, which changes the rate at which SFTH longforms are watched. However, I don't have enough time/will to attempt to account for this, so I'm taking this as a good enough estimate.
The stats for the starting 32 ships are:
21 canon ships and 11 non-canon ships
13 straight ships and 19 queer ships, of which 15 queer ships are two men and 4 queer ships are two women
All 13 of the straight ships included in the bracket are canon, whereas 8 of the queer ships are canon and 11 of the queer ships are non-canon
19 ships in which Tom plays one of the characters, 19 ships in which Luke plays one of the characters, 16 ships in which Sam plays one of the characters, 11 ships in which AJ plays one of the characters and 1 ship in which one of the characters is played by a non-SFTH member
8 ships are Luke/Sam pairings, 7 ships are Tom/Luke pairings, 6 ships are Tom/Sam pairings, 5 ships are Tom/AJ pairings, 4 ships are Luke/AJ pairings, 2 ships are Sam/AJ pairings and 1 ships is a Tom/non-SFTH member pairing
A few notes on this data before we move on to the Round 1 Results:
Clarissa/Amanda was classified as a non-canon ships due to Amanda's feelings for Clarissa being un-requited in the longform - Amanda's feelings are canon, the ship is not
The number of ao3 fics for Tomlock/Watsam is an estimate rather than an definite reading due to the number of Johnlock fics on ao3 as a whole. For this, I took the number of fics tagged with 'Sherlock Holmes/John Watson' within the 'Shoot From The Hip Sketches' fandom tag
As Tomlock/Watsam appear in both The Mystery of the Midnight Circus and The Final Baker of Baker Street, the views per day was calculated using the numbers for The Mystery of the Midnight Circus as this was their first appearance
The only ship to feature a character played by a non-SFTH member was Jacqueline de Longcorridor/Miss Longbottom from Jack the Stripper, for which Miss Longbottom is played (amazingly) by SFTH fan Gracie
Bill Hannigan/Maria was classified as both a Tom/Luke and a Tom/AJ pairing as Young Bill Hannigan is played by Luke and Adult Bill Hannigan is played by AJ
In the rest of this posts and all follow ups, straight ships will be denoted with F/M, ships with two male characters will be denoted with M/M and ships with two female characters will be denoted with F/F to make this all a little bit easier to read (and for me to keep track of)
This post has absolutely nothing to do with SFTH RPF! I have used '/' to denote the pairs of SFTH members to save me writing out 'and' way too many times and making my sentences entirely incomprehensible. This is not related to the shipping of the real people, which I request people do not discuss on this post (I am hoping this is fairly obvious given the context, but I wanted to make it crystal clear)
Round 1 Results
The match-ups for the bracket are done in order of release of the longforms (the first pair being the first and second longforms to be released, the second pairs being the third and fourth longforms to be released etc). This means that, at this stage, there isn't really any way of telling if there is a preference for ships from earlier longforms vs later longforms as. This may be something that I can look into during the later rounds, but not for the first few.
There is also not an even distribution of ships from across the longforms (there are 12 ships from longforms 1-40 and 20 ships from longforms 41-80, for example). This is probably due to the method of selection for the ships in the bracket and the fact that longforms with potential romantic pairings are probably not evenly distributed across all the longforms released by SFTH. This also makes analysing whether or not the fandom has a preference for earlier or later ships more difficult.
There were 7 match-ups that featured two canon ships, 2 match-ups that featured non-canon ships and 7 match-ups that featured a canon and a non-canon ship.
The distribution of canon/non-canon ships in match-ups is:
7 match-ups that featured two canon ships
2 match-ups that featured two non-canon ships
7 match-ups that featured one canon ship and one non-canon ship
Of the canon/non-canon match-ups, the non-canon ship only won 1 match-up - this was Clarissa/Amanda from Clarissa's DIY wedding vs Bill Hannigan/Maria from Death For A Dollar. Overall, 13 canon ships (62% of the canon ships in the ranking) and 3 non-canon ships (27% of the non-canon ships in the ranking) make it through to Round 2. This shows a fairly clear preference for canon ships in the SFTH fandom - having existed in fandom spaces for about 7 years, this did initially surprise me slightly, but there are certain factors (e.g. queerbaiting) that play into non-canon ships being more popular in fandom at large and are largely absent from SFTH content (at least that's my guess).
The distribution of straight/queer ships in match-ups is:
2 match-ups that featured two F/M ships
7 match-ups that featured one F/M ship and one M/M ship
2 match-ups that featured one F/M ship and one F/F ship
3 match-ups that featured two M/M ships
2 match-ups that featured one M/M ship and one F/F ship
Of the 9 match-ups that featured one straight and one queer ship, the straight ship won 4 of these match-ups and the queer ship won 5. In all four of the match-ups in which the straight ship won, the queer ship was a non-canon M/M ship. This goes back to the general preference for canon ships in this bracket, but another contributing factor could be the general lack of F/F ships in SFTH longforms, causing the existing F/F ships to generally be more popular. 3 of the 4 F/F ships in the bracket made it through to Round 2, with the only one to be eliminated being Jacqueline de Longcorridor/Miss Longbottom from Jack the Stripper (somewhat notably one of the two non-canon F/F ships). Overall, 6 F/M ships (46% of the F/M ships in the ranking), 7 M/M ships (47% of the M/M ships in the ranking) and 3 F/F ships (75% of the F/F ships in the ranking) make it through to Round 2. From this alone, there is no clear preference for straight ships or queer ships, with the exception of F/F ships, my proposed reasons for which are discussed above.
The preference for canon ships is most apparent when comparing the number of queer canon ships that make it through to Round 2. Of the 8 canon queer ships, 7 of them make it through to Round 2. The only canon queer ship that lost its match-up was Agent Julius Johnson/Radcliff from No Time to Die Twice, which was up against Percy/Franklin from We Love Poetry (a ship that is probably one of the favourites to win the entire ranking). Conversely, only 3 of the non-canon queer ships make it through to Round 2 and 2 of these were against other non-canon queer ships. Canon straight ships are also most successful against queer non-canon ships, with 4 of the canon straight ship wins being against queer non-canon ships. There are no match-ups in which a canon straight ship won over a canon queer ship.
It is slightly difficult to evaluate whether straight or queer ships are more popular due to the fact that there are no non-canon straight ships in this bracket (although that fact alone is something of an indication) and whether a ship is canon or not does appear to be a deciding factor. Despite this, I would say that queer ships are generally more popular than straight ships, with 53% of queer ships making it through to Round 2 compared to 46% of straight ships making it through to Round 2.
The distribution of SFTH members in match-ups is:
4 match-ups that featured two ships with one character played by Tom
4 match-ups that featured two ships with one character played by Luke
3 match-ups that featured two ships with one character played by Sam
10 match-ups that featured one ship with one character played by Tom
11 match-ups that featured one ship with one character played by Luke
10 match-ups that featured one ship with one character played by Sam
11 match-ups that featured one ship with one character played by AJ
1 match-up that featured one ship with one character played by a non-SFTH member
Of these, ships featuring AJ lose the most, with 9 of the 11 ships that featured AJ losing their match-ups. Ships featuring Tom also lose the majority of their match-ups, with 11 of the 19 ships that featured Tom losing their match-ups. One reason for this could be that AJ and Tom feature in the most straight ships with 45% of AJ's pairings and 44% of Tom's pairings being straight ships (compared to 42% for Luke and 38% for Sam). Ships featuring Luke are the most popular, with 13 of the 19 ships that featured Like winning their match-ups. This could be because, in addition to being one of the people who features in queer ships more often, 74% of the ships featuring Luke are canon ships compared to 56% of ships featuring Sam.
Overall, 8 ships featuring a character played by Tom (42% of the ships featuring a character played by Tom in the ranking), 9 ships featuring a character played by Sam (56% of the ships featuring a character played by Sam in the ranking), 13 ships featuring a character played by Luke (68% of the ships featuring a character played by Luke in the ranking) and 2 ships featuring a character played by AJ (18% of the ships featuring a character played by AJ in the ranking) make it through to Round 2.
The distribution of SFTH member pairings in match-ups is:
2 match-ups that featured two Tom/Luke pairings
1 match-up that featured two Luke/Sam pairings
2 match-ups that featured one Tom/Luke pairing and one Tom/AJ pairing
1 match-up that featured one Tom/Luke pairing and one Luke/Sam pairing
1 match-up that featured one Tom/Luke pairing and one Sam/AJ pairing
1 match-up that featured one Tom/Sam pairing and one Tom/AJ pairing
1 match-up that featured one Tom/Sam pairing and one Luke/Sam pairing
4 match-ups that featured one Tom/Sam pairing and one Luke/AJ pairing
2 match-ups that featured one Tom/AJ pairing and one Luke/Sam pairing
1 match-up that featured one Luke/Sam pairing and one Sam/AJ pairing
1 match-up that featured one Luke/Sam pairing and one Tom/non-SFTH member pairing
Queer canon ships appear to be the most successful, with all queer canon ships featuring Tom/Luke, Tom/Sam, Luke/Sam and Luke/AJ pairings making it through to Round 2. Queer Tom/Luke pairings appear to be the most popular, with all 4 queer Tom/Luke pairings making it through to Round 2 - something that is not achieved by any other pairing.
There is no single pairing in which every ship makes it through to Round 2. The most popular pairings are Luke/Sam with 75% followed by Tom/Luke with 71%. None of the Tom/AJ, Sam/AJ or Tom/non-SFTH member. However, a contributing factor to this may be that there are fewer of these ships to begin with and in every case, the majority of the ships are either straight canon ships or queer non-canon ships, which are less likely to do well than queer canon ships. The only canon queer ship in any of these pairings was the only queer ship to lose its match-up, Agent Julius Johnson/Radcliff which, as discussed earlier, was against Percy/Franklin.
Overall, 6 Luke/Sam pairings (75% of the Luke/Sam pairings in the ranking), 5 Tom/Luke pairings (71% of the Tom/Luke pairings in the ranking), 3 Tom/Sam pairings (50% of the Tom/Sam pairings in the ranking) and 2 Luke/AJ pairings (50% of the Luke/AJ pairings in the ranking).
It can be expected that more popular longforms are more likely to win a match-up. This does seem to be true with 75% of the match-ups being won by a ship from a longform with more views per day and 75% of the match-ups being won by a ship with more fics on ao3. However, there is actually little correlation between the views per day of the longform that the ship comes from and the percentage of votes received by that ship, as shown by the following graph.
However, plotting the graph of number of ao3 fics against percentage of votes received shows a positive correlation.
This is likely because the people writing fanfiction about SFTH ships are significantly more likely to be voting in a Tumblr poll than the general viewing audience of SFTH. This is further confirmed by plotting the views per day for the longform that each ship comes from against the number of fics on ao3 for that ship.
Note that the views per day and number of ao3 fics are plotted on logarithmic scales - this is done to more clearly show the correlation in the results or lack thereof as there is a large range of values for both measurements (97-6266 for views per day and 1-142 for ao3 fics).
Overall, the ship that won by the greatest margin was Annabelle/Butch from Never Give Annabelle A Gun with 86.6% of the votes against Gemma/Thomas Sr from The Enigma of the High Visionary. This is closely followed by John Jacob/Angelina from The Off Season with 86.7% of the votes against Cheevo/Stewie from And So It Begun. The narrowest victory was Julep/Mr Polar Bear from And So It Begun with 52.9% of the votes against Cindy/John James from The Hobnob Affair. This is similarly closely followed by Arthur's Mum/Henry from The Game of Truth and Tea with 53.0% of the votes against Big Jimmy/Jonnie from We Buried the Wrong Guy.
Closing Thoughts
To anyone who has read this far, genuinely, thank you. I think I've spent about 12 hours working on this now and I really hope that it is at least somewhat comprehensible and enjoyable to anyone else but me. I am sure that some parts of this ramble on way too much and aren't very clear - if you want to express this to me, feel free to message/comment as such (although I will enforce the same rule that I do when I write fanfic: please be nice). Similarly, if you notice any typos, please let me know - it is very late when I am writing this and there are almost certainly parts that I have not proofread enough. If you have any suggestions for what I could include in my further analysis, please let me know, I would love to hear back from you. Also, if anyone wants to see the spreadsheet that I made for this, I may post it eventually, but it needs a lot of tidying up first (there are many random tables I made to keep track of stuff).
Thank you so much for @shoot-from-the-ship for giving me their blessing to post about this (and apologies for the very random and slightly insane message). I have had a lot of fun and I hope you at least somewhat appreciate it. Thank you also to my irl best friend and fellow SFTH fan who has put up with numerous messages about this madness and reminded me to go to sleep when all I wanted to do was stay up and keep adding to the spreadsheet. They are on Tumblr and may see this post - if you recognise yourself in this description, hi! Finally, thank you to you for reading this. I wanted to post this so maybe someone else can enjoy it and I really hope that you have.
Hope to be back soon :)
