Stucky vs Stony
| Ship War | |
|---|---|
| ShipWar: | Stucky vs Stony |
| Date(s): | 2014 - (?) |
| Location: | Tumblr, Twitter |
| Fandom: | Captain America, The Avengers (Marvel), MCU |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Stucky vs Stony is a ship war in Captain America/The Avengers fandom between two Steve Rogers pairings, Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, better known as Stucky and Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, better known as Stony.
About
Since their interactions in the comics fans have shipped the pairings of Steve Rogers/Tony Stark and Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, however the ship war occurred primarily between fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Fans began shipping Steve Rogers/Tony Stark after the release of first The Avengers film, because they are arguably the two leaders of the group. There were shippers of Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers after Captain America: The First Avenger, however the ship seemed safely in the past tense until Captain America: The Winter Soldier, when it was revealed that Bucky was still alive. The ship war began after Winter Solider, but seemed to reach its peak in the months prior to, and during the release of, Captain America: Civil War.[1] After Civil War some Stucky shippers declared the Stony ship "dead", because Steve sided with Bucky during the film.[2]
The ship war included both sides writing meta deconstructing the other, with Stony shippers saying the Stucky relationship is unhealthy and co-dependent[3], and Stucky shippers saying that Stony were never really friends, just co-workers[2], and that Tony can never truly understand what Steve's been through. Other tactics include sending hate via anon on Tumblr[4] and posts mocking the opposing ship and its fans.[5][6]
Fandom Distress
Fans felt pressured to pick sides during the ship war, twitter user jordan stating:
im an obnoxious multi shipper and i feel so pressured in the fandom bc i ship both stony and stucky but the stans are constantly at war[7]
Some fans feeling the ship war ruined their enjoyment of certain characters. allons-ymrholmes gives an example:
and marvel-trash-collector adding:
It makes me sad how the Marvel fandom has made me dislike Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes so much, and those two guys haven’t even done anything at all to me personally, just at times, the fandom makes them seem like the most annoying characters of all times.[9]
And some fans decided to leave the fandom all together because of the constant negativity of the ship war. Twitter user This was not the plan explaining why they left Marvel fandom:
Post-Civil War
From a reddit thread speaking about ship wars:
[RavensQueen502]
I'm in MCU fandom:(You can imagine what happened after the Civil War, given part of the plot was Steve choosing to protect Bucky by hiding the truth about his parents' deaths from Tony.
Steve/Tony was one of the most popular pairing, with Steve as Tony's adorable, protective, if a bit oblivious boyfriend.
After Civil War, if there is Steve/Tony at all, Steve is generally the abuser Tony has to be rescued from.
[response from belladonnagilkey]
There's still a respectable amount of Steve/Tony going on out there, usually from authors who ignore CW in general. Endgame having them reconcile really helped mend wounds to some degree.But the immediate aftermath of that movie's effect on the Fandom was intense. I got into it roughly around that time and nearly quit because it was so violent.
CW also had the effect of poisoning the well as far as Bucky/Tony fics go. Those usually are some form of bashing against Steve/Tony if they're even remotely Canon compliant.[11]
Resources
- Tumblr Tags: anti-Stucky, anti-Stony, Stucky vs Stony
References
- ^ "Captain America: Civil War". Archived from the original on 2019-05-10.
- ^ a b "i find it really funny that stony shippers exist in 2018". Archived from the original on 2019-05-10.
- ^ "Wait, let me rephrase: as it is right now". Archived from the original on 2019-05-10.
- ^ "on stucky". Archived from the original on 2019-05-10.
- ^ Every time I see Stony shipping [Dead link]
- ^ "Stucky can suck it". Archived from the original on 2019-05-10.
- ^ "Jan 2018 tweet". Archived from the original on 2019-05-10.
- ^ "I completely blame the st*cky shippers". Archived from the original on 2019-05-10.
- ^ "It makes me sad how the Marvel fandom has made me". Archived from the original on 2019-05-10.
- ^ "Nov 2017 tweet". Archived from the original on 2019-05-10.
- ^ How bad were shipping wars in your fandom?