#anti steggy fans

[autumnrory]

really and truly unless it's a discussion about why peggy/steggy fans shouldn't like endgame, at this point idk why people feel the need to continually make the argument about her having a family as if that's the biggest problem about the ending especially when i figure most people are of the belief that it was another timeline or whatever idk what the current consensus on that is in the mcu and i don't care

but what about the fact that it destroyed steve's family? does that not matter because it's not the standard spouse and children but is instead a family he built for himself with sam and nat and bucky? because it's easier to decide steve is a selfish asshole and always has been instead of acknowledging that that storyline did more of a disservice to him than to anyone else? like oh maybe peggy's family was erased and that's horrible but it doesn't matter that steve's family was abandoned in the midst of the kind of trauma he knows very well?

i've said it before but it makes me so sad that so many people just turned on steve and decided a decade of movies don't matter in the face of one shitty desperate attempt of a movie to make him look like a pathetic creep just so they could justify their heterosexual nonsense ending

[kittenfangirl20]

I don’t get why some Stucky fans act as if Steve barely knew Peggy because we didn’t see every interaction on screen. I felt as if the way they interacted pointed to the fact that they knew each other quite well. I am not saying that this means that she was a childhood friend with Steve like Bucky was, but I don’t think that the only time that they spent time around each other was when we saw them together on screen.

[lunarspiral1127]

*SPOILERS*

Okay, how is it that when she punched Strange Supreme with all six Infinity stones, her arm isn't burned? She's not wearing the Infinity armor anymore so all that power was concentrated in her fist instead of spread out. Hell, back in GOTG, Quill took the Power stone and he was in pain and he's half celestial. Thanos, Hulk, Tony, they all had their arms and some of their sided burned. How is she okay?! And it can't be because she's a super soldier, cause we've had beings stronger than her get burned by just snapping alone!

*sigh* Anyway, Strange is dead. Apparently, the episode really is using his grief as an excuse for him being this way, and he prevented his demon side to do anything while they were falling and sacrifices himself to bring back his universe, and Christine.....f***ing bullcrap. They really did Strange Supreme dirty in this season. They ruined his character all because they couldn't come up with another multiversal threat? Why couldn't it be Kang the Conquerer?! That would've been so much better. But, nope. It's Strange and he's gone.

Also, can we please stop propping up Captain Carter so much?! We get it, she's awesome, she's bad@$$, but there are other characters who are just as awesome or even more awesome that we should be seeing. I don't care if she's the main character in what's supposed to be an episodic series. Can we just move on from Peggy and focus on someone else for a change?! Yeah, there was Kahhori who was really cool, but Peggy was still the main focus here.

And, Loki's tree at the end. Does this mean that in season 3, it's gonna be Uatu AND Peggy narrating? I really hope not.

[bittwitchy]

cw anti st*ggy and st*cky joke:

its funny how much i hate st*ggy considering i also dont like st*cky romantically

[cblgblog]

I still see virulent anti takes against Peggy and Steggy on MCU Tumblr and I have to say, it's Very Telling that all this Peggy hate only started up after Endgame. The same people calling Peggy Steve's abuser or saying she's a N/zi were fine with Peggy when they thought Steggy was dead in the water as a ship and not a threat to their own preferred ships and endings for Steve. TWS-era hardcore St/ckys were talking about how great it was that Peggy and Steve were still friends and making headcanons and fanart where they had a good relationship and Steve was proud of Peggy's accomplishments (even though TWS revealed Zola infiltrated SHIELD so if they really thought Peggy was a N/zi or was responsible for Operation Paperclip, they would've said so back then, no?). The only real reason there's so much Peggy/Steggy hate now is because Steggy is endgame, they canonically got married and grew old together, and what used to be a non-threatening, past-tense romance became the main obstacle to everyone else's fan theories.

Yup. All this. It’s amazing how a character’s entire personality and personal history changes when a certain ship doesn’t sail, isn’t it?

Peggy’s fine, when she’s not a threat. After EG? Oh she’s a Nazi and she actually assaulted him that time, and she’s a violent sociopath who tried to kill him.

Steve, of course, can't be forgotten, and is clearly, canonically now a racist MAGA Republican who gets his dinner cooked for him by Peggy promptly at 5pm every night. He also pushes elderly women into traffic instead of helping them cross the street, and he throws rocks at small children.

It's canon, guys, look it up.

[agentxthirteen]

Vote Pepper because:

Stony shippers don't like her, and as such, in Stony fics,Pepper is portrayed as Type A to the extreme (i.e., a nag) in order to justify Tony not liking her. Other than that, she's a fairly popular character, with fans acknowledging that she defeated most of Tony's adversaries.

Even characters in canon respect Pepper and ship her and Tony together - including the other part of the mlm ship, Steve.

Pepper got to marry Tony in canon and have a child with him in canon. This is despite how the two were perhaps only briefly together in comics (the source material for the MCU, allegedly), where Pepper realized she would be happier with Happy Hogan.

Vote Sharon because:

Stony, Stucky, Romanogers, and Steggy fans loathe her. Sharon is portrayed as a conniving, meddling bitch/villain in fics. Multiple authors flat-out say that they need someone to be the bitch or villain in their fics and they used Sharon.

She got so much hatred based on Steve kissing her in Civil War in 2016 that Marvel Studios changed its entire plan for multiple characters. Endgame hammered in a plot about how Steve had not, in fact, moved on and abandoned everyone he'd formed ties with to return to a woman he'd never dated and who had actually shot at him after seeing him kiss someone else because this was deemed more romantic than him being with someone who gave up everything to support him. Instead of "He can do this all day," he retired with someone who never got a single line of dialog in the film because the filmmakers said he deserved to be selfish for once. The filmmakers can't agree on if he genuinely went back in time (TSA approved, but also suggests he groomed Sharon so she would be return the kiss when she was older) or if he created another timeline (TSA supposedly wouldn't allow it, unless Cap is an exception to this rule, too). Meanwhile, Sharon is in a non-extradition country, using her own name, dealing in art (his area of interest) which would make it pretty easy for people to find her if they looked. But with Steve needing justification to not look for her, Marvel Studios argues that she's not only a villain, but was always too weak to survive trauma with her morality intact (despite how we saw her do just that in the past). In short, the kiss led to so much hatred for Sharon that Marvel decided to make things incredibly nonsensical and confusing in order to justify it.

Sharon still gets blamed for making out with Steve even though they weren't related and the only people saying they were did so in order to break them up. Reminder: He initiated the kiss 2016. He asked her out in 2014.

Even Marvel Studios employees talk about how they wanted to kill Sharon off in ways that might have been too violent to show on screen but backed off because "Emily Vandercamp" is so sweet. That is... not her name. This was said unprompted in a promotional interview. And yes, one of the writers flat-out said it's because they ship Steve with someone else. To my knowledge, nothing like this happened to Gwyneth Paltrow/Pepper.

Emily VanCamp was shown Stucky fic in interviews and told how people prefer Steve with Bucky. All she could say was that she hoped people liked Sharon a little more after Civil War. One problem with that was that Marvel Studios had decided to turn Cap 3 into Civil War - taking her from a lead to another extended cameo. She only have 7 1/2 minutes in the entirety of the MCU, and only three of those minutes were spent developing a romantic relationship. To my knowledge, nothing like this happened to Gwyneth Paltrow/Pepper, who got much more screentime and time to develop a romantic relationship.

Interviewers quoted anti-Staron shippers (including from people who openly said they thought Steve should get with Bucky instead) on the promotional tour, and you can see in at least one of the interviews that Emily is trying not to cry. To my knowledge, nothing like this happened to Gwyneth Paltrow.

This is despite how Sharon has been Steve's main love interest in the comics since December 9, 1965. Despite being off and on for decades (three of Steve's other love interests were while she was supposedly dead, with at least one writer saying they only created the love interest because Sharon was dead at the time), the two of them have been together since 2005 - seven years before TFA came out.

Round 2

Propaganda Under Cut

Pepper Potts

So many fics make her bitchy and controlling for absolutely no reason she deserves better

So for this we have to think back to like... peak Avengers MCU era. I am sorry. Back when Avengers had just come out it was BRUTAL out there for anyone who didn't like Tony/Steve (Tony Stark, Pepper's canon love interest, and Steve Rogers aka Iron Man and Captain America). While the ship itself is like, fine, it got sour so fast because Pepper was demonized SO much. When she wasn't completely sidelined and ignored, she was a cheater or an abuser (??) or what-have-you in fics so the two men could get together. It's much better now and last I heard Pepper gets some of the love she deserves (bc we do love women in this house!) but oh MAN it was bad back then. TBH all MCU women were treated like garbage by the fanbase but she got the brunt of it because she was in the way of The Most Popular Ship. She was just too #girlboss I guess

Frequently villainized for being a canon love interest for Tony Stark. Often portrayed as a Nag, constantly bothering him about doing "work" for his "company" when he could be working on inventions or spending time with his love interest! Sometimes she just Doesn't Understand Him, inconsiderately pressuring him to stay out of being a hero instead of being who he really is; only the m/m love interest really understands him! Or maybe she's the aggressor, who took advantage of the power imbalance between her and her poor innocent *checks notes* boss in order to pressure him into a relationship he didn't really want where he was treated terribly, and only his m/m love interest can save him from her! Pepper deserves better!

Sharon Carter

she “got in the way” of stucky shippers, in the comics she’s like the love of Steve’s life 

When she first appeared she was unfairly treated by fans for "getting in the way" of the Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes ship. A shame because she's a really good character. I'd talk more about how unfairly Sharon, and her actress Emily VanCamp, have been treated by the fanbase and the creators, but that's a different story.

She and Steve Rogers were meant to have a romantic relationship, but the entire fandom and many Stucky fans dislike her because it wasn’t a good ship. I think she isn’t the best but she doesn’t deserve so much hate

[peggysousoversteggy]

Just felt the need to rant, much like my post about anti steggy fans who hate Peggy, how the fuck are you anti dousy for the complete wrong reason!? Like how can you take the correct position of hating dousy, but you hate it because you hate Daniel Sousa for some moronic reason!? As far as I'm concerned being anti dousy is only valid if you don't like Daisy and Daniel together, and being anti Steggy is only valid if you hate Steve.

[phoenixdark08]

Accounts like sharoncantstandhercarter don’t get to be fans of Steve Rogers cause you are literally hating on the person he loves the most. Not p*ggy not anyone else does he love more. And any other steggy Stan’s that hate on her can shut the fuck up too. Hayley atwell and her Stan’s behavior is absolutely unacceptable and I wish to never associate myself with them. Not a single one of them . Sharon would literally kick all of your asses . And if you’re spreading hate to Emily just sit the fuck down and get the fuck off social media you negative energy parasite . Fr y’all would rather defend Peggy who treated Steve like property and then hired Arnim Zola into shield. Just disgusting. I’m so sorry to other Sharon Stan’s and Sharon and Emily for the hate you’ve received you deserve better

[usernamesuggestionsarefunny]

I have been watching many dudebro channels roasting endgame and let me tell you, they notice logic fails, technical details and other plotholes tumblr fans usually don´t, but at the same time, they sometimes miss or don´t put as much emphasis on many failures the movie had when it came to the characters and the relationships between them. They don´t place as much importance on the bonds between the characters (*cough* and how endgame and the previous movies as a whole fucked everything up/missed great oportunities to show friendships and other bonds between the characters *cough*) as they do on the logic of the story. They don´t notice the lack of closure for Bruce and Natasha, or the whole civil war deal with Tony. They don´t notice the fact Steve is thinking about Peggy in the snap support group what an asshole when it was Sam, Wanda and Bucky who he lost recently in the snap. 

Like for example, many are willing to give a lot of thought to how stupid the avengers´ time heist plan was but when they get to Steve´s ending or Natasha´s pointless death they are like “sure, that was fine, whatever”. At most they complain about Nat´s sacrifice being unnecessary (And come up with other alternative ideas that would have been more logical than the set of circumstances that made Natasha´s sacrifice a plot device in the first place), or complain about how out of character it was for Steve to stop fighting, or about Steve abandoning his friends for a second, but then get back to other logic-plot-related stuff. In summary, dudebros complain more about Steve´s ending breaking the time travel rules the writers themselves created (Which, same, that was sooo annoying) than about the end to literally all of Steve´s friendships in the future.

It just seems interesting, the differences between the criticisms men and women make (I am going by the assumption a great deal of us on tumblr and fanfiction in general are women, I know not everyone is) about the same piece of media, the things they find more important to enjoy entertainment.  Obviously those are just stereotypes based on gender roles and all individuals are different but this is just based on what I have observed.

None of those criticisms are useless btw, all those issues are valid and actually complement each other to explain why endgame sucked. 

[usuallydeepcoffee]

This shit right here is what I'm talking about, about people not conceding Steve anything.

Imagine thinking you're a Steve fan while saying that Steve just wanted a trophy wife.

Imagine being a Steve fan while saying that Steve would've wanted Peggy to be a trophy wife.

And finally, imagine being a Steve fan while saying that Peggy would be a trophy wife and not sound misogynist as hell😂

Like, this has nothing to do with endgame and all to do with how negatively his own fandom wants to read Steve's actions they don't agree with .Disliking Steve going back to Peggy because he loves her is one thing, making Steve into a misogynistic boomer wannabe and Peggy a spineless woman who would roll over and play housewife is just plain shitty and makes them no different from the general anti-Steve mcu fans

[luallba]

Almost a year since endgame, and i can't believe i'm still salty about the ending of steve rogers's arc. I can't believe marvel ignored peggy carter's arc from the agent carter series to put her as steve's price for surviving. I can't believe they ignored her line from the movies when she says "all we can do is to start over" referring from moving on with life. She moved on and started her new life with a family, but hey let's ignore that, after all she is steve's true love, of course she can't move on lmao.

[thesharondefenseleague]

You know exactly what that photo means: That Peggy still matters in the MCU. Just as you know that Sharon's lack of appearance (regardless of thrown out drafted scripts and your attempts to latch onto rumors and what what you choose to infer from creator's intent) makes it clear that she does not. Please spin and justify and belittle all you like. It's entertaining, but you know the truth deep down. Sharon does not matter in the MCU. She never will.

Sweetheart, I just defended Peggy in my last reblog so check yourself-

And I ain’t twisting shit. What’s canon is Steve and Peggy haven’t been together in 70 plus years (7 years our time). Peggy moved on quickly to the next man to replace the void of Steve and she did or did not marry this said man.

Marvel just said they had no relationship to start with lmao, it’s on their website right here boo

ALL at the same time implying there’s a future with Sharon Carter because she is the first woman that Steve has chosen to move forward with should he decide so and IF he lives pass EG.

If you can not read, I will remind you this is from Marvel’s official website- no outside source, it’s no rumor sweetheart- this is what would be fact and canon and it’s heavily implied there’s a future for Sharon regardless if Steve makes it or not.

Peggy Carter is dead, she is worm food, she is a corpse rooting six feet under. That’s canon, Steve still carries the pocket watch because he can’t get over her simply put and that’s understandable but sad because he has made all these new friends and allegiances that he’s chosen but the writers think it’s better if he holds on and quite possibly masturbates to ancient relics.

I’m not the one wetting myself over photograph I understand y’all’s thirsty for steggy and I would be if I were y’all but I’m not, as it stands steggy and y’all are still very much insignificant and why isn’t Hayley Atwell in this movie?

-T

[golden-earcuffs]

Okay, I did not know about Jason. That's new. However, Talia and Tim points still stands, I guess?

Yes, the first Robin changed in ways, but he was still recognisable. Dick's arcs, the changes that happened to him, were a long, drawn out process. Jon being aged up was shitty writing. Damian has been around for longer than Jon and he isn't older, when he can be. Jason still had anger issues and violence problems before his death, it was shown nicely after his revival.

Also Jon's civilian arc is not exactly the point?? He's a superhero, being that is a hair more important to me. Honestly, I doubt that any character can maintain the balance b/w civilian and superhero life better than Peter Parker, so the bar is set pretty high.

The Jon Kent tag is for his fans, with all kinds of different opinions. Jay being his canon boyfriend is...not relevent?? Like, you can surf through a character tag and find people disliking their canon love interest. Steve Rogers tag definitely has some anti steggy & anti Peggy carter hottakes. What should not happen is the said post appearing in the love interest's tag or the ship tag. And I did what I could to ensure that.

This post wasn't even just about Jay, but the entire aged up Jon.

Also if you bitched about Damian in the Jon Kent tag, I'd scroll past it without a second glance. I would know that a post like that would upset me, so I wouldn't bother replying and frustating myself. I'm on this hellsite to have fun, not to get upset with people with opinions that differ from mine.

do you guys ever look at jay nakamura and the whole aged up jon thing in general and just go sir?? why do you exist there's literally no need for you?? like who asked for you?? no one?? who looked at you and thought 'yep that's a good idea'????

[cblgblog]

I don't think the people who bash Steve in his own tag and tell such horrendous lies about him and Peggy will actually be happy if Steve comes back/Old Steve is a Skrull happens. Because that Happy Ending Kiss is canon. Steve chose a life with Peggy - whether in an alternate universe or a Skrull illusion.

Yeah, the Skrull thing about Steve is an idiot theory by bitter “fans” imo, and will ultimately come to absolutely nothing. And I firmly believe that the Steve antis wouldn’t be happy about much of anything at this point. We may lose Steve in other timelines/What If eps, or he might turn out to be an evil bastard in those, but Endgame still ended—the entire Infinity Saga of 10 years ended—with a happy Steve and a Steggy kiss. And the antis can’t erase that, so whatever, rage against the machine guys, but canon Steve is the awesome character he is, and he got his happy ending, and good luck changing that.

[sallypumpkinlove]

Me, to Steve Rogers

So. You went back to be with Peggy. You got a happy ending but your "fans" don't seem to be happy for you. Don't ever apologize for wanting a happy ending with the one you love. Take it from a person who's been in the mcu fandom for 10 years, there is nothing cooler than getting a happy ending with the one you love.

And if anyone disagrees? Don't take it up with the people who do ship Steve and Peggy. Put your complaints in the anti-tags. Don't taint the steggy tag with your stucky or peggysous or carterwood bulls*it. Keep it in the anti-tags and let fans of steggy be fans of steggy.

[ashdumpsterpile]

Please tell us how sambucky succeeded while stucky crashed and burned

Good evening anon! I hope you're having a wonderful day. <3 Thank you for dropping into my inbox! I love it when people ask me MCU-related questions, and this happens to be a specific one that I've been sitting on for a while.

(Warning: this post is slightly anti-Stucky. Please scroll past if you are a shipper as this post isn't for you.)

Why SamBucky Succeeded While Stucky Crashed and Burned: A Controversial Study in Fandom Drama

The main problem lies within Stucky.

The majority of the problems with Stucky surround the fanbase rather than the ship itself. The ship itself is generally unproblematic--if not tasteless as whitebread--and exactly the kind of ship I’d expect basic fans to be obsessed over. The MCU isn’t the first big fandom I’ve dipped my toes in and it certainly won’t be the last. Stucky fans are what ruined it for me, though. What’s wrong with Stucky shippers you say? I’m so glad you asked.

I use the phrase “bland gay ship for straight girls” or “shipping two white men” every once in a while, but trust me I don’t throw around the phrases lightly. As someone who was told I was a cringy straight girl shipping two men together when I was like 13, it really rubs me wrong when people generalize all shippers that way. (Especially considering I actually was queer but didn't know it at the time.)

For most queer teens, they find safety and validity in shipping two people that they identify as also queer or as having similar characteristics to themselves. Sometimes two white male actors do have that chemistry and sometime’s the writing is that good.

There is nothing wrong with shipping two white men and people have got to stop calling everyone who ships those kinds of relationships as “ships for 13-year-old straight girls.” Like seriously STOP.

But.

Can queer people please please stop shitting all over m/f ships. I know I know, y’all are upset about the heteronormativity of it all and you hate the “straighties,” but two things: a) when you bash healthy, canonical m/f ships you are shitting all over straight trans people and bisexual/pansexual/polysexual people and b) there is NOTHING INHERENTLY WRONG with m/f ships even--oh god I’m going to say it--even if both characters are 100% cishet.

Is it misogyny? I don’t actually know. Is it a problem I should be addressing in a 1k essay on why Sambucky is thriving while Stucky crashed and burned? Eh, probably not, but it’s worth mentioning. Mainly because as long as we’re going to talk about Stucky, we need to address the fact that A) Stucky fans are hugely problematic (hence the weird hate for Peggy Carter--and I’m not even touching on the Sharon Carter hate rn) and B) they feel like they are owed something by canon.

Let’s be perfectly clear on that last statement, Stucky Fans act like they are owed something.

Controversial take on Tumblr: fans aren’t owed anything by creators.

I’m sure it’s one thing if a creator specifically promises something to their fans, but after sitting through the actual superhell that the SPN fandom became for 12+ years, it has come to my attention that fans are incredibly entitled over what they are “owed”. I understand the disappointment and I understand being devastated by how canon actually turned out, but the amount of hate Peggy Carter received overnight after Endgame (2019) was astounding. Never mind the fact that her arc was actually botched worse than Steve’s, somehow it was her fault that Steve decided to ditch his “one true love” for *checks notes*...his toxic almost date.

Honestly, iwasonceafangirl on reddit wrote a much better post on the issue of Steggy vs. Stucky drama that went down that I highly recommend reading. It sums up my feelings on the matter pretty well.

So to summarize, Stucky fans threw a huge rage fit over the Russo brothers canonically tying Steve’s arc up with a Steggy bow, and are still trying to recover. They throw hate at everyone from Peggy fans for having the canon ship to RDJ himself because they took the “pick a side” schtick from CA:CW too seriously and think it’s a personality trait to be Team Cap.

And, above all else, the MCU is homophobic for not making their ship canon.

The MCU itself is not necessarily homophobic--I would argue that Disney and executives who greenlight decisions in the MCU are homophobic--but for some reason, if you don’t ship Stucky you’re branded as a homophobe? Make it make sense.

I also hear a lot of shit from fans about how Stucky was queerbaited and honestly I don’t see it. I’ve been in fandoms where the queerbaiting was off the fucking charts and in other fandoms where the queerbaiting was just subtle enough to slide under the rug, and Stucky doesn’t lie in either of those camps.

Honestly, it comes across as a friendship between two people who consider each other brothers. You can argue to the end of the day that lines like “until the end of the line” are romantic--and in the right context they are--but the lack of chemistry between the actors and the lack of marketing that would imply the two of them as a ship for views...if there was any queerbaiting it was minimal. Non-existent, if you will.

For the most part, Stucky is just another bland, MCU ship that somehow became the most popular MCU ship besides Stony and Pepperony (according to ship stats on ao3 in 2020).

I would hazard a guess that one of the reasons it’s the most popular is that it’s been around the longest. Well, longest gay ship at least.

If we’re looking at the MCU movie lineup, The First Avenger was the 5th release in Phase One. The first film, Iron Man (2008), featured Pepperony--(a truely underrated ship that doesn’t get enough attention bc y’all can wrap your minds around healthy m/f relationships)--which wasn’t going to get a lot of traction until later movies.

It also set up Iron Husbands, but that ship also doesn’t gain a lot of traction until Iron Man 2 (2010), when they switch out Terrance Howards for Don Cheadle and we get that sweet “married for forty years” chemistry between Tony and Rhodey.

Still, Iron Husbands is a rarepair, probably because it’s an interracial ship. If we’re talking Tony ships, Pepperony is the first in the lineup, which is why I would guess it’s the third most popular ship.

The Incredible Hulk (2008) was second in that lineup and hardly worth mentioning (despite my undying love for Norton, but that’s off topic). We can scrap that film of characters and ships.

After that you get Thor (2011) which featured Fosterson (and Th/orki if you’re nasty) which also wasn’t going to get a lot of traction, not because it wasn’t canon yet, but because it’s a m/f ship.

Then, finally, you get Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) a film that features two white men that we can finally ship without there being technical incest!

So the first MCU film comes out to feature two men that the fandom was okay with shipping.

(Again, nothing wrong with shipping two white men, but it does become a problem when you ignore/bash POC/interracial ships to the determinant of your own white ship.)

Th/orki’s a bust (because again INCEST), Iron Husband’s doesn’t have the chemistry/isn’t white enough for audiences, m/f’s are pushed to the side by shippers, and any other male characters haven’t interacted in canon as of yet.

But what’s the appeal? Why is Stucky the ship of the MCU when we have other noncanonical gems like IronStrange and WinterIron. (Not being sarcastic, those two ships genuinely slap.)

The answer to that is the crux of my thesis.

Why Did SamBucky Succeed While Stucky Crashed and Burned

Well, the answer to that lies in chemistry. I mentioned above that Evans and Stan lacked the kind of chemistry I usually observe in most ships that are queerbaited or otherwise. That isn’t to say that they’re bad actors or their characters don’t come across as friends. They do, however, lack intimacy and passion.

I’m not joking.

Let me ask you this: what do these ships have in common?

If your answer was "Tony Stark" yes you're right, but no that's not the point. The point is, in all of these very VERY different ships with incredibly different dynamics. The SAME PERSON is in all of these gifs. And yet each dynamic is vastly different and still incredibly interesting. I've said before that Tony Stark is the most shippable character in the MCU, but honestly it comes down to how amazing of an actor RDJ is and how elegantly he's able to convey intimacy, longing, and hate with a single glance.

Stucky...the closest I can come to seeing the chemistry in Stucky is here:

And that's mostly props to Sebastian Stan for having puppy eyes. Besides a few instances where Evans and Stan manage to convey the kind of intimacy stans say they have in the movies, most of the time Stucky gives us the same, boring dynamic that's tired of itself.

Literally the plot to EVERY SINGLE movie that features Steve and Bucky they have the SAME DYNAMIC and the SAME DILEMMA. Bucky’s in trouble and Steve has to save him.

It is beyond me why Stucky is the most shipped ship in the MCU--literally, the only reason I can fathom it is with my explanation of Stucky being the first white m/m ship in the fandom--when there is literally no chemistry or drama.

What even is their dynamic beyond “yeah we were childhood friends but we never actually talk or act like it” and “Steve has to save Bucky again”? You reach Endgame and the “Steve has to save Bucky again” agenda is on it’s fifth (?) run and then boom! Steve suddenly abandons Bucky in present-day to marry his old flame Peggy Carter and like…

Yeah I can see why Stucky fans are mad bc not only does that not make sense--considering the way previous films with them have gone--but also it proves my point. They have no romantic chemistry.

Stucky crashed and burned because Steve had more chemistry with a married woman he shared one movie with from the 1940s than the guy he promised “to the end of the line” with. There was absolutely nowhere the writers could go with them. What were they going to do? Make another movie where Steve has to save Bucky again?

“bUt tHEy cOUlD haVE mADe tHEm cANOn!?!?11!”

No, they really couldn’t. Besides the fact that Disney is never going to have a queer main character due to being unable to market their films in China and the fact that their executives are homophobic, Stucky was never set up to be canon at any point.

Yes, there are ships that weren’t supposed to be canon that lead to becoming canon because the actors had mad chemistry or that’s where the story led them, but the story didn’t lead to Stucky becoming canon and honestly? They don't have the chemistry.

So why does SamBucky work?

Tell me their chemistry doesn’t just radiate from the screen. Say it to my face.

Sam and Bucky work because their characters actually have somewhere to go and they feel like actual partners rather than two people canon says are partners. We actually get to see their relationship progress and grow strong. Stucky is a huge fan of tell but don’t show. SamBucky is the exact opposite.

I haven’t even seen TFATWS straight through yet--(honestly I wasn’t going to touch the MCU ever again and I’m not really up to watch military propaganda: mcu edition, but Loki (2021) is slowly dragging me back in)--and I can already tell that the writing, the characters, and the atmosphere is 1000% more interesting than any Captain America movie ever was.

I don’t even have to go into a huge, in-depth analysis on why SamBucky works because compared to Stucky? Any Bucky ship is better. SamBucky just happens to be the closest m/m to canon and we just got new content for it.

(Also Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie have mad chemistry, but y'all can see that from the gifs and if you've watched the show.)

SamBucky works because they have the chemistry and storyline to support their relationship, romantic or platonic. Stucky crashed and burned because it was a stale dynamic that had nothing left to offer.