The Steve/Tony Multiverse Ship Manifesto & the Cap-IM Slashy Moments List

[cap_ironman_mod]

Last year we celebrated 10 Years of Steve/Tony. So far this year, we celebrated the 10 year anniversary of the cap_ironman community and next month it'll be time to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A lot of time has passed, a lot of fans have shared their love for the Steve/Tony ship with us and put in work to share the love for this ship.

In July, it will be ten years since elspethdixon posted her Captain America/Iron Man (Marvel Comics) Ship Manifesto in the ship_manifesto community on Livejournal: an essay and overview of the Steve/Tony ship that aided the start of our fandom and the still active Steve/Tony community.

Ten Years Later

Much has transpired during those ten year in Marvel Comics canon, the Marvel multiverse, and in the Steve/Tony fandom. But not least of all, the MCU has given shippers an accessible and immensely popular Steve/Tony universe, and brought in so many new members to our community in the past decade. Just look at all the brilliant Steve/Tony moments everyone voted on during our Best of Steve/Tony 2018 votes.

Steve/Tony and the Marvel multiverse go hand-in-hand. And that's why it is time to for the community to come together to continue on the legacy of the Steve/Tony Ship Manifesto, and help create the...

The Steve/Tony Multiverse Ship Manifesto

What is a Ship Manifesto?

To quote the original ship_manifesto community, a ship manifesto is a "a public declaration of fannish love for a particular pairing or ship". The idea was to provide "readers with a detailed listing of pairings, insight into the characters behind the pairings, and contextual understanding of what makes the pairing work" and "provide newcomers with a starting point for further exploration."

People signed up to write detailed essays of 1500 to 5000 words to give people unfamiliar with ship a good reason to check it out and fall in love!


What is the goal of this post?

The goal of this post is to give the Steve/Tony ship an updated ship manifesto, one that not only acts as a sequel to the original essay — we don't want to reiterate the original essay, we want to expand on it and branch out into the different Marvel universes we have come to enjoy. A new place to point newcomers who may want to learn about the multiverse versions they're unfamiliar with, a place that answers the question "Why do Steve and Tony belong together?" and a place for an ongoing discussion about the ongoing canon versions and the fandom.

To achieve our goal, we want to explore the following points for versions of Steve/Tony across the multiverse:

• Small character studies that allow the uninitiated reader to get to know the characters and understand who they are.


• Canon or subtext evidence for why Steve and Tony work as a pairing.


• Your own interpretation of the pairing and why you ship them.


• Some background information on how you became involved with the fandom, and why you were first attracted to the pairing.


• Meta/insight into why the reader should be following Steve/Tony.


• Short fandom/universe guide (information on how to get into the canon, fanwork recs, useful sites etc.; resources that will help a newbie find their way around fandom and the Steve/Tony ship)

To make it a ship manifesto for everyone, we want to crowdsource and discuss everyone's thoughts on Steve/Tony. Everyone's shippy view of the pairing is welcome, everyone can share their opinion. (Please, remain positive and be nice to each other! You don't need to hate on other characters or ships to justify your love for Steve/Tony!)

This post will remain open indefinitely, so that shippers old and new can come back here in the future and talk about new developments and give new fans a chance to see Steve/Tony fandom as it progresses. By next year, we'll archive everyone's thoughts, meta, and links into a new community Steve/Tony ship manifesto index.

Please promote the post. We want to have diverse viewpoints and opinions!


How do I help and join the discussion?

The mods will make top level comments with a subject line that indicates what part of the multiverse the thread will be for. You can comment there with your thoughts on all or some of the points listed above.

If you want to write an essay and post it in your own space, please do so and leave a link to it here on the post so that everyone can find it. Please indicate that it was written in answer to this post and link back to it, so that new people coming across it will find the main discussion easily. On Tumblr you can use the #capimmanifesto tag. We also encourage you to link to meta you've written previously or existing meta you think is relevant!

If you're new to cap_ironman please read through our community information and posting guidelines before you get started!

The Cap-Iron Man Slashy Moments List

The Cap-Iron Man Slashy Moments List has been curated by different fans and cap_ironman mods over the years and is closely connected to the answer of "Why do you think Steve and Tony are the ship?"

It's currently hosted on the cap-im tumblr blog. The current overview post is here.

After months of discussion, preparation and work, we are now finally going to update the slashy moments list again with about a moment per week starting next week — and usher in the long overdue inclusion of the non-comic multiverses with MCU, animated universes and video game moments, as well as missing comic moments. (Expect us to do some reorganizing of tags and update the index as soon as the anniversary gives us a breather!)

As you're discussing why you love Steve/Tony across the multiverse, please let us know your favorite moments in canon and why you ship them. We'll be reading through everybody's comments and will include any moments we've forgotten as we're updating the Slashy Moments list!

Comments

Manifesto: Avengers Academy

[cap_ironman_mod]

This is where you can make a manifesto for AvAc Steve/Tony. Tell us why you ship them in this universe and why everybody should!

AvAc Steve/Tony & Canon Conversations, a.k.a. they're totally into each other

[faite]

Avengers Assemble makes many nods to Steve/Tony shippers, with the game acknowledging the fandom (Tony telling Steve: "What if I told you there's a bunch of stuff online about how you and me would be a perfect couple?") or canon and fanon tropes (Tony Stark being a Captain America fanboy with wanting to dress up like Cap during Halloween or JARVIS making him Capcakes — Cap pancakes), or by writing Steve and Tonly flirting with each other (Tony calling Steve "absurdly good-looking" or being fixated on his biceps.)

You can argue that everybody in the game flirts with each other, and they do to some extent, but since the game is so focused on Captain America and Iron Man being the two "leaders" of the Academy that our fandom is blessed with gratuitous and frequent moments between them!

I have a sideblog where I reblog or post AvAc screencaps and try to tag all the Steve/Tony moments, but I think it'd be great if we could pull up individual conversations and compile them into a neat list!

AvAc Steve/Tony & Canon Conversations: Outsider POV

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I'll start with some of my favorite "Outsider POV" conversations from the game (the ones where either Steve or Tony are talking to someone else about the other), ordered from the earliest dialogue to the most recent ones!

During the Civil War event, Steve and Tony divide up the campus in their own silly feud, but Natasha and Jan try to convince them to get along.

Something similar happens in the main storyline when they fight against the AIM institution, and Jan tells Tony that Steve is really upset with him, since they're all friends and they should get along.

During the Spider-Man event, Mary-Jane talks with Steve after Tony, and when Steve speaks of Tony with familiarity, she asks "Are you guys...?". It totally sounds like she was gonna ask if they were dating!

In the following event, the AIM Attack Event, Steve and Tony disagree again on the best way to fight against AIM. Their friends are having none of it, with Sam asking Steve "Is Tony getting under your skin again?" when Steve seems frustrated, and Natasha saying You two should just get married."

In the Halloween event, Pepper knows better and is surprised that Tony isn't dressed up like Captain America. (And the punchline is he totally wanted to.)

When you recruit Mockingbird, her first couple of conversations are between her and Tony. Then when she speaks to Steve later, she tells him that Tony told her to trust Steve, and that Tony thinks Steve is the most trustworthy person on campus. Steve is so surprised and in awe by this revelation.

Pepper has to take care of something and asks Steve directly to look out for Tony, and Steve replies that he always does.

In the Ultron event, Tony mimes his MCU counterpart's "I want to punch you in your perfect teeth" line to RoboCap, but immediately regrets it because "We're friends, but sometimes he makes me really mad. Then he's all polite, and it makes it even worse."

It's incredibly fun taking AvAc's smart-ass writing and characterizations and interpreting Steve's and Tony's attitudes towards the other from them, especially in a shipping context! I know the conversations above have informed a lot of my own AvAc stevetony headcanons.

Re: Manifesto: Avengers Academy

[sheron]

Honestly they just look so adorable as teenagers (especially Tony) that it's hard not to go a little bit "highschool/college AU" with them in this universe. ;D