Captain Swan vs. Swan Queen

Captain Swan vs. Swan Queen was a long running ship war between the two most popular Emma Swan juggernaut ships of Once Upon A Time: Captain Swan (Killian Jones/Emma Swan) and Swan Queen (Emma Swan/Regina Mills). Opinions were often strong, which lead to accusations and harassment of the opposing shippers. The ship war was most fervent in the mid-2010s when the show was airing, and although the show ended in 2018, the ship war still somewhat continued for a few years after before fizzling out. Also, because OUAT was targeted towards a younger audience (typically teenagers) this was many young fans' first experience of a ship war.
==About==
=== A Sectarian Fandom ===
Shipping preferences in the OUAT fandom seem to be largely quite sectarian in regards to several of its biggest ships (Captain Swan, Swan Queen, Outlaw Queen, Rumbelle, and Swanfire in particular) at least within online spaces, though whether that enhanced the ship war, or was a result of it, or a mixture of both, is unclear.
=== Series of Events ===
Fans began shipping Swan Queen in season 1, it was initially an enemyslash ship, because Emma was the main protagonist and Regina the main antagonist. However, this changed over the course of the series as Emma and Regina slowly became friends and started co-parenting Henry. Early on Swan Queen attracted fans, but was not a dominant ship, because of the large cast of characters there were many competing ships, both canon and fanon.
In season 2 Killian Jones, aka Captain Hook, was introduced. His chemistry with Emma attracted many fans, although in the beginning it was similar to Swan Queen in that it had more of an enemies to lovers vibe, because Killian was not a friend, but a reluctant ally in Neverland. Over the course of the series Killian reforms his ways and becomes Emma's canonical love interest.
During the course of season 2 and the first half of season 3, these two ships rose dramatically in popularity; along with a second competing het ship for Emma, Swanfire (Emma Swan/Neal Cassidy). This is when the ship war ramped up, with all three sides attacking one another. During the second half of season 3 Neal died, to the heartbreak of Swanfire fans, and essentially removing them from the shipping discourse for many fans, and leaving Swan Queen and Captain Swan the two dominant parties in the ship war.
To complicate things further a competing canonical het ship for Regina was introduced, Outlaw Queen (Regina Mills/Robin Hood), in season 3. Outlaw Queen shippers were also often drawn into the ship war, especially in the later seasons.
The ship war was often intense. Though many fans of both ships were considerate with their shipping preferences, there were also some unkind behaviours expressed throughout the existence of the ship war. Ship bashing, as well as character bashing, was frequent. Common accusations, and the target of critical meta, were: "Captain Swan is an abusive relationship and promotes rape culture" and "Swan Queen is an abusive relationship and is incest". There were also harassment through anon messaging on Tumblr, some of which could be quite severe, including things like slurs and wishing death upon the recipient; although this seems to have been the behavior of only the most extreme of fans and was not seen as appropriate behavior among most of the CS and SQ shippers.
There were many arguments about which ship could become endgame (since Captain Swan was canon—and eventually married in season 6—while Swan Queen was not). Swan Queen shippers were sometimes called delusional for thinking their ship could ever exist/become canon.
The most fervent time for the ship war appears to be 2013-2015, or roughly seasons 2 through the first half of season 5. It continued to flare up multiple times in the later seasons, but cooled considerably in season 7, because many of the involved ships and characters were no longer present on the show.
=== Avoiding the Ship War ===
Despite this, there are many fans who were able to avoid much of the drama and fandom wank through the likes of blocking etc., and some managed to happily ship both in online spaces. In addition, fans of many of the countless smaller ships and rarepairs in the fandom had much less of an issue with involvement in the CS vs. SQ ship war, being able to carve out their own niche in the Once fandom, such as the likes of Red Beauty, Frozen Swan, or Gideon/Roderick.
==Involvement of Creators and Actors==
===Showrunner Involvement===
The showrunners and writers where somewhat aware of the ship war, and early on when asked questions about the ships involved would be encouraging, but also very vague about if any particular ship would end up together. Also to some fans it seemed like the writers were creating scenes in the show to cater to specific ships.This changed in the summer of 2013 when at a panel at San Diego Comic Con one of the showrunners, Adam Horowitz, stated that they never had any intention of making Swan Queen a reality, to the great disappoint of the Swan Queen shippers.
Many Swan Queen fans felt they had been queerbaited.
=== Actors Involvement ===
The show's actors were aware of the ship war, and were sometimes harassed by shippers from the opposing sides, usually on Twitter.
=== Michael Coleman Incident ===
There was incident on Twitter in December 2013 between the actor Michael Coleman, who had a minor recurring role on the show, and several SQ shippers. He stated "I know for a fact it won’t happen" regarding the Swan Queen ship among other things, responding to angry tweets from shippers, and later referred to potential queer canon ships for the show as a "Toyota", which did not go over well with the fans. The thread blew up to such a degree that the actresses Lana Parilla and Jennifer Morrison, as well as one of the showrunners Adam Horowitz, had to come forward and say the Coleman did not speak for them or the show.
==Bigotry Accusations ==
Accusations of bigotry, particularly homophobia (SQers against CSers) though also racism and xenophobia (regarding Lana Parrilla, who is Latina), and ableism (Killian is missing hand) arose. Accusations of the weaponization of bigotry - using accusations of bigotry as a means of skirting accountability - also sprang up. Some outside observers, as well as many involved with the ships too, suspect a mixture of both.
== Fandom Distress ==
== Reflections on the Ship War ==
==Further reading==
* 
* on Tumblr. A receipt blog.
* by BnazF on Twitter.
* by Aja Romano, dailydot.com
==References==
Category:Once Upon A Time
Category:2012 Events
Category:2010s Events
Category:2020s Events