Stelex

Stelex is the non-binary ship between Steve and Alex from the Minecraft fandom.

Canon
Alex was added in version 1.8, released in August 2014, which is fairly early into the life of Minecraft. According to Mojang, the reason why they added Alex is both to provide a more gender-neutral alternative to the more masculine Steve, as well as to promote the new "thin arms" design. The fact that Alex has slightly thinner arms is the only real difference between Steve and Alex, they play exactly the same gameplay-wise. Minecraft itself doesn't really have a story as much as it provides the player the option to tell their own story, the only thing that is concrete about them is that both Steve and Alex somehow fell from a height and ended up in the world of Minecraft. Since they are supposed to represent the player, most players end up working together to survive in this strange, geometrical world. However, players can also turn on each other, potentially making Steve and Alex enemies. Promotional material consistently portrays them as somewhat friendly, however.

Trailers
In "Nether Update", Steve and Alex work together to create a Nether Portal. But as soon as they enter the Nether, they get ambushed by Piglins on crossbows and both despawn. Coming back, prepared with Iron Armor and shields, they believe this to be enough to traverse the Nether. As soon as they are ambushed by piglins again, Steve sets a Respawn anchor, having both of them respawn in the Nether without their armor. They flee, but Steve gets the idea of maybe trying to make a deal with the Piglins instead, first presenting them rotten flesh only to be killed again, then giving them a gold ingot while both are decked out in gold armor. The Piglin accepts and Steve and Alex finally get to mine some Nether gold ore, only to be killed by a Ghast. When they mine it again, they spot a Hoglin, which they slaughter and enjoy its meat while chatting at a campfire. Once they deck themselves out in Netherite armor, they wound up getting caught in a fight, only to wind up fighting the entire Nether.

In "Caves & Cliffs Part II", Steve and Alex are entering a cave, but Steve is terrified of the spider webs, which causes Alex to shake their head at them. When Steve finds some copper ore and shoves Alex out of the way, Alex is waiting around, clearly bored. Alex then pranks Steve by holding a shrub in front of a torch and pretending that the shadow belongs to a spider. Fed up and trying to get away from Steve, Alex enters a Minecart only to plummet into the new lush caves. Breaking through the ground while trying to mine copper, Steve ends up in the far bleaker dripstone caves. Alex is having fun jumping around, eating Glow Berries and mining amethyst, while Steve is terrified of the lava dripping from the stalagtites and the spiders watching from afar. Alex is befriending an axolotl while Steve is running for dear life from spiders and jumps down a cliff to get away from them. But Alex then notices that they are going down a waterfall and just as the paddles try to pull away from it, Steve falls on their boat, pushing it down anyway. Just as they are falling, Steve gives an awkward smile while Alex glares at Steve. Nonetheless, they fistbump each other to celebrate that they're not dead, only to realize that they are being pursued by an entire army of skeletons. Steve and Alex then use Alex's amethyst and Steve's copper to craft a spyglass to find a way out of that cave. But once they block of the entrance, they realize that they're high up on a mountain with a goat pushing Steve off while Alex fruitlessly tries to save Steve.

Fanon
People seemed to ship Steve with Alex as soon as Alex was revealed, the idea of giving Steve a feminine counterpart was already somewhat popular in machinimas and fan animations.

Though people had a fairly different idea of what their dynamic would be, considering how many depicted Steve as a hapless brute while Alex was wiser but also somewhat of a nag, fitting the stereotypes of their assumed genders. When official works set in the Minecraft canon suggested that Alex was more reckless and greenhorned, while Steve was more creative and world-weary, people started taking a liking to that dynamic as well, arguing that it makes a lot of sense. This inspired the idea of depicting Steve as something of a mentor figure but on equal footing with Alex, both as adults but with Steve maybe 4-5 years older.

On AO3, not counting Dream SMP and other Let's Play fanfic that are tagged as "Minecraft (Video Game)", Stelex is the second most popular ship in that tag, the second most popular ship for Steve and the most popular ship for Alex.

Fandom
FAN FICTION