Is the Skoulson vs Philinda ship war over?
I was a huge Coulson/Skye shipper during the early seasons. They were definitely written to be flirting and they had a ton of chemistry.
I suspect what killed the possibility of that ship ever setting sail in canon is that Clark Gregg and Chloe Bennet ended up developing a surrogate father/daughter relationship IRL and thus it would have been inconsiderate and a little gross for the writers to force them to act out a romantic/sexual relationship in the show.
(There's a bunch of other social media posts and various interviews about how Clark Gregg and Chloe Bennet developed a surrogate father/daughter relationship IRL, but I don't feel like digging all of them up for an off-the-cuff Tumblr rant.)
Now that the show is long over and thus there is no speculation as to which direction canon will go, I don't really see any need for the old Skoulson vs. Philinda ship wars to continue. Canon made its choice, but there's plenty of early season material to support taking things in a different direction in fanfic if you want to.
I still enjoy early-season Coulson/Skye fanfics or later-season AUs in which their relationship develops in a different direction than it did on the show. I also enjoy Coulson/May fics or Philindaisy family fics that more closely adhere to canon. Meanwhile, I also enjoy Coulson/Audrey fics, Coulson/Rosalind fics, Coulson/Pepper fics, Coulson/OFC fics, etc.
Because the #1 person I ship Phil Coulson with is myself, so any Coulson/[cis woman] pairing works for me because as a cishet woman it's easy for me to imagine myself in her place. (Yes I am cringe but I am free, and you can have my self-indulgent isekai maladaptive daydreaming when you pry it from my cold dead hands.)
Those of us who ship Phil Coulson with any woman should band together and support each others' ships because we are still completely outnumbered by the Phil Coulson/Clint Barton shippers, despite the fact that in canon, Clint is married to a woman and they have three kids, Phil has only ever been portrayed as dating women, and those two characters had literally ZERO time on screen together. (I do appreciate fandom's ability to create something out of literally nothing, but like... what?! If you want to make Coulson gay or bi fine, but at least pair him with someone who makes sense, like Steve Rogers or Glenn Talbot!)




















