Still procrastinating *slaps self* but I had a random thought earlier about Agents of Shield. Shows have ‘canon’ ships right, and you know how with most shows there’s a canon ship that is just ugh not cool? I’m speaking on how an individual person feels, I mean obviously there’s a ship for everyone. I’m saying I think most shows have a NOtp, or it’s not as severe as that but you still don’t ship them, when it comes to canon pairings.
Ok that was a convoluted sentence, hope that made sense. I mean thinking of Once Upon a Time there’s several ‘canon’ ships, and I like some, don’t like others. With Agents of Shield I’m trying to think of a canon ship that I disliked. At the end of season four (I have just the finale left to watch) there’s Fitzsimmons, Coulson/May and Mack/Yo-Yo and I ship them all to different degrees. Earlier in the show there were others. I suppose I wasn’t tremendously keen on May/Ward but that was short-lived, without feelings, and pretty much driven by my belief that May deserved better. Plus it made sense for the characters, it was like necessary development, so I was fine with it.
So yeah my random thought was that on a show with ships, it feels rare to like everything. I think I put that down to how well done the ships are on Agents of Shield. The development is slow, it’s consistent with the characters, each character still very much remains their own person, and it just makes sense. It’s hard to argue with things that make sense.
I think Daisy/Lincoln was that ship (it was for me and I never saw much enthusiasm for it, but I could have missed it) but I agree on your basic point that AoS ships are generally really well written. And they are also each pretty distinctive, even when using the same tropes. For example, you could classify both Fitzsimmons and Philinda (F.I.N.A.L.L.Y.) as slow-burn ships in which long-time best friends realize they’re in love, but I think the dynamics of each are different.
I’m only on the edge of the AoS fandom so I don’t really know what’s popular and what isn’t. I didn’t ship Daisy/Lincoln but I didn’t hate it either, well no more than I dislike anything to do with Skye/Daisy in the earlier seasons. She’s always been my least favorite character but that’s a whole other post probably. I could see why Daisy/Lincoln made sense though, even if I didn’t particularly care for it.
Anyway, I agree with you 100% about the ships being distinctive and perhaps I’m such a sucker for them because I love friends to lovers. Heh I admire you for using Coulson/May’s ship name, I can’t spell it for the life of me 🙂