Like an old married couple

[Idle Miscreant]

My main trouble with manips is purely a practical one; When you know the show a little TOO well, you also know where every scene and photo comes from, so I find it impossible to suspend disbelief. The vaguely romantic S/P manips I've made myself (the Casablanca and Shennoir ones) used scenes from where they were actually looking at each other originally, so in a sense the only thing altered were the surroundings, not the interaction. This means I don't get distracted thinking HANG on, wasn't Sheldon...etc

Here we have Amy's fantasy of Penny looking at Amy's fantasy of Sheldon, and Amy's fantasy of "Sheldon" looking at Amy's fantasy of herself. The entire thing is composed of Amy's fantasy, and that's enough of a turn-off right there, if one were romantically inclined.

It's a beautifully made picture, and obviously if one wants an image of S/P engaging romantically in a physical sense, one must resort to certain amounts of jiggery-pokery. Pajamas' manip from a year ago was insanely clever in that regard. And similarly, beautiful.

But this brings me to the second problem; that of people's conceptions of "romantic Sheldon" clashing.

There's a common idiocy voiced by certain canon-sticklers that ALL Shenny fanfiction is purely sexual, and moreover, all of the same type of sexuality. I barely know where to start with that complete balderdash...

I've been scanning through these stories lately, breaking them into categories (Surreal, Space-Age, Apocalyptic, Whimsical etc) and I'd say on estimate about 30% contain graphic sexuality of any description. As pointed out in the Grumblebox, Shenny fiction is based predominately on friendship first. There is simply this undercurrent of possibility running throughout. The Paladin Protocol, probably the most famous Shenny story, is 90K plus words, with no graphic scenes whatsoever.

BUT, when it comes to graphic scenes in the remaining 30% of stories, they vary WILDLY in their depictions of what a "sexualised" Sheldon would entail.

Now, the manip above, for example, depicts a "traditionally romantic, Mills & Boon" Sheldon. For the very good reason that it's AMY'S conception of Sheldon. It's HER fantasy. Similarly, that's Amy's fantasy of Penny cracking on to Sheldon (another of her fantasy versions, incidentally). So the whole thing inescapably reminds me of what a Shamy fan-fiction writer's (ie, Amy herself) conception of Shenny must be.

To me that bears no resemblance to Sheldon as I conceive him at all, nor how I would conceive such a romantic encounter between Sheldon and Penny to look. Moreover, I don't find that that's how such encounters are generally depicted in Shenny fanfiction. Which more often than not, seem to keep him equally odd and alien in the bedroom, not suddenly transformed into some bodice-ripping playgirl centerfold.

Not to say those stories do not exist. Dear lord they do. But they are fairly infrequent.

Having pissed all over everyone's cornflakes now, er...It's a very charming picture, if you remove the dopey expression from "Sheldon"'s face.

I still prefer stick-insect Sheldon. "Buff" Sheldon implies that the character "works out". There is nothing in his nature which suggests he would engage in the pointlessness of repetitive lifting of weights.
Archery yes. Preparing for the Apocalypse, yes. Lifting the heavy thing up and down? No.

It's just Parsons aware they keep asking him to take his clothes off, so his vanity has completely understandably kicked in. Unfortunately it also makes the character unrealistic and inconsistent, but nevermind...