Culture

Business Casual Superstar: Inspired by Penny (Kaley Cuoco, “Big Bang Theory”)

Guys, I come to you today with a heavy heart and terrible news. Do you remember the last time I posted a Penny-inspired outfit? I talked about how one of the most popular pairings on the show is Penny/Sheldon. That’s right: the sweet, peppy, bubbly Nebraska farm girl and wannabe actress, with the asocial alpha-nerd.

(Even though, as one of my buddies pointed out, Sheldon isn’t a real nerd. One minor example? A real nerd wouldn’t use Ubuntu. He’d use Linux.)

I mocked that pairing hard, you guys. I talked about how it was ridiculous and totally out of character and how it would never, ever happen and it was just gut-bustingly funny that it was the biggest fan-pairing on the show.

Guys?

…I love Sheldon/Penny.

😐

It’s true. I am a Paradox fan. (That’s their couple name, apparently, even though it’s not a mash-up of their character names.)

I just love Sheldon/Penny. They’re so unlikely and odd that it just might work. I can’t really explain why I like them, just that I do. I really, really do. Even though they’ll never, ever happen because I highly doubt the show’s writers want to tackle Sheldon walking away with his best friend Leonard’s ultimate dream girl.

So Sheldon and Penny fans must exist in fandom worlds, only. To that end, I’m posting a bunch of Sheldon/Penny stuff, but this time, WITHOUT ANY SUBTEXTUAL (or textual, since I’m not that subtle) MOCKING.

Seriously.

Michael Ausiello, TV spoiler god that he is, asked Bill Prady about the Paradox possibility about two years ago, during the show’s second season. Bill Prady, like any television exec, teased both pairings (Leonard/Penny and Sheldon/Penny) without being definite. Hardly a surprise: it’s the only smart way to give interviews. You can’t alienate a fanbase, after all, because those are your viewers. Those the people you want tuning in every week, so you tease them with the possibility that their favorite couple just MAY be given screen time or written in or whatever.

Also, how cute is this cartoon of Sheldon/Penny? It’s the header image for the Sheldon/Penny shipping LJ. Just click it to go there.

ADORBS.

Heh. I love the way the artist did her hair! AND OMG SHELDON IS WEARING A TARDIS SHIRT. That just makes everything 10x more awesome.

(Did I tell you guys that my plan for Halloween this year, as a third year law student, was to rig up this cardboard contraption and spray paint it gold and stuff, and make it like five feet tall and just kind of slink around my law school in my final year dressed as a Dalek? I totally would have done it, too, if I had time to rig it up. But I don’t. I don’t even have time to write this post, to be honest. MEGA FAILURE.)

The Paradox community up there seems to be mostly full of fic, so I went hunting for other mediums that fans used to express their Sheldon/Penny love.

I found this sekrit, which made me LOL.

Hahaha. Oh, child, keep it in your pants.

I found a bunch of new Season 4 promotional pics, which are actually kind of…cute. If a little boring.

Click the image up there to get over to teh site where you can see larger images. I kind of like that Penny’s hair is long now – it looks good on her – but I did like her short, kind of layered hair. Her shortest layers were just under her cheekbones and when her hair was curled under and it touched right at her cheekbones, it looked really pretty and flattering.

The picture of her and Johnny Galecki (Leondard) is really cute. Apparently they broke up after two years of dating. The picture of Sheldon with his laptop is kind of weird, but I guess that’s what they were going for. And the group shot is cute, but the way Penny’s feet are flexed is weirding me out because it looks like she doesn’t really have feet, and poor Raj is just stuck in the background, but they can’t all be front and center after all, so it’s all good.

Oh, God.

This picture comes to us from the F-ck Yeah Sheldon and Penny tumblr, and I love it.

So pretty! I especially love that shot of them (her in the gold dress, him in the black suit) from the 2010 Emmy’s. Jim Parsons picked up an award that night, one that he so richly deserved.

And the header for the Tumblr I just linked to is pretty awesome. It’s a shot of Jim Parsons smoking. He takes a drag, closes his eyes, appears to savor the taste, and lets it out in a quick, almost tidy puff of smoke.

It’s pretty awesome.

Now, to be clear, I’m not saying it’s awesome because he’s smoking and he looks cool. I’m saying that visually, it looks pretty awesome, particularly with the way the GIF was colorwashed and created. The aesthetic is pretty great. For the record, I don’t think smoking is cool or makes you cool, and I don’t think it’s the worst habit a person can have either. It’s a personal choice, and it’s reasonable enough to presume that if a person smokes, he/she understands and accepts the risks associated with it, and that is all there is to it. There’s no need for anyone else to step in with a judgment.

In related news, when I smoke my occasional cigar, I can blow smoke rings! How cool is that? Totally cool. Not cool because smoking is cool and makes me cool, but cool because you actually have to try to blow the rings and it’s not that easy to do.

(It’s easy to do. Take a puff, hold the smoke in your mouth, open your lips in a small, loose “o,” like you’re puckered up and about to plant one on a particularly attractive person, and point your tongue a bit and as you blow the smoke out of your mouth, let your tongue dart forward real quick. The motion propels the smoke out your mouth in a neat little puff, and because of the way you pointed your tongue, there’s a hole in the middle of the puff, hence the smoke ring. See? Easy!)

Okay, seriously, what is going on with this picture?

Whatever it is, it’s kind of really adorable. And I love the green dress on Penny. That bright emerald color is, sadly, so underrepresented in the vast array of colors and prints and patterns available out there. Love that color.

Anyway, FYSP is full of awesome images and collages, and if you’re a fan, check it out.

Let’s get to the outfit already, shall we?

Cap Sleeve Dress ………. $41.39
Tunic Tank in Plum ………. $14.99
AK Grayland Flat in Purple Suede ………. $39.99
Satin Rosette Hair Pin in Coral/Lavender ………. $1.50

Totally simple, and totally Penny.

I picked a printed dress with at least one bright color going on. Penny often wears floral dresses in all bright colors. Like, she’ll wear a pink, purple, bluish dress, and she’ll wear a red tank top underneath, with bright pink flats. You might look a little too clown-ish showing up at work dressed like that.

So I picked a dress with basically one or two bright colors from the same family, and added a tank top underneath, in a similar hue, and kept the shoes in that same color family as well. Plus, the black and white really take this look down a notch or two.

And remember Penny Blossoms? I found a budget Penny Blossom (as in, the same price, but less pretty) at Forever21.

Hah. Here’s an awesome picture of Sheldon optimizing Penny’s Penny Blossom manufacturing line, and helping her make them. It was such a cute, sweet episode.

AND THEY NEED TO AT LEAST MAKE OUT ALREADY.

>:(

🙁

My shame is great, you guys. And now you know my dirty secret about being a Sheldon/Penny fan.

http://fuckyeahsheldonpenny.tumblr.com/