Ships

Let’s talk about ships.

Sit down Capt’n, I don’t mean your ship. I mean RELATIONships, ‘ships for short. Where did I get the abbreviation? How can relationship become a verb? I.e, who do you ship more? Leonard/Penny? Rachel/Ross?
“Shamy?” (More like Sham-wow, amirite?)

Allow me to explain the Internet science behind the shipping phenomenon and subculture.

Simply put, ship is short for relationship, but fans and Internet dwellers mostly use the term in the verb form, “to ship” or “shipping.” Shipping only means, the act of pairing two characters into a relationship.
Used in the English (?) language, “ship” works as follows:

“I really ship Monica and Chandler!” says the happy-go-lucky F.R.I.E.N.D.S old-timer.
“I sort of liked shipping Monica and Richard instead,” replies the no doubt disappointed fan, once their ‘ship’ didn’t become ‘canon’ (that is, the relationship didn’t become an actuality within the show).
“I ship Howard and Bernadette so hard. They’re my OTP!” screams the Big Bang Theory follower from the 21^st century.
(OTP? One True Pairing. But learning the in’s and out’s of a “true pairing” would take a whole other article.)

And as if all this weren’t confusing enough for the first-time reader (I’ll make the manual soon), all relationship pairings have…”ship names.” Har har. Names are usually derived from combining the names of the two characters (think Brangelina), but in some cases, the combinations are better left un-fused.

The S.S.’s stand as follows:

Monica and Chandler: Monica/Chandler (the F.R.I.E.N.D.S fans stayed away from “Mandler” here)

Rachel and Ross: Rachel/Ross (Ross and Rachel make…”Rachel”)

Leonard and Penny: Leonard/Penny or Lenny

Sheldon and Amy: Shamy

Howard and Bernadette: Howard/Bernadette or Howardette

Marshall and Lily: Marshall/Lily, Marshmallow, or Lilypad (can we say, awww.)

Ted and The Mother: The Mothership (badumbsh)

Barney and Robin: Bro-Love (although I personally use Brobin for the bro-mention)

Just to name a few.
Which ship will you board? Are you a passenger of one, several, or a ship not listed? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Fans Talk: Joey Tribbiani

Not sure what Joey’s doing resurfacing on every fan’s radar today. Although, it also makes total sense that he’s never left their radar.

Combing through what the fans deem to be the “best of” Joey Tribbiani from F.R.I.E.N.D.S, I think I’ve stockpiled a few nostalgic remember-when’s.

Like, remember when Joey stole all of Chandler’s clothing and wore every single piece all at once? Commando? Chandler learned fast never to steal his best friend’s underwear again.

“I’ll tell ‘ya, it’s hot with all this stuff on. I better not do any, I dunno, lunges.”

-- Joey to Chandler

Or however many personas Joey’s taken over the seasons: PlayStation “punk”, greaser, just plain hiring his own stand-in. (They were a little more Jersey than Manhattan, I think. Too much black.)

Of course, the fans didn’t forget the trademark “How you doin’?” Even if stand-in Carl couldn’t get the line (or the pizza), Joey laid out the catchphrase with finesse: to Rachel, to models, to the nudist neighbor across the street. Fun fact, Joey knows improvisational sign language.

Joey: “I look a woman up and down, and I say, ‘Hey…how you doin’?’”
Phoebe: “Oh please.”

-- Joey, showing Phoebe the power of the “doin’.”

But my favorite Joey moment has to be the Game Show Moment. You know the one: Joey shows up as a contestant on Pyramid (or the equivalent of), and can’t guess anything down to coffee creamer (“paper, snow, a ghost!”).

“The plan…it’s not a shmoo-print…”

-- Joey, trying to hint the word “blueprint.”

But if the game show doesn’t go to show, it’s that everyone loves Joey despite everything that makes him Joey. He leaves the show (the game show and the F.R.I.E.N.D.S show) with a special place in our hearts.

Fans Rank: Couples

As Valentines grows closer, web-users and other opinioned get louder. Not to speak ill of our dear fans—many just have a more, ah, “heartfelt” opinion of the worldwide holiday. Especially where our sitcoms-turned-romcoms over the last few weeks are concerned.

Between proposals and nuptials and all else in-between, fans have been more, or less, vocal about their favorite on screen couples. Take a look at who comes out on top, and why, in the valentines edition of “fans”:

6. Sheldon and Amy, a.k.a “Shamy”—Big Bang Theory

This boat might currently be rockin’ (and not droppin’), but Sheldon and Amy did find and match each other point for point for all of two years running. Can anyone believe it was so long ago? Fans can’t, and they can’t get enough, especially with last episode’s cliffhanger in contention.

5. Monica and Chandler—F.R.I.E.N.D.S

My favorite scene from the iconic show happens to be Monica’s bleary-eyed proposal, full of candles and roses and the essence of all that is Valentine. Between Monica’s mothering and Chandler’s quirks, this pair will never say die!

4. Lilly and Marshall—How I Met Your Mother

The ‘destiny’ might have been as planned as the wedding, but the new parents are anything but spontaneous about their future together; they’re in it for the long haul, and fans over support their endeavor entirely!

3. Leonard and Penny—Big Bang Theory

The one ship to sail them all. Or so says the internet. The “relationship” blossomed over the show’s many seasons and seems to be steamrolling ahead as quickly (if not as surely) as one of Sheldon’s prized trains. All aboard?

2. Barney and Robin—How I Met Your Mother

Who could have predicted this match from the outset of season 1? We might have been a bit too mother-focused to notice, but now the fiancés have captured our laser-attention. At least, they’ve done the job for me.

1. Ross and Rachel—F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Fans never forget their lobsters, even in lieu of sitcom current events. The ten-year-old show came out on top in the votes of vocal supporters, reminding us all that great relationships, and tried and true love, should be timeless.

Fans Talk: Monica Geller

When you think neat, organized, unspontaneous, frizzy, fun, kind, caring, your mind probably wanders to your more deranged housecat.
Well, stop that, and start thinking about F.R.I.E.N.D.S femme Monica Geller.

Fans dissect the shining qualities, for good or ill, making up the “mother hen” star of the show. Monica and Rachel’s apartment boasts more scenes than any Manhattan layaway for the entire season run, for good reason. Monica hosts and boasts, bends-over-backwards for her friends and loved ones, and sometimes turns heads trying to win table-tennis tournaments.

Let’s take a closer look at our contortionist, shall we?

“Okay, so I’m responsible, I’m organized, but hey, I can be a kook!”

-- Monica Geller

MoniCAN, not MoniCAN’T: a repeated sentiment by an online Facebook fan, says it best. Monica’s can-do attitude pervades her career and love life. Between restaurant-and-stock-hopping (remember her Moondance Diner days?), she plows ahead, the driving force behind her success, with only her gumption and wit behind that wheel.

“Monica. She’s pretty, she’s sweet, she’s simply amazing. I just love the Geller’s.”

-- xforeverfangirl.tumblr

Left with her label-maker, Monica organizes and prototypes her friends’ lives and luxuries. F.R.I.E.N.D.S fans catch her cleaning in her sleep, or managing her frizzy curls with cornrows. There isn’t a dilemma she can’t ditch.

Including the patch I can’t ignore, if it can even be called a “dilemma” (we’ll stick with change—it indeed did change), the years the ‘friends’ dubbed: “Fat Monica.” Monica indeed weighed more growing up than her Greenwich self, spurred to change by finally hearing Chandler call her “fat” one Thanksgiving (what IS it with Thanksgivings on sitcom shows?). She cut the weight in one year.
Ironically, in The One That Could Have Been, she ended up with Chandler despite her size. A fitting end for that relationship…no pun intended.

As you can see, writing such a short piece on such a complex, amazing character as Monica hardly does her justice. But the fans know her power and don’t cease to remark on her legacy. She is why fans talk.

Teleportation is Problematic

I’m responding again to an article posted by a dedicated Big Bang Theory viewer. No, I don’t spend all my waking hours stalking other articles based around the shows I watch, but their opinions and deductions intrigue me nonetheless. This article, especially, sits as a pro for a recent, though looming, Big Bang Theory debate.

Big Bang Theory naysayers, out of the woodwork since around 2011, criticize the program for its treatment of facts and “geek culture,” particularly concerning popular cult-classics.
Now, perhaps the writers of the show scrub some World of Warcraft references, or name the wrong episodes of Star Trek when proving points. Or maybe they generalize (as I have) to only the most notable fan-bases, making every quip and quote “WoW” and Trek-centered.
At the end of the day, according to Alvina Lopez, they make very consistent, well-researched points about the core of the characters’ occupations in the show: science!

I’d love to sit and list the engaging article’s highlights, truly, but now I’m curious about validity. Should the show be accurate on all counts, scorned for every mistake, because facts make up a vast majority of the show’s theme and content? Or should the viewers forgive the program’s slights in lieu of the show’s character, the cast themselves, the plotlines, the humor doused in every script, along with the culture references?

My love for the show speaks to my own opinion on the matter, simply because I don’t know enough about the references they plug to know right from wrong. Call me ignorant; I’m there for the comedy and jokes I can understand.
I still wonder, however. How far should the writers go to appease all the fans—dedicated to every comic, video game, and movie they tout—that have so much to say against the series’ accuracy?