A defense of Eloise Bridgerton and her friendship with Penelope Featherington
I should probably start this post by pointing out the fact that I’m not the biggest Eloise fan out there. In fact Eloise has consistently annoyed me for two seasons straight with her I’m “not like other girls” shtick and the writers using her as a prop for modern feminist talking points.
Mostly what I disliked about Eloise was the bluntness and lack of charm used to put across the themes of women’s role in recency society and the lack of options for girls not interested in playing the marriage mart mind games.
Jane Austen, for example, makes many of the same points regarding women in her novels but instead of beating us over the head with it, she uses wit, eloquence and wisdom to get her points across.
But, above all, I disliked just how self involved Eloise was, what a major chip on her shoulder she had. She’s a privileged girl from an immensely powerful and rich family that spends her days whining and being dismissive of everyone around her.
She spends most of season 1 picking fights with Daphne for no reason and the second season making fun of Colin and running around town like a chicken without a head not so much because she wants to find out who Lady Whistledown is but because she’s bored and wants something to do (something other than talking to men potentially interested in marrying her because she’s gay she’s not like other girls).
Even as I’m writing this, I’m questioning whether I’m even the right person to defend Eloise because, as you can clearly tell, I don’t much care for her. But I do think Polin and Penelope fans are really misjudging Eloise and wanting to make her the villain of season 3 due to her resentment towards Penelope and her anger at the Polin engagement.
So I guess I have to be the hero without a cape in this instance.
Here it goes …
It’s very easy to look at the friendship between Eloise and Penelope in season 1 and 2 and conclude that Eloise has always been a bad friend to Penelope. After all, almost every scene they have together is about Eloise, her interests and passions, her frustrations at the ton and the marriage mart, her inability to fit in with societal expectations, her quest to find out the identity of Lady Whistledown etc, etc. There’s almost never room for Penelope to even get a word in because Eloise talks and talks and keeps on talking.
But I’d like to put forth another interpretation and say that perhaps this dynamic in the relationship isn’t all on Eloise. That it’s Penelope herself that prefers it that way. That she’d much rather talk about Eloise and her issues than to reveal anything truly meaningful or vulnerable about herself.
A scene that supports this theory is the scene they have in season 2, episode 1:
This is about as open and vulnerable Penelope ever is with Eloise and in this scene we can observe several things:
Despite her being more open than usual, Penelope is still lying to Eloise. She talks about how she enjoys being a wallflower because she can have all the fun without the pressure that comes with being in the spotlight. In reality we know Penelope would love to be in the spotlight but is frightened of being rejected. She’s not having fun hugging the wall at all and yet she’s unable to share that with her friend.
As soon as Penelope opens up, albeit only partially, Eloise is quick to notice that, despite pretending not to enjoy the balls and the marriage mart, Penelope actually likes all of these things. This shows not only that she knows Penelope pretty well (as well as Penelope herself will allow Eloise to know her) but that, despite disagreeing on the topic, she’s supportive of Penelope and listens to her.
It’s also worth comparing the way Eloise behaves with Penelope vs. the way she behaves with Cressida in season 3.
Cressida and Eloise’s relationship is much more balanced and equal because Cressida stands up for herself, pushes back at Eloise when she needs to (like explaining why she needs to marry Lord Debling despite not being compatible) or when Eloise accuses her of telling everyone about Colin helping Penelope find a husband.
And Eloise learns to adjust. She becomes a more supportive friend, sharing her knowledge of birds so that Cressida can impress Lord Debling, making conversation with him when Cressida doesn’t know what to say and coming to her house to visit her and offer support.
My point is: Eloise is not perfect. She’s self involved and dismissive of things she isn’t personally interested in but is willing to put in the work for a friend if said friend is honest with her about what they need from their friendship.
Which leads us back to Penelope. Eloise is the most meaningful relationship in her life (Colin is as well but that’s a much more fraught relationship for Penelope because she wants to be lovers not friends) and yet she refuses to share the two most important aspects of her life with her friend: her love for Colin and her being Lady Whistledown.
Let’s leave Colin to the side for now because Eloise being his sister complicates matters as far as Penelope telling her she’s in love with him.
But why doesn’t she tell Eloise about Lady Whistledown? Particularly in season 1, when she’s just starting to write the scandal sheet. She has no idea where Lady Whistledown will even lead, if she’ll keep going etc. She’s basically doing it because she’s a writer and she wants to have fun talking about the society she knows so well.
So why not share the fun with her friend? It’s pretty clear Eloise doesn’t even know Penelope is a writer and hasn’t seen anything she ever wrote before Lady Whistledown because, otherwise, she’d know it was Penelope doing it.
Also let’s not forget that, in season 1, Eloise was Lady Whitledown’s number 1 fan. She can’t stop talking about how amazing and brilliant she is.
And yet Penelope says nothing. She’d rather grin proudly behind Eloise’s back than go: “Actually this woman you like so much … I am she. She is me.”
She again fails to do it in season 2, despite knowing that Eloise helped her in escaping the queen’s men at the end of season 1.
And then the worst part of their friendship begins as the pressure from the queen mounts and Eloise is more and more determined to find out the identity of Lady Whistledown. Penelope chooses to gaslight and manipulate Eloise for weeks.
It’s not just Eloise’s relationship with Theo and her attending political meetings that put her in harm’s way and eventually forces Lady Whistledown to write about her in order for the Queen to stop suspecting Eloise. It’s Penelope’s refusal to be honest with her friend.
Penelope is so determined to keep Eloise in the dark that even at the end of season 2, when she walks into her bedroom and sees Eloise, she still tries to gaslight her one last time.
Penelope: You’ve been reading too much Whistledown. Her voice is echoing in your head.
Penelope is stuck in a pattern of toxic behavior because that’s what she’s learned to do from her family. She cannot be honest about Lady Whistledown or anything truly meaningful, despite how hard it is for her to remain isolated and in the shadows:
Penelope: You have no idea how horrible it has felt to keep this from you! From everyone! For so long.
It’s no wonder that, in their fight scene, Eloise tells her:
Eloise: I do not even know you.
That’s because Penelope herself has made it so that the people closest to her, Eloise and Colin, don’t actually know the real her. She’s given each of them what she thought they wanted and needed (she’s very similar to Colin in that way) but not enough of the real her.
So when the Lady Whistledown revelation happens, there’s nothing for Eloise to fall back on in order to try and understand Penelope.
All of a sudden her best friend feels like a stranger. A stranger that has exposed her intimate affairs to the whole world and who tells her this:
Penelope: At least I did something. All you ever do is talk about doing something. You have all of these great ambitions, these great plans but I am the one who actually did something great and you can’t stand it, can you?
Now, because we, as the audience, are privy to Penelope’s inner world and we know just how riddled with low self-esteem she is and how she’s used to those closest to her being dismissive of her or her achievements, it’s easy for us to see that Penelope tells Eloise this in anger. Particularly after Eloise tells her:
Eloise: I look at you now and all I feel is pity for you. Sequestered here, in this very room, writing your secret little scandal sheet, tarnishing everyone in town all because you are too afraid to stand up for yourself in reality. You are something else, Penelope. An insipid wallflower, indeed.
Eloise’s words hit too close to home. Too close to the reality of Penelope’s isolation and fear of being alone and abandoned so she hurts Eloise back the only way she can. By pointing to the fact that despite talking and talking endlessly about all the great things women, and she in particular, could be doing, Eloise isn’t actually doing anything.
Basically, these two manage to hurt each other worse than anyone else could because they’re best friends, because they know each other and what makes the other one tick.
But from Eloise’s perspective? In this moment, where she’s been betrayed by her best friend? Well, Penelope doesn’t feel like a friend at all. She feels like someone who got close to her only to exploit her so she could write a scandal sheet and make money off of her misery:
Eloise: This was personal.
Penelope: Eloise, I’m so sorry. I was only trying to protect you.
Eloise: Is that what you were doing? By writing about me in your latest sheet? By telling the entire world about things I trusted you with? [...] The only person you were interested in saving was yourself. All so you could keep making money at the cost to everyone else. At a cost to Miss Thompson. To my brother. To my entire family. To your entire family. [...] All because of your self serving manipulations.
Which brings us to Eloise’s reaction to the closeness between Colin and Penelope and the announcement of their engagement.
To Eloise’s credit, since their fight, she’s tried her hardest to be an adult and not punish Penelope more than she needs to. She’s very hurt by what her friend did and she can’t trust her but she also doesn’t want to hurt Pen.
She’s kept the Lady Whistledown secret and refuses to tell Colin why their friendship fell apart because she doesn’t want Penelope to lose the one friend she still has.
She also misses Penelope which is why she ends up telling Cressida about Colin helping her find a husband. She’s trying to figure out what’s going on with her friend and the only way Eloise knows how to figure stuff out is by talking … and talking … and talking … in full earshot of everyone at the ball.
But despite all of this, as far as she knows, Penelope is still the girl that divulged her secrets, ruined Marina Thompson’s reputation and hurt Colin, not only by revealing Marina’s pregnancy but by taking cheap shots at him only weeks before her brother waltzes into the Bridgerton drawing room to announce he’s engaged to Penelope Featherington.
What kind of sister would Eloise be if she wasn’t angry at Penelope for that? If she didn’t want Colin to find out the truth as soon as possible?
Personally, I think she’s showing real restraint. She cares so much about Penelope that she’s not dragging her brother into the study the moment she hears the engagement news to tell him that he’s about to marry the dreaded Lady Whistledown.
Which brings us back to my earlier point: Penelope never trusted Eloise enough to tell her she was in love with Colin. Maybe if Eloise knew that Penelope has had a crush on Colin since she was 10 years old, she might be able to understand this engagement better.
But from her viewpoint, all she’s likely to see is that Colin is an impulsive romantic who once again has gotten engaged to a girl who is lying to him and using him to avoid social ostracization.
I know that by the end of the season Eloise and Penelope will have mended their relationship and they will go back to being the besties we know they are.
But what I would love to see in part 2 of the season is Penelope actually being brave and honest with the two people that she loves most in the world. Not just about her being Lady Whistledown but about the reasons why she became Lady Whistledown. It’s only by her decision to be vulnerable and open that she can actually mend her relationship with Eloise.
Friendships aren’t just about being there for your friend, about listening and giving them what you think they need but also about allowing your friend to be there for you. To allow them to truly know you: your fears, your sadness, your hopes and dreams. That’s the only way for a friendship to thrive.
50 notes
·
View notes
Human!Mark with a Super-powered/Viltrumite!Reader
It’s cute he’s so possessive, as if we wouldn’t break him like a twig... 🙈
THISSSS this is incredible!! i am going crazy!!
i love this idea so much,, perhaps reader is an child of thragg. i am now putting my little headcanon in where i think that mark would have glasses and braces… real nerdy guy x girl that is only gentle with him… cute dynamic hehe!!
this is sfw since im writing a full fic currently, just some headcanons maybe to get the concept out there!! the fic will be called “the perfect girl”
cw: nothing really, as i have stated this is short, maybe a blurb? i am not sure haha,
the youngest viltrumite to be sent to conquer a planet. you’re sent to earth to take over another viltrumite’s mission that was supposedly cut short due to his untimely death. as soon as you burst onto the scene you’d had everyone’s attention; splattering kaijus like they were bugs, stopping criminals with your presence alone, saving those who were weaker, more susceptible to danger. you’re quick to rise as a favourite of the public, surpassing even the guardians in popularity.
mark meets you at a comic book signing at a con because of course he does. you’re there because you find humans interesting, that and you’d caught wind of a possible attack incoming at the event. you doubted they’d actually come along seeing as you’d made your presence known and you weren’t too kind with your beatdowns. you’d never admit it, but you found this type of media entertaining, the stories would interest you. even though you were a viltrumite, there wasn’t any law that said you couldn’t have a little bit of fun. (you also somewhat enjoyed the fame and the fanbases that had cultivated around you since you decided you didn’t need a superhero name, your name was good enough)
brown eyes stare at you through thick framed glasses, sparkling with interest and recognition, a goofy braced sideways smile forming on his face. you raised an eyebrow, arms crossed over your chest as you stared dead into his eyes. mark almost dropped the stacks of comic books he held in his arms, you were ethereal. he’d seen you on tv, you were all over the newsfeeds sometimes so you were hard to avoid. he thought you were beautiful before, thought you looked like an angel now. other people had gotten pictures with you earlier so he was sure there wouldn’t be a problem if he asked.
he got his picture but you had gotten his number, watched him walk away with pink cheeks, caught in a sort of daze. mark felt so comfortable to you, so… familiar..? maybe all humans weren’t so bad, mark was proof of that.
when you’d come over for dinner with his family one night, you’d finally worked out why. you’d never met nolan, but had heard stories about him growing up on viltrum. he’d been priming the planet for invasion but had been killed which put a cap on things until your arrival about two and a half years ago after you’d proved yourself worthy. you had the shock of your life when you sat at the table and squinted at your boyfriend’s father, heart dropping when you connected the dots. you and mark had been together for months now, you’d know if he was a viltrumite… had the great nolan faked his own death and fathered an offspring with no powers? you almost scoffed at the irony. what a tired and cowardly old man, the karma of having a child with no abilities must have been damning enough. you thought about you and mark’s potential future children and a warmth washed over you, the same warmth that made you feel all gooey and sickly sweet inside.
“tell me about your planet.” he’d say, resting his head on your shoulder as you watched the stars together, “ah, viltrum… haven’t you heard of it before?” you questioned, head tilted into his. you couldn’t wait to report back in a few years, couldn’t wait to tell everyone about how you’d found nolan and he hadn’t been killed… but mark would’ve been heartbroken. you couldn’t do that to him, not yet at least, it seemed cruel. plus, he had no idea what a viltrumite was, though your pride as a viltrumite felt attacked as you’d figured his father hadn’t even mentioned mark’s background to him.
you told tall tales about how you’d created the best civilisation, how your kind helped other planets and those less fortunate… you’d tell him the truth eventually, you’d have to seeing as you wanted to keep mark for as long as human lifespans allowed you to. he would open his mouth and his eyes would widen in awe, saying something about how you were like a character from his comic books which made you nod in turn, the conversation slowly changing to the subject of the comic book he’d been talking about. before you met mark, you would’ve probably never been able to experience life in such a human way. before it felt as if you had no sense of individuality, now it felt like you couldn’t stop being yourself even if it was a little alien to you.
35 notes
·
View notes
Sorry to double up on your inbox, but I had this burning idea.
Suppose Fuuta's sister has had her hair styled like the Milgram girls at various points. What scenarios might come up when Fuuta mistakes the girls for his sister?
I know you were looking for ideas on all of the girls but I got really carried away with this one train of thought with Kotoko, so have some of that instead 😭 I'm such a sucker for 02-04-06 seeming the type to use beauty products and know their way around a lot of hair care, and triggering memories for Fuuta via scents/sounds of his sister's job. And as you've seen I'm so emotional over him seeing Amane as an equal as they both care for each other and she feels like family...
Fuuta was used to people disappointing him.
He’d been let down by his mother, then his father. He’d seen how all of society screws its people over. His own friends had turned their backs on him when things got rocky. Even here, he couldn’t count on any of these people to look out for him. Well, all except one.
Kotoko.
He’d actually done a double take when he first saw her. Her hair was styled much like his sister’s; from behind, it could have been her with a bit of dye.
It wouldn’t have been so bizarre for her to color her head shining black. After all, that had always been his sister’s method of rebellion. His father was a traditional man, and hated to see her chop all her hair off, chop others’ hair off, add more piercings, or change it to any and every shade that wasn’t the family’s natural red. Fuuta had always thought they were all hollow exercises, more for attention than anything else. (It was nothing like the actual action he was taking to break away from his father’s strictness). Seeing Kotoko wear an eerily similar look, and hearing how closely her views aligned with his, he started to understand the appeal.
While the others were intimidated by her appearance, Fuuta found it familiar. Unlike the rest of the prison, he had no hesitation in approaching her. He was more willing to sit beside her at meals. He joined in her conversations in the common area.
Mahiru kept going on about being everyone’s ‘big sis,’ but she never took a damned thing seriously. Yuno told Fuuta he reminded her of her little brother, but the last thing he needed was to be treated like some baby. Kotoko, on the other hand, knew exactly how to speak with him.
She came to show him her solidarity before his interrogation. She gave him tips on working out, and joined in his conversations about the injustice of current prison systems. She even had his back when he was scolding Mikoto about taking fighting styles seriously. He jeered at the notion that Kotoko could overpower Kazui. Though, deep down, he’d seen how strong the woman was. For someone the same age as him, and busy with university like him, she had insanely impressive power.
He’d never dare admit it, but he looked on in awe whenever she worked out in the common areas.
Fuuta found even more comfort in her strength as the trial came to a close. The two ended up with opposite verdicts, but that wasn’t anything new. Teachers, neighbors, relatives – everyone had reasons to praise his sister while dragging up grievances against him. Both women had a sort of brash charisma that people enjoyed. He usually only got the label of “brash.” Kotoko was saved his rant that it all came from their differences in gender and beauty. Fuuta was confident she’d come to the same conclusion already.
After all, what else separated them? They were here for practically the same reason.
He didn’t let it get under his skin. While the prisoners shied away from him and the others named unforgiven, he could always count on Kotoko to speak with him as honestly and directly as usual.
The warden and the prisoners weren’t the only ones to let him down: the voices in his head had gone from a fair debate to a loud, nasty mob with each passing day.
They seemed to be at their very worst, now. He was going on a few nights of little to no sleep thanks to their nonstop judgment. Fuuta tossed and turned in his sheets, cursing the new uniform that made it impossible to relax. It had been exhausting, consumed by fear and guilt and anger. Everything had him jumpy these days.
He flinched as his cell door creaked.
His bleary eyes turned to the silhouette in the doorway. A name instinctively came to his lips. Thankfully, he corrected himself before making the embarrassing mistake.
“It’s you, Kotoko.” It was strange for her to be here at this hour. And completely unannounced, at that.
“Kajiyama Fuuta…”
He didn’t care. He smiled. After all, surrounded by so many betrayals, he always felt safer with her around.
15 notes
·
View notes