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dollypopup · 1 month

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I think it's interesting to look at the 'Mr. Bridgerton' scene as a backdrop for the eventual mirror scene. Firstly, in the fact that I think we've kind of misinterpreted it.

So many people are of the mind that scene's purpose to 'drag' Colin, but really, that scene has 3 primary functions. The first is to inform Colin that Penelope is aware of what he said of her, thus opening the door to clearing the air between them and providing an avenue for which Colin can apologize. The second is to establish the ground that they are currently on: Penelope has given up on the dream of Colin Bridgerton, in particular the perfect prince that can do no wrong, and has made it clear to him. It also creates distance between them that they will bridge.

But the third, and to me the most wrapped up in the mirror and the inner workings of their relationship is that it reveals how Penelope feels about *herself*. It's not necessarily an echo of what the ton considers her as, after all, we have a lot of evidence indicating that, for all intents and purpose, people aren't *unkind* about her, but rather that they ignore her. Audience members recognize this as Penelope's own shyness being the cause, she is often sitting off on the sidelines or not really talking to much of anyone, in the books she's referred to as the 'one who doesn't speak', and her LW business takes her away from being a character in the action of the ton to a bystander, kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts that perpetuates itself. Pen felt unseen so she became LW to have some power, but then LW herself must remain unseen and Penelope continues to be by design of her own making.

No, I think what it really reveals is that Penelope has incredibly low personal self esteem. We as a fandom has lauded that scene as her dragging Colin, saying that he's cruel and calling him Mr. Bridgerton is absolutely meant to create distance between them, but I don't think she's dragging him.

Because the person she is *actually* dragging here. . .is herself. And it is a general theme in her life. In Whistledown. Aloud. Even with Marina, when she complimented her, she assumes that she's lying. When Edwina says she's wearing a pretty dress, Penelope puts herself down and doesn't believe her, even when the compliment is genuine. In truth, Portia is not seen as being particularly unkind to Penelope. At least, speaking as someone who's mum was *awful* about my size and weight and outfits, Portia is. . .overall rather mild. She's not KIND and loving, not by a long shot, but she's also not targeting Penelope only. She's plenty mean and critical to Prudence, too, even to the point where she foists her off to her own cousin as a pawn piece. Penelope has low self esteem because of a lot of reasons, she's bullied by Cressida (I think a lot of girls are, she was pretty mean even to Daphne in S1) and her family isn't very tender to her, and she's not being pursued at every turn, but part of it is also her own perpetuation.

Listen to what she says "Of course you would never court me" "I embarrass you" "I am the laughingstock of the the ton". She sees *herself* as an embarrassment. She puts *herself* down. Arguably, more so than the ton does. She's meaner to herself than anyone else is, aside from Cressida. And honestly? Looking at Colin's face there. . .he is HURT that she considers herself this way. That she's projecting that onto him. Yes, he's hurt that he hurt her, of course he is, he never wants to hurt her. And yes, he's ashamed that he said he wouldn't court her the way he did and that in doing so, he validated her fears that she is unloved and unwanted, but also because. . .she already feels that way about herself. She's felt that way for years. And it's painful to care about someone, to see them as wonderful, and realize. . .they don't feel the same about themselves at all. I don't think Colin is out here feeling so wounded over the fact that she called him cruel and won't refer to him by first name anymore, but that he's most hurt by what she says about herself.

Because he *doesn't* see her the way she accuses. She says she never expected him of all people to be so cruel, but he feels the same way. He never expected her to be so cruel to *herself*. He wants to go somewhere private, not because she is an embarrassment, but because he wants to have a private conversation with her. Maybe assure her. Maybe explain himself. Maybe hash it out. But god Luke Newton's acting. . .he is *aching* for her. And it feels like he's going to do those lessons not in atonement for what he said (thank god) but to genuinely help his friend who thinks badly of herself. To lift her up. It's not about him at all, not about earning forgiveness, but about elevating Penelope. And that's. . .fuck, I just find that's just so heart stoppingly beautiful.

You can see, in that scene, how much he cares about her. How deeply and genuinely he adores her as a person. And just how painful it is for him to know he has validated, whether on purpose or otherwise, how poorly she feels about herself. How low her self-confidence really is. She is giving him a glimpse into the cracks of her heart, and when he sees them, he wants to reach out with both hands and make it feel better. Make her feel better.

After she says 'even when I change my entire wardrobe', he looks so fucking crushed. So 'don't say that'. So 'you really believe that?'. So 'God, I hate that you think that way'.

Because regardless of it all, he does love her. It's not romantic yet. It's not sexual yet. But he genuinely, truly, from the bottom of his heart, thinks she's wonderful. That was evident even in the 'purpose' scene. Every time Penelope opens up and reveals a facet of herself, he likes it. He likes her barbs and her dreams, he likes talking to her. He likes her. And he feels awful that he hurt her. And he feels awful that she's hurting herself. He loves her. He wants her to love herself.

And that's where the mirror scene comes in. Because the mirror scene isn't about sex, not really. Not entirely, at least. The mirror scene is about *intimacy*. The mirror scene is about being seen. Not just her seeing him, or him seeing her, but for Penelope to see *herself*. In a way, through his eyes. Because hers are biased rather negatively toward herself, which is evidenced in the 'Goodnight Mr. Bridgerton' scene, and in so many little moments we've already gotten where she's literally looking down on herself, feeling down. She doesn't necessarily *like* what's in the mirror, but he does. Because he likes *her*. And he wants to show her that he does. Show her that he finds her beautiful and have her recognize that in herself.

The 'Goodnight Mr. Bridgerton' scene is about Penelope revealing how she sees herself. The mirror scene is about Colin showing her how *he* sees her. The Goodnight scene is about Penelope thinking she means nothing to him, that he thinks of her the way she thinks of herself, that this is how everyone thinks of her, and the mirror scene is a direct response to that: No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't think she's embarrassing. No, he doesn't think she's a laughingstock. No, he doesn't think she's unappealing. And he doesn't think she should, either.

And he's going to show her that. Not just tell her, but show her. The mirror scene is so often a focus on Penelope, so much of Polin is in Penelope's focus, but approaching it from Colin's perspective and his motivations is so fulfilling, too. It's a glimpse into them in conversation, and a demonstrate of how Colin loves her. How Colin loves in general, openly and earnestly and altruistically. How he encourages her to be braver and more confident in herself, bolstering her because he just likes her *that much*. How he finds the most fulfillment and satisfaction in caring aloud. The mirror scene is a demonstration of his heart in reflection.

When Luke Newton said the first word that came to mind with the word 'Mirror' was 'Exposed', he doesn't just mean physically. He means emotionally, too.

God this couple is so fucking good.

#polin #colin bridgerton #penelope featherington #Bridgerton #i love them #but honestly? i think i read too deeply into them #this is the only post about them i'll keep up #but after everything i've seen in this fandom and the promos and the synopsis- i don't think these two are friends #and i think i have given them more nuance and depth than they actually will get #and so i guess they're my dream #this version of them #the version of them that loves each other deeply and sees one another and has tenderness for each other #but everyone else in the fandom was right- we won't get this #we will get penelope needing external validation through the ton's opinion and we won't get colin being a full character #we will get a story based on suffering and holding scorecards against each other #we will get groveling and cold shoulders and drama in place of real growth #i suppose it's just sad for me #because i read so much of what i've thought of these two and i *see* the love i have for them #but bton and this fandom don't have that same love #so i have to let go of that dream #and that's for the best #but as a memento: have this #i've written a lot of love letters to this pairing- consider this one of them

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lucem-stellarum · 6 months

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So I actually wanted to go through and listen to the video, "Your Vampire Boyfriend Explains His Turning". It doesn't exactly match up to the way they tell it in "The Vampire Boys Have It Out". I'd recommend you go watch both videos back to back because it's fascinating, and frustrating. Redacted is contradicting himself on some things to push hard on the idea that both Porter and Vincent are in the wrong. I'm not saying that Vincent is perfect, but the way Erik is going about framing the circumstances of their fight and changing previously established canon so "they both have their reasons" isn't the greatest. Details and receipts under the cut because of length, and because it gets critical.

When Vincent's talking about the circumstances of his turning to Lovely, he says at 5:00 that "all he's had is the clan, and they already knew the story. Will had told them." That the only person he's ever explained it all too was Sam, because William told everyone else on his behalf. Which, first of all, makes it sound like the clan was a lot more supportive overall and a lot more informed than ANYONE implied in the later video. Even if William edited out a lot of the details there's some things you just can't get around. Like the fact that William, who is old blood and promised to never turn another progeny, and so needed a damned good reason to break that vow. The fact that neither of them had ever met before that day. Vincent's refusal to discuss the exact circumstances of his turning to the rest of the clan, the fact that William had to list Vincent a missing person rather than letting the department handle the human authorities around his turning. The fact that Vincent was uninformed/unempowered before this and had to be introduced to the entire magical world from the ground up. He couldn't have known anything about who William was as a powerful political force, the advantage that being turned by old blood gives him, Vincent literally couldn't have arranged his turning for his own selfishness because he didn't even know that was an option, let alone the bonuses of having William specifically as a maker.

There's so much evidence that Vincent's turning was impulsive, any combination of the above facts implies that it wasn't a choice on Vincent's part, let alone something that he would try to "earn". Plus, William bought WonderWorld because of the lawsuits after the very public accident to be their home base. People saw Vincent get on the coaster, that he was riding it just before it crashed, and that's the same day the clan gets a brand new prince that matches the description of a "body that was never found"? Even if William didn't blatantly spell it out for the more oblivious members of the clan, it's SO obvious what happened from knowledge available to them. An "impulsive" turning isn't ever going to be a happy story.

Speaking of "publicly available knowledge"... we can argue about how much of the full truth is available throughout the general clan population (however many people that may be), but if Porter is close enough to William to be offered his last name, and close enough to know secrets that Vincent isn't aware of, shouldn't he have known William and been part of the clan long enough to have been around for the original explanation for Vincent's abrupt turning? Let alone, potentially, being closer to William and getting more personal details, at least from William's side of the story? Getting a new progeny isn't a decision to be made lightly. Porter very heavily implied that he's known William for longer than Vincent has; since Vincent's turning was the first time that William and Vincent had met, then Porter's been part of the clan longer than Vincent has.

Next, we know that both Porter and Adam were foundlings, but considering how fundamentally eternal and unchanging vampires are, it seems odd that there'd be such a population turnover in the clan that Vincent was tormented by "the rest of the clan" (per Sam, when he said it wasn't his place to tell other people's private stories at ~18:00 in the later video). Vincent was turned Feb 13, 2000. Sam is turned by Alexis in 2008 (per the timeline). That's not long enough for immortal vampires to forget Vincent's story. Even if there are a LOT of new vampires in the clan over time, Vincent is the golden boy, the prince. It's natural he'd be the subject of gossip, and the circumstances of his turning would be pretty good fodder for the rumor mill even if he doesn’t talk about it himself and not everyone is as principled as Sam is. If some of the newbies (or Porter) were getting prissy about Vincent never having to take his turn guarding WonderWorld, just the fact that he died there doesn't seem like it would be uncommon knowledge among the clan.

With how rare vampires are supposed to be, even without specific numbers and censuses it doesn't make sense. The Solaires are supposed to be the largest and most influential vampire clan in Dahlia, sure, but population-wise that still can't be that many people. Either the clan grows slowly enough that word about what actually happened to Vincent can get out and corrected, (and the minority of new people who don't know better perpetuating baseless rumors face charges of slander against the prince) or the clan should be large enough to effectively patrol WonderWorld without Vincent needing to take regular shifts. (which... wasn't Vincent on patrol the night he first met Lovely?) 'Duke' Sam has to patrol sometimes, but does Alexis take shifts too? If the clan doesn't have a large enough population to support even the "royalty" from skipping that duty (except for Vincent), then they can't have that many members. By that logic, the clan is small enough that "everyone knows each other's faces" and so why is Porter bitching about the unfairness of Vincent having the "perks" of the Solaire blood and name when he ought to know damn well why Vincent of all people generally avoids that particular duty?

Again, Porter was almost certainly around to watch Vincent join the clan. Why doesn't he know about the circumstances of Vincent being invoked for a single time? Vincent tried to starve himself to death because he refused to feed on humans. William couldn't convince Vincent to feed of his own volition, so he invoked him. That is a seriously drastic measure to take for someone who "wanted to be turned". Alexis' many invocations seem to be common knowledge among the upper echelons of the clan that we see in videos; if Porter is close enough to have the Solaire name and be part of the "family" and is close enough to William to know "more than could fill the city of Dahlia", why is he so out of the loop around Vincent? Porter is jealous, not stupid nor blind.

Porter's comments about the rumors that popped up when William 'brought home the new baby?' More proof that he HAD to have been with the clan at that point. How else would he have heard all those rumors? Porter was jealous of Vincent's circumstance immediately after his induction to the clan and didn't hesitate to start "tearing Vincent down" from the moment they met for the crime of "not being grateful enough" to William. Porter's accusations that Vincent wanted to be turned by William to get the associated power and prestige of being turned by "old blood" is proven to be a lie (again, ignoring the fact that he was uninformed before being turned) because Vincent avoided events (like the Summit) for years longer than most makers would have allowed their progeny. If Vincent wanted that prestige, what possible reason would he have to avoid events where he could flaunt it, and potentially acquire more?

I'll admit, we DON'T have a definitive date for when Porter joins the clan, or anything at all about Porter and William's relationship. The timeline website hasn't been updated with Porter's information yet. Even still, William offered Porter the Solaire name; that's supposed to be some great honor not offered lightly. That level of trust takes a LONG time to build. Porter had to have been part of the clan to see Vincent in the depths of his depressive and suicidal ideation, to criticize Vincent in the specific ways and faults that he does. The way the argument video is set up, though, it sounds like Porter was both there to torment Vincent at every turn from the beginning but also not there to miss every blatant fact of the situation around Vincent joining the clan.

Porter's claim that "all [Vincent] ever did was moan about how terrible it was to be you. As if we all didn't register in your mind as people with our own far worse problems" (15:00) is just so hypocritical considering his apparently willful blindness to Vincent's own deep seated issues. After having it pointed out to him, and being punched by Lovely, he sees it clearly enough to apologize and sound like he means it, but then why didn't he see ANY of the points from my first paragraph in the first place? Porter saying that "he didn't know" about how traumatic Vincent's turning was in the later video, while his voice sounds genuine, is either blatantly false or things are being retconned in order to make the feud between the two of them more dramatic.

Some of Porter's accusations do hold weight. I'm not going to lie and pretend that Vincent is some perfect angel in all of this. Vincent is arrogant, self centered, and blind to his own privilege. He used to be a manipulative ass. He's favored, powerful, and lucky in certain ways that Porter isn't, but that's not his doing nor his fault. But Porter's comment about Vincent's "egregious actions" is so vague as to be meaningless to me; if it's not worth elaborating on here why is it part of this 20+ year grudge match y'all have going on? Vincent couldn't choose his maker, he didn't know a single thing about William when they met and he was turned. The fact that Vincent has the self control to only "need" to be invoked once shouldn't be a criticism. There's years that they're skimming over for the sake of limiting it down to a 20 minute conversation for watchability. But I hate retconning, I hate this sort of character self-contradiction and hypocrisy especially to push "both of them are in the wrong", I hate that Sam is just being played as a mouthpiece to force this "grey morality" (12:38, 13:24) and defend both sides, and I'm not going to lie I expected Redacted to do better than this. Trying to equate Vincent's jealousy that Porter was well-adjusted to being a vampire with Porter's complaints that Vincent was traumatized and suicidal because of the circumstances of his turning is not okay.

14:30 Porter says: I said you were arrogant, and favored. That from the moment you were turned you've never wanted for anything. You'd never been invoked into doing something horrific for your maker's amusement. You've never been beaten within an inch of your life for the slightest transgression. You've never gotten so much as a slap on the wrist no matter how egregious your actions. You never had to guard WonderWorld. You'd never had to do anything. And still all you ever did was [look down on us]... You were turned by old blood... and didn't even have the tact to show a little gratitude for it.

19:30 Vincent says: I did look down on you. I hated that you seemed to enjoy being a vampire so much. I hated that you seemed so at peace with who you were. And what we had to do to survive. You made everything look so easy. And that made me feel broken. Even more than I already felt.

You can't have it both ways, Porter. Either you want Vincent to be just as broken and mistreated as you imply you were, or you want him to be happy and grateful about his "perfect" life. You can't complain that he never recognized that other people had far greater problems when you're the one who ignored that he's practically screaming with every action, every fact, every unsaid word that he's literally being forced against his will to stay alive, both by turning and by invocation until it literally hit you in the face. You don't have the right to tell Vincent, as a (formerly) uninformed unempowered human, that he shouldn't have manipulated something he didn't even know existed into getting the power you envy so badly. Porter was jealous of Vincent because of his circumstance first, and that jealousy made Vincent's every legitimate fault unforgivable and threw in a lot more illegitimate criticisms just for good measure.

I'm not going to pretend like I have the right answers for this, how it "should have gone". Everyone is going to have their own preferences, and at the end of the day this is Redacted's story. He makes the final decision. But I do have the right to point out flaws and criticize where I think he could have done better. Maybe he wanted Porter to be a hypocritical, jealous, contradictory character. Maybe he legitimately did just forget that the rest of the clan already knew (or easily could have put together) the messy details when he wrote that Porter didn't know better. He could have written it any way he wanted to, but he chose this way.

#redacted asmr #redacted vincent #redacted porter #media criticism #character analysis #i was thinking my thoughts and came up with this #I reserve the right to change my opinions if we get new information #I'm trying my best to keep an open mind about Porter and who he is as a character #but can you tell that retconning and hypocrisy makes me very angry?#this is my opinion #feel free to disagree #also #vincent changed his ways for the better after meeting lovely #do we have any proof that porter changed his ways and improved on his flaws #like sam hoped he did?#because from the way he's treating Treasure it doesn't seem like it

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